HC Deb 09 June 1969 vol 784 cc1190-202

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

3.3 a.m.

Mr. Tom Boardman (Leicester, South-West)

I am glad to have this opportunity to raise, even at this late hour, the treatment of Mr. and Mrs. Hilton by the police at Leicester. I am sorry that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, who is to reply, has to do so at the end of what must have been a very long and tiring day for him. I shall deal briefly with the facts and the points where we are in dispute.

Mrs. Hilton, a woman of 47 and in bad health, lived at 25, Stanton Row, Leicester, where she was interviewed by three police officers on 12th November, 1968. They accused her of obtaining drugs by false prescriptions, and she was duly cautioned. As events subsequently showed, she was completely innocent. Another woman was arrested and charged with that offence three days later on 15th November.

Mr. Hilton, who was in the house when the police officers called, heard the conversation on the doorstep and came to the door. He is described as becoming very cross and excited when told what had been said. He said that his wife had a bad heart, which is denied by the police. The husband perhaps acted unwisely, but in doing so showed a loyalty, courage and confidence in his wife that were both understandable and commendable.

Mr. Hilton asked the police if he could telephone the doctor and go and call a neighbour. He says—and this is denied by the police—that he was for some time not allowed to leave his front door to do so. He says—and again this is denied—that he was pushed back by one of the police officers when he tried to leave the house. Eventually, he went out and called a neighbour, but she said that it was nothing to do with her, and she stayed but a few moments.

The conversation with the police continued. The husband then said that he wanted to call the police station and speak to a senior officer there. He said—again, this is denied by the police—that this was refused for some time but he was eventually allowed to go. On this occasion and on the previous occasion, when he left the house he first asked that his wife should be allowed to accompany him, but he says that the police refused to let her do so. He then said that the police were not to question his wife while he was away, and it is conceded that he said that.

But the police did so. They continued to ask Mrs. Hilton questions. The Home Office and the Minister in correspondence had said that Mrs. Hilton took up the conversation, but the police report shows that they continued to question her. Perhaps they were legally entitled to do so despite the husband's instructions that she was not to be questioned while he was away.

Next day the husband lodged a complaint with the police through his officer at his works, and he had an interview with a chief superintendent on 13th November. He claimed that this interview was a very difficult one for him in which the chief superintendent said that both Mr. Hilton and the chief superintendent knew that the wife was guilty and that Mr. Hilton had better bring her along and confess. The policy deny this.

The police in their report and the Home Office in subsequent correspondence have claimed that this interview went on for three hours. It is now con- ceded —and this was in a report by the superintendent which was material to the investigation—that it lasted about an hour.

Subsequently, a policewoman superintendent called on Mrs. Hilton at her home and said, according to reports that Mrs. Hilton gave to her children, that she had come to apologise but she was not to tell her husband. She, the policewoman, took a statement from Mrs. Hilton. But there are some peculiarities about that. It was undated, which is unusual. It was subsequently said that it was taken on 25th November. There seems to be some mistake there, because I am told that Mrs. Hilton was not at her home on that day. But it may be an error in the date on one side or the other.

This statement was apparently taken 10 days after the guilty woman, for whom Mrs. Hilton had been mistaken, had been arrested, and yet, according to the police, they never at that time came to apologise, nor did they tell Mrs. Hilton that she was no longer under suspicion. Surely this should have been done when the guilty woman had been arrested and made a confession, or if the police still believed that Mrs. Hilton was under suspicion surely it would have been right that she should have been cautioned again before they took the statement from her.

Also, there is the fact that Mrs. Hilton was practically blind, and without her glasses, which were then at the Leicester Royal Infirmary, was unable to see. She signed the statement in that circumstance, but there is no note on the statement, as the police form requires, to give notice that the statement was signed by someone who was unable to read it.

It was only on 29th November, 14 days after the guilty woman had been arrested, that a letter was received from the chief constable apologising for the mistake and saying that it was a case of mistaken identity. The letter said that the police officers against whom Mr. Hilton had lodged complaints denied that they were rude or offensive. But it made no reference at all to the findings of the investigating officer who had been required to look into those complaints.

Mrs. Hilton, as a result, so her family allege, of the police inquiry stopped taking the tablets which had been prescribed for her, and she refused to see her doctor. She had not in any case seen him for some weeks. On 24th December she collapsed, and she died after an operation on 14th January.

A suggestion has been made—and some of the family are still, I believe, convinced that it is so—that Mrs. Hilton's death from thyrotoxicosis, which medical opinion says is possibly caused by emotional factors, was the result of the strain of the interview. I do not believe that the action of the police resulted in or in any way contributed to her death. However, clarification through a proper investigation might have been helpful in removing that suggestion, which remains, as I have said, in the minds of some members of the family. I stress that I do not make that allegation, and I hope that no one else does.

