FIENDISH CRUELTY.

Hokitika Guardian, 6 September 1926, Page 4

FIENDISH CRUELTY.

J.' 11W’ i/aivxj. ' -- LONDON, July 22. “It is incredible in these days that anybody should be guilty of such fiendish cruelty to a child as you have been.” said the Liverpool stipendiary yesterday in sentencing John Roger Simpson, a labourer, and his uife, Agnes Cecelia Simpson, of Upper Dal-ton-street each to six months’ hard labour for illirenting Thomas Ernest Simpson, aged 9. It was stated that the man was the frther of the boy and the woman the stepmother. Guided by moans, the police found the boy at 10 p.m. lying on a bed in the corner o,f a room with both his arms tied tightly behind his back to the bed-rail with a woman’s silk stockings. His ankles were also tied. The boy was in a shocking state with bruises all over his body. When the woman returned she said: “I beat him with a belt and tied him to the bed because bo stole a. loaf.” Tt was also alleged that at noon the same diy the woman said to a. neighbour: ”1 came back just in time as lie lias bitten -through his bonds. I don’t think he will escape again as I have tied him to the bed.” A doctor said the child was not p>operlv fed and his hands mid wrists were bruised and swollen through the tightness of the bond.