HL Deb 12 June 1899 vol 72 cc880-8
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (The EARL OF HALSBURY)

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Coleridge, has given notice to call attention to the circum- stances of the cases of the Queen v. Sullivan and M'Hale v. Sullivan, and to ask what steps Her Majesty's Government intend to take in the matter. This appears to refer to litigation which is still in existence, and from a letter in this morning's Times, signed by a gentleman who professes to have been one of the counsel in the case, it appears that there are proceedings still pending in the case, which may become the subject of a second trial, and be submitted to the decision of a Court. Under those circumstances the noble and learned Lord will probably agree with me that it is not desirable to break through the well accepted rule that no matter that is sub judice should be mentioned in this House or brought under any sort of public discussion.

*LORD COLERIDGE

My Lords, I may say at once that it would have been most improper on my part to have alluded to this subject in this House had I not already satisfied myself that no further proceedings in the matter would be taken. I satisfied myself on this point before I put my Notice down on your Lordships' Paper, and I have had a positive assurance—and I am authorised to state this—that all proceedings in the case of M'Hale v. Sullivan have been abandoned. I anticipate that there can therefore be no reason for any postponement of my Notice; but if your Lordships think there is, I can only say that I do not know to what period your Lordships would desire to postpone the discussion.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I understand from the Attorney-General for Ireland that no Rule for the discontinuance of the proceedings has been entered, and therefore there is a possibility of the case being tried again.

*LORD COLERIDGE

The people who have found the money with which the proceedings were maintained have assured me that the funds are exhausted. Apart from that, I am assured nit good authority that all proceedings have been abandoned, and that there is no intention to resume them. Under these circumstances, I submit to your Lordships that I am entitled to call attention to these cases, without infringing the very proper rules for my guidance which the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, has referred to. Unless I am stopped by some Motion, I propose to proceed with my Notice, which is to call attention o the circumstances of the case of the Queen v. Sullivan, tried at the last Sligo Assizes, and the case of M'Hale v. Sullivan, tried at Dublin on 10th May mid following days, both cases involving a charge against a member of the Royal Irish Constabulary of forgery and inciting to crime; and to ask whether the said Sullivan is still a member of the Royal Irish Constabulary, and, if so, what steps Her Majesty's Government intend to take in the matter.

*The EARL OF ARRAN

Of course I take everything the noble and learned Lord has told us as being correct, and as the case is not to be retried I do not propose to move the Motion which I had intended to submit to your Lordships.