The police have an extremely difficult job to do, and I have sympathy with them. The Leicester police have a high reputation and are well led. They set a high standard. This makes it all the more important that, when criticism of this nature is made, it should be fully investigated. There is need for an impartial investigation. I believe that this is essential so that the public can be satisfied, as they cannot be by a police inquiry into complaints against the police.

Having heard perhaps only one side of the story and something of the other, I do not know where the truth lies. Justice may have been done, but has not been seen to have been done. This is bad for public confidence and damaging to the reputation of a fine police force. I believe it possible that the police were convinced, when they called on Mrs. Hilton, that they were interviewing a guilty woman. It was a case of mistaken identity. I believe it possible that they gave her less consideration than they might otherwise have done. This is only my supposition but the police, in the course of the inquiry, have refused to produce the police note books, which they could have produced and which might have been helpful in removing some of the doubts.

The inquiry was held by an investigating officer appointed by the Chief Constable. The result of it we do not know. But we know that this officer did not interview Mr. Hilton, the main complainant. He only heard one side of the story. This is not a satisfactory way in which a police inquiry into complaints of this nature can be conducted.

As the matter stands, the Hilton family and others feel that justice has not been done. They believe that complaints against the police have been swept under the police carpet. The police officers concerned may have a complete answer and they surely cannot feel that the complaints have been publicly refuted. From the point of view of the public there must be, and is, a feeling that a family in modest circumstances has been pushed around by the might of the police.

It was with great reluctance that I sought to raise this matter, because I well recognise the problems of the police and I have been loath to ventilate criticisms which may become exaggerated. When the question of Mrs. Hilton's death following the interview, but which, I believe, was not connected with it, first came up, many stories went about. The Press behaved responsibly. It knew of the stories, but held its hand until the facts could be established. Unfortunately, the facts have not been established and we do not know where the truth of the matter lies.

I am glad that as Member for the constituency of the late and innocent Mrs. Hilton I have had the opportunity to raise this matter. I hope to have an assurance that procedure for a more satisfactory form of investigation into this and similar matters is to be introduced. I was heartened to read in The Times today that the Chairman of the Police Federation has expressed some favour towards having an outside observer looking into complaints of this nature.

Something of that procedure is necessary and desirable in doubts raised in matters of this nature where the truth may well be established by an independent observer or public inquiry, but cannot be satisfactorily established by the present method. I hope that the Under-Secretary will be able to give us some assurance for the future.

I conclude by making three points. I want, first, to make it clear beyond all doubt that the charge levelled against Mrs. Hilton was one of which she was completely innocent. Secondly, the reputation of the Leicester police stands high. I make no criticism of individual officers and I make no criticism of the force, but I criticise the procedure which does not enable complaints of this nature to be fully investigated. Thirdly, I hope that the Under-Secretary will give full consideration to finding some form of investigation which will enable justice not only to be done, but to be seen to be done.

3.16 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Elystan Morgan)

I know from the letters which the hon. Member for Leicester, South West (Mr. Tom Boardman) has sent me over the period since these events last November of his concern for the interests of his constituent, Mr. Hilton, in this case. He has taken great care to ascertain and examine the many details of all that occurred on 12th November when three police officers went to see the late Mrs. Hilton at her home. I fully appreciate that the hon. Member should feel this concern, but, at the same time, I feel bound to say that in putting his case, which he has done so cogently, some matters may have been mentioned on which there may be some possibility of misconception and misunderstanding.

I wish, first, however, to speak of the sad death of the late Mrs. Hilton in January, this year. I was deeply sorry to hear of this, as the hon. Member knows from a letter I wrote to him earlier this year, and Mr. Hilton has my deepest sympathy. I know the hon. Member has himself acknowledged that it is his firm opinion that Mrs. Hilton's death was not connected with the police inquiries. I think it right, however, that this should go on record here tonight, as Mrs. Hilton's death tends inevitably to get mentioned in any publicity given to the complaints of Mr. Hilton against the police. I am very glad to say that there is no suggestion whatsoever that Mrs. Hilton's death was in any way attributable to the events in which she was involved with the police.

It has been alleged by Mr. Hilton that when the police officers came to see his wife they were aware from what he told them that she was in no condition to be questioned in such circumstances. He has said that he protested to them at the time that his wife was ill and had a bad heart. All three police officers concerned have strongly asserted that this is not so. They did not know Mrs. Hilton was ill and they deny being told by Mr. Hilton that she had a bad heart. Mrs. Hilton herself had, in fact, said to them, in connection with the questioning about the prescriptions, that she had not visited her doctor for about three months and that she had just returned from a three weeks' stay with her daughter in London. She made no complaint or other indication as to her state of health.

