CRUELTY TO SON

Greymouth Evening Star, 30 August 1934, Page 10

CRUELTY TO SON

NEIGHBOURS WHO PROTESTED. . LONDON. July 18. Allegations of cruelty to their six-year-old son were made at Kingston, Surrey, yesterday against Lewis Owen Morice, a Civil Servant at Somerset' House, of Hillcrest Gardens, Hinchley Wood, Esher, and his’wife. They were each 'fined £25 and ordered to pay £lO 10- costs each. Mr Slater Nichols, prosecuting, said it was alleged that from last summer until the'culminating day, July 1, this year, neighbours were distressed by violence towards the boy. That would be bad enough in a slum. In the case of persons of the position, he understood Mr and Mrs Morice held it was most reprehensible. Witnesses’ would speak of seeing the little boy with black eyes, and oho witness would say that in the early spring he was seen in the garden with his hands tied behind his back. When neighbours went to the house and complained Mrs Morice always slammed the door in their faces. On the night of July 1 terrible screams were heard coming from a bed-room, and eight or ten people gathered. outside. The mother was seen hitting someone with a strap. Mr Hunter, a solicitor, who was a neighbour, went with a woman to the door. Mrs Morice said she did not know what’ they meant and slammed the door. On July 6 a N.S.P.C.C. inspector called. Mrs Morice said that it was no business of his, banged the door in his face and bolted it. The next day the inspector and a police, sergeant went to the house with .a warrant, and saw the child, who had his right eye bruised. There were also bruises on the right thigh and cuts, which the. inspector thought had been done with a sticlc Mr Harry Leonard Hunter, a solicitor, of Hillcrest Gardens, said in September, 1933, he complained to Mr Morice about knocking the child about. Mr James Mather, another neighbour, said lie had to close his. bedroom window oil July 1 because he was very distressed about the child’s screams. Mr Laurence Vince’ (defending): Did you, on entering the court this morning, see the son on his father’s shoulder hugging him? —Yes;' Mrs Marie Edgwbrth said in June last- year she heard a' swishing with a cane for about 20 minutes, and dreadful screams of “Oh; daddy.”- ' Dr. P. Vernon Davies, superintendent of Kingston and District-Rospital, said when he- examined- the child on July 7 he found him bright, cheerful, intellL gent, and well fed. -The bruises were consistent with.a severe thrashing or knocking about.. I . Airs Maud Jackson said once she > took the. child into, her house , out of • the rain. When the parents' returned, and the child was called in, she heard sounds of blows and screaming, and the next day the child had a black eye. Mr John Jackson, another neighbour, said he had so often seen marks on the boy of being knocked" about' that u was difficult to say 'the number 6f times.

TENNIS CLUB SECRETARY. Morice, giving evidence,vsaid his son was “somewhat precocious, headstrong,

and excitable.” He was not naughty, but needed'A corfsi'derable amount of control.' ' 'He wolikl frequently’scream with great gusto before he was piihtished. I On July 1 he (witness) was out of • the country on holiday, and received a letter from his wife at Casablanca saying that John had bumped his eye. He dejiied that he had ever hit the child with a slipper for half an hour, or had ever exceeded the proppr degree of punishment. With regard to the allegation of leaving the child alone, Morice said he was secretary, of a local tennis club, and when he and his wife were out -they arranged for someone to go in to see tjiat the child was all right, or they themselves went back. The club was only four minutes from his house. ■Miwyine: - The idea is that you are like/a Prussian-, wiiji a whip in your hand ordering the boy to run around

the garden several times. Morice said he made the boy run round the garden two or three times for exercise. He denied that the boy had been seen outside the house -vyith his hands tied/ 'Once indoors he tied his hands behind his back because he was biting his finger nails. Mrs Mabel Flint, of Hillcrest Gardens, said that she broke off a friendship with the Morices because of the way they treated the child. Mrs Morice denied cruelty, but said she caned tide boy’s hand’occasionally. Mi’ W. O. Bailey, the chairniahj in imposing the fines, said the.dgfepdants bad committed a ve.iy gyayc ! offence, for •which they could go to prison for six months. The bench made ail order for the child to ‘ remain at his school as a boarder during the term, and to fie in the care of'his parents during holidays under the general supervision of the probation officer.