*LORD COLERIDGE

Then I take it, my Lords, there is no objection to my alluding to these cases. I have thought it my duty to do so, and I shall state the facts with the utmost brevity, and, I hope, with impartiality. For the last twelve months, in the County of Mayo, there has grown up an association which is called the United Irish League. It is not my business, nor is it my intention, to make any comments with regard to the League, its authors, its conduct, or its object. But it is necessary for me to allude to it to explain the case to which I desire to call the attention of this House. In Newport, a town in Mayo, there was a gentleman of the name of John M'Hale, who was the local president of the United Irish League. There was living at Westport an ignorant, unlettered man of the name of James Kelly, who was a member of the League. On the 14th of April James Kelly received through the post a letter in the following terms: Newport, April 13, 1898. 2s. for drink. Dear James Kelly, As you are aware, Martin Kelly is going back to the bastard Stoney on Monday. Go with some of the boys and visit him, and tell him that if he works he will be sorry, and that he is working against our cause. It would be better to blacken your face. Do it to-morrow night, and watch the police. other houses will be visited on the same night, so let Tiernan not be behind. Yours truly, "JOHN M'HALE (Chairman). Burn this for fear of danger. Don't bring any man but one you can trust. No one can doubt, my Lords, that that was an incitement to crime. By whom was that letter written? It is admitted on all hands, and has been admitted from the first, that the letter was not written by John M'Hale. By whom, then, was it written? There was at Mulranney, a short distance off, a certain Sergeant Sullivan, who was a magnificent penman. He had, I believe, received prizes on account of his penmanship, and of his handwriting he was undoubtedly proud. Some people knew his handwriting well, and upon the receipt of this letter by James Kelly specimens of his handwriting were procured from various sources. These specimens, together with the forged letter, were sent to Mr. Gurrin, the well-known handwriting expert in London, and the gentleman who is always employed by the Home Government in criminal and other trials. The result of the comparison of these handwritings was that Mr. Gurrin came to the confident opinion that all the documents—the genuine documents and the forged document—were written by one hand. Armed with this evidence, a case was launched before the Petty Sessions at Westport. It was proved that the letter was received through the post; it was proved that John M'Hale had not written it; it was proved that a man of the experience of Mr. Gurrin was of opinion that the letter submitted to him and the specimens—the undoubted and admitted specimens—of Sullivan's handwriting were written by the same hand. That was the case preferred before the justices, whose duty it was to see whether a prima facie case was made out, and, if so, to commit. I need hardly tell your Lordships that, in the absence of any other evidence than the evidence I have told you of, not only a prima facie but a conclusive case was made out. The magistrates, however, not only unanimously refused to commit, but at first wished to impound the document, so that it should never again pass into the hands of those who were prosecuting. This astonishing decision was, happily, in the latter part of it, not carried into effect. The magistrates ultimately, after argument—and I may say the person who appeared to prosecute was The MacDermott, a man of position in the profession, and a gentleman who had held the office of Attorney-General for Ireland—and after remonstrances, did give up the letter, but refused to commit, and in consequence it was determined that the witnesses should be bound over to the next Assizes for the purpose of the charge being further investigated. On the 14th of July, at the Castlebar Assizes, a Grand Jury was impanelled and found a true bill against James Sullivan on three charges—libel, forgery, and inciting to crime. As is universal in Ireland, the Government took up the prosecution, and it was hoped and believed that The MacDermott, in whom those who were prosecuting had confidence, would be further employed to conduct the case. The Crown, however, refused to avail itself of the services of The MacDermott, and employed its own counsel. The case came on for trial on the 1st of December at Sligo, and then, my Lords, a most unprecedented scene was witnessed. Sligo is a county in which nine-tenths of the inhabitants are Roman Catholics, and there was witnessed the scene of the Crown on the one side and the defence upon the other combining together to strike every Roman Catholic off the panel. I would ask the noble Earl who, I believe, is going to reply to me, whether in his opinion the profession of the Roman Catholic faith disentitles a man to the discharge of his civic duties.

*THE EARL OF ARRAN

The noble and learned Lord is looking at me. I beg to inform him that I am not going to reply, on behalf of the Government, to his Question.

