§ Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCKasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has received any Report from Kenya Colony upon the trial of a white settler named Abraham, who flogged a native to death; and what action he proposes to take in the matter?
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Mr. THOMASA report on the trial and verdict, in this case was received by my predecessor, and I am circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT a copy of a despatch which was sent to the Governor on the case to which the Noble Lord refers. In addition, my predecessor has taken up with the Governor of Kenya certain questions with regard to the administration of justice in such matters, and I propose to await the Governor's reply before carrying the matter further.
Following is a copy of the despatch referred to:
(Copy. Kenya—No. 1753.)
"Downing Street,
20th December, 1923.
SIR,
I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch No. 1563, of the 12th of October, transmitting a report on the trial and verdict in the case of Rex versus Abraham and others, signed by the Judge before whom the case was tried.
2. I have read the papers relating to this trial with close attention, and I must express my abhorrence of a crime which appears to me to offer no extenuating circumstance.
3. I have further to observe that my legal advisers, who have carefully studied the report of the case, are of opinion that a verdict of anything less than manslaughter is quite irreconcilable with the facts. A verdict of manslaughter would no doubt have involved a more adequate punishment.
4. I fully recognise that cases of this kind have been of rare occurrence in the history of the Colony, and that the vast majority of the British settlers in Kenya are as free from any tendency to ill-treat natives as are British settlers in other parts of the world. I am, however, bound to record my opinion that such cases as have occurred in Kenya have been marked by great brutality, and that no sufficient punishment has been meted out to the offenders.
5. So long as this condition of affairs remains, the jury system can only be regarded, so far as cases of this nature are concerned, as on its trial. I share the reluctance of my predecessors to interfere with an institution which is so closely bound up with British traditions of justice; but it is clear that in the special conditions of Kenya the working of the system requires to be carefully watched.
6. I must, therefore, lay it down as a definite instruction that, in any future High Court cases in which a native or a non-native is charged with causing death or bodily hurt to a non-native or native respectively, a shorthand report of the trial must be furnished to me, in order that I may be in a better position to judge, with the assistance of my legal advisers, to what extent justice is being impartially administered between the two races.
310W7. In addition, it should be the invariable rule in cases of this kind that the trial should take place in, and the jury be summoned from, a province distant from the neighbourhood in which the crime was committed.
I have, etc.,
(Signed) DEVONSHIRE."