HC Deb 13 February 1911 vol 21 cc846-7W
Viscount HELMSLEY

asked the Home Secretary what were the sentences of the four prisoners whose sentences have been remitted since 1st December, 1910, for reasons neither administrative, nor on grounds of health, nor for any special reason such as facilitating the expulsion of an alien; how much of the sentence was remitted in each case; what were the grounds in each case on which the remission was made; why one prisoner, who had a term of preventive detention to follow his term of penal servitude, was released on licence; and whether this release indicates a change of policy at the Home Office with regard to the Prevention of Crime Act, 1908?

Mr. CHURCHILL

One was released after serving a few days on the application of the prosecutors, concurred in by the chairman of the court that tried him; another was released after serving ten weeks of a sentence of four months on the application of the magistrate who had sentenced him; a third, a boy of seventeen, who had been sent to prison largely to remove him from a bad home, was released after serving two months out of six, on employment away from home being offered him; and the fourth, a woman, was released after serving eleven months out of eighteen in order that she might go to a home where she would have suitable care and training. The circumstances attending the release of the convict from Dartmoor have already been made public. They do not indicate any general change of policy.