Serious Charge – Strange Denaby Case – Man Accused of Assault

May 1908

Sheffield Daily Telegraph – Friday 29 May 1908

Strange Denaby Case

A serious charge was preferred against a young married man named Robert Bennett, collier, of Denaby, at the Doncaster West Riding Court yesterday, defendant being accused assaulting Rose Southall about midnight the 20th inst.

The complainant described herself as a housemaid waitress at present out of situation. She is an attractive looking young woman, and said that on Wednesday she went to Barnsley to see some friends, and returned to Mexborough by the 11 p.m. train, arriving at 11.25. She then found that the train did not stop at Conisbro’, and she went into the town with the object of getting a tram to Denaby.

In the Montagu Square she saw the defendant walking towards Denaby. She did not know him, but asked him if there was likely be another tram to Denaby. He replied “No, the last tram has gone.’’ He also said he had missed the tram, and was walking from Swinton Station to Denaby. She asked if had any objection to her walking along with him, and he replied, “Not at all.”

They went along together, and talked on the way, he telling her that he was living with his brother-in-law, a. man named Dutton, at Denaby. After passing the Miners’ Inm and before reaching Don View he caught her round the waist and told her not to walk so fast, and she told him she must be getting home as her friends would be waiting for her, but he pulled her up against the fencing and she struggled to get away from him. She struck him in the face, and struggled with him until she was exhausted. She also shouted and screamed for assistance, but no one came. When released her defendant went back in the direction they had come, and she went on towards Denaby.

At the Denaby crossing she saw two policemen, and she made a complaint to them. She got home at quarter past twelve. Some time after Police-constable Middleton came the house, and she accompanied him to the home of Mr. Dutton, and there recognised defendant as the man who had assaulted her.

Cross-examined by Mr. Allen she was sure that the defendant was the man who assaulted her.

Mary Elizabeth Wright, of Denaby, said complainant had been making her home with her. When she came home on the night in question her hair was disarranged, and she was crying. She complained of having been assaulted. P.-c. Middleton deposed to hearing screams for help coming from the direction of Don View. He overtook the complainant, who made a statement to him.

Dr. Graham, who gave medical evidence, said that appearances were not consistent with the assault having been committed on the previous night.

Defendant, who was sworn, said he had been for a walk round by Melton, and did not see the complainant until confronted with her at his brother in law’s house. He denied that he walked with her from Mexborough or assaulted her or any other woman.

Cross-examined by Supt. Hickes. he denied that he was at the Station Hotel, eleven o’clock drinking- with two men named Taylor and Barnett, He did not know a man named Guest and it was not true that he walked with Taylor and Barnett over Swinton Bridge at ten past 11 o’clock. He was not in apublic-house Swinton that night.

Defendant, was committed for trial at Leeds Assizes, bail being allowed.