Mexborough & Swinton Times, January 31st, 1925.
Denaby Widow Victimised
At the Doncaster Borough Police Court, on Monday, Thomas Lyons, said to belong to St. Helens, pleaded guilty to stealing a watch valued at £4 10s., and an overcoat and 12s. 6d.from his lodgings in Milbank Street, Doncaster. He was committed to prison for three months on each charge, the sentences to run concurrently.
At the conclusion of this case prisoner was handed to the Doncaster West Riding Police and later brought before the West Riding magistrates on a charge of obtaining, by false pretences, from D. Gaukroger, a Denaby widow, food and lodgings value £2 15s. Prisoner pleaded guilty.
Supt. Minty explained that up to December last prisoner had been employed at Messrs. Pilkington Bros. glass works at Kirk Sandall. On Wednesday afternoon, Jan. 14, prisoner, along with a young woman whom he introduced as his wife, went to the house of prosecutrix and asked for lodgings, telling her that he was a collier from Doncaster, that he had been up all night and that he had got work at Denaby Colliery, to which he was going to work on the night shift.
Prosecutrix believed the story and found the couple board and lodgings to the value stated. On Wednesday, Jan. 21 Lyons was arrested by the Doncaster Borough Police on another charge. During the time Lyons was with Mrs. Gaukroger he frequently went out of the house, ostensibly to go to work, and would return with his face blacked. This was all deception, for enquiries showed that his whole statement was a fabrication, that he did not work at the colliery at all. He was a man very well able to work and it was a very mean trick indeed to impose on a widow who had only just recently lost her husband., who was killed on the railway.
Prisoner told the Bench that he admitted the fact but said he had shouldered other responsibilities than his own or he would not have been there. At Christmas time he was in good work, but the young lady got turned out of her home and he shouldered her responsibilities. When he went to Denaby the girl went with him.
Supt. Minty explained that prisoner had been sentenced that morning by the Borough magistrates. The Chairman (Mr. E. L. Bingham) described the offence as very mean.
Prisoner was sentenced to four months imprisonment, to run concurrently with the other sentences. In connection with this case B. Brown (20), of Doncaster, pleaded guilty to having obtained a Dudley, a snap tin, cigarettes and matches by false pretences from Fred Wheatley, a grocer, of Cliff View, Denaby, of the value of 5s. 10d. Supt. Minty said the girl had been passed off as the last prisoner’s wife.
On Jan. 19 she went to the shop of the prosecutor and made purchases. She told him that she and her ‘husband’ were living with Mrs. Gaukroger. She said she had no money but would pay on Friday when the man get his money. On another day she went to obtain some cigarettes and matches, and later, when arrested and charged, she said ‘That’s right.’