HC Deb 12 March 1946 vol 420 cc1067-76

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn." [Mr. Mathers.]

9.16 p.m.

Mr. G. Lang (Stalybridge and Hyde)

I am obliged to ask the House to consider for a short time a matter which is unfortunate and sad, but which calls for certain comment and some explanation. My hon. Friend the Member for Shore-ditch (Mr. Thurtle) raised this matter on the day that the House rose for the Christmas Recess. It concerns the death of a Borstal boy, which occurred in November last. With commendable promptitude, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary ordered an inquiry. The report of that inquiry has been, for some time now, in the hands of Members. I do not desire tonight to enter into the matter of the dispute which took place at that inquiry. The fact is that this unfortunate boy, Clatworthy, came against the regulations, was reported, was punished—severely punished—and was later transferred to another institution. Some two months after that he became ill. Despite every attention, and there is no doubt that he was given the most careful and complete medical attention, he died, early in November. This inquiry was the result. The inquiry seems to have been conducted with great care and humanity by the Official Referee who was appointed. He decided to exclude the Press and the public, in order that the Borstal boys who had to give evidence, might feel more at home. I should like to suggest that those boys might have felt less embarrassed if the inquiry had not been held on prison premises, and that the presence of prison officers must have negatived any value that the exclusion of the Press and the public might have had. That is perhaps a small matter.

There are three main matters to which I desire to draw the attention of my right hon. Friend. The first is the question of the adjudication upon this boy. It is true that the boy had been convicted prior to the time when he came to Wormwood Scrubbs for allocation to Borstal, in March of last year. But he was described by the Official Referee in his report, and by all the prison officers except one—and that one is an important exception—as a boy who, properly handled, was quite manageable and a properly-conducted Borstal lad. There could be nothing dreadfully wrong with the boy in view of that evidence, and that fact, of course, heightens the tragedy of his death. After the incident—to which I do not refer—in the cell, where this boy had run amok and was restrained by force, he was personally brought up for adjudication. I raised in this House last Thursday with the Home Secretary, the question of adjudication by one visiting justice. I must repeat that point to-night. I would be very thankful, not to have had the fearful responsibility which fell upon Mr. Nias in this case, of being the sole visiting justice to adjudicate.

The Home Secretary said that it was difficult to get a rota every week. No doubt it might be, although I should have thought it would not be too difficult to get two justices. The contention might be that two justices might disagree, but surely that would be a sufficient reason for remanding the case again until the monthly meeting of the justices. I hope this matter will be speedily considered. I must remind the House, of what the judgment was and also that, according to the Official Referee's report, the Governor pointed out to Mr. Nias that this was not a case for very severe punishment.

What in fact was the punishment? It was nine days "No. 1" restricted diet, and cellular confinement for a period of 21 days, "No. 2" restricted diet, and 21 days no association. If that is not in the nature of severe punishment, I fail to understand the English language. This nine days restricted diet consists of three days on bread and water, then three days on prison fare, and then back to three days restricted diet. Whatever may be the reason for introducing three days of normal prison fare between two periods of three days each on bread and water, the result is cruel and fantastic beyond description. Anyone who has sons, and knows the appetite of growing lads, can understand what it must mean to a boy of 19 to be put on bread and water for three days, and then on prison fare for three days, and then on bread and water again for three days. To me there is something shockingly brutal in that, and it is entirely foreign to everything we regard as ordinary treatment, even of detained persons in this country.

The further restricted diet consisted of porridge, potatoes and bread, so that there was a total of 30 days for this growing boy of 19 on restricted diet. When I later read the medical evidence, and the frequent use of that dread word "anaemia," I found it difficult not to associate those 30 days on starvation diet with anaemia. It is true that the doctors discovered a very rare disease. It was not the first time doctors have made such a discovery, and I have no doubt that it will not be the last. I commend to my hon. Friend the Home Secretary consideration of that kind of treatment. It is no use to build up a sort of facade outside Borstal, and talk about recruiting citizens and the public school spirit, if, when there is difficulty, we go back to these primitive and rather savage methods. The boy was described by officers who knew him as a decent boy.

The only other thing of serious importance to which I wish to call attention, is the evidence in regard to the reception of the unfortunate woman, the boy's mother, at the Home Office. It is quite evident that she was under a misapprehension and that no appointment had been made, but this distracted woman went there in November, months after the earlier occurrences. We have, most of us had to deal with women at times of great anxiety, and I am thankful to say that no mother will believe her boy is very bad. This mother came to the Home Office and saw a gentleman named Mr. King. I am hoping we shall be told whether Mr. King is still in a position to receive visitors of this sort.

This poor woman is kept waiting for what the Official Referee described as a very long period. Of course she is excited, of course she is anxious, and of course she is incoherent. Mr. King discovers that she is illiterate, so he gives her the comforting advice to go and put her complaints in writing. Nothing more stupid could be imagined. I can only hope that this particular gentleman is no longer in a position to deal with people like that. This mother went away distracted and unhappy, and within a month her boy was dead.

