§ Mr. LANSBURYasked the Attorney-General if his attention has been called to the appeal by John Home to the Court of Criminal Appeal for a reduction of his sentence, which appeal was heard on 16th January, 1912, and to the fact that the Court was at first inclined to accede to the appeal, whereupon the counsel for the Grown, in order to influence the Court against the prisoner, read from documents not put in as evidence, the signature of which was not proved; whether, in view 548W of the use of evidence of this kind and of the rules governing evidence, he will say if an appeal was made to him to allow this case to go to the House of Lords in order to determine the legality of the action of the counsel for the Crown and the Court in allowing such evidence to be put in; if so, whether the appeal was refused; and, if so, for what reason was it refused?
§ Sir RUFUS ISAACSIt must not be assumed that I accept the statements of facts contained in the question. An application was made to me for a certificate under the Criminal Appeal Act, 1907, which I refused, as the decision of the Court of Criminal Appeal did not, in my judgment, involve any point of law of exceptional public importance.