“MY SADDEST CASE”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23702, 9 January 1939, Page 12

“MY SADDEST CASE”

K.C’s SYMPATHY WOMAN WHO FEARED CHRISTMAS (From Our Own Correspondent) (By Air Mail) LONDON, Dec. 15. A woman who was said to have been worried because there was no money to pay for the rent and to provide Christmas toys for her children was bound over at the Old Bailey on a charge of the manslaughter of her three-year-old daughter. She is Annie Elizabeth Emily Newman. aged 33 years, of Beck road, Stratford E., and the original charge was one of murder. ... . . To this she pleaded not guilty, but guilty of manslaughter, and her plea was accepted. Mr G. B. McClure, prosecuting, said Mrs Newman had four children, aged six, five, four and three. In a note she said that she did not know what to do She took her baby. Phyllis, and “ walked and walked and walked.” She went over the bridge of a channel of the River Lea, and the child was later seen in the water. There was no evidence that Mrs Newman deliberately threw the child Mr J. F. Eastwood. K.C.. defending, said he did not think that in all his experience he had met such a sad C3 owing to the continuous illness of the children she got behind with the rent, and had to pawn some of her husband’s clothes. On the day of the tragedy she had 6d in the house. “What hurt her and, perhaps, brought about the tragedy was the fact that the children were asking what they were going to get for Christmas, added Mr Eastwood. Mr Justice Macnaghten was to.d that Mrs Newman could enter a Salvation Army home, and he bound her over on condition that she did so.