AMAZING MISTAKE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 86, 13 April 1931, Page 8

AMAZING MISTAKE.

PRISONER RELEASED TOO SOON. SAVED SIX MONTHS' GAOL. An incident unprecedented in the annals of British criminal law was brought to the notice of the Home Secretary," Mr. J. It. Clynes. It was the release in errOr of a prisoner who had served only half his sentence. Mr. Clynes has admitted the mistake, but says he is powerless to correct it. The man was sentenced at Marlborough Street Police Court last June to two terms of six months' imprisonment, to run couseoutively. It was the prosecutor, who had been robbed of hundreds of pounds, who found that he was at large long before the sentence was up. The prosecutor wrote to the Home Office, saying: "I spent more than £120 in prosecuting this man, and it would appear to me to be a matter for the closest investigation."

Four weeks later the Home Office replied, admitting 1 that the man had been released without serving the term 10 which he was sentenced. Sir Ernley Blackwell. the legal Assistant UnderSecretary, wrote that the man had been sentenced to six months' imprisonment on each of two charges. "It was apparently the magistrate's intention/' he added, "that the two sentences should bo served consecutively; but the warrants of commitment which were lodged at Wormwood Scrubs prison contained no such direction. The Governor therefore had no authority to detain—after he had served two concurrent sentences of six months' imprisonment less the usual remission. I "The omission to include in the warrants a direction that the sentences were to be consecutive was due to an unfortunate oversight at Marlborough Street Police Court, -which occurred during a period of great pressure, and is, so far as the Secretary of State is aware, unprecedented at that or any other court. "There appears to be no power to rearrest—and to require him to serve a further period of imprisonment in respect of the same charges; and the Secretary of State understands that the: magistrate concurs in this view." The prosecutor has now written to the Home Secretary pointing out that this case was discovered by chance and suggesting that this kind of thing mav have occurred before and not have' been discovered.