GIRL'S SUICIDE

Evening Star, Issue 18022, 17 July 1922, Page 7

GIRL'S SUICIDE

AFTER A BEATING. A story of a girl’s suicide after a beating by her father was told at an inquest at Bedford on Lucy Hackett, a domestic servant, aged seventeen, who was found drowned in the river after being missed for a fortnight. Mrs Hayman, the girl’s employer, said sho had admitted stealing money from the children’s money-box, and so sho (witness) sent for her father. The father then began to thrash the girl, and it so upset witness that she had to go into the garden. She heard the girl cry out three or four times, and when she went back to the room she found her lying on the couch with her hair all down, and the father had his knee on her chest. Lucy was crying. She (Mrs Hayman) told the father to leave off, as he had done enough. Sho told the girl to go to her bedroom and put on her outdoor clothes. While she was on the stairs Lucy came to her crying, and said that sho did not want to go with her father. She did not return to her father, wiio was waiting. The house was searched, and it was found that the girl had escaped through the bedroom window, which was on the ground floor Arthur Hackett, formerly a special constable at the Cardington aerodrome, and now unemployed, said his daughter had previously given him trouble, and he slapped her. The jury returned a verdict of “ Suicide while temporarily insane,” and added that the father should have used more discretion in chastising the girl.