PENNED LIKE RATS IN A TRAP

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20207, 29 May 1937, Page 14 (Supplement)

PENNED LIKE RATS IN A TRAP

Amazing Story of Four Little Children. Parents Gaoled for “Callous Wickedness.”

Four little children in St. Giles’ Hospital, Lambeth, are spending the happiest time of their lives, although they will not see their parents again for a long time. They are enjoying for the first time in their lives the heritage of every child—kindness, cleanliness, and good food. Their parents, John and Eleanor Oates, of Walworth, are in prison, beginning terms of six months’ imprisonment passed upon them by Mr Bar-rington-Ward, the Lambeth magistrate. They were charged with ill-treating and neglecting their four children, aged from 2 to 11, while they went out and enjoyed themselves. “You bring children into the world and leave the poor little mites verminous and filthy in a sort of cesspool,” Mr Barrington-Ward declared after he had heard the evidence. “Your callous wickedness must excite absolute public loathing.” Mr W. H. Chitty, for the N.S.P.C.C., told the magistrate that the parents were out at all hours enjoying themselves, but the children were kept out of sight indoors because they were ashamed of their condition. For a long time, he said, they had been penned up and ill-treated in the most callous way. Mr Barrington-Ward: Like poor little rats in a trap? “Yes,” replied Mr Chitty. “But if anyone had treated rats as these children were treated, a society would have intervened.”

The family, he added, lived a threeroomed flat. The floors were in a disgusting; condition; they had not been cleaned for months. The bedding; was dirty and mildewed. The children’s clothes were just rag's. Their hair was matted, sores covered their heads. They were halfstarved. Crusts Thrown to Them. Inspector Russell, of the N.S.P.C.C., gave evidence that he saw Mrs Oates come in one tea-time and throw dry crusts on the floor to the children “as though they were little bears in a pit.” All the food he found in the house when the children were taken away was a bit of stale bread and some decomposed meat. The place smelled like a cesspool. The parents were not out of work. The man earned £2 13s a week and overtime, the woman 30s. for looking after her father’s house. Dr. Ronald Anderson, divisional surgeon, said the children had been mentally ill-treated and neglected over a long period by being confined without recreation or fresh air. “I ordered their immediate removal to hospital,” he added. When they were taken away, it was stated, the police waited for their parents to come home. The father had been out at the pictures, the mother out with a friend. Mr Barrington-Ward declared that he had never heard of a worse case.