TIED TO BED

Southland Times, Issue 20976, 8 January 1930, Page 8

TIED TO BED

BEATEN TILL BLED.

AMAZING CRUELTY STORY. Sydney, December 22. “He tied the boy’s hands to the back of the bed, and belted him with a rubber strap until the blood came out of his face, hands and legs. The boy was nearly in a fit.” This amazing story of alleged brutality towards a 5-year-old child was related by a woman in the Divorce Court before Mr Justice Owen when she sought a divorce from 'her husband on the ground of constructive desertion. The petitioner, Irene Olive Gilbert (formerly Green) said she was married on December 24, 1917, at Griffith, to Angus Gilbert, Wallsend, a farmer. Her husband, she said, could hardly keep a job after their marriage. “We were living in a shack at Greta, near Maitland,” she continued, “when my husband cruelly ill-treated my son. When I spoke to him about it, he told me he would treat me the same if I didn’t get out.” Petitioner’s sister, Mrs Fenwick, of Mayfield, Newcastle, described the alleged assault on the child. “My brother-in-law tied the boy’s hands to the back of the bed-poets with a tie and gave him a hiding. The child was bleeding from the face and legs. He sagged as if he were unconscious,” she said. The judge found that the husband’s conduct had driven the wife from the home and he granted her a decree nisi.