§ Mr. T. Smithasked the Home Secretary the number of violent assaults made on officers at Dartmoor Prison during the past 12 months; the number of sentences of corporal punishment awarded; the number carried out; how many sentences have been quashed; and the reasons for not carrying out the recommendations of the visiting justices?
§ Mr. H. MorrisonThere have during the last 12 months been seven cases of gross personal violence against officers at Dartmoor Prison. As a result of three of these assaults sentences of corporal punishment were awarded against four convicts. In none of these cases was the sentence quashed, but in one case, where two convicts were concerned, I reduced from 18 to 12 the number of strokes ordered for one of them because, though both were guilty of violence, there was a difference in the degree of guilt. As regards the remaining four cases, one has not yet been dealt with by the Board of Visitors; in two cases the Board awarded 597W punishments other than corporal punishment because, I understand, there was medical evidence that the prisoner was unfit for corporal punishment; and the fourth case was the case of two convicts who, while awaiting corporal punishment for an assault on an officer, committed a further assault on the governor. The sentence of corporal punishment for the first assault was carried out but for the second assault a different type of penalty was imposed.