ARRESTS, GLASGOW. (Hansard, 4 February 1932)

§ Mr. McGOVERN

I desire to raise a question of which I have given private notice to the Secretary of State for Scotland. I refer to the imprisonment of 10 men for taking part in a riot of the unemployed on the 1st October last year. The demonstration was held in order to protest against the dole cuts, the application of the means test, and the reduction of the standards of working class life. These demonstrations have taken place from time to time, not only in Glasgow but in every part of the country. Every hon. Member will agree that it is essential that complete freedom of speech should be allowed to every section of the community and that they should be permitted freely to protest against any infliction of hardship and suffering upon them. On this occasion a large number of men and women, from 60,000 to 100,000 met on public grounds to protest against the infliction of these hardships. The demonstrators sent to the Glasgow City Council a request asking that during the winter months there should be some reconsideration of the measures proposed to be taken under the means test by the public assistance committee.

On the evening in question the demonstrators gathered to hear a report on the representations which had been made to the city council. I, along with other people, took part in the protest against the reduction in the standards of life. I arrived at one minute past 8 o'clock; the procession was announced to start from Glasgow Green at 8 o'clock. Shortly after 8 o'clock we were warned that the demonstration would not be allowed to continue in processional order. A few minutes later the mounted police rode through the crowd, batoning people and arresting people as they went along. Six men were arrested along with myself, and we were charged with riotous behaviour, insulting the police, and creating alarm. Six men were arrested on that occasion who were never brought to trial. A boy named Albert Welsh, 16 years of age, who ran into a fish and chip shop during the disturbance was batoned by the police. His head was smashed and he was badly wounded. He 394 was dragged out of the shop and thrown into a police cell and kept there. The authorities afterwards found that he was a mental deficient who had attended a special school, and who had taken no part in the riot or demonstration this evening. They never put him on trial, because they found that they could not do so with the certificates that had been given by the medical authorities of the city.

Another girl, aged 16, Jean Gibson, who was proceeding on her afternoon off to her employment in Cambuslang, was also arrested, detained, thrown into the Black Maria, taken to the police office, and kept there for two days. The authorities then very reluctantly, on the representation of the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) and of the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton), released her. They did not proceed against her or against the boy, but they detained them, and they inflicted suffering, hardship and punishment on that young boy, who was a mental deficient.

They arrested a large number and brought them to trial. I also had been arrested on Glasgow Green. I was kicked by the police after arrest, and a wound 3½ inches long and one inch broad was inflicted on my spine with the boot of one of the policemen during the time when I was being taken to the police office. I was examined by the casualty surgeon of the police and by my own doctor, and it was found that my shirt was soaked with blood from that assault made on me after I had been arrested by three police officers.

We were all brought to trial, and at the trial evidence was given by the police; and I say here without fear of contradiction that, although I have spent over 20 years going backwards and forwards to courts in this country to hear the procedure in cases that were being tried, I have never heard more contradictory evidence on the part of the police in the whole of my experience. The evidence was of such a character against two of us, who were recognised as the leaders of that unemployed demonstration, that the Sheriff was compelled to depart from the charge, and he said to the procurator-fiscal: I want to say that I have made up my mind very definitely regarding these two 395 men. Owing to the contradictory and unsatisfactory evidence of the police you would never get a conviction. He said he was bound to find that the case against the two of us was not proven, and we were discharged.

I will give one or two examples of the evidence of the police. One inspector went into the box and stated that one contingent, coming from the south side of the river into Glasgow Green, was an orderly procession of working men marching four deep. He was asked if there was any unruly conduct on the part of this section, and he said "No"—that one or two stones had been thrown from the footpaths, but not by any man who had taken part in the demonstration. Following on this, an. Inspector Ritchie went into the box, and said that they had been guilty of the most disorderly and outrageous conduct he had ever known, that they were using weapons, threatening the lives of the police, throwing stones and bottles, holding up motorists, and were guilty of the most abominable and shocking conduct. It was such a contradiction that the Sheriff said that that was typical of the evidence.

One policeman actually admitted that he was present at a demonstration where he advised the crowd to bring sticks in the evening, because, he said, one man had said to him, "Bring your stick with you to-night," and he passed that on to the crowd so that they should not know that he was a policeman there to spy out the land. Here was a policeman on duty admitting that, instead of arresting the man, he passed the word on to the crowd and urged them to bring sticks. The evidence of Superintendent Sweeney, who was in charge, was that he had given orders to go down and see the lie of the land, and that, if there were any disorder, the leaders of the processionists were to be warned to go back to their districts and that no demonstration would be permitted, but that, if they were orderly, no action was to be taken. Then two other inspectors, on being asked what instructions they had, said very definitely that their instructions from Superintendent Sweeney were that no demonstration of any kind was to be allowed, 396 whether orderly or disorderly, and that the demonstration was to be broken up.

It was followed by further evidence, which I have not time to recount. It was so contradictory that the Sheriff stopped the case and dismissed us. At that stage the whole of the case ought to have been abandoned against the other 10 men, because they were being found guilty on police evidence alone. There was a large amount of civilian evidence, the whole of which was dismissed by the Sheriff, and he accepted the contradictory evidence—which I knew to be lying evidence—of the police. That evidence which could not convict us was allowed to convict the other men, who are suffering three months' imprisonment with hard labour. There was a soldier named Murdoch Macdonald, who served with the Seaforth Highlanders in France. He suffers from an impediment in his speech due to shell-shock. He went out that evening to meet his wife, and he was swept up with the crowd, knocked down, and seized by the police, thrown into a police van and taken to the cells. He is a man of splendid character. He is one of the finest type of citizens you could get. He had nothing to do with the Labour movement or with the demonstration. He is one of the people who have served three months' imprisonment. A good number of these men were in no way connected with any acts of violence, and on the greater proportion of them no weapons were found. We have to connect up the evidence of the police, if we are to take it that it was accurate, with that of the witnesses who can testify to the boy being seized in the fish and chip shop, thrown into a prison van and taken to the police cells. There was an attempt to prevent these people demonstrating against the cuts and the police ran riot and seized everyone who came their way, threw them into police vans, took them to the cells and acted in an inhuman and brutal way.