These are the main matters which I thought it right to bring to the notice of my right hon. Friend. I have tried to speak with restraint. I feel strongly about this matter, as many of us do, but I thought it right to speak as restrainedly as I can, because I am much more anxious, if I can, to have some consideration given to these things than I am to ventilate my own feelings or to attempt any kind of eloquence about this unfortunate matter. I thank my right hon. Friend for the promptitude with which he instituted the inquiry. I am obliged to the Official Referee for the humanity with which he wrote this report. I am thankful that he found it possible at the end to express his own sympathy with this unhappy woman, who was deprived of her son. That sympathy we all share, and not least, I feel, my right hon. Friend.

9.27 p.m.

Mr. Scholefield Allen (Crewe)

As one who has profound respect for the Borstal treatment and institution, it is a little disturbing to find one or two matters which are contained in the Report. The first matter to which I would like to call the attention of hon. Members is contained on page 5, paragraph 7, of the report, that is, with regard to the officer Evans. The charge was made against Evans, who was in charge of these boys, that he used physical violence. That charge was not accepted by the gentleman who investigated this complaint, and, of course, everyone in this House will accept that fact. But when we look to this man Evans to see what were his qualifications for handling difficult boys, and no one can be tested more in their handling of boys than those in charge of these boys in Borstal, we find he is a war auxiliary officer, aged 23. He is described as lacking in tact and sense of humour, and, further than that, a most extraordinary thing, that he was an abnormally fat, ungainly young man with a peculiar gait. No man who has been to school, and probably we in this House have all been to school, fails to appreciate how boys will bait a person of that kind. In my submission, it was disgraceful to put a person of that character into a Borstal institution, in charge of boys who required tactful handling. It is deplorable that a person who can be so described can be put into any institution which handles boys, be it a public school or Borstal. It was asking for trouble, and it met with trouble. Reading this report, it is almost correct to say that the nature of this person was such as to lead to the scene which terminated in this fatal conclusion.

A further point to which I would like to draw the attention of the House is on page 13 of the Report, in respect of the reception which this unfortunate lady, Mrs. Clatworthy, received, when she went to interview the Prison Commission Staff Officer. Those who have been well educated can fend for themselves when they meet public officials. No educated person who has stood in one of these public offices can have failed to notice the difference of treatment between those who are able to speak and fend for themselves, and those who are not able to do so. In fact, it is a deplorable feature in many of these cases, that those who are least able to speak and protect themselves, get the least consideration. Advantage is taken of their lack of power to stand for their own cause, and to express themselves powerfully in then own interests. The fact that they are deficient in these powers, is very often taken advantage of in many public institutions, not only in Borstal institutions and amongst Prison Commissioners.

I do think, now we have a Socialist . Government, that those who are in public departments of the Civil Service should be exceptionally civil to those who are not able to command language, or who have not the facility of speech or the distinguished appearance of some hon. Members on these benches. I think at the end of this Report it is said that Mr. King, although he was not discourteous might have conducted this interview with a little more sympathy. Knowing that these words were those of a distinguished lawyer, I think that the fact that he so found, shows that Mrs. Clatworthy did not receive that courtesy and attention which she ought to have received from a civil servant.

9.32 p.m.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Ede)

My hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. G. Lang) gave me notice of the points which he intended to raise, and I thank him for his courtesy in that matter. This case gave me, as I assured the House on 20th December, very considerable anxiety. I was very careful as to whom I chose to conduct the inquiry, for I share some of the misgivings expressed by the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde with regard to the medical profession. If I may say so, it is only his profession, which I regard with more terror than the medical profession. I was exceedingly anxious that I should fulfil, to the letter, the request that was made to me by my hon. Friend the Member for Shorediteh (Mr. Thurtle) that the person conducting the inquiry should have such assistance as would enable him to deal adequately with any efforts on the part of the medical profession to be dogmatic in the statements that it made. I had the good fortune to be able to select a lawyer of some distinction, and very considerable experience, who also holds medical degrees both as a physician and surgeon, so that it was not necessary to appoint a medical assessor. I had, in the person of His Honour Tom Eastham, an individual who was capable of dealing with the whole of the matter.

I am quite sure that every one who has read the report will feel that he devoted all his skill and energy to arriving at a true basis on which he could make his findings. I want to express my personal thanks to him and, I feel sure, the thanks of the House for the time and attention that he devoted to this matter, including an adjournment that would certainly not have been granted by the courts, to enable the whole case for Mrs. Clatworthy to be adequately presented to him. I have noted what the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde said about the place of the inquiry, and I am inclined to agree with him that it would be desirable, on future occasions, to consider holding such an inquiry, not on prison premises, so that the atmosphere may be as far removed as possible from that of either prisons, Borstal institutions, or a place of detention.

I now come to his more specific complaints. I think it is desirable that, where an offence against discipline has been committed, for the alleged culprit not to be kept with the charge hanging over him too long. I think that, if it occurs just after one of the monthly visits of the whole committee of visiting justices, it would be quite wrong to keep the charge hanging over the lad for a period of three weeks or more. It is desirable that justice in these matters should be reasonably quick, because I think it is often more likely to be connected with the actual offence in respect of which it is administered, than it will be if a long period elapses. Unfortunately, at the present time, the number of visiting justices of suitable age—and I want to emphasise this—who are available for doing this work of attending at the prisons each week, is very limited, and I am not at all sure that if the two justices disagree, it would be desirable that the case should wait over. I am not at all sure that, even if I had two justices, I should not have to say that the more lenient view taken should be the one that should prevail. I am hopeful that, with the return of men from the Forces and so on, my Noble Friend the Lord Chancellor will be able to reinforce the benches with a considerable number of younger men, who have experience of the world and its temptations and difficulties, and who will be available for these and other duties connected with the ancient and honourable post of Justice of the Peace. I would hope that, as increasing numbers become available, it may be possible to do something to ensure that a larger number of justices shall be available.

With regard to the actual punishment, I am sure that hon. Members and right hon. Members will realise that I did not invent this particular form of punishment. What I have said about the medical profession will, I think, indicate that I am prepared to take my own feelings when I was about the same age, as being indicative of what a growing lad feels, and suffers when he is put on restricted diet, rather than the expert witnesses and dietitians, who seem to do extraordinarily well, through not observing their own rules. I say, quite frankly, to the House that I am concerned about the infliction of severe dietary punishment on growing lads and girls, and I intend to have a most careful investigation made on this. But I do want to point out—and I am quite sure that I shall have the sympathy of everyone in this—that I must have some means of enforcing discipline on recalcitrant and refractory lads, and the prison officers and the officers in Borstal institutions must find, even when we have done our best to make the position of the lads as comfortable as we can, that there will be a number who will not, for one reason or another, respond and who will give trouble. There must be some effective means of ensuring discipline, but I intend to have a very careful inquiry made to see whether I can find some method of maintaining discipline that will not be detrimental to the physique and health of the lads.

I come to the question of Mr. King. May I say that Mrs. Clatworthy was represented, and the prison officers were represented, at the inquiry? The prison officers had the very great advantage of being represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown), who most effectively represented them, and the State paid for the legal assistance that was placed at the disposal of Mrs. Clatworthy. Mr. King was unrepresented, and I think, possibly, that he suffered a little from that. I think one point was overlooked. Mr. King did offer to take a written statement down from Mrs. Clatworthy, but Mrs. Clatworthy replied that if a written statement was to be made, it should be made by her other son. That point, unfortunately, was not brought out sufficiently clearly to secure inclusion in the Report. I do not dissent from what was said by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Crewe (Mr. Scholefield Allen) with regard to the responsibilities of a civil servant. In fact, he merely repeated words which I used on 20th December last. I alluded to what my hon. Friend the Member for Shoreditch said, and I continued: … the allegation of discourteous treatment she received during her visit. Apart from what I say on other matters, I will certainly make immediate inquiries into the truth of those allegations, for it is my desire that any person calling at one of His Majesty's prisons on legitimate business should receive the courteous treatment the subject has the right to expect from any public official."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th December, 1945; Vol. 417, c.1600.] It is not merely that there should be no discourtesy; there should be positive courtesy shown, and a helpful attitude adopted. I think that Mr. King has suffered from the fact that he alone of the parties to this inquiry was not represented. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Crewe dealt with the case of the man Evans. I want to point out that Evans was not and is not, a Borstal official. The trouble on this occasion arose from the fact that, in circumstances that were well known to the House, we had to keep in Wormwood Scrubs—after all, the earlier incidents occurred at the time when my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council was Home Secretary £a number of lads who bad been sentenced to Borstal training, merely because there were not Borstal institutions to which we could send them. Evans was a prison officer who happened to be employed, during the critical time, in that part of the institution which was being used as a detention place for boys awaiting the time to go to Borstal

During the war, we were not able to have the Borstal training schemes for officers that we would have desired to have. We have now restarted them on a restricted scale. I hope that, within a very short time, we shall be recruiting and training men for Borstal work who will have the necessary qualifications. I think the House is well aware, from what I have had to say at Question time from week to week, that I have been giving this matter of the Borstal institutions my most careful attention, and I was able to say last week that I can now see my way to the time when the full Borstal training will be resumed, and I shall have both institutions and officers at my disposal who will enable the usual form of Borstal training to be undertaken.

Question put, and agreed to

Adjourned accordingly at a Quarter to Ten o'Clock.