§ 66. Mr. COOPERasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department 939 whether his attention has been called to the case of two youths, Stephen McDonald, aged 16, and Albert Staff, aged 18, who were recently sentenced at Birmingham Sessions to three years in a Borstal institution and six months' hard labour, respectively, for carrying off two farthings from a warehouse into which they had broken; and whether he will consider the desirability of reducing these sentences?
§ Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKSI have made inquiries and find that these two youths pleaded guilty to warehouse breaking. Each of them had been dealt with previously for other offences. Staff had already been in a Borstal institution from which he was on licence; he was sentenced to six months' imprisonment. McDonald was on probation for an earlier offence, and he was unsatisfactorily reported on by the probation officer; he was sentenced to a period of Borstal detention. In view of all the facts, I can find no grounds for interference with either sentence.