PC 45S was making his way down Brewer Street in central London at six in the morning when he heard a cry of ‘murder’ from inside one of the houses. When he forced his way into the house he found an ‘old man weltering in his blood from a terrible gash down his face’.

Pointing to a younger man, the victim said faintly, ‘he has stabbed me’. The policeman quickly found the weapon used, a table knife, concealed in a drawer and arrested the young man and took him back to the police station.

The old man was Charles Jones and it was his son, John, who was eventually charged with attacking him. Charles was taken to University College Hospital where he was held for a few days on account of his injuries. He was still in hospital when his son appeared before the sitting magistrate at Marylebone. The magistrate warned John that if his father died then he would be facing a trial for his life and asked him if he had anything to say for himself.

John said that he had been at home eating some bread and cheese when his father came home much the worse for drink. The pair quarreled and Charles had attacked him with a poker. In self defence he grabbed the knife and held it up, he ‘supposed that he accidentally cut’ his father in the process.

This case doesn’t seem to have made it to a higher court. Jones Jones was remanded in custody but there’s no record of him at the Old Bailey or of his father as a victim. Hopefully the old man survived the assault and, when he’d recovered, made his peace with his son.

[from The Morning Post, Monday, January 18, 1841]

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