§ Mr. SNOWDENasked the Home Secretary if he will take steps to abolish the practice of imposing fines in the prison service for trivial offences which, in many instances, fall heavily upon the officers' wives and children; is he aware that only recently the Governor of Canterbury Prison, when doing temporary duty at Park-hurst Convict Prison, fined an officer with a family of eight children 1s. 6d. for going on duty four minutes late, and another officer, with nine children, 1s. for being ten minutes late; and will he give instructions to have these fines remitted in view of the offences committed?
§ Mr. McKENNAIt is not the practice to impose fines for trivial offences when adequate excuse is forthcoming. In a service where the daily duty must be arranged strictly according to a fixed time table, rigid punctuality must be exacted, and it is necessary that in repeated cases of unpunctuality, adequate notice should be taken of the offence. In the first mentioned case the officer had already been late on five occasions during the preceding six months, and in the other case on seven occasions in twelve months.