The other matter—and again, it is a matter on which I think there is no disagreement; at any rate, no longer any disagreement between the hon. Member and myself—concerns the justification for the police going to see Mrs. Hilton as they did on 12th November. Here again, however, I think it right to make plain the actual circumstances, which clearly provided every justification for the police to seek to see Mrs. Hilton, lest there be any misunderstanding lingering in the matter.

As the hon. Member knows, the police had been given what they believed to be reliable information that Mrs. Hilton had illicitly been obtaining drugs on doctors' prescriptions. She had been identified by the chemist and a doctor from among photographs of 12 different women as the woman who had been so presenting such prescriptions at the chemist's shop. Clearly, the police would have been failing in their duty not to have acted on such information. The Chief Constable agrees, however, that in one respect, better arrangements could have been made. It would have been better for two, and not three, police officers to have gone to see Mrs. Hilton, and steps have been taken to correct this for any future case.

I now turn to specific allegations which have been made against the police, if not all of them by the hon. Member in his speech tonight, then in the correspondence which has passed between us. I have, in fact, gathered from all that he has said that the real burden of his complaint concerning the actual events on 12th November lies not so much with any issue whether the police should have questioned Mrs. Hilton, but rather with the way in which the questioning was carried out. The gap between us is, therefore, a narrow one.

Mr. Hilton has alleged that after making his statement of complaint in an interview at the police station on 13th November with Chief Superintendent Glen, he was told by the chief superintendent that he knew his wife was guilty and had better bring her to the police station then and confess. The officer has stated that he did not, and, indeed, could not have said such a thing. The inquiry was, in fact, being conducted by a department other than the one under his command and he had no knowledge at all of the matter.

The hon. Member has copies of the reports of 14th January by Chief Superintendent Glen and Miss Tickner, his secretary, about this interview. He will know, therefore, that both say that at the end of the interview Mr. Hilton thanked the chief superintendent for spending so much time with him, and said that he now felt much better about the whole thing.

Another allegation is that Mr. Hilton was for a time prevented from leaving his doorway to telephone the police station. It is further alleged that when he was allowed to leave, his wife was prevented from going with him, and the officers continued to question her in his absence despite his requests that they should not do so.

The officers have denied that they prevented Mr. Hilton from leaving his house to telephone, or restrained Mrs. Hilton from accompanying him, or that they acted improperly in any way. Their statements are specifically supported by those of the neighbour, Mrs. Harding, who was called by Mr. Hilton, of whose own statements the hon. Member also has copies.

Mr. Tom Boardman

Mrs. Harding was there for a short time in an interview which lasted a considerable period.

Mr. Morgan

I appreciate that.

When Mrs. Hilton first came to the door the officers explained the purpose of their visit and a short conversation ensued before Mr. Hilton joined them. Mrs. Hilton took up the conversation herself, at the point at which it has been interrupted, after her husband left. Again, it was a brief conversation, as to the name of the doctor who had issued the prescriptions. Mr. Hilton then returned with Mrs. Harding.

The officers have also denied that they behaved in any way improperly. In this, statements by the independent witness, Mrs. Harding, support the officers' statements, and indicate that it was Mr. Hilton who was excited and showed a certain lack of control. There has, I think, been some tendency endorsed by the hon. Gentleman's intervention to suggest that Mrs. Harding's views should be discounted as of no great consequence, as she was not present throughout the interview.

But, I think, to put it no higher, that they do not assist the suggestion that has also been put, that the investigation must necessarily have been prejudiced. It is to be remembered, also, that Mrs. Harding was Mr. Hilton's own witness, specifically called by him as he put it in his written statement to the police, "to listen to what was being said by the police officers". Therefore, Mrs. Harding's evidence is of some value to the case.

Complaint has also been made that Mr. Hilton was unaware that his wife had made any statement and, I think, he originally suggested to the hon. Member that it might have been taken while she was in hospital: the statement was, by oversight, undated. He learned subsequently that it was taken at her home and then claimed that the woman police officer concerned had told Mrs. Hilton that she had come to apologise and if she was given a statement that would be the end of the matter and that the police did not wish her to tell her husband about it.

The hon. Member has a copy of the statement in question. It was taken on 25th November by a police woman superintendent at Mrs. Hilton's home. Mrs. Hilton was alone in the house and doing her weekly wash. The superintendent says that Mrs. Hilton was quite willing to make a statement; she did not say that she had come to apologise or ask Mrs. Hilton not to tell her husband about the visit.

