§ 43. Mr. CAIRNSasked the Home Secretary whether he will make inquiries into the treatment meted out to certain women by certain of the police force at Marlborough Street Police Court; if he is aware that on 23rd July a woman who had been arrested in Oxford Street on a charge of obstruction was forcibly deprived 223 of her purse containing money not her own and her hand crushed in this assault before being brought into Court, and that she was fined 7s. 6d. for distributing a religious leaflet; whether he has received a communication from a public body interested in women's welfare bringing to his notice that in the same Court on 12th March, 1920, an invalid ex-nurse, Mrs. E. W., aged 61, who applied for a summons against a policeman for perjury and assault committed on 13th September, 1919, was refused entrance into the Court and thrown by the police with violence into the road, receiving a shock and bodily injury from which she has not yet recovered; and what steps does he propose to take in consequence?
§ Mr. SHORTTIt is true that on 23rd July it became necessary to arrest a woman for obstructing traffic in Oxford Street; that she was fined 7s. 6d for this offence, and that in the course of the proceedings some force had to be applied. I know nothing of the other incident referred to but I am confident that the police at Marlborough Street do not use any unnecessary force on the women they have to deal with.