End of Secret Inquiry
End of Secret Inquiry is an article published in the Weekly Dispatch on 3 may 1914.
End of Secret Inquiry
The Secretary for Scotland end the Fate of Oscar Slater.
The Secretary of Scotland, Mr. T. McKinnon Wood, was ordered the holding of the secret investigation into the case of Oscar Slater, who is undergoing penal servitude for the murder of Miss Gilchrist at Glasgow five years ago, has received the evidence at the inquiry, which has just been concluded by the Sheriff of Lanarkshire (Mr. J. G. Millar, K.C.). Further action rests with Mr. McKinnon Wood, and his decision is expected at an early date. Present indications do not appear to be in favour of Slater's release.
Mr. David Cook, solicitor, Glasgow, who took an active part in securing the inquiry, joins with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who urged that a public inquiry should follow and that it should include an investigation of the methods employed by the police in the case. "At the sheriff's inquiry,"
he says, "evidence was not taken on oath. Slater was not present, nor was he represented. There was no cross-examination of the witnesses. Nobody was in the room but the sheriff, his clerk, and the witness. The clerk took down the evidence in longhand as a continuous statement by the witness, so that shades of meaning involved in the relation of answer to question were lost. It seems wrong that a case tried by a judge of the High Court and a jury should be retried by the judge of an inferior court."
