§ MR. BRANCH (Middlesex, Enfield)To ask the Secretary of State for the 22 Home Department if his attention has been called to the sentence passed by Sir Ralph Littler upon a man at Enfield, viz., four years penal servitude for stealing a few fowls; and will he consider if it is possible to reduce this sentence.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) I have inquired into the circumstances of this case. The prisoner pleaded guilty to stealing seven fowls of the value of over £1. He has several previous convictions for larceny, and I am informed that when he was last released from prison (in February, 1908) the police not merely found him employment, but lent him money to buy clothes to take up to the situation found for him, which he might have kept if he had chosen. The value of the goods stolen in the case for which the prisoner was indicted is no adequate measure either of the criminality of the offence, or the appropriate amount of punishment. The prisoner has not exercised his right of appealing to the Court of Criminal Appeal against the sentence, and, having regard to his conduct and record, I am satisfied that a reduction of the sentence passed by the Court would not be in the public interest.