§ MR. G. GREENWOOD (Peterborough)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the case of two ladies, Mrs. Penn Gaskell and Miss Smith, who, on 19th October last, at about 1.50 p.m., were summarily arrested by two police officers in Regent Street while distributing handbills announcing a public, meeting, and taken to the Vine Street Police Station, and thence to the Great Marlborough Street Police Court, where they were imprisoned in a small cell-like room, together with a woman charged with being a prostitute, for some two hours, although they were at all times ready and willing to give their names and addresses, and might have been proceeded against by summons; whether he is aware that these ladies complain of having been subjected to many other indignities while awaiting trial on the charge of having caused an obstruction to the highway, and that they were ultimately released upon an order to enter into recognisances with which they were not required actually to comply; and whether he will direct a full inquiry to be made into all the circumstances of the case, and take such steps as may be necessary to secure that women charged by the police under such circumstances shall not in future be subjected to such treatment, and that they shall not be forcibly arrested in the public streets in cases where procedure by summons is sufficient.
§ *MR. HERBERT SAMUELMy right hon. friend's attention has been called to this case, but he finds, on inquiry, that these ladies were subjected to no indignities while in custody. They were, in fact, treated with special consideration. At the police court they were detained, not in a cell, but in a waiting-room, eighteen feet square, with a woman whom the police report they have no reason to believe was of the class specified by the hon. Member. The door of the room was not looked, and the matron was in attendance. Mrs. Gaskell and Miss Smith were apprehended only when they were causing actual obstruction to traffic, when they had shown a deter- 1208 mination not to obey the police warning to move away, and when their removal from the street had become necessary in order to put an end to the obstruction.
§ MR. G. GREENWOODIs the hon. Gentleman aware that independent evidence was forthcoming at the police court that there was no crowd and no obstruction of the traffic, and that other evidence has since transpired bearing that out? Will he make further inquiry into the facts if I send him a copy of the evidence, and seeing that by the magistrate's decision it was a perfectly trivial offence, will he say if he approves of women being arrested summarily in the streets under such circumstances?
§ *MR. SPEAKERThat is asking for an expression of opinion.