The Home Secretary has issued a characteristic Memo- randum defending
his action in the case of the old shepherd of Dartmoor. Mr. Churchill states that the case attracted his attention early last year when he was "looking into the working of the new Prevention of Crime Act in order to find out whether or not it was increasing the severity and disparity of sentences." He was struck by "the grotesque contrast between 13 years of prison on the one hand, and .a theft of 2s. on the other," and found the old shepherd's record of previous convictions certainly not less terrible for its punishments fthan for its crimes. His crimes had not been accompanied
by cruelty or violence, and he had throughout his life been a nuisance, not a danger, to society. On the other hand, "he had been treated both in his previous sentences and in his present sentence with a severity which, if not unparalleled, is certainly exceptional and excessive." Having thus to his own obvious satisfaction vindicated his action in releasing the old shepherd, Mr. Churchill maintains, in conclusion, that the system of preventive detention is intended for dangerous and brutal criminals, but "among such characters there are no grounds, nor have there ever been any, for including the pilfering shepherd of Dartmoor." Apart from its florid rhetoric, Mr. Churchill's Memorandum is significant, coming after his recent reprimand of Magistrates, for its attack on the harshness of Judges.
Previous page
