Five Years Gaol and the “Cat”

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 94, 12 July 1927, Page 6

Five Years Gaol and the “Cat”

ROBBER’S PUNISHMENT MILLS BOMB AS CLUB William Wilsher, aged 51, a miner out of employment, was sentenced to 20 strokes of the “cat” and five years’ penal servitude by Mr. Justice Greer at Leeds Assizes recently for robbery with violence from Miss Lavinia Mary Pressick, a cook at the Nottingham Sanatorium, East Yorkshire. On the night of August 20 last Miss Pressick was walking from the tram terminus to the sanatorium when she observed a man coming toward her. As he reached her he lurched forward and she felt a blow on the back of her head. She got a momentary glimpse of the man’s face and noticed that he had a ginger moustache. She then fell unconscious.

Next morning a man on his way to work found Miss Pressick unconscious in an adjoining field, and near her was a bludgeon—a Mills bomb tied on the end of an iron bar nine inches long—with stains on it. Her handbag was found in a drain, but two £1 notes which it had contained were missing. Miss Pressick remained in hospital till the following November.

After his arrest Wilsher made a statement to the police, in which he said he had hit a girl on the head after having had a lot of drink.