HC Deb 17 December 1953 vol 522 cc101-2W
109. Mr. Emrys Hughes

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he is taking to deal with the increase in sexual crime due to the presence of United States Air Force camps in this country.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe

I have no evidence to support the suggestion that members of the United States forces have been responsible for an increase in sexual crime in the accepted sense of the term. It may be that the hon. Member has in mind the wider problems of sexual immorality which arise in the neighbourhood of service camps, especially when men are serving abroad. The presence of large numbers of men in camps inevitably tends to attract women and girls of a certain type, but the police, who are responsible for the maintenance of public order, are alive to the problem and, with the fullest co-operation of the American authorities, take all possible steps to deal with it.