EARL RUSSELLrose to call attention to the Report of the Royal Commission on the Metropolitan Police, and to ask His Majesty's Government: (1) Whether the constables found to be guilty of misconduct will be suitably dealt with; (2) Whether it is proposed to compensate the man Gamble or Pearce who was found by the Commissioners to have been injured by a police constable; (3) Whether steps will be taken to impress upon all ranks of the Metropolitan Police Force the supreme importance of telling the truth at all times and warning them not to commit perjury in order to conceal a breach of duty.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in dealing with, the Report of the Royal Commission upon the duties of the Metropolitan Police, and in calling attention to one or two individual cases of 1683 misconduct, I cannot more fitly begin than by stating how entirely I endorse the general findings of that Commission as to the excellence of the police force as a whole and to the services they render to the public. It has been my misfortune to appear, to a certain extent, as a person attacking the police in isolated cases, but I am glad of the opportunity of saying that I have never suggested that the police force as a whole were corrupt or unworthy of our confidence, or that they did not render very great services to the law-abiding public in the Metropolis. A good many individual cases, as they are called, were investigated by the Police Commission, and I do not propose to detain your Lordships with details of them; but in a certain number of those cases the police constables were found to be guilty of misconduct of a more or less grave character. In one case a constable was found to have been misconducting himself when he should have been on his beat. In another case a constable was found guilty of misconduct in arresting a respectable married woman in the street. In yet another case a constable was found guilty of misconduct for arresting a man because he had lost his temper without sufficient reason. Then there was the case of a market porter named Mullins, in which the Commission found that Police Constable Morgan lost his temper and assaulted him, and subsequently arrested him, making a charge against him which the Commission found not to be proved.
In addition to those cases, there is one case of a most serious character to which I refer specifically in my second Question, namely, that of a man called Gamble or Pearce. In that particular case, after a very long and minute investigation, the Commission found that the police constable was guilty of misconduct. The allegation was that he knocked this man down and kicked him when on the ground, injuring him so seriously that he had to spend many months in hospital and will not ever entirely recover. Sergeant Sheeney was guilty of misconduct in not intervening between Gamble and the constable and also in omitting to make a report to the inspector or any other responsible officer. Those cases, however, in no way bear out the suggestion that the police as a whole 1684 deliberately make false charges or do anything which could be described as behaving in an improper way at the beginning of an assault or disturbance. But when the police have made a mistake or when there has been some little lapse on their part they sometimes attempt to cover it up by taking more severe measures, or by making charges which cannot be supported against people with whom they have differences. I assume that the Report of the Commission has been considered by the Home Office and the Commissioner of Police, and that these constables will be dealt with according to the character of their offences. In the particular case of the man Gamble I hope the Home Office will see fit to compensate the man, because he has suffered by the wrongful action of the constable as found by the Royal Commission, an injury which is not only very grave, and which confines him to hospital for several months at a time, but has really made him unfit ever again to do a good day's work.
On the third Question your Lordships have to bear this fact in mind, and I regard it as very significant and important. Whatever the particular degree of misconduct of which these constables have been found guilty, in every case they have gone into the witness box and sworn a statement of facts which the Royal Commission have found to be false, not only in the police court but in the inquiry before the Commission, where they have attempted to cover up their misconduct by deliberate perjury. I think it might be said without injustice that when a mistake has been made there is some tendency on the part of the police to prefer to stick to the original story, or the story which they think they ought to stick to, without proper regard to the truth, and for that reason I hope steps will be taken—some have already been taken since Mr. Gladstone became Home Secretary—to impress upon all rank so the Metropolitan Police Force the importance of telling the truth. It has been suggested to me—of course, not by the police themselves because one has not the opportunity of ascertaining their opinion—but by those who say they know something about it and the discipline of the force, that these men sometimes do not tell the truth about these matters 1685 because the discipline is so extremely strict and severe that they are likely to be punished for an oversight or a comparatively trivial error or trivial breach of discipline as if they had done something very blameworthy from a moral point of view. I recognise there must be reasonably strict discipline over a large body of men, but I think your Lordships will probably feel that this discipline goes rather too far if every error which any man may commit in the very trying, anxious, and sometimes doubtful work he has to perform, is to be regarded with severity. If for an innocent mistake a man is to be treated as if he had committed a grave wrong you increase his inclination to cover up his mistake and back it up, I am sorry to say, by perjury afterwards.
§ EARL BEAUCHAMPThe reply to the first Question is in the affirmative. It had been decided to take judicial proceedings against the constable concerned in the Gamble case. The question whether any proceedings should be taken against any of the other officers concerned in the same case is under consideration. As to the other constables whom the Commission found to have been guilty of misconduct, one was dismissed forthwith. In another case the Commission reported that the punishment inflicted at the time was adequate. Another case which the Commission thought might have been more severely dealt with at the time it is not proposed to reopen, seeing that the incident took place five years ago. The cases of the four remaining constables have been referred to the disciplinary board at New Scotland Yard to be dealt with. The second Question of the noble Earl cannot be considered until after the result of the judicial proceedings has become known. With regard to the third Question, there is no need to impress upon the force the importance and necessity of telling the truth. A regulation already exists which directs a constable to speak the truth at all times and under all circumstances, and, when called on to give evidence, to state all he knows without fear or reservation, and without any desire to influence the result either for or against the prisoner. The Commission report 1686 very favourably as to the observance of this regulation, and as to the general trustworthiness of police witnesses.
§ THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEI desire to express my regret that the noble Earl opposite should have put his third Question on the Paper. To any ordinary mind it conveys the impression that in the noble Earl's opinion the Metropolitan Police Force as a whole is open to the odious imputation of habitual untrustworthiness. That is putting an entirely unwarrantable affront on a very worthy body of men. The result of the inquiry has been to exonerate the force of very many of the charges that were brought against them and redounds greatly to their credit and their reputation. The noble Earl disclaimed any desire of charging the Metropolitan Police with untruthfulness, but I think he cannot be acquitted of having put on the Paper a Question which certainly suggested the idea that the force was open to a charge of the kind.