*LORD COLERIDGE

I understood that the noble Earl the Earl of Denbigh was going to reply. I want to ask whether noble Lords can wonder, in the presence of these facts, that the people of Sligo and the counties round, rightly or wrongly, believe that the object of the Crown in combining with the defence to prevent any Roman Catholic from being on the jury was that the prisoner should be acquitted and not convicted? I do not say whether they were right or wrong, but I do say that in the presence of these facts it was a natural conclusion to arrive at. In the interval a remarkable thing happened. At the trial before the Justices at Westport a district inspector, of the name of Oulton, had been subpœnaed to produce the patrol book kept in the office of the Constabulary, and this book showed that on the evening of the 14th of April, the night on which the letter incited Kelly to commit a crime against the man Martin Kelly, an ambush was laid for an hour round the house of Martin Kelly in apparent anticipation of some outrage that might or would be likely to be committed. The patrol book showed that that took place for an hour. The report of Mr. Oulton's evidence was read by a constable of the name of Curtin, and on reading it he remembered that the entry in the patrol book as it appeared when it was produced by Oulton, the district inspector, was not the entry which appeared on the morning after it was made. He thereupon went and inspected the patrol book. He found that it had been altered, and it is admitted that the patrol book was altered, and altered by Sullivan. The alteration had the effect of making it appear that instead of the ambush being laid for three hours, as it was originally entered, it was an ambush of one hour. It was admitted that the book was altered, after the entry, by Sullivan. What was Curtin's duty? His duty was to make this known. If he had reported the matter to his immediate superior it would have been to Sullivan, but he did not do that. He waited for a few days until the district inspector—Oulton—visited the Constabulary. Curtin informed the prosecutors of what he had discovered, and reported the matter also to the district inspector. How was the report received? On the evening of the day on which Curtin had made this report to Oulton he was taken from the police office at Mulranney and banished to an island called Inniskear, 24 miles out into the Atlantic ocean. That was the way in which Constable Curtin was dealt with when he had the audacity and the temerity to say what he knew with regard to this case. Under these circumstances it could not be wondered at that the jury at Sligo did what was expected of them—they acquitted Sullivan, not only without hearing any evidence for the defence, but, in acquitting him, telling the learned judge that they had made up their minds to acquit him at a time before they had heard the evidence of Police-constable Curtin, which was material evidence in the case. Such was the slight indication which they gave of the impartiality of their minds in this matter. It is often thought advisable, ordinarily speaking, for the man who is acquitted to bring civil proceedings for malicious prosecution against the persons who prosecuted him; but in this case the facts were reversed, and the prosecutors, who had failed, brought an action for libel in Dublin, which was tried on the 10th of May, before Mr. Justice Andrews and a special jury. The same facts were then proved. Sullivan's defence was heard, and the matter was tried out to the utmost, squarely and fairly. Two points are worthy of notice. At the criminal trial some play was made by the defence by a suggestion that the handwriting of one of the witnesses for the prosecution bore similarities to the handwriting of the forged letter—and it was hinted that she might be the author. On the second occasion, when this matter was further investigated, this defence was tacitly abandoned. The evidence of Mr. Gurrin was forthcoming, and it was fortified by another expert witness, Mr. Price, who agreed with him. Not only was no expert evidence called to prove the slightest similarity between the handwriting of any of the witnesses and the handwriting of the forged letter, but there was no expert evidence called even to show that the forged letter was not written by the defendant Sullivan. The jury, after a long and patient trial, disagreed; ten were for the plaintiff M'Hale, and two for the defendant Sullivan. That, my Lords, is a short and brief account of the litigation in this case. I have thought it my duty to bring these facts to the attention of your Lordships' House. I, in common with your Lordships, wish to see in all civilised communities the law trusted and obeyed, and I say that if the law is administered in Ireland, or in any part of any civilised community, as it has been administered in the case of The Queen v. Sullivan, no man ought to wonder if the law, as so administered, has not the respect of the inhabitants of the country. Your Lordships will no doubt ask what I propose. I suggest that an independent inquiry—and I lay stress on the word "independent"—be held into this matter. Nothing less than an independent inquiry, I am sure, will satisfy the bulk of the people who live in the neighbourhood where these things have taken place, and I think nothing less ought to satisfy either Her Majesty's Government or your Lordships' House.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

My Lords, I confess that I very much regret that the noble and learned Lord should have thought it right to raise this matter in your Lordships' House, seeing that it has not been raised in the House of Commons, where the Attorney-General for Ireland would have been present and would have been prepared to answer more perfectly than anyone in your Lordships' House can do for what has taken place. I protest against the last statement of the noble and learned Lord as to the division of the jury. I am not aware myself of any legal mode of obtaining such information as that. Here a man who has the misfortune to be a policeman in Ireland is accused of a criminal offence, and the whole object of the noble and learned Lord seems to show that the man was guilty, although he had been acquitted. Does the noble and learned Lord think that such action as that will commend itself to a civilised community? The Attorney-General for Ireland told me that he was perfectly satisfied that the verdict of the jury was right, and that for all that was done he was perfectly prepared to take the responsibility. Everything has been done by his direction, and he is perfectly prepared, when he himself can be heard, to defend his action throughout. There has been another trial in respect of the same matter in another court, and the noble and learned Lord suggests that the verdict was against the policeman; but the jury was discharged without agreeing upon a verdict, and further proceedings have been abandoned. The noble and learned Lord suggests that Her Majesty's Government should hold a new and independent investigation, but how is that to be done? What does the noble and learned Lord mean by an independent investigation? What objection was there to the civil trial, which the noble Lord himself said was fairly and squarely fought out? Did not the trial afford a method of ascertaining the facts? I have heard no suggestion from the noble and learned Lord that the matter was not capable of being investigated there, and because the jury disagreed the noble and learned Lord has made a speech, every word of which was an attempt to show the man was guilty. It seems to me that the noble and learned Lord has set a very bad example of the mode in which an impartial investigation should be conducted. If the parties are still of opinion that Sullivan is guilty, let them proceed. But the House has been informed that they will not proceed, and yet there is to be a dis- cussion of this sort, the whole object of which is to show that this man, who has been acquitted by one jury and in whose case another jury has disagreed, is guilty. If an investigation is to take place at all it ought to have been perfectly independent of such observations as those which have been made by the noble and learned Lord.