The Maybrick case : a treatise on the facts of the case, and of the proceedings in connection with the charge, trial, conviction, and present imprisonment of Florence Elizabeth Maybrick / by Alexander William MacDougall.
- Date:
- 1891
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The Maybrick case : a treatise on the facts of the case, and of the proceedings in connection with the charge, trial, conviction, and present imprisonment of Florence Elizabeth Maybrick / by Alexander William MacDougall. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
35/648 (page 17)
![recojtDised him. Well, I never saw him. I give you this statement to show Schweisso, the you that honestly I could not recognise him if it had not been for the police. You are aware that at the coroner's court the coroner dwelt chiefly on Mrs. Maybrick's movements in summing up, and that it was published in the local papers that the case would be quashed up. I told the inspector this. He said, I have seen it myself, but I have a different opinion, for it's going to end against her, or something to this effect. Now, with regard to Mr. Brierley. Of course, I should not have recognised him at all if it had not been for the police ; but, as I was for the prosecution, I went by their orders, which I am sorry for now, for they acted in a very shameful manner. Well, after they returned from luncheon, that inspector told me to nod to him when I recog- nised Brierley, as he would be in court in two or three minutes. Well, I could not recognise him when he came ; but a policeman came up to me and showed me where Mr. Brierley was. I give you this statement voluntarily, to show > ou, as far as I am concerned, that it was a regular got-up case of the police.— Yours very faithfully, Alfred Schweisso. The attention of the Home Secretary having been directed to this letter Home of Alfred /Schweisso's, he wrote in reply that the Home Office having no jurisdiction over the police who were engaged in the case, he could not make any investigation into their conduct—that it was a matter for the loccd authorities. This is a new and startling departi^re in criminal procedure. The local police are, it is true, now under the control of the Joint Committee of the County Council, but the police^ however controlled, when they appear in our Courts conducting criminal proceedings, appear there as representing the Queen, and not any suck elected body as the Committee of the County Council. It is difficult- to conceive a more revolutionary doctrine than this evasion of duty— this shifting off responsibility for the administration of criminal justice from the Crown to the people—than this doctrine of Mr. Matthews, that if the conduct of the police in any criminal proceedings should require investigation, there is no jurisdiction at the Home Office. It is the very corner-stone of our Constitution that criminal pro- ceedings are conducted in the name of the Queen ; and the police, when they appear in our Cotirts, are the representatives of the Queen, and not of the County Council. The wildest revolutionary demagogue has never propounded such a doctrine as this / Where next will Mr. Matthews land us ? Moreover, the police themselves to a man, whether employed and controlled by local authorities or not, would repudiate being the representatives in our Courts of any one except the Queen.— A. W. McD.] Mr. Addison further said that— What she did for the rest of the week until Thursday, the 28th, when she was timed to come home I do not know, but on the 28th, exactly a week after she had gone away to London, she returned to Battlecrease House. The next day, the 29th of March, the Grand National was run in Liverpool, and both she and her husband went there. He came back at seven at nio-ht, and it was evident to the servants that there had been a quarrel between them. 3](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2193423x_0035.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
