The Worst Case of Perjury – A Conisborough Theft

September 1926

Mexborough and Swinton Times September 24, 1926

The Worst Case of Perjury
A Conisborough Theft

“In all the 20 years I have been sitting at this court this is the worst of perjury I have listened to”, remarked Mr Mark Nokes at Doncaster West Riding Please Court on Saturday, in sentencing Stanley Hinchcliffe and Francis J. Gibbons, living in the same house in Montague Avenue, Conisbrough, to 3 months imprisonment for stealing lead, value 8 pounds, the property of Messrs Newman and Sons, Sheffield from a building site in the new village at Conisborough.

Evidence for the prosecution showed that a role of lead was missing from the building site on September 7, and the prisoners were seen by police on Tuesday morning of last week coming down the Conisborough crags. Each was carrying a sack containing the lead, which was found to have been cut up. P. C. Hibbert said that when he stopped Hinchcliffe, prisoner said that the sack containing old scrap, which he had been collecting for some time. Witness saw Gibbons drop his sack near Bush and hurried towards the new village.

On oath Hinchcliffe stated that the lead produced was not that which was in his sack when he was stopped. It was all lead which he had been collecting for several months, and which he kept in a cupboard at home. He intended selling it to a dealer. At the same time Gibbons was not with him.

Hinchcliffe’s wife identified the lead as that which had been put in a cupboard at home.

Gibbons pleaded that he had no dealings with the lead. He had not been out that morning, and when the police called he was getting ready to have a shave.

It was stated that Gibbons had been in trouble before.