BRUTAL STEPFATHER

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20278, 21 August 1937, Page 12

BRUTAL STEPFATHER

“ Shocking Cruelty ” to Child of Five Doctor Tells of Burns by Cigarette-ends

With blisters on fingers and toes and behind her knees, apparently caused deliberately by cigarette burns, five-year-old (Hilda Bungey gave evidence standing on a chair at North London, when her stepfather, Stanley James Bartter : 26, cab-washer, of Stoke Newington, was sent to prison for six months with hard labour for cruelty. A similar summons brough by the N.S.P.c.c. against Bartters’s wife. Dora Joan, was dismissed. The magistrate, Mr Herbert Metcalfe, described Burner's conduct as “shocking brutality and cruelty of the most horrible description.” Dr Leon M. Sliirlow, of Stoke Newington Road, told the Court that he found eight or a dozen burns on Hie child's fingers and locs. They might, he added, have been done with a cigarette-end. There was a bruise at the hack of one hand, and the right eye had been blackened. The child was under-nourished. “Daddy Hit Me.” Inspector Albert E. Rivers, of the

N.S.P.C.C., stated that when he asked the child who bruised her eye and nose she replied: “Daddy. He hit my head against the wall.” When ho asked Hilda who had made the marks at the back of each knee, she, did not reply, but looked terrified at Bartter. The mother burst into tears. When the child was brought into court she nodded or shook her head In reply to most of the magistrate’s questions. In whispers she answered: "Daddy bumped my head against the wall.” She denied that her fingers and toes had ever hurt her. Banter, In evidence, denied that he had ever burnt the child or bumped her head against the wall. He had never done more than smack her. Tim magistrate stated: "I do not believe a word Bartter has said. This child Is the illegitimate child of his wife. I'm not sure one would have difficulty in finding a motive for the 111-treatment." The •child was later taken to an L.G.C. children's home