TEN YEARS’ PENAL SERVITUDE AT 86.
Brutal Horse Thief Convicted.
John Williams, who is nearly eighty-six years old, was convicted at the West Kent Quarter Sessions at Maidstone recently, of horse stealing at Beckenham. He was the oldest prisoner who had been tried at these sessions within living memory. According to the evidence, Williams was seen with the horse near the field where it had been turned out, and when he was charged with stealing it he said : “ Had you been another minute you would have lost me. I should have been across the hills. I intended, if I got through this, to clear all the fields in the district and fill all the knackers’ yards in London.” . A hammer was found in his pocket, with which it was suggested he intended disabling the animals to disarm the suspicions of the horse slaughterer to whom he intended to sell the animal.
The jury at once found him guilty. “ I think you will be very pleased, gentlemen, that you returned that verdict,” said the Earl of Cranbrook, the chairman, “ because the prisoner is a very wicked old man. He has been eight times in prison for stealing horses in this way.” “ After getting the animals in his possession he no doubt knocked them almost to pieces with a hammer, and then took them to the knacker’s. It is sad to see an old man eighty-six years of age convicted of a crime of this sort.” It was then stated that Williams’s first conviction was in 1855, when he received a sentence of eighteen mouths for theft. "You have already had two terms of fuuiteeu years and seven years’ penal servitude,” said Lord Craubrook, ” besides a number of comparatively smaller sentences.
“ The court does not think on the present occasion that justice wduld be met by a less sentence than ten years’ penal servitude. I do not think you will steal any more horses. 1 ’
“ Cannot you give me a bit more ?” William asked in a defiant tone.
“I do not think you want more,” Lord Cranbrook replied.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/MH19081215.2.25
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Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 443, 15 December 1908, Page 4
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346TEN YEARS’ PENAL SERVITUDE AT 86. Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 443, 15 December 1908, Page 4
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