§ Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that Gunner John Brown, No. 1511, formerly of the 36th Battery of the Royal Field Artillery, was certified as insane at Wandsworth Prison on 28th October, 1917, and was sent to Berkshire County Asylum, from which he was discharged as sane on 14th February, 1918; whether he is aware that at no time did the medical officer of that asylum regard Gunner Brown as insane; by whose orders he was medically examined in October, 1917, and by whom he was certified insane; and by whose orders Gunner Brown was detained in Berkshire County Asylum?
§ Mr. SHORTTGunner John Gore Brown was certified insane on 22nd October, 1917, while serving a sentence of eighteen months' imprisonment for housebreaking in His Majesty's Prison, Wandsworth, and was removed to Berkshire County Asylum. The certificate was given by two magistrates, members of the Prison Visiting Committee, and two medical men, and the order for transfer to an asylum was made by my predecessor under the Criminal Lunatics Act, 1884. I have no information as to the opinion formed by the medical officer of the asylum, but Brown, who ceased to be a criminal lunatic on the expiration of his sentence on 26th November, 1917, appears to have been detained as a lunatic for a further period of two and a half months before he could be discharged as sane.