QSR1843/1/5/59

Depositions - Mark Scott charged with stealing fowls from Thomas Cox

28 November 1842

From: 1842 To: 1843

James Oakley of Luton, labourer - he lives at Ashwell [Bridge?] Farm. He works for Mr Cox, the tenant of the farm. When he got up on Sunday morning he went to let the turkeys out and found the staple of the door was taken out and the lock was gone. There were 26 fowls gone and 3 turkeys. He tracked the feathers up the lane for some distance. He came back and told his master. He went up to Peters Green between 10 and 11am and at the Half Moon public house he saw Scott and another man whose name was James Kidman. He heard Kidman ask Scott whether he had put it on one side out of the barn. He went home, told his master and went with the policeman to search Scott's house. They found 7 fowls dead outside the house in a sack. He knew 2 of them to be his master's - one had 5 claws and the comb lay to one side, and the other had 5 claws and a white tail. Some of the fowls missing were of the Game breed and they found some feathers in Scott's house like those of that breed. John Chapman, police constable - on Sunday morning between 11 and 12am he heard some fowls had been lost from Mr Cox's farm. He went Peters Green and searched Scott's house. In the back room he found the leg of a fowl and several feathers. There was a deal of blood about a hutch in which some ferrets were. He had seen Scott take a sack out of the house as he came across the Green. He found a sack with 7 fowls in it at the back of the house. It appeared they had just been killed. Scott's hands were bloody and there were spots of blood on his breeches. He is sure Scott was the same man he saw go out of the house with the sack. Before Oakley saw the fowls he described to him the marks by which he should know them. That morning he fitted Scott's shoes to the marks in the hen house and they corresponded. Scott said it was not him who broke Mr Cox's henhouse open, but that it was a man names James Kidman. He cautioned Scott, who said he was not there.

item

Scott, Mark,
Cox, Thomas,
Oakley, James,
Chapman, John,
Kidman, James

LUTON, Peters Green, stealing animals, fowls, turkeys, ferrets, police constable, Luton Half Moon