CRUELTY TO BOY.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3642, 1 December 1920, Page 5

CRUELTY TO BOY.

“A PROPER FRIGHT." By trussing him up with a piece of new clothes line, and shutting him in a cupboard no wider than three fejet in its broadest part, Daisy Thurman, twenty-nine, of Addington ’feoad, Croydon, gave what she called a “proper fright” to her son George, agjed nine. The N.S.P.C.C., who her, suggested that this was a case of an unwanted child. The magistrates sent her to gaol for eight weeks, in the second division, saying they believed the cruelty was coinmittied in a fit of temper. Defendant is a single woman, and has one other child, a girl of eight. A third child 1 died. v

The story was that he had been at times kicked and beaten, and once tied to a bed-post. The cupboard incident was confirmed by neighbours. On July 23 he was so tightly bound that he could not move his arms, and the ends of the rope were passed through a hole In the stairs. Through this small hole, the only means of ventilation, he was given bread and meat for breakfast, but no drink. He was left at nine in morning, and the mother did not return until five in the afternoon. Mrs Jeal, who lives next door, heard the boy moaning. With two other women she climbed a garden fence, and, entering the kitchen, they found c the coal cupboard barricaded with a table, a large strunk, and a sewing l machine. After t'hey had draggec? these things aw T ay they lifted the hoy out. '

He was so cramped that he could not stand upright for some time, having been unable to change his position when in the cupboard. Defendant on oath, said the boy hac been a great trouble for years through keeping bad company. She denied neglecting him in a general way. He had tried to force open her bedroom door with a hammer and chisel in order to steal, and he had played truant. When she left him in the cupboard she expected to be home for dinner. , In answer to the chairman of the Bench she admitted f~t had a Are occurred the boy would have been burned to death. On hearing the sentence defendant gave way to tears. The children were handed over to the ‘N.S.P.C.C.