§ 100. Lieut.-Colonel POWNALLasked the Attorney-General whether his attention has been called to an article published in a Sunday newspaper of the 11th instant which purported to give an account of an interview in the condemned cell with a prisoner under sentence of death whose appeal was pending; and what action he proposes to take in the matter?
§ The ATTORNEY - GENERAL (Sir Douglas Hogg)Yes, Sir. No interview in the condemned cell could have taken place without a grave breach of the Prison Regulations. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has caused exhaustive inquiries to be made, and he has ascertained that no such interview as that described in the "Sunday Illustrated" newspaper of the 11th instant ever took place and that the article was entirely unfounded and fictitious. In any event, I regard the publication as a breach of public decency, and it has already been publicly censured by the Lord Chief Justice in the Court of Criminal Appeal. An apology has been received from the proprietors of the journal in question, who state that they were misled and that they did not know when the article appeared that an appeal was pending, and, at my instance, this apology has been repeated in the columns of last Sunday's issue of the journal. I have accordingly decided, in all the circumstances, not to take further proceedings in the present case, but I am glad to have had the opportunity of stating that I regard such a publication as most objectionable.
§ The ATTORNEY-GENERALI did say. It was the "Sunday Illustrated."
§ Mr. J. JONESWill the proprietors and editors of these papers, who are making a trade out of dealing in filth in every way and sordidness, be invited to the Bar of this House to be admonished by the Speaker?