A CLERICAL SCANDAL.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2106, 4 October 1875, Page 2

A CLERICAL SCANDAL.

At the Anglesey Assizes, July 24, before Chief Justice Coleridge, Thomas Morris Hughes, clerk in holy orders, and late curate in sole charge^of 'Llanddanielfab and Llanedwen, Anglesey, was indicted for knowingly and wilfully causing to be inserted in the register of deaths for the sub-district of Beaumaris certain false entries relating to the death of Ernest Hamer. The deceased, was the illegitimate child of Miss Alice Hamer, accused's stepdaughter* and it was alleged < by'Hhe prosecution that Mr Hughes himself was the putative father. The learned judge, in his charge to the grand jury, said it would be absurd, from the evidence, to doubt that he was its father, and as the child had died in a somewhat unexplained manner, they might think he was worse than that. Mr Trevor Perkins, instructed by Mr Poland, solicitor to the Treasury, conducted the prosecution?on behalf of the Registrar-General, and Mr Morgan Lloyd, Q.C., M.P., was retained for the defence. Lewis Morris, registrar of births and deaths at Llangoed, near Beaumaris, proved that accused gave him information about the death of this child which was subsequently found to be false. Several witnesses, 1 including Dr Richard Arthur Pritchard, a physician and surgeoQ practising at Conway, deposed to the facts connecting the accused with the paternity of the child. To a registrar in Carnarvonshire with whom he registered the child's birth he had given information differing from that given to the Anglesey registrar. Mr Morgan Lloyd, while .not disputing the facts, contended that the information given ■'w.as substantially correct, and in no material* respect contrary to the statute. Accused was" found guilty. In passing sentence, his lordship said he felt it his duty to reduce him from the dignity and position of a clergyman and freeman to that of a slave.r and should order him to "slavery" for five years. Before passing this sentence his lordship ascertained that a prosecution upon a similar charge in Carnarvonshire would be abandoned, and this was taken into consideration in awarding the termof penal servitude.. ■