THE HACKNEY MURDER.

Colonist, Volume LV, Issue 13793, 6 August 1913, Page 5

THE HACKNEY MURDER.

EVIDENCE AT THE INQUEST

London, Aug 2. At the inquest upon the bodies of the three victims of the Hackney murder, Phoebe Smith gave evidence that she resided at Robertson's. In reply to a query on Juno 28, Robertson, the father of the children, said: "All right. A man fetched tho children this morning." He stated in the afternoon that the children had gone to tho Salvation Army Homo. He declared that he did not stop in the house because the landlord had not repaired! it. Robertson was cruel to his children, and quarrelled with his wife. He could not tolerate the children crying.

The witness identified the blankets in which the children were wrapped in as Robertson's property.

The inquest was adjourned

The 'body of Robertson's nine months old child was found under a loose board in the top of his house in Hackney. In one of the lower rooms the bodies of two children, twins, aged 2£ years, were found behind a cellar wall. Robertson had occupied the rooms with his wife and children six weeks previously. The wife was removed to an infirmary owing to a breakdown, and Robertson departed, telling a neighbour that the children had been placed under the care of friends.