HC Deb 20 March 1917 vol 92 cc40-1
37. Mr. D. MILLAR

asked the Home Secretary whether his attention has been directed to the case of two respectable young women who were arrested by a police constable and charged at Bow Street Police Court on 21st March with having been guilty of insulting behaviour by stopping and speaking to two men in the street; whether the police magistrate, Mr. Graham Campbell, expressed himself as satisfied that the police had made a mistake in arresting the girls and discharged them, stating that they left the Court without a stain on their character; whether it was proved that the girls had been accosted by the two men in question; and whether he will issue instructions to the police that they should in future exercise more care in such cases and make a point of arresting the men who accost women in the streets instead of arresting the women spoken to?

Sir G. CAVE

The answer to the first two parts of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the third part, the women said that two officers asked them the way but they did not suggest that they had been improperly accosted. The magistrate who heard the case informs me that while mistakes are possible, especially in the very subdued light of the streets at night, such charges are rarely ill-founded, and that the police discharge their difficult duties in these matters with great care and discretion. Men who are seen by the police to molest women are arrested, and the magistrate tells me that such eases come before him frequently.

Mr. WATT

Does not this case show the police evidence is very unreliable?

Sir G. CAVE

It shows nothing of the kind; it shows that the magistrates are very careful.

Mr. W. THORNE

What is done with men who solicit women?

Sir G. CAVE

I have answered that question. I have said that men who are seen to molest women are arrested.

Mr. CHANCELLOR

Are not the police instructed always to presume that the women are guilty?

Sir G, CAVE

No such instruction is needed. No policeman would make that assumption.