HC Deb 26 February 1912 vol 34 cc1118-25

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Gulland.]

Mr. LANSBURY

I wish to draw the attention of the House to the case of William, Ball, about which there have been a number of questions asked and answered during the last ten days. Some Members of the House may remember that this man was sentenced to a term of imprisonment with hard labour for breaking two windows at the Home Office. At the same time that he was sentenced a number of women were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment, but not to hard labour, with the result that most of these women, whose sentences were simply for a week or a fortnight, had really the special treatment. It was laid down by the late Home Secretary in the Regulations which he issued, and which, I understand, the House approved of, for dealing with this kind of prisoner. This man Ball was in prison for, I believe, somewhere near seven weeks. After the first two days, during which he refused to take the ordinary prison food because he had been refused the special treatment, for five and a half weeks, I understand from the statement of the Home Secretary, he was forcibly fed. Before his discharge from prison his wife made an appeal to the Home Secretary for permission to have her husband medically examined for the purpose of insuring him. That was refused. She, of course, being only a poor person and not knowing what the effect of imprisonment might be on her husband, wished to take that precaution. She wrote to inquire as to his state of health, and the answer was given that he was in a normal condition, and no word of warning was conveyed to his wife that his mental power was breaking down. During these five and a half weeks there is evidence given in the right hon. Gentleman's own answer that the doctors and the attendants began to note some failing in his mental powers, with the result that, slowly but very surely, the man was going off his balance. In answer to our questions the Home Secretary apparently takes the stand that the man had to be forcibly fed, that he had to be kept in the division for hard labour, and the new rules did not apply to cases where hard labour was attached to the sentence. I understood the Home Secretary to say in the first place that no application had been made by him to be put in any other division, but this afternoon the right hon. Gentleman admitted that the man did apply to the prison authorities—

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna)

No.

Mr. LANSBURY

I do not think my memory has deceived me in the matter. The man applied to the prison authorities to be put into the division where he would have special treatment; but, not receiving it from those to whom he applied, he sat down to write a petition. He had seen the governor before that. After sitting down to write his petition he gave up the task. I am not saying that he appealed directly to the Home Secretary. What he did do was to appeal to the people in whose charge he was in the prison, and his appeal was refused. I have read the rules in regard to prisoners. I am not an expert and I am not a lawyer, and I do not profess to understand legal phraseology, but I am told that there is no division known under the prison rules lower than the third division. I have read section 243a, and I cannot find anything there which says that the prisoner sentenced to hard labour shall not come within this category. But I do see quite clearly that a man whose previous character is good, and who has been convicted and committed to prison for an offence not involving dishonesty, cruelty, indecency, or other serious offence, may be allowed by the Prison Commissioners such amelioration of conditions as may be prescribed under this rule. We have taken it for granted that that included the whole of the prisoners who might become chargeable in accordance not merely with this Regulation, but with the promise of the Home Secretary, which I quoted to-day. I want the House to understand that after five and a half weeks' forcible feeding—whether the man shifted the tube so as to be more comfortable I cannot say—he became mentally ill. The prison rule is that whenever a prisoner is in a dangerous condition of health his friends should be communicated with. The friends of this man were never communicated with beyond that his wife was told that he was in a good condition of health. He was allowed to get worse, until at last he was declared by the prison doctors to be insane, and without communication to a single friend he was tumbled off to a pauper lunatic asylum. I do not think that anything more disgraceful than that has happened in our prison annals. Surely his friends ought to have been allowed to bring in an independent man to try and find out the cause of insanity. I have read over the answer given by the right hon. Gentleman last week, and I think the House smiled when the doctor's report was read out to the effect that the man had allowed his mind to dwell too much on "Votes for Women," etc. I think that was a very trumpery manner of dealing with a very serious matter like this. Everyone here knows that if any of us take up a strong attitude of mind on a political question, it is nothing to laugh at that we should hold that kind of view, and I do not think that if we were used in prison in the fashion that this man was used that it ought to be laid to our views rather than to our treatment. I do charge the prison authorities with deliberately and of set purpose not calling in any independent medical man to examine this man. For anyone outside a prison you have to get a quite independent man to certify him before he can be removed, and all kinds of precautions are taken. But in this case they say that this man was never mentally sound. They never went to his friends. Anyone acquainted with the certification of pauper lunatics knows that before you can get a man or woman sent away you must call up the friends and have evidence as to his or her mental condition. In this case no one was called up at all. The doctors have the impudence to say that this man, who was thoroughly healthy, was not quite mentally right. Here is what the man's father says about the matter:— Having seen the Home Secretary's reply concerning the state of William Ball's mind, I. his father, aged 83 years, and still conducting my own business, most emphatically deny any weakness of mind. In his younger days he was considered one of the best of swimmers, he was champion runner of the Midlands, and has never had medical treatment of any kind for the past twenty years. I have six sons and six daughters, all of whom are healthy and strong, the youngest being twenty-eight years of age. My mother had all her faculties at the age of ninety-three, and I certify that insanity has never been known in any of our family. Yet we have the prison doctors having the impudence to say that this man, with this record, did not quite have his mental balance. I think it is too bad that the Home Secretary should allow his officials to treat a man in this manner. Even up to this moment there has been no independent examination of the man, and I feel that the House of Commons ought to take into account the very humblest man or woman that is in prison. They have no one to speak for them. When a man is in prison we know that the officials have to carry out their duties, and that there are often prisoners who are very difficult to deal with, but at the same time we here have to see that the man or woman in prison receives absolute justice. This man has not had justice, but gross injustice, done to him. The object I have in raising the question is to ask the Home Secretary definitely and distinctly to give us a pledge that, as soon as this man recovers his full capacity again, we shall have a full and impartial inquiry into the whole circumstances of his treatment while in prison. I do not think the House ought to be satisfied with anything less than that. The facts ought to be thoroughly ventilated and we ought to have a pledge that on no other occasion shall a man, whatever his offence, be certified merely by the prison doctors without his friends being called in. Also we ought to have a pledge that these political prisoners, whatever the magistrates sentence them to, shall receive special treatment. The nephew of a Minister who sits on those benches assaulted one of his colleagues. He receives special treatment in prison, and other men, committing not such grave offences as that, have been subjected to the same treatment as this man, and this man's offence was a protest against that. If once it gets out that there is one law for the man who belongs to the Transport Federation, as this man did, and another for Lady Constance Lytton and Hugh Franklin, the nephew of a Minister of the Crown, the common people will want to know where justice has gone to in this country. Anyhow, I hope the Home Secretary will take steps to prevent anything of this kind happening again, and will grant us a full and impartial inquiry into the whole circumstances with which this man was driven mad.

