Tag: evidence

‘Am I not entitled to be believed as well as he?’ An ingenious defence from the dock

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Peter Chambers was determined to prove his innocence although his method suggested that perhaps he did ‘protest too much’. He’d been arrested on a charge of picking pockets at the Albert Hall at the end of November 1889.

In court at Westminster he described himself as an artificial florist and vehemently denied the charge. The police constable that arrested him said that several ladies had complained him that their purses had been stolen and he saw Chambers ducking under a horse and cart to escape the throng of lady choristers that surrounded the entrance to the convert hall.

Chambers took the stand in his only defense and, with a flourish, produced a piece of paper and called the constable to come and examine it.

‘Now, constable, I wish to introduce to your notice a little sketch or plan which I have prepared, because if you could see me from where you stood you must have had one of those double magnifying glasses we read about’.

As the laughter in court subsided the officer peered at the sketch but made little of it.

‘You will observe the dotted line on the plan?’ Chambers continued, but the policeman declared he didn’t quite follow his line of argument.

‘I am not surprised at you making nothing of it’, the defendant huffed. ‘Does you Worship see the dotted line?’ he asked Mr D’Eyncourt. ‘The cross’, he said pointing it out, ‘ is where the constable stood, and how could he see me – unless he can see round a corner!’

‘but what is your defence’, the magistrate asked him.

‘I am innocent’, Chambers intoned, melodramatically. ‘Am I not entitled to be believed as well as he?’ he demanded, pointing at the policeman. ‘It is blasting my reputation to be here on such a charge’.

There were doubts as to the evidence or at least the lack of it presented by the police but they asked for a remand and Mr D’Eyncourt granted it.

After all Chambers asserted that he could bring his brother in to testify that he was at the Hall on legitimate purposes, to assist him in his role as a linkman (showing people to their carriages).  The magistrate doubted this would prove anything, one way or the other, and the gaoler took him away.

[from The Standard, Tuesday, December 03, 1889]

Delays at Clapham Junction lead to a punch up in the bar

Starzina Z Railways Direct Line Clapham Junction station 1889

Sometimes the press reports from the Police Courts inadvertently reveal elements of the summary process which are not otherwise made obvious. For example, in the case I’ve selected today, the sitting magistrate cautioned a police witness for remaining in court while evidence is being heard. This undermined the authority of his testimony and ultimately led to the discharge of the accused (who were clearly guilty as charged). This may seem like a minor detail, but it is exactly this sort of detail that helps me establish exactly how these courts operated in the 1800s.

Henry Clark (an architect) , John Lumsden (no trade given, so perhaps an ‘independent man’) and Thomas Oliver (engineer) had been watching the cricket at the Oval and had returned to Clapham Junction to catch a train home. Having just missed one they were forced to wait an hour for the next service and headed for the station’s ‘refreshment bar’ for a few drinks.

Here two very different stories emerge.

According to constable White of the South Western Railway Police the men arrived at the bar to find it closed. Annoyed, they complained loudly and constable White was called to intervene. However, his appearance just irritated them more and as he approached Oliver the engineer attempted to grapple him to the floor. The constable’s helmet was knocked off and rolled over to Clark who picked it up and threw it.

White managed to retrieve it and now attempted to regain his authority, placing the damaged helmet on his head and demanding they all leave at once, as he wanted to lock up. The men were having none of it however, and Clark hit the railway policeman and the pair wrestled. As they were down Lumsden came up and started aiming kicks at the stricken officer.

Either because the noise they made alerted a local bobby, or perhaps because a nearby passenger witnessed the assault and went for help, because soon afterwards a Metropolitan Police constable (PC Hooper of V division) turned up and arrested all three men and took them to the nearest police station.

Appearing in court at Wandsworth the next day the trio, all respectable lower middle class men it would seem, were represented by a lawyer, Mr Haynes. His version of events different somewhat to constable White’s. Haynes explained that the three had arrived at the station and gone to the bar. There White had joined them for a few drinks and had got quite drunk in the process.

The drinking led to horse play (or ‘larking’ to use the contemporary term for rough house behaviour). When constable White felt things had  gone too far he called for help and PC Hooper appeared.

So the magistrate, Mr Dayman, was presented with conflicting testimony; did he believe PC Hooper and the railway constable, or the three cricket fans? He clearly thought there was fault on both sides. He told White that it was clear that he ‘had been larking, and, getting the worst of it, he gave the prisoners in charge fancying his uniform would protect him’.

But it was also pretty obvious that the men had assaulted a police man (albeit a railway policeman not a member of the Met), so what to do with them? I think he fell back on a procedural dodge here by turning his attention to PC Hooper’s evidence (or rather his actions). He may well have suspected the two men were in cahoots, as ‘brothers in arms’ so to speak. PC Hooper had stated that as he took the men into custody they had tried to bribe him. The men ‘had offered him a sovereign to swear that White was drunk’, yet he insisted that he was sober.

However, Mr Dayman remarked that the policeman had ‘remained in court though all the witnesses had been ordered outside during the hearing of the case’.

‘By remaining inside’, he explained, ‘he saw the point of the case, and therefore he (Mr Dayman) could not place that reliance on his evidence as he should otherwise have done. He was always ready to uphold railway officials as they had an arduous duty to perform, but they must come into court with clean hands’.

The three men were discharged and thus cleared of any wrongdoing and as a result both White and Hooper were effectively reprimanded and reminded that their authority was conditional on them maintaining the highest standards of conduct. For me though, the real interest in this story is in what it tells me about the process of summary court hearings. If we can extrapolate from this example it would seem that those giving evidence that was important to a given case would be expected (at least when they were instructed) to wait outside the court to be called in and sworn. This may sound obvious from a modern context but, given that we have little in the way of printed material on the procedural nature of the summary courts, it is nice to see this recorded.

[from The Morning Post, Wednesday, September 26, 1866]