SIERRA LEONE (EX-SERGEANT SEISAY) (Hansard, 29 February 1960)

§ Mr. Robert Edwards (Bilston)

I am, indeed, very grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for giving me this opportunity of raising the question of ex-Sergeant Seisay, of the Sierra Leone Police Force. The very fact that a humble citizen of the British Commonwealth who feels that he has been treated unfairly can have his case heard here, at the very centre of the Commonwealth, seems to me to personify our great British democracy. I am particularly grateful to the right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary for being present this evening. During the last months he has been under very great pressure, and I think that his presence is characteristic of the earnestness that he has brought to his great office.

I would not have troubled the House with the case had it not been for the fact that I feel that ex-Sergeant Seisay has been subjected to a very grave injustice. It has ruined his career in the Sierra Leone Police Force. Mr. Seisay joined the force at the age of 19. He has three brothers, two of whom are in the Sierra Leone Police Force. Indeed, his elder brother is an aide-de-camp to the Governor of Sierra Leone. His elder brother served bravely in the British Armed Forces during the war. Their family is respected throughout Sierra Leone, so that any stain on the character of one of the brothers is a very serious stain on the character of the family. That is why this case is so important to me and so important to the good man concerned. He is a married man. He has a very cultured, educated wife and two children. Unless this stain is removed from his character, he, his wife and his family will find it very difficult to settle in this very small community of Sierra Leone.

In March, 1957, Mr. Seisay was on leave and in civilian clothes. He was a sergeant-teacher and a reception officer at the police training college at Hastings Village, outside Freetown. He was visited by a brother who lived 60 miles from Freetown and had just purchased 992 a brand new motor bicycle. It was a very human thing to go and show his younger brother his new motor bicycle. This elder brother was an ex-Service man who served right through the war in Burma and had reached a managerial position in Sierra Leone.

It was rather late when the brother visited Mr. Seisay, and Mr. Seisay, who lived in the married quarters at the police school, and who was entitled to have a guest, asked him to stay the night. He was looking for a parking place for his brother's motor bicycle when he was asked by a superior officer, who, on the information that I have, was drunk, what he was doing and was ordered off the premises. Mr. Seisay was not under the control of the superior officer, and the superior officer was African, so that there is no politics in this, no question of colour in it, no question of African independence or anything like that. It is a simple question of elementary justice.

When ordered off the premises, Mr. Seisay argued that he was only finding a parking place for a motor bicycle. He was struck down by the superior officer, Chief Inspector Peters, who then ordered 40 new recruits to attack the two brothers, who were beaten up cruelly and thrown into prison. Mrs. Seisay had to beg the superior officer to release her husband for a while, get a taxi and take him to his doctor. Those are the circumstances of the case. I have a doctor's certificate which shows that the day after the incident Mr. Seisay was found to have been seriously wounded in the face and body, the wounds being consistent with Mr. Seisay's having been beaten severely with blunt instruments. This man committed no crime. He merely argued on his day off duty, when he wanted only to find a parking place for his brother's motor cycle.

Mr. Seisay was charged with insubordination and also with being in the women's compound of the school. That was a calculated and deliberate lie. Six witnesses were brought to court to prove that he was nowhere near the women's quarters. This was a married man living in the compound with his wife and two children. Two of the witnesses were family men in the Sierra Leone police. There were two families in the women's quarters—it was not a compound only 993 for women, and Mr. Seisay was an assistant reception officer.

Yet this calculated lie blackening this man's character has been used on three occasions in correspondence with me to justify a refusal to reinstate him. No evidence whatever has been submitted to justify this stain on his character. Can hon. Members imagine what that stain means for a married man with a lovely, educated wife and two small children and with an elder brother aide-de-camp to the Governor and two other brothers in other respectable positions in the African community? Can hon. Members imagine what it means for this man to have to go through life with that stain on his character and on the characters of his wife, children and brothers? Yet every attempt I have made with two Colonial Secretaries to get a new inquiry into the business has failed.

On the advice of the Chief of Police, the case went to court. In court, the superior officer who made the charges against him was fined £5, or two months' imprisonment. Three out of the 40 recruits who attacked him were fined £5 and the presiding magistrate, Mr. Cummings-John, stated that if the charge had been brought under a different provision the sentences would have been much more severe. If there is any doubt about what I am saying, I have a cutting from the Daily Mail of Sierra Leone of 21st April, 1957, in which the case is fully reported. I do not have time to go into details, but it is all here and has never been denied.

