South Yorkshire Times, July 13th, 1946

Playmates Bound And Gagged.
Denaby Boy’s Nocturnal Escapade.

The story of how two boys, aged eight and seven, were bound and gagged by a 16-years-old Denaby playmate and kept prisoner for the night in Edlington Welfare Park was told at Doncaster West Riding Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday, when the offender, summoned by the parents for assault, was placed on probation for two years.

The boys stated that after they had been playing together the defendant, when they were going home, pushed them into a shelter. He tied handkerchief round their mouths, and tied their hands with rope. He went to sleep on the floor and they cried themselves to sleep. Early in the morning, however, the youngest buy got free, untied the other and they ran home.

The boys’ parents said they searched for them all night with the help of police and relations. When they returned at 6 a.m. they found the boys had returned, distressed and wet.

In a statement to the police it was alleged that the culprit said he kept the boys in the shelter as he wanted company for his night out. He was afraid to go home because he had punctured the tyre of a bicycle he had borrowed.

The boy, in evidence, said that the boys had followed him and would not leave him, so they spent the night in a field.