In fact, no apology was given until the Chief Constable's letter of 29th November to Mr. Hilton. Despite the arrest of the other woman who was apprehended at the chemist's shop, it was thought right at the time to wait until the investigation into Mr. Hilton's complaints under Section 49 of the Police Act, 1964, had been completed. As I have previously informed the hon. Member, I agree with his view that it would have been better for Mr. and Mrs. Hilton to have been told earlier of the other woman's arrest.

As to the officers' notebooks, I have, as the hon. Member knows from our previous correspondence, seen photo-stat copies of the relevant extracts from the notebooks. I wrote on 19th March to tell him this and to explain that they added nothing to what was already known about the case. I want once again to give the hon. Member my assurance that the entries in the notebooks add nothing to our and his knowledge of the case.

As I have also informed the hon. Member, in the context of a case of this sort, which involves an investigation into complaints against individual police officers—and, as such, is distinguishable from court proceedings—disclosure of the relevant entries in the notebooks is entirely a matter for the Chief Constable, and the Home Secretary has no authority whatever to require him to make them available.

As I have explained, however, I have seen these entries, and I know that the hon. Member will take my word that they do not help in the matters which we are debating tonight.

Mr. Tom Boardman

Of course, I accept the Minister's word on that. My only point is that there may be things in those books which strike no relevance to the Minister but might strike a note with me, having heard the full story the other side. One is entitled to see both sides of the story—for example, how long the interviews lasted and matters of that kind, which would have been most helpful.

Mr. Morgan

I have looked carefully at the notebooks, but the principle is a general one and it is a matter for the chief officer of police. No one is able to override him in the decision whether the notebooks should be disclosed.

As to further inquiry, Section 32 of the Police Act, 1964, provides that the Home Secretary may cause a local inquiry to be held by a person appointed by him into any matter connected with the policing of any area. Any such inquiry may be in public or private as the Home Secretary may direct and there is power to summon and examine witnesses. The report of the inquiry may be published, or, where it is not, the Home Secretary must make known a summary of the findings and recommendations so far as appears to him to be consistent with the public interest.

But such an inquiry under Section 32 would not be appropriate in this case. The provisions of the Section are intended for use in connection with the Home Secretary's responsibilities for the efficiency of the police service as a whole. An inquiry for which the Section provides would be justified only while there appear to be major defects of police organisation which are causing grave and widespread public concern and which have not been clearly identified by other methods of investigation.

An inquiry under Section 32 inevitably leads to all parties acting through legal representatives, and it is prolonged. Only one such inquiry has so far been held; it was conducted by Mr. A. E. James, Q.C., as he then was, and the hearing extended over five months.

In the present case, the Home Secretary is in no doubt that the case has been thoroughly investigated, and the circumstances are not such as to require further investigation under Section 49 of the Police Act by an officer from another police force, or any form of ad hoc inquiry. The investigation already made was clearly thorough and painstaking and statements were taken from all persons who were considered likely to be able to assist.

As I have already said, the hon. Member has had the fullest possible information in the matter, from the Chief Constable and the Deputy Chief Constable direct, both in correspondence and a meeting with them. He has been provided with copies of statements. I have endeavoured, in my replies to his letters, to give him such further details as he has requested in correspondence with me.

It is true that on a small number of points the statements of the police officers and Mr. Hilton are in conflict, but that does not, in my view, necessarily provide any sufficient ground for thinking that further inquiry would be justified, or would be likely to resolve the few issues where the evidence is in conflict. A most careful and thorough investigation has already been made and nothing of substance has been produced to sustain the allegation that it was not an impartial inquiry. It was conducted by a senior officer wholly unconnected with the incident.

The appointment of another chief superintendent as investigating officer in place of Chief Superintendent Glen was, in fact, arranged to secure strict impartiality in the investigation, as Mr. Hilton had indicated that he was not satisfied with the way Chief Superintendent Glen had conducted the interview with him.

The procedures for investigating complaints against police officers are those for which Parliament provided in the Police Act, 1964. They are based on, and go further than, recommendations made by the Royal Commission on the Police in 1962. These procedures are kept under close review by the Home Secretary, but in the present case it is clear that they were thoroughly and properly followed. There are also no grounds for thinking that any new facts would be revealed by any further inquiry or that conclusions would be different.

Mr. Tom Boardman

Would the hon. Gentleman make it clear that the investigating officer never saw Mr. Hilton? He relied, presumably, on the statement which had been taken by the superintendent against whom Mr. Hilton had made a complaint.

Mr. Morgan

I am prepared to check that matter carefully, and will correspond with the hon. Member again. I believe that it may be that the hon. Member is correct in that the second investigating officer adopted the statement which had been taken by Chief Superintendent Glen.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-eight minutes to Four o'clock am.