Mexborough & Swinton Times – Friday 20 November 1903
Conisboro’ Poachers
Albert Frost and John Coxidge, labourers, Conisboro’, were summoned for having contravened the Poaching Prevention Act at that place on the 19th inst. Coxidge failed to appear.
Sergt. Horton deposed that at 2.15 a.m. on the date in question he met the two defendants about a mile out of Conisboro’, both proceeding in the direction of Edlington. He spoke to both of them.
At eleven o’clock the same morning he was keeping observation at the bottom of Clifton Hill, in company with P.C. Duffin, when he saw the defendants coming down Doncaster road, both of them walking side by side. When defendants saw witness and P.C. Duffin they ran down a lane leading to Brook Square. Witness and his companion ran after the defendants, and when they came on to the Doncaster road again they caught them.
They noticed that Coxidge’s pockets were very bulky. Upon him they found the game bag (produced), tied round his shoulders. It contained four pheasants and a rabbit. In Frost’s pocket they discovered the gun (produced), which was in two pieces. Both defendants had a large number of full and empty cartridges in their pockets, and each had a cap upon his head and a large slouch hat in his pocket. The trousers of both men were wet nearly up to their knees, as though they had been in long grass.
Witness told both men they would be reported, when Frost remarked, “Think on, you found no game on me.”
Both defendants had come from the direction of Doncaster road. P.C. Duffin corroborated, adding that the game was newly killed, and was quite warm.
Frost pleaded that he had a right to kill game on certain land, and he went there on the date named. Frost, who had been previously convicted, was fined 40s. and costs; and the Bench ordered the gun to be forfeited. Coxidge was fined 30s. and costs.