Penistone, Stocksbridge and Hoyland Express – Friday 10 January 1902
Scarf Pin Snatched at Denaby.
William Gorman, aged 35, miner, was indicted for having stolen from the person of Benjamin Cohen, a gold scarf pin, at Conisboro’, on Dec. 24th.
Mr Alexander, barrister, appealed for the prosecution, and the prisoner, who pleaded not guilty, was not legally represented.-
The story of the prosecution was that Cohen who is a miner living at Denaby was the possessor of a gold American dollar scarf pin. On the day before Christmas day he was walking on the road with his brother-in-law, when they met prisoner, whom the prosecutor did not know. The prisoner stopped and spoke to them. He noticed the pin and asked Cohen to sell it to him, but Cohen said it was a keepsake, and he could not sell it. The prisoner then asked him to lend him the pin, but he refused, whereupon the prisoner snatched the pin from his tie. A struggle followed, in the course of which the prisoner struck Cohen in the mouth with his fist. The pin disappeared and Cohen had not seen it since. Next the prisoner met Cohen and told him the pin hail fallen on the ground during the struggle. He was very sorry and he would him the value of it, but Cohen had then placed the matter in the hands of the police.
Police-constable Barnett said that when he arrested the prisoner at his home. 2, Edlington street and charged him with stealing the pin, he replied – “It’s a lie.”
On the conclusion of the evidence, the jury consulted for a time and eventually the foreman said they found the prisoner guilty of taking the pin, but they were not that he intended to steal it.
The Chairman: That’s the point you have to try. To my mind the case is clear enough that the prisoner took the pin, and intended to keep it. In the course of further remarks he pointed out that snatching of the pin and the striking of Cohen in the mouth were scarcely the acts of a man who wanted to borrow an article.
The jury then reconsidered their decision, and found the prisoner guilty.
The prisoner, who had been in custody since Dec. 28th. was sentenced to one month’s imprisonment with hard labour.