MOTHER’S CHOICE

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 252, 21 July 1934, Page 18

MOTHER’S CHOICE

A Life at Stake '

A woman’s choice. ~. . Between love: for her son, accused of manslaughter, and a man unknown to her, accused of 'murder, . .

She made her choice, and she wandered disconsolately from room to room 1 of her house, sure at one moment she had been right and the next, regretting her decision. .

She is Mrs. Rosalie Somers, of Ham Common, Surrey. In 1918 Mrs. Somers was horfified<to see her infant son open the catch of a railway carriage door while the train was racing from Bath to London. She caught, him by his belt as he began to fallout' ‘ ‘ l

Then, a few weeks ago, she read that Sydney Bellwood, a York gardener, was to be tried on a charge of'murdering his infant daughter by throwing her out of a train. Mrs. Somers realised that there might be a serious miscarriage of justice. She offered her evidence to the defence.

She was asked to travel to Leeds to give her evidence. Bellwood’s legal ad•viser realised that his life might depend upon her eyidence. But Mrs. Somers also had’ her, own troubles. Her son, Jack, now; seventeen, was accused of mqnslaughter. ‘ He had knocked down and killed a girl cyclist while driving his car nearHampton Court. ■' .*?! Mrs. Somers was prepared to go into the witness box and tell the jury of her son’s good character and his grief at the accident. •.*

\ Then she discovered .that the two trials, her son’s, in London,“and Bell- . wood’s in Leeds, were to take place at practically the same tipie.' ' ; ' ■ If she attended one trial she could not attend the other., S ■z She made her great decision. She said good-bye to her son and went to Leeds. Her evidence went far to convince the jury of Bellwood’s innocence. Mrs. Somers hastened back to London. At the station she bought a newspaper. Her son’s trial was also at an end. He had been sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment.

‘JI feel I should have been at my son’s side,” said Mrs. Somers to a “Daily Express” representative. “Yet, after all, Mr. Bellwood’s life was ab stake, so his was the greater claim. “It seems strange that I should have hurried north to help justice in ’Leeds, and bhen find when I hurry south that justice in London has imposed a severe sentence on .a lad with a spotless character.

“The.sentence seems severe when one compares it with similar cases, where drunken motorists are merely fined.”