HC Deb 12 August 1913 vol 56 cc2267-8W
Sir RICHARD COOPER

asked the Home Secretary whether a convict named Henry White, then No. 1,184, of Portland Prison, has confessed to committing a burglary at Tottenham, for which John Mack, or M'Auliffe, convict 1,490, was sentenced at the Middlesex Sessions in August, 1908, to six years' penal servitude; and whether he has taken any, and, if so, what, steps in regard to the matter?

Mr. ELLIS GRIFFITH

It is not the case that anyone has confessed to committing the offence of which Mack was convicted. White, after his arrest, made a statement to the police in which he admitted, amongst other offences breaking into a house at Tottenham, but this house was not the one which Mack was convicted of breaking into, and it was broken into on a different day. When White's statement was brought to the notice of the Home Office in 1908 careful inquiries were made, but no ground whatever was found for doubting the justice of Mack's conviction.