LORD ELLENBOROUGHrose to ask Her Majesty's Government, What prospect there was of the appointment of a Public Prosecutor? A general opinion prevailed that such a public officer was necessary to prevent inequality in respect to the trial of persons under the Criminal Law, and he was prompted to ask the Question by what had occurred in reference to one case in London and another in Birmingham. In London a man was tried for murder said to be brought about by arson, when the jury brought in a verdict of not guilty. The prisoner was subsequently tried for arson, found guilty, and received an adequate punishment. The case at Birmingham was that of a man and a woman tried for the murder of Colonel Fendall. The Grand Jury brought in a true bill for murder. A robbery clearly was committed with violence. The clothes of the murdered man were found with the parents of the man who was tried for murder. He was found guilty of manslaughter, and received a trifling punishment only, not being subsequently tried for robbery with violence, although it resulted in death. He submitted that in the two cases quoted there was a great inequality before the law. There was additional cause for believing afoul murder was committed on the person of Colonel Fendall from the circumstance that the cabman who gave evidence stated that he had been requested to state by the man and woman found guilty of manslaughter that he had found the body in the street, although he had assisted in removing it from the house where the crimes of manslaughter and robbery with violence were committed. There was a great deal of evidence in support of the crime of 369 murder or manslaughter together with robbery with violence; and why in the one case a man should be tried for arson, having been acquitted of the crime of murder, and in the other the man and woman found guilty of manslaughter were not tried for robbery with violence he was at a loss to imagine, unless it was due to the absence of a public officer charged with the investigation of such cases.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord HALSBURY)said, he was not quite sure that he distinctly understood the Question of the noble Lord; it was not certain what he intended to convey by asking the Question whether the Government were about to recommend the appointment of a Public Prosecutor. If the noble Lord meant by a Public Prosecutor a person charged with the duty of looking after any prosecution in which his intervention was required, such an officer was already in existence. By the Act of 1879 a Public Prosecutor was appointed, and by the amending Act of 1884 the Office was vested in the Solicitor to the Treasury, who was charged to take up cases in which no private prosecutor was to be found, and who in fact often took cases out of the hands of private prosecutors. Therefore, the answer to the Question was that there was a Public Prosecutor already existing. He believed the duties of the Office were performed by Sir Augustus Stephenson with great skill and diligence, and he had not heard of any failure of justice by reason of the supposed absence of such on officer. Not knowing what cases would be cited by the noble Lord, he had not acquainted himself with the details of the two that had been mentioned. But from the circumstances that had been stated he did not see how the action of a Public Prosecutor could have averted the failures of justice which had been suggested. As to the case in which persons were tried for murder and convicted of manslaughter, the sentence was the sentence of the Judge. Did the noble Lord desire that a Public Prosecutor should be appointed to control the discretion of Judges in the infliction of punishment?
§ LORD HALSBURYThen he did not see what was the object of the noble Lord in putting the case forward. The 370 offence of manslaughter was one in respect of which, for obvious reasons, there was left to Judges a very large discretion between sentencing to penal servitude and inflicting a fine. As to the non-trial of the accused for the robbery which was involved in the original charge of murder, if in the case of a robbery a person was killed it could not be manslaughter, and it must be murder. He could not say more without knowing exactly the facts of the case, and the answer to the Question would be that the Government had no intention of appointing such an officer as the noble Lord seemed to contemplate.