I have two documents written since the incident. One is from the Commissioner for Sierra Leone, in Washington, who was a lecturer in social studies at the Fourah Bay College, in Freetown, where Mr. Seisay was educated. The following letter was written by Dr. William H. Fitzjohn, M.A., B.D., a man of great integrity, who is now the Commissioner in Washington for Sierra Leone: This is to certify that Samuel Seisay was known to me from his childhood, and I have followed him through the years with keen interest. After completing his schooling at Moyamba, he took up secondary school work at our Albert Academy where he did good work and showed much ability. Following his secondary education, he worked as a clerk at the Cold Storage in Freetown, and later entered the Sierra Leone Police Force where he rose to the rank of sergeant. Because of 994 his keen ability, he was made a Tutor of Constables and lectured at refresher courses. The subjects he taught were: criminal law, criminal procedure, evidence and Sierra Leone Police Ordinance. Mr. Seisay has a very fine disposition and a good sense of duty and integrity to responsibility. I also have a letter from the Education Officer of the Sierra Leone Police Force, which says: This is to certify that Samuel Seisay was my assistant teacher in the Sierra Leone Police Training School. He was also a Lecturer in Law, and attained the rank of sergeant up to the time he was with me. He was the organiser of the divine service in the school. Besides being an Assistant Reception Officer, he had great interest in the spiritual welfare of all the men that were under his command. He was honest, sociable and tolerant. Devotion to duty and integrity were his guiding principle. I am fully confident that he is capable of carrying out efficiently any duties that could be assigned to a Cambridge School Certificate holder. During his 4 years' stay in the Training School he lectured in Criminal law. … I recommend him to the authorities. Those letters were written about the man whose case we are discussing this evening, the man whose character has been undermined, and whose confidence in British justice has almost been undermined. Despite my attempts to get this matter reconsidered, all that has happened is that his pension rights have been reduced from those for a sergeant to those for a private, because he was demoted. He eventually resigned from the police force so that he could fight for justice. One can imagine this man's feelings. Having risen to the rank of sergeant, he was reduced to the rank of private, and in a moment of thoughtlessness he resigned from the service.

I know that this case has been inquired into on two occasions. If I had time, I would quote police regulations and show that those regulations have been violated because all that has happened is that the case has been retried and the offence reduced to one of insubordination. Who tried the case? Police regulations for Sierra Leone state that a superior officer who tries a policeman under him acts as a magistrate, and should hear witnesses for both the defence and the prosecution. On both occasions those police regulations were violated. At these two inquiries no evidence was received from Mr. Seisay or any of his witnesses. The only evidence given came from those persecuting and prosecuting him. This 995 is a complete violation of the police regulations. If I had the time I could give chapter and verse.

All I am asking is that this man should have an opportunity to give his side of the case—a side which has been heard only in court, where he won his case. No evidence was then submitted to prove that the charges against him were valid, and no witnesses were brought forward against him. All the witnesses were on the side of Mr. Seisay. There were six who witnessed the incident, and all gave evidence in court in his favour. He won his case, yet reinstatement is refused him, without the police authorities having an opportunity of hearing his side of the case.

Sierra Leone is a country which will soon have independence, and that country has great need for loyal citizens like Mr. Seisay and his family. Let us not turn this man sour. Let us not turn his family against British justice, because that would be a grave political error, apart from the whole question of justice and integrity.

The Secretary of State is a man whom I admire very much. He is ready to sweep away red tape and consider new problems on the basis of new ideas and principles. I beg him to reconsider this case. I am not asking him to give a decision tonight, because I have been able to make only a brief speech, owing to the limitations of time. But I beg him to agree to think in terms of a new inquiry into this case—not an elaborate public inquiry, but just one which will give this man a chance to bring forward his witnesses, so that some basis of justice can be accepted by him, and at least the stain on his character that has never been proved can be wiped out and he can be given a chance to go back to his country and become the constructive citizen that he hopes to become.

§ The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Iain Macleod)

The hon. Member for Bilston (Mr. R. Edwards) said that he was grateful to me for being here to reply to this short Adjournment debate. It is a very good thing that Secretaries of State should occasionally be reminded that they deal all the time with human problems, and I have spent a good deal of time looking into this very difficult 996 case. I would make one thing absolutely clear at the beginning. The hon. Member said that Mr. Seisay is a fine man, with a fine family—and I am sure he is; that is not in dispute. We are concerned only with events that happened on 16th March, 1957—nearly three years ago—and with the question whether or not justice was done to Mr. Seisay. I entirely agree that it is right that a case like this should be brought to the Floor of the House of Commons in the end, if satisfaction cannot be obtained any other way.

