AN UNNATURAL SON.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1265, 28 May 1886, Page 3

AN UNNATURAL SON.

At lie Geelong Assize. Court, over which • Wt Justice Holroyd presided, the chief case wag that of Thomas Minogue, who surrendered to his hail on a , charge of having beaten and ill-treated one Margaret Kelly on the 18r.h October. 1883, and imprisoned V her in'a house for a period of two years and ! ytwo months ; also with having several s ‘ y \times abused her during that period. The Crown Preseeutor detailed the circumstances of the case, as adduced at the ! Police Court investigation, and called 1 Margaret Kelly a widow, and mother of the prisoner, who narrated that her first husband.died in 1854, aud she subsequently darned Thomas Kelly, her last husband, : gnd lived on a farm, near Moyston, where Kelly was subsequently accidentally hilled. , fjurae time after this, in a" fit of despondency, she attempted to cut her thr al, and I was afterwards attended to at tho Ararat Hospital, from which she was taken by prisoner, and went to his residence at Darriwell. She was well treated for some time. Amongst the things she took to prisoner's house when she went there were two dep' sit receipts on the Ararat bank—one for LlOOand the other for I.B'h ±*ri- | eonrr’s wife subsequently tonK them out of her (witness’s) l>ox and gave them to pri - soner. Some time after irer arrival at prisonei’s place she was taken Irefore Mr "Dwyer, solicitor, in Geelong, and signed errtain documents under compulsion ly • threats. Later on she was taken and thrust into a building made fir her confinement. She was 'allowed out of the building ■occasionally : sometimes for short peiiods of intervals of from three to nine days. Prisoner did hot ill treat her until she was placed in tho dungeon. She was frequently gagged and placed in a strait poke, thrown down, and otherwi-e ill-used whilst so confined. She remembered on one occasion lieing gagged and thrown violently upon her lied by the prisoner and his wife, which caused an injury to her hack mid a flew of blood from her month. The drinking ■water she sometimes receive.! from prisoner's wife was given to her in a small tin (produced), the liquid having been previously used in bluing clothes, and she was often obliged to drink other filthy liquids. She was also occasionally compelled to eat tho seeds that she found in the packing of her mattress to appease her hunger. In answer to Mr Johnstone, she said that .-it,-was' not true that tho prif oner had bought property for her. Neither was it true that she was out of her mind during the period between, her -husband’s death and her entrance into the Ararat Hospital. She .d.id pot try: td Commit suicide m, re than emee. DrP. A. Choker gave evidence that in September, the prisoner brought Mrs Kelly'before him, aud wished him to examine her, with a view to know whether the ws in a fit mental state to transact business. Witness examined her .arid found •her to' "be ‘perfectly sane. He saw her again at. tbe .'clps&nl; last year, and found hermnch weaker than when he first e.x« amined her. Margaret Duggan, a domestic servant, who hart” been in the prisoner’s emplqy in November of last year, gave a description of the place of confinement, and remembered hearing Mrs Kelly, on one-occasion, cry but, 11 1 am starving alive * in a dungeon,” within tho hearing of Mrs Minogue. The addresses to the jury by the Crown Prosecutor and ■Mr W. fcl. Johnstone (pri-

soner’s counsel) and His Honor wore very lengthy. The latter’s summing up was the on any prisoner tried in the Court some years. Not a favorable utterance to the prisoner was enunciated, and the address was characterised by a warmth that indicated to the jury what their duty was. They found the prisoner guilty on both counts. His Honor, in sentencing prisoner, commented strongly on his unfeeling conduct towards his mother, and added that he could not express words of pity for a man who had put a wire gag in his mother’s mouth and caused her to live in a room that was not fit for a dog to lie in. Prisoner was then sentenced to six years’ imprison- . ment with hard labor ; the first fortnight in the nine months and every subsequent three months to I e spent injsolilary confinement.— ‘ Telegraph. l ' ■