ENGLISH WOMAN BABY-FARMER

Greymouth Evening Star, 24 September 1927, Page 9

ENGLISH WOMAN BABY-FARMER

BODY BURNED AND SCATTERED TO WINDS “For some time this woman has got her living by what is known as babyfarming,” asserted tlie prosecuting solicitor at Brighton, England, Police Court. Mrs. Ellen Daisy Chivers, aged 57, the proprietress of a registry office, was charged with: Killing Donald Rogers, aged about five months, by neglecting to call medical aid; neglecting the child, of whom she had the custody, in a manner likely to cause unecessary suffering and injury to health; and also with preventing the coroner from holding an inquest on the child by burning the body. Mr. Paling, prosecuting, said the woman had frequently been before the local Board of Guardians for taking in more children than she was allowed. She adopted the grandchild of a Mrs. Rogers for £5O. The child developed a bad cold, and Chivers was advised to call in a doctor, but she replied that doctors were expensive on .Sundays. About noon the following day the child died. The woman’s story was that she could not' call in a doctor because she had not registered the child with the guardians. The body was placed in a paper parcel and put behind a piano for some time.

Eater, it was alleged, the body was placed in a perambulator with a child who was alive and pushed to another house, which Chivers rented, and was burned in a coal fire in the scullery. The ashes, said the solicitor, were scattered to the winds in a field at Moulscombe, near Brighton, the same evening. The woman was committed for trial.