QSR1866/3/5/2

Depositions of Henry Quenby, farmer of Lower Gravehurst. George Armstrong, police constable stationed at Barton. In the case of John Hillyard, labourer late of Barton, accused of stealing 4 live fowls and 2 cart ropes.

12 April 1866

From: 1866 To: 1866

Henry Quenby: On 27 March he was told by a police constable that some fowls an 2 ropes had been stolen. He went to his cart hovel and found all of his fowls, except one, gone. He had seen 8 of his fowls roosting in the hovel the previous week. He found ropes, which had been lying in the same shed, gone. He went to Barton the next morning and saw 4 fowls at the police constables house. He could swear to the black spotted one and to the best of his belief the other 3 were his property. He believed the ropes produced were his. The value of the fowls was 8 shillings and the value of the ropes was 3 shillings. He had known the prisoner about 7 days before the 27 March and the prisoner had come to his house asking if he had fowls to sell. PC George Armstrong: about 6am on Saturday 24 March he saw the prisoner come out of the Bull Way Gate at Barton. The prisoner looked up and down the street and upon seeing Armstrong popped back. He saw the prisoner had a sack on his back so went towards the gateway. He met the prisoner without the sack. The prisoner was coming from the direction in which Armstrong later found the sack. He traced the prisoner’s footmarks through the Bull yard to a like close and into an outhouse. He found the sack there. The sack contained 4 fowls a 2 cart ropes. The outhouse was about 100 yards from the gateway. He asked the prisoner what he had done with the sack on his back and the prisoner replied he had put it in Charley Sanders yard. The prisoner had come from the opposite direction to Sander’s yard. He showed the fowls and ropes to the prosecutor who identified the ropes and the black spotted fowl and believed the others belonged to him. He apprehended the prisoner on 1 April. He had looked for the prisoner before that but he had left his house. The prisoner said he knew nothing do the fowls or cart ropes. [cross examination] the pump he had gone to was against the Royal and that was 50 or 60 yards from where he first saw the prisoner. He lost sight of the prisoner for a time. It was at the front of the Bull that he first saw the prisoner. He went to Sander’s cart with the prisoner and the prisoner point to a bran bag and said it was the one he had been carrying. He went to the pump directly after he had first seen the prisoner. It was not five minutes from when he first saw the prisoner to the second time. There was a footpath through the Bull yard and he only saw the footmarks of one person. There had been a good deal of rain. There were footmarks from the Bull to the sack. Statement of the accused: he would leave it to his attorney.

item

Hillyard, John,
Armstrong, George,
Quenby, Henry

Barton, Lower Gravenhurst, Barton-le-Clay Bull, stealing, fowls, ropes, farmer