Lord HUGH CECIL

I suggest to the Home Secretary that this is a very grave matter, and leaves, on the face of it, a very serious stain upon the reputation of prison officials, either for want of sympathy, or from want of humanity, or both. Take a broad outline of the facts. This man is sent to prison for an offence, though really it would make but very little difference if it were a more serious offence, but an offence which in the view of the Government themselves and of the whole of the House is without moral turpitude; he is then subjected to treatment extending over five weeks, which, not suddenly or unexpectedly, but slowly and by degrees drives him out of his mind. Sixteen days before be was released the prison doctors began to notice that something was wrong, but they apparently made no change in the treatment, but went on with forcible feeding just as before. I am aware that it is a most difficult question as to what you are to do with a man who refuses food. I quite sympathise with the difficulty there is in meeting a case of that kind. I should say the proper way is to let the man refuse food and starve himself. But that, I am aware, would not commend itself to a great many people. When a man's mind is failing, which is the most serious failure of health that can happen to a man, prison discipline should be relaxed immediately, and such steps should be taken as are necessary to save his reason. Evidently it is an outrageous and a disproportionate penalty for any offence that has been laid to the charge of this man that he should be made insane and his whole prospects blighted, because even if he recovers from insanity, it lays upon the man, necessarily and inevitably, a most terrible stigma which can never be effaced. No one will quite trust a man who has been insane in the way they will trust an ordinary person. Therefore, it is a most serious injury, and apparently altogether disproportionate. The right hon. Gentleman takes a point of a very technical character, that the man was sentenced to hard labour, and therefore was by Statute precluded from the particular relaxations which have been provided in similar cases. But the particular relaxation which was all important in this case has nothing whatever to do with whether a man is sent to hard labour or not. It was to let him have his food furnished from outside. There is no connection between the two ideas. Nor is the right hon. Gentleman right in what I think is in his mind, that it was not open to him to interfere unless the prisoner asked him to. Mr. Stead was moved from an ordinary prison and treated as a first-class misdemeanant, almost immediately after his sentence, rather against his will, and certainly without any application from him. It would have been perfectly open to the Home Office and the proper authorities to interfere and move the prisoner from the hard labour class if they had chosen to do so. I would like the House to consider what would be said if this had happened to a political prisoner in Russia. What a peroration ration it would have made for those hon. Members who sit on the opposite side of the House in criticising the attitude of Russia. How it would have been pointed out that this poor man had been sent to a dungeon by an autocratic Government, and had in five weeks after being sent gone out of his mind. But the point is this. This case has happened, and I do suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that if confidence is to be restored in the prison administration there ought to be a full and independent inquiry. I quite understand that the prison doctors have made their report, but no one can really think that the report of the officials attacked is a satisfactory answer. We must have an independent inquiry by independent medical men, and also by some persons of legal training, capable of conducting it. An independent inquiry is essentially necessary if we are not to be stamped with the stigma that in our prison administration there is serious inhumanity.

