QSR1878/3/5/7

Depositions and examination - Thomas Thorp of Leighton Buzzard, shoemaker, charged with wounding Mary Priscilla Batt with a knife at Leighton Buzzard on 11 June 1878

25 June 1878

From: 1878 To: 1878

Mary Priscilla Batt of Leighton Buzzard, singlewoman – she lives with her parents in Canal Street, Leighton Buzzard and is a bonnet sewer. Mr Pointer is a shoemaker at Leighton Buzzard and has the front room of their house as a shop. Mr Pointer employed Thorp in his shop. On 11 June Thorp was at work at 11am and again in the afternoon. She gave him 2d for mending a pair of boots. Thorp came and caught hold of her but did not attempt to take any improper liberties with her. He did not speak. A short time later she went and told him not to put any brads in Sears’s servant’s boots. Thorp then got up and struck her with a knife in the lower part of her stomach. Her mother sent for Dr Hedges who dressed the wound. Afterwards Thorp left the house without saying anything. John Alexander Hedges of Leighton Buzzard, surgeon – he examined Mary Priscilla Batt and found an excised wound at the lower part of her body which had been bleeding. It was done by some sharp instrument such as the knife produced in court. The wound was not deep because the bone was just underneath the skin and prevented a deeper wound. Her clothes were all cut through. He considers from what he saw that she had a narrow escape of her life. John Olden, police sergeant stationed at Leighton Buzzard – on Thursday 13 June he apprehended Thorp at Ledburn (Bucks) on a warrant. Thorp made no reply, but later said it was all done through larking. He found the knife produced at Mr Spratley’s at Ledburn on the seat where Thorp was sitting. Thorp admitted it was his. Thomas Thorp – he heeled a pair of boots when she came. She locked the door and would not let him go in to work. She ordered him to go and get some watercress. She said if he went out and came again in half an hour there would be nobody in the shoe shop. He would not have done it, only she went in and out of the shop.

item

Thorp, Thomas,
Batt, Mary Priscilla,
Hedges, John Alexander,
Olden, John,
Pointer,
Spratley

LEIGHTON BUZZARD, Leighton Buzzard Canal Street, Ledburn, wounding, surgeon, police constable, shoemaker, bonnet sewer