Wife Assault – Husband Sent to Penal Servitude.

Sheffield Daily Telegraph – Saturday 03 July 1909

Wife Assault at Mexborough.

Husband Sent to Penal Servitude.

At the Leeds Assizes, yesterday, before Mr. Justice Bray, James Holland was indicted for feloniously wounding Mary Holland, his wife, at Mex borough, on June 21.

Mr. Fleming appeared for the prosecution, and Mr. Mockatt represented the prisoner.

Mr. Fleming said the prisoner and his wife had lived very unhappily for some time, and in November, 1906, she obtained a separation order. From May, 1907, September, 1908, they lived together again, but she then left him and went to reside at Conisborough, but in consequence of the prisoner’s frequent visits, Mrs. Holland took a house at Mexborough.

On the night June 21 the prisoner came to the house and exclaimed : What is your —– game now ?

His wife replied: “You have no right here. You must go.”

He then struck her with something sharp, but she could not see what it was. She staggered into the front room, bleeding profusely from a wound the head, and had to be removed to the hospital. A man named Cooper put the prisoner out of the house. Prisoner was arrested the same night. The woman was too ill to give evidence at yesterday’s trial.

Prisoner said that up to four or five years ago his wife and himself had lived happily together. A son then died, and they received £4O insurance money-, which, he said, his wife squandered, and thus caused all the unpleasantness. They separated, and on the 21st June he went to see hie wife, and simply asked how she was getting on. She answered, What has that got to do with you? She also said that she had got a superior man than him. That greatly annoyed him, and he struck her with his right hand. He thought the wound which was caused to her head must have been done by her striking something in her fall.

The jury returned a verdict of “Guilty,” and prisoner was sent to penal servitude for five years.