§ Mr. KEIR HARDIEI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department a question of which I have given private notice, whether he has any official information concerning the state of health of Mrs. Leigh and Miss Charlotte Marsh, prisoners in Winson Green, Birmingham, and whether it has been found necessary to administer food to those ladies by force, and, if so, under what authority that has been done?
§ Mr. MASTERMANI do not think that is the exact form of question of which private notice has been given to me, but I think probably my answer will cover the ground. The medical officer of Birmingham Prison reported that certain women prisoners have persistently refused to take food. The Prison Commissioners therefore, with the approval of the Home Secretary, instructed the medical officer to apply such ordinary medical treatment as was, in his opinion, necessary to prevent the risk of their committing suicide by starvation.
§ Mr. KEIR HARDIEMay I ask under what authority this action was taken or under what prison regulation this action was taken?
§ Mr. PHILIP SNOWDENMay I ask what was the kind of medical treatment administered, and was it by force?
§ Mr. MASTERMANPerhaps the hon. Member will put down a question. The authority was the general responsibility of the Prison Commissioners and the Home Office. There are no special regulations on this matter beyond the general necessity and the duty of those in charge of prisoners to prevent the prisoners committing the felony of suicide.
§ Mr. SNOWDENI also gave private notice of a question as to whether it was a fact that food had been administered to those ladies by force. The hon. Gentleman did not give any answer to that.
§ Mr. MASTERMANThe treatment is the ordinary hospital treatment in such cases, and the ordinary treatment which is frequently applied to men and women—to contumacious or weak-minded persons. Nine women altogether were in such a condition as necessitated for their health this treatment. I gather that some of them at least found no necessity to persist in their resistance to food, and that the full hospital treatment was only employed in the case of one of the nine.
§ Mr. KEIR HARDIECan the hon. Gentleman say if the full operation is the food being pumped through the nostrils of these women or inserted by a tube down the throat? What has been the treatment?
§ Mr. MASTERMANI think the ordinary method is the second one.
§ Mr. KEIR HARDIEThe tube is inserted into the stomach and food pumped into it—horrible outrage, beastly outrage.
§ Mr. SNOWDENMay I ask if the hon. Gentleman will convey the suggestion to the Home Secretary that he should make application to Spain or Russia in order to adopt the most brutal and up-to-date methods of barbarism?
§ Mr. KEIR HARDIEArising out of this same case, is the hon. Gentleman aware that a responsible firm of solicitors, acting for these ladies, applied for leave to interview them and obtain their own statement, and that the request has been refused, and on what ground it has been refused?
§ Mr. MASTERMANI am afraid I must have notice of that question.
§ Mr. W. P. BYLESAm I right in saying that whatever the treatment is it is due to the law of the land, and not to the Home Office or the Government?
§ Mr. MASTERMANIt is entirely similar to the treatment usually applied.
§ Mr. KEIR HARDIEThe last man died who was treated in this way.