Assