RESULT OF A DEATH-BED CONFESSION.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1061, 15 April 1882, Page 4

RESULT OF A DEATH-BED CONFESSION.

The Home Secretary has just ordered the release of two Staffordshire farmers, named Johnson and Clowes, who, a couple of years ago, were convicted of the mutilation of Isaac Brooks, and sentenced by Mr Justice Bowen to 10 years’ penal servitude. Brooks, on his death-bed at Christmas confessed that the mutilation was selfinflicted. At the time of the trial he swore that he had been suddenly attacked by three assailants, two of whom he positively identified as Clowes and Johnson, while a third man, whom he failed to recognise was acquitted. The motive assigned for the alleged ■outrage was the desire of Clowes to avenge the seduction of his sister by Brooks some years previously. There was no other evidence to convict the prisoners except Brooks’ unsupported statement. There is now very little doubt that the man at the time he made it was suffering from a form of mania. He was, in all probability, equally demented when he mutilated himself. Such outrages upon their ownpersons are comparatively common among the inmates of lunatic asylums. The health of the two victims of so deplorable a miscarriage of justice has been seriously impaired by the effects of their confinement, and it is proposed to give them a sum of money by way of compensation.