§ Sir J. LONSDALEasked why the three men who escaped from the internment camp at Islington were not confined in a prison, seeing that they were persons of British nationality under suspicion of disloyalty to the realm; why the police authorities were not able to issue a photograph of one of the men; and why the precaution has not been adopted of photographing and indexing all interned persons?
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Mr. SAMUELThe three men in question had not been sentenced for any offence, but were interned under Regulation 14B of the Defence of the Realm Regulations in the interest of the public safety. That Regulation requires that the interned persons shall be treated in the same manner as prisoners of war, and prisoners of war are not kept under prison conditions except in case of misconduct. All interned persons are indexed and their descriptions are available, and for some time past persons interned under Regulation 14B have been photographed by the police before being taken to the camp. Two of the escaped prisoners, including the man specially mentioned in the question, have been recaptured.