HC Deb 25 March 1965 vol 709 c723
15. Mr. Lubbock

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department by what authority a 15–year-old boy was charged by the Metropolitan Police with using a vehicle on the road while under age and uninsured when he was returning a stolen vehicle to a police station.

Mr. George Thomas

The charges referred to were laid under Sections 5, 97(1) and 201 of the Road Traffic Act, 1960.

Mr. Lubbock

Is it not clear that if proper inquiries had been made this prosecution would never have been brought? I am not concerned with this individual case, but with the general principle. Will the hon. Gentleman take steps to see that in cases where the police have brought prosecutions of this kind and the person concerned has been convicted, even though, had the police known the full facts, they would not have prosecuted, a free pardon is given to that person?

Mr. Thomas

This is a difficult case. The lad was returning the scooter, so he said, which he had discovered, but was well off the route he should have been taking if he was returning it to the police station, and the police felt that there was a case to take to court. Although the boy was dismissed on the charge of stealing the vehicle, he was, of course, fined on the other charges.