§ Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will give a detailed list of the number of occasions on which he has set up independent inquiries and did not implement and publish the results of such inquiries.
§ Mr. Merlyn ReesI assume that my hon. Friend is referring to investigations of the kind conducted by Detective Chief Superintendent Sills of the West Yorkshire Metropolitan Police into matters raised by Mr. George Ince concern-580W ing the handling of the Mountnessing bullion robbery investigation by the Essex Police. It is the long-standing and general practice not to publish the reports of such investigations for the reasons given by my hon. Friend the Minister of State during the debate on the Adjournment on 21st July.—[Vol. 935, c. 2037–2046].
Chief officers of police at my request conduct investigations in many cases in which a prisoner claims that he was wrongly convicted, and it would not be possible without disproportionate effort and expense to give the number of such investigations, or to list them.