A Jury And A Lover

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 23, 28 January 1939, Page 5 (Supplement)

A Jury And A Lover

M T TOLD them the truth. I 1 cannot say more than that." This was the reply of 20-vear-old Charles George Richardson, of Southwark, to a jury which censured him at the inquest on his sweetheart. The girl, Matilda Tannett, of Bermondsey, dashed from Richardson's side while they were quarrelling in the street and flung herself under the wheels of a passing lorry. The jury found that she committed "Suic.de while the balance of her mind was disturbed," and added: —"We think the evidence of Charles George Richardson was unsatisfactory, and his conduct is such as to be reprobated by , every right-minded person." Richardson was the principal witness 1 at the inquest, ajid he then explained that the only reason for the quarrel -was . that the girl did not want to go home r at 11 p.m.

"I had known the girl only 13 weeks," Richardson said. "She wanted to get married, but we were not even engaged. All the trouble was because she would not go home. "She never seemed to want to go home when she was with me, and often I have stood talking to her in the street until two or three o'clock in the morning because she would not leave me aiul go indoors. "1 found the late nig]its wore preventing me getting up in the for-my work, and on this tra-_rie night I told her I intended to have an early liiuht. "She had threatened once before to commit -uieiiie, init J did not think SW 111 CM II L it. "The jtirv did not seem to *"=• _ that i hud told them everything, '■[ am dreadful^ not called."