THE IRISH CRUELTY CHARGE

Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 404, 11 February 1913, Page 2

THE IRISH CRUELTY CHARGE

EX-SHERIFF AND HIS WIFE IN THE DOCK. The trial opened at Ulster Assizes at Londonderry on December 17 of John George Crozier and his wife (Jessie Florence Crozier), of Gortra House, Newtown Butler, Co. Fermanagh, who are charged with the manslaughter of John Spencer Noel Crozier, aged, 17, eon of the male prisoner and stepson of the female. The allegation is that the prisoners so illtreated their son by neglect and lack of proper food that his death resulted. In the Assize calendar they are further charged with cruelty to the two other children of tHe male prisoner, Hjeleria Inez Crozier (14) and Armar Lucas (about 81. Crozier is a justice of th© peqce, and was formerly High Sheriff f or? the Gounty of Fermanagh.. - The prosecution was conducted by the Solicitor-General for Ireland (Mr T. F. Maloney, K.C.). Mr W. B. Wylie appeared for the defence. The Solicitor-General said Crozier, when he first married in 1891 was well-to-do. He owned Gortra House, which stood on 40 acres. He also ■ owned lands which yielded £135 net rental, arid he had a life interest in £2,467. His wife died in 1906, and he succeeded to her estate of £1>459. Shortly afterwards Crozier engaged as a nurse for his children Jessie Florence Staples, the female prisoner, whom he married in January, 1908. With the advent of their stepmother the children's life be- 1 came very different from what it had been. Within a month of the honeymoon the boy was prohibited by his (stepmother from speaking to his sister. In 1910 he was sent to the Academical Institute at Dundalk. From that school be returned at Easter, 1912, in a state of healthy adolescence. On October. 2 he was dead. His body was bruised and emaciated, the bones appearing through the flesh. From spring till autumn, said counsel, the 'poor boy was never seen outside the grounds. He lived in a ground room, into which light could, scarcely penetrate through the painted and) barred windows. He was never given a candle, his boots and stockings wore taken from him, and he was given the menial work of the household to do. His food was prescribed in quantity by his stepmother, and, though they had a dairy, no milk was ever given to him. ..-The night before his death he was visited by his father and stepmother, and the last request he made of his stepmother was for more bedclothes. That request, <said counsel, ' was' refused, though she^ gave him a hot' jar. That night his father lifted the mattress from the bed on to the floor, -because, sug-. gested counsel. 7 he well knew that the boy was not able to get down from the bed. There they left him. During the stillness of the night his sister Inez heard her'brother rattling at the door of his room trying to open' it. There; was no response from, the parents' room, but at dawn," when the father went down to the room, he found his son lying dead upon the boarded floor. Doctors, concluded counsel, would tell the J'ury of the terrible state? in which the toy's body was. The ulcers, bruisers, and emaciation were, it would be stated, directly* the result of starvation. Mr Finch, principal of Dundalk Institute, stated that whilst the boy was at Dundalk he was in good health and had a schoolboy's appetite. He had been a quiet, obedient, industrious .boy.. .The father paid £30 a year for the boy's maintenance at school.'

Helena Inez Crozier was next examined by the Solicitor-General: ■■ She said- ; thati after her brother's return from school he got up at 6 in the morning, and was allowed to put on his boots .while he went out to gather firewood. This and looking after the .young stepchildren filled up the' morning. At nine -o'clock he got his break- ' fast, consisting of one slice of bread and butter and one cup of tea. Then till dinner time he scrubbed the flagged floors j. of the ground floor. Dinner was given at any time from 1 o'clock till 4 o'clock, and consisted of potatoes and meat or potatoes and bread. Tea was at 7 o'clock, and was the same 'as breakfast. The store room where the food was kept was locked. After this meal John went to bed. Mr Wylie : Did you ever see your brother beaten or bruised? — NoCounsel read a letter from the boy, dated February 14, and sent from school, in which he wrote : " My dearest Mother, —I hope you are. all well at-home. I suppose the little fellows (stepbrothers) are still growing at the same astounding rate. I suppose the little fellows are not 'allowed out of doors yet, seeing it is so j wet. I hope you are not overworking yourself! Fondest love to father, with love from your son. — John." Then fol-, lowed nine crosses. l Two of the farm laborers deposed that the boy was seldom seen about, and looked thin and pale. -The Rev. Canon Cumming, of Newtown Butler, said the boy never attended church after his return from school. Dr C. Fitzgerald, of Newtown Butler, gave the result of the post mortem examination of the boy's body. There' was, he sard, complete absence of fatty tissue. The bones almost pierced the skin. The whole appearance was one of ghastly attenuation. There were abrasions ori the right hand knuckles, 'such as would be caused by the boy knocking- on the door. There were also three abrasions on the neck, and marks of healed abrasions on the body, and also marks of healed ulcers ori the legs. The internal 'organs,' including the brain, were perfectly normal. The ghastly attenuation seemed to witness to be due to chronic starvation, which 'would be produced in about three months. t,;Mr Wylie quoted from medical handbooks showing that some, of the organs are not normal in cases of chronic, starvation, and suggested that death was due to tubercular meningitis. This, the doctor would not accept. ' ...'•• You attended the boy when he broke a bone by falling off a pony? — Yes. And his father paid a fee to Sir Lambert. Ormsby to come from Dublin to see him T^-rYes. ,'.'...- .-a • Were you on speaking terms with Mr Crozier ? — Yes. • You stopped being the family doctor at one time ? — Yes. Is your wife on speaking terms with Mrs Crozier? — No, she is not. , jDr Henry, of Clones, who had also | examined the body, said it was in a very badly nourished state, and must have been so for some months. He attributed death to lack of sufficient food, both quality and quantity. Professor .M'Weeney, pathological expert, Dublin, to whom were sent various internal organs from the body, attributed death to chronic malnutrition extending from one month to three months. Henry Burke, agent to Mr Crozier, bore out counsel's opening statement as to prisoner's sufficiency of means, and spoke in cross-examination of Mr Crozier as a decent, kindly man, but not an- over-good business man. After his second marriage he was " ostracised' by the elite of Fer- , managh." (Laughter.) . For the defence, Mi- Knight, a solicitor, of Clones, deposed that Crozier discussed with him in June arrangements for sending his son John to school at Clones. Thomas Jr Kenya chemist, ojE Newtowh

