“ REVOLTING CRUELTY”

Waikato Times, Volume 123, Issue 20664, 26 November 1938, Page 25 (Supplement)

“ REVOLTING CRUELTY”

Child Thrashed with Hunting Crop Hard Labour for Man and Wife

A hunting crop, consisting of two feet of flexible steel bound with interlaced leather throngs, with which, it was alleged, a four-year-old boy was thrashed until his back, face and arms were a mass of bruises, was produced during the hearing of a case at Plympl< n, Devon. In the dock were Edward Bartlett, 29. an unemployed labourer, and his wife, Beatrice May Bartlett, 31. They pleaded not guilty to illtreating the boy, John Cobley, who was stated to be the illegitimate child of Mrs Bartlett. Each was sentenced to one month's hard labour. “This is a case of revolting cruelty,” stated Mr W. E. Payne, chairman of the Bench, after he had seen photographs of the boy showing scores of weals aJleged to have been caused by the hunting crop. Bartlett and his wife denied using the crop, declaring that they slapped the child with bare hands. As Mrs Bartlett faced the Court she nursed a baby. Her husband held a two-year-old child in his arms.

“Mummle Did It” Mr J. L. Wolferston, prosecuting, told the Court that Cobley was sent to an orphanage at Torquay after bis mother’s marriage. Last August he -went to live with the Bartletts at Park Street, Ivybridge. A few days later a neighbour took the boy to the police, saying she had heard him being threatened and thrashed. Since August 17 he had been in Plympton Infirmary. Inspector Wyatt, of the N.S.P.C.C., stated that Bartlett told him: “It have not touched the boy. She must have been knocking him about.” “When I asked the boy who had been beating him,” added the Inspector, he replied. “Mummie did it with the stick on the wall.’ ” A policeman who interviewed Mrs Bartlett had noticed the hunting crop hanging on a wall in the house. “I’ve always threatened him with the stick, but never used it,” Mrs Bartlett told the magistrates.