CRUELTY TO CHILD
STEPFATHER GAOLED
(By Air Mail, from "The Post's" London Representative.)
LONDON, December 8.
A 22-year-old labourer who burnt the fingers of his wife's three-year-old daughter with a candle was sentenced at Stowmarket, Suffolk to three months' imprisonment.
He was Harold Brinkley, of Hillside, Stowmarket, and he was charged with assaulting Pearl Denny in a manner likely to cause danger to her health.
A neighbour, Victor Turner ,: said that during the evening Mrs. Brinkley came into his house, with her child, crying bitterly. He noticed marks on the child's body which looked like bruises, there were spots of blood near the nose. He kept the child in the house for the night after informing the police. Inspector Hardiman, of the N.S.P.C.C., said that Brinkley told him: "I had been drinking, and drink always flies to my head and makes me see red. I do. not mind doing six months or having the cat so long as my wife is looked after."
Dr. Maurice Hounsfield, of Stowmarket, said there were blisters on the child's first and second fingers of each hand and bruises on its face and body.
Brinkley, in evidence, said that he was married ten months ago and was not the father of the child. When he returned home he heard the child crying. He took a candle on a.plate and went to her bedroom.
"I leaned over her, putting my arm around her and holding the candle in my left hand," he went on. "I had had a drop of drink and although not drunk I was just a bit dizzy and the candle fell.
"I put the candle back on the plate and took her to the, lavatory. She started to cry, so I slapped her and put her back into bed. I did nothing else at all to her."
He denied haying any knowledge of the abrasions.. His married life had been happy, although there had been tiffs. The fact that the child was not his did not affect his relationship with it.
His wife, who broke down while giving her evidence, said that her husband had never laid a hand on the child. '
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19390123.2.10
Bibliographic details
Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 18, 23 January 1939, Page 3
Word Count
360CRUELTY TO CHILD Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 18, 23 January 1939, Page 3
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