§ 62. Mr. KEIR HARDIEasked the Home Secretary whether Mary Richardson, a suffragette prisoner, is now being forcibly fed; whether her doctor certified on her 1346 last release from prison after being forcibly fed that she was suffering from appendicitis, and that a renewal of forcible feeding might again set up the mischief and jeoparlise her life in a few hours; and whether copies of this certificate have been received by him and by the prison authorities?
§ Mr. McKENNAThe answer to the first question is in the affirmative. Mary Richardson's medical attendant wrote to me in December last to the effect that she had warned her patient that to repeat her refusal of food and water in prison and to be subjected to forcible feeding would entail grave risk, and she has repeated the same opinion in subsequent communications. Every care is taken by the medical officers of Holloway Prison to prevent the prisoner injuring herself, but it is their plain duty as medical men to feed her even at some risk of self-inflicted injury rather than to allow her to commit suicide by starvation.
§ Mr. STEPHEN WALSHIs the forcible feeding going on at present?
§ Mr. McKENNAYes, Sir.