§ Mr. GINNELLasked the Home Secretary why the man Lewis, who recently, to the knowledge of the police, burned a peasant's new wooden house at Coombe Martin, Devonshire, has not been prosecuted; whether he is aware that the police have ascertained that Lewis first stole the contents of the house and then set it on fire to give the impression that the contents were consumed with the house; and on whose recommendation Lewis has since been employed on the land attached to Dartmoor Prison?
§ Sir G. CAVEThe hon. Member has been misinformed. The man to whom he refers bears a good character and, far from the police having ascertained that he has burnt down a house after stealing the contents of it, he is not now and never has been suspected by them of anything of the kind. I must add that it is most unjust to a respectable man employed as a labourer on a Government establishment that an unfounded charge of this character should be embodied in a question in the House of Commons. The hon. Member928W could readily have ascertained the value of the information supplied to him by communicating with the Home Office or the police.