Child’s Hard Lot.

Pitiful Appeal To Bench Not To Be Sent Home

Yesterday, at Doncaster, Thomas Gilmore, miner, Denaby, and Annie Gilmore, his wife, were charged with ill-treating and neglecting a ten-year-old girl, the stepdaughter the female defendant.

A shocking story was told, the child while giving evidence crying bitterly, and at the end pitifully appealing to the Bench not tol be sent back the defendants.

On one occasion in October, it was stated, the girl was so frightened that she escaped from the house at ten o’clock at night by means of a blanket from the bedroom window, taking refuge with a relative.

She had black eyes, bruises, all over her body, and a sear her head. She was poorly nourished.

It was also stated that the female defendant, who went out to work, left the little girl two do the housework, and she had often been late for school and had been caned in consequence.

The female was sent prison for two months and the male defendant was fined 40s. for ill-treating the child and £3 for the neglect.

Sheffield Daily Telegraph – Wednesday 27 November 1918

Parents’ Brutality.

Thomas Gilmour, miner, Denaby, and his wife Annie were, at the Doncaster West Riding Court, yesterday, charged with ill-treating and neglecting their child Norah, aged 10.

Mr. W. Baddiley, who appeared for the prosecution on behalf of the N.S.P.C.C., said that the male defendant was the father and the female defendant the step-mother of the child.

On October 28 the child was assaulted and was so frightened that at 10 o’clock at night she got blanket, fastened it to the bedstead, let herself out of the window, dropping six feet to the ground and then ran to a distant relative at 71, Cliff View, for protection.

She had black eyes and bruises on the body, and Inspector Lloyd (N.S.P.C.C.) was sent for. On the following day Dr. Huey examined the child, and in consequence of her condition she was removed from the custody of the female defendant.

The child Norah, who cried piteously, spoke to a long period of ill-treatment. The female defendant had struck her on the head with a knife, had given her black eyes with her fist, pulled her down to the floor by the hair and kicked her, knocked her head against the fire guard, and struck her on the face with the shovel. Her “daddy’* had struck her on the head with the rolling pin because she had gone to her aunt Gilmour, and he had also struck her over the head with a strap.

The male prisoner was fined £5 or one month and the female prisoner was committed to prison for two months.