Mr. LYNCH

On a point of Order. Having been the one who brought this question before the House, and having special reasons for being specially interested in it, being one of the medical men in this House, I rose but the hon. Member (Lord Hugh Cecil) was called upon to speak, and no doubt he spoke very clearly on the point, but he has spoken about five times already on various subjects in the House. I would like to know whether, in calling upon Members, you intend to discriminate between classes of Members of this House.

Mr. SPEAKER

If the hon. Member will look at the clock, he will see that that answers his observation.

Mr. McKENNA

I admit that the hon. Member (Mr. Lynch) was the first to raise this question in the House, but if I am to reply at all I must rise now. I am bound to say my hon. Friend the Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) stated the case in a very moderate speech, and, although I cannot admit the accuracy of all his facts, I certainly have no complaint at all with the character of the case he has made. But I am afraid I cannot say the same of the Noble Lord's speech. He obviously showed, if he will forgive me for saying so, that he has given no attention to the facts of the case. He has taken it up as a mere means of making some sort of attack against this Government. He has devoted no serious attention at all to a mastery of the facts of the case. He said, first of all, that Mr. Ball was sent to prison for an offence without moral turpitude. I do not know why he should assume that the magistrate who convicted Mr. Ball of the offence of breaking windows and sentenced him to a period of imprisonment with hard labour had taken an erroneous view of Mr. Ball's offence.

Lord HUGH CECIL

Does the right hon. Gentleman suggest that Mr. Ball fell within the First Lord's definition of what moral turpitude was?

Mr. McKENNA

The First Lord did not undertake to give in the course of his speech a summary of the offences which involve moral turpitude. It certainly is not open to the Noble Lord to criticise the judgment of the magistrate or to suppose that he did not give attention to the facts of the case. It is not open to him now to criticise the magistrate and to say that he was wrong in giving the prisoner a sentence of hard labour. The prisoner was convicted on 23rd December, and on coming into prison he declined to take food. The Noble Lord says that for five weeks he was subject to treatment which steadily but surely drove him out of his mind. What is the treatment to which the Noble Lord refers? Artificial feeding. Would the Noble Lord suggest that a prisoner refusing to take food should not be fed? Does he suggest that? The Noble Lord may some day have to stand in a position of responsibility himself. What is his answer? Does he suggest that he would not feed artificially a person refusing to take food?

Lord HUGH CECIL

If the right hon. Gentleman attaches any importance to my opinion, I would certainly have detained the prisoner without offering any food and without forcing him to eat until his health became affected by starvation, and then I should have released him.

Mr. McKENNA

I would suggest to the Noble Lord that it is not quite so easy to determine as he supposes. The moment when a prisoner reaches the condition when his state of health is injured, and it is not safe to go on starving him, is very difficult to determine. I would remind the Noble Lord that artificial feeding takes place, and has taken place, without any injurious consequences for years. Here is one case already quoted in the House, in which a person for two and a quarter years is in prison without Buffering any injurious consequences whatever. As everybody who is familiar with the treatment of lunatics knows, it is a very ordinary symptom of lunacy that a person refuses to take food in the ordinary way. There is not the slightest evidence, after years of experience, that artificial feeding has any tendency to drive a person out of his mind.

Mr. HAROLD SMITH

It does him good.

Mr. McKENNA

It is very uncomfortable, and I can assure the hon. Member that the prison authorities use it with reluctance. But as an alternative between allowing a prisoner to starve or feeding the prisoner by artificial means, every prison authority and every manager of a lunatic asylum is bound to take the latter course. I am bound to say that the health of the prisoners committed to their charge is maintained. The Noble Lord went on to say that the prison authorities proceeded with artificial feeding after the prisoner's health was affected. What are the facts? Forcible feeding was continued until 29th January. On that date the prisoner of his own motion said, "I think I have stuck it pretty well." He took his ordinary dinner in the ordinary way. That was the condition of mind of the prisoner at the time that he was fighting the authorities, that he had stuck it pretty well, but after five and a half weeks he was going to take food in the ordinary way; and he was fed in the ordinary way for no less than a fortnight, from 29th January until he was discharged on 12th February, and it is not suggested that during that period, when his mental condition was getting rapidly worse, that it could have been through the effect of artificial feeding.

The Noble Lord raised a technical point with regard to the sentence of hard labour. May I remind the House of the actual law on the subject. According to Section 6, Sub-section (1), of the Prisons Act (1898)— Prisoners convicted of an offence either on indictment or otherwise, and not sentenced to penal servitude or hard labour, shall be divided into three divisions. It is there clearly enacted—

And, it being Half-past Eleven of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Half after Eleven o'clock.