QSR1843/4/5/11b

Depositions and examination - John Tompkins charged with stealing a ewe sheep

7 August 1843

From: 1843 To: 1843

Thomas Wheeler of Silsoe, shepherd - he is shepherd to Mr Squire of Silsoe. On Saturday August 5 his sheep were all right. About 8.30am on Sunday morning he found one missing. Searching his master's fields he found the skin and the entrails. He took the skin to his master's and hung it up in the laundry. It is the skin he now produces and is the skin of a ewe belonging to his master. He has seen different parts of the carcase patterned with the skin today and they fit quite well together. Robert Young, police constable - on Sunday morning he had Tompkins in custody on another charge and found the knife now produced on him. As there was wool on the knife he went to Tompkin's house and searched it, having heard that Mr Squire had lost a sheep. In a yellow earthern dish in the pantry he found a sheep's pluck, part of the belly and two kidnies. He asked Tompkins' daughter how she came by it - she said her father brought it home with some other mutton which she put in a pie which was at the bakehouse. When he asked if there was any more uncooked she said there was, in a sack in the garden under some bushes. He found the sack with part of the sheep in it. She identified it as her father's sack. He has seen today the part of the carcase he found patterned with the skin, with which it corresponds. Henry Jebbett, superintendent of police - he has examined the skin produced together with the part of the carcase and has no doubt they belong to the same sheep. Samuel Whitbread of Ampthill, butcher - corroborates Henry Jebbett's evidence John Tompkins - swears he never slaughtered a sheep or lamb in his life. He picked up the mutton carcase near Beaumonts tree, the left hand side as he came from Silsoe.

item

Tompkins, John,
Wheeler, Thomas,
Young, Robert,
Jebbett, Henry,
Whitbread, Samuel

SILSOE, AMPTHILL, stealing animals, sheep, shepherd, butcher, police constable, police superintendent