Gaol for Youth with Cruel Streak

June 1939

Sheffield Evening Telegraph – Saturday 03 June 1939

Gaol for Youth with Cruel Streak

John T. Hanbury (20), a Denaby pit-hand, who was said by the police to have a streak of cruelty in him, was sent to prison for three months at the Doncaster Court to-day for an assault on Elsie May Severn (10).

Hanbury pleaded guilty. There was no suggestion in the evidence of an indecent assault.

Last Saturday the girl, along with others, were playing in the old Denaby woods, when Hanbury asked them if they knew they were trespassing. They took no notice of him and knocked the girl down.

The other two girls ran away screaming and two men came up. They knew the defendant, and after chasing him, asked him why he had done it. He said something about the girl getting him summoned last time.