CHAPTER SEVEN
A Petition for Release
Denied by the Secretary of State
I had been at Aylesbury about eight months when I petitioned the Secretary of State for a reconsideration of my case, with a view to my release. To this I received the usual official reply, “Not sufficient grounds.”
A prisoner may petition the Secretary of State every three months. In my opinion, the privilege of petitioning on a case should be reduced from four times a year to once a year, with the provision that if anything of importance to a prisoner transpires within that period it may be duly submitted to the Secretary of State on recommendation of the governor or director; that all complaints regarding food, treatment, or medical attention should be referred to the visiting director in the first instance, instead of the Secretary of State, who under the present system passes it back to the directors for the necessary investigation. This would do away with the continual daily distress and irritation and disappointment created in the prison on receipt of unfavorable replies from the Home Office. A prisoner petitions. A private inquiry is held, to which the prisoner is not a party, and of which she has no information, nor does she receive any during its progress or after its conclusion, save that the result, which is nearly always negative, is communicated to her. In this inquiry any one who is opposed to the prisoner may seek to influence the official mind. I will state a case in point. A friend asked the Secretary of State for the United States, the Hon. John Hay, to interest himself in my case. Mr. Hay replied that he had been informed by the Home Office that I had been “a disobedient and troublesome prisoner.”
Report of My Misconduct Refuted
When I was told this at a visit I had my name entered to see the governor. I insisted that the governor should inform me when, and after what breach of the rules, such a report had been sent to the Home Office. After carefully looking through my penal record he could find no entry to that effect, and concluded by saying that I must have been misinformed. He said that my conduct was good, and that he had never made any report to the contrary. Obviously, therefore, this report from the Home Office to Mr. Hay was due to an adverse influence, of which I have still no knowledge. Statements are made against a prisoner, of the nature of which she is entirely ignorant. Being ignorant, she has no way of refuting them. Worse still, they are retained in the Home Office to her dying day, and the unfortunate woman knows nothing of them or their effect. The only thing certain is that she is further condemned.
Need of a Court of Criminal Appeal
The Home Office, while exercising a private function of reconsideration grounded on the royal prerogative of mercy, emphatically disclaims being a court of appeal or a judicial tribunal in any sense of the word. Yet the consideration of a convict’s case rests alone with the Secretary of State. It is a matter of unwritten law that the Home Secretary shall act individually and solely upon his own responsibility, and none of his colleagues are to assume or take part therein.
There are numerous instances where judges, witnesses, and juries have gone wrong. Indeed, it will be found that even in cases which have seemed the clearest and least complicated in the trial grievous mistakes have been made. But in England the blame rests on the public and the bar in that no means are provided to set the wrong right. What a difference it would have made in my life if I had been granted a second trial! I could have called other witnesses, submitted fresh evidence, and refuted false testimony. Is it not the climax of injustice that men and women, if sued for money, even for a few shillings, can appeal from court to court—even to the House of Lords, the English court of last resort; but when character, all that life holds dear, and life itself, are in jeopardy, a prisoner’s fate may depend upon the incompetent construction of one man, and there is no appeal?
A hard-worked Secretary of State, whose time, night and day, is crowded with every kind of duty, correspondence, and labor, in the House of Commons or in the Home Office, has to consider a vast number of petitions, complaints, and miscarriages of justice, or too severe sentences, any one of which might require hours and sometimes days to investigate. He is assisted by several officers, but, strange to say, it is no part of their qualifications (or that of the Home Secretary himself), that they should be familiar with the criminal law or the prosecution or defense of prisoners. These permanent officials are, besides, occupied with hundreds of other matters which come before the Home Office, on which they have to guide their chief. Think of the untold sufferings of individuals and families, the shame and degradation which they would be spared, if England had a court of criminal appeal.