Butler, spoke to Crozier having purchased ' a number of bottles of cod liver oil . for his son in July and August. He got a large bottle every 10 dayß. Mr Walsh,' a Dublin chemist, said he supplied Crozier with a quart bottle of cod liver oil on September 27 last. Dr Edward Thomson, of Omagh Infirmary, said he did not agree that the symp- ! toms found in the organs of the, deceased boy's body suggested starvation. Some of the ordinary conditions one would expect in starvation were not present. The death was not inconsistent with a form of diabetes, and boils were also an accompaniment of that disease. He could hardly appreciate that a boy of 16, unless there . ; was something mentally wrongj would, allow himself to be starved. He believed, the boy died from some disease, . . On Wednesday Mr W/. E. Wylie, defending counsel, opened bis address to the jury. Crozier, he said, had been a failure throughout his life. He began as a medical student. At that he failed. He married in 1891V and then became the county man, the, high sheriff, and all the time he was living beyond his means. In 1906 his wife" died,' leavmg him with > thre* ' ' helpless children. In marrying his ser-. vant to make her his children's mother Crozier committed social suicide. His very kinsmen cast him off: Thus deserted, without money or friends, he lived in that-, large house, too large f ot his needs or means, and dragged out a miserable existence, bereft of everything he cared for. Counsel suggested 'that there had been no complete exhaustion of the possible' cause of death at the post-mortem, and ad- ! vanced diabetes as a possible cause and ancemia as another. The step-mother; who they were asked to believe sought to compass the lad's death, gave him a bowl of bread and milk for supper. the night before he died. -ThaV alone negatived the suggestion of starvation. More letters of ' the deceased boy. written from school at : Dundalk, were read. In June 1910, he*/ wrote: "Dear Dad ? — I cannot tell '" you how much I am looking forward to coming ■ home to see you and mummy. She is not to work too hard. I am yearning to get home to help her with the house and the little fellows. — From your loving^ < son, John." In a letter of September, 1910, he defined his studies, and added : " Tell me . how my dear little pet George (one of the step-brothers) is getting on,* ; and 'if hemisses me much. Love to your all. — Your loving son, John." On August 30, 1911, in a letter he wrote: "It was a good, ; thought of mummy to give- me some tea ' before I left." That boy, said counsel, be^V lieved his parents loved him. Mr Wylie made a great effort on the prisoners' be-, half, the presiding Judge describing it as*. > " a masterpiece of advocacy." . The Solicitor-General for Ireland (Mr T. F. Maloney) having replied for the Crowhi' 1 ' The .Judge summed up at great lengthy on a lease of -which, he said, it - was >' im-> ' possible to exaggerate the importance. Reviewing the evidence, the Judge emphasised the medical testimony as to the ' condition of the boy's body after death/asking; the jury if they ever heard of anything more horrible than the description, that it presented a gruesome appearance of ghastly attenuation-^tbe body of a boy." *• who six months before had: been in a state of healthy adolescence. That stage was h reached during six months, in which he, lived the life of a, domestic drudge on in--sufficient food, and his request tor more' ■ was denied. The purchase of cod liver oil - by the father indicated that he, at any* rate, appreciated that the boy was going . from bad to worse ; but, in those circum* stances, had he_ discharged his duty in •. adopting that simple household remedy?. If they believed the Crown medical wit- , nesses, , then the parents were guilty . ' of < >'■, gross, callous, and criminal indifference and negligence which would justify a ver^ . diet of manslaughter. The' jury, after an absence of half an . hour; : returned a verdict of "Guilty"; ;,against . both prisoners. ■■.■ -.vi'.' 1: Mr Wylie, in his plea for mitigation , of > punishment, produced the deed of settle-- : ment under which. Crozier handed over his children to trustees, and acquiesced in their becoming wards in Court: ■ He •' pointed out that Crozier would be left with* dnly about £50 a year with which to. ; maintain himself, his wife, and three young children of the second marriage;; and he was prepared after his punishment to live in a more humble way. The, Judge sentenced the male prisoner to five years' hard labor and his wife to , 12 months' imprisonment. . 4 The Press Association is officially informed that one of the trustees now. ap-' pointed for Crozier's children is the Very Rev. Dr Crozier, Lord Primate of all Ireland, and related to Crozier.