I do not think that there is any dispute as to the facts of the case. They have been looked at so often that it is more the interpretation of the facts on which it is permissible to differ rather than the facts themselves. What happened on 16th March, 1957, is that Mr. Seisay and his brother were given an order by Chief Inspector Peters, an African officer, then Deputy Commandant of the School. He ordered them to leave the area where they were, which was near a part of the compound which was out of bounds. I do not suggest for a moment—and I do not think it relevant—that Mr. Seisay was there for any improper purpose at all. But he was given this order by his superior officer and there can be no question that insuborination is rightly treated as a serious offence in the police and in the Services.

When Mr. Seisay refused to obey this order he was mishandled. I admit that straight away. Excessive force beyond any question was used and this was a most improper action on the part of Chief Inspector Peters. He was taken to the guardroom and he suffered some injury as a result. The charge was then brought against him by Chief Inspector Peters that he had failed to carry out this order. He was found guilty by the Assistant Superintendent who tried the case and also by the Assistant Commissioner who reviewed the case and by the Governor who later looked at the case again, largely at the request of the hon. Member. I do not think that one can suggest for a moment that all those people—Chief Inspector Peters, the Assistant Superintendent, the Commissioner of Police and the two Secretarys of State who looked at this matter—were likely to be prejudiced against this man.

997 It is unquestionably true that what was done by Chief Inspector Peters was wholly wrong because, as the hon. Member has pointed out, he was later convicted in court. But, with respect, I do not think that it is right to say that Mr. Seisay's case was only heard in the court. He was present at the earlier hearing at the disciplinary proceedings. He gave evidence on his own behalf and he cross-examined witnesses. So his case was put in evidence before Assistant Superintendent Cuffey, who heard the case in the first instance.

Since then the case has been reviewed many times. It has been sent back to the Governor, largely because it was not known at the time when the disciplinary proceedings were taken that the case against Chief Inspector Peters was pending. Accordingly, a review took place and, as the hon. Member very fairly said, the Governor varied the sentence and replaced the sentence of reduction to the rank of constable by a severe reprimand, which had the effect of back-dating his pay and recalculating his pension.

Two questions arise. The first—and this I find an unconvincing part of the hon. Member's case—is why Mr. Seisay chose to retire. The hon. Member said it was in a moment of foolishness, but it has also been suggested that he did not know the rule which would enable him to petition the Governor and, if necessary, to petition myself, as Secretary of State, through the Governor. But he stated in his application to resign that he was seeking to do so on the grounds of ill-health and the hazardous work of the police. He left the service on 1st February, 1958, when his term of engagement expired. I do not find the case put forward by the hon. Member convincing, that Mr. Seisay did not know the rules which, I think, are common knowledge, certainly to anybody who had had as much experience as Sergeant Seisay would have had at the time; nor that it was in a moment of thoughtlessness that he decided to leave the service. His request now is that he should be allowed to return to the service. The hon. Member asked that there should be a further inquiry into the case.

998 On the question of whether it would be right for him to return to the service, this is, and must be, wholly a matter for the Governor. As I have said, he has sympathetically reviewed this case favourably to Mr. Seisay. It is wholly a matter within the competence of the Governor to decide whether a former police officer who has left the service at the expiry of his term and, as far as the records show, entirely on his own free-will, should be readmitted to the force. The view that the Governor has taken is that Mr. Seisay retired voluntarily and that it would not be in the interests of the discipline of the force to re-engage him.

Frankly, I do not think that it would be profitable to have a further inquiry into this matter, because, as I said, the facts are known, but I am deeply anxious that no man should feel injustice in any case for which we have responsibility in this House. I am very ready to ask the Governor, in the light of what the hon. Member has said tonight, and if Mr. Seisay wished to put forward any memorandum to us suggesting that he has not had an opportunity of fully stating his case, to look at the question of Mr. Seisay's employment in the Sierra Leone Police Force.

I am sure that the hon. Member will realise that this is a matter on which it would be wrong for me to make a recommendation to the Governor. It is a matter which the Governor must himself decide, but if Mr. Seisay would like to put a memorandum forward to me I would gladly forward it to the Governor and also draw his attention to what has been said by the hon. Member in this debate.

I should like Mr. Seisay to feel that we are concerned only with this one incident in what, I am quite certain, has been a career of very real service to his country. I do not think that he need feel aggrieved by that. If, beyond what I have said, the hon. Member for Bilston would like to see me about this case, I should be very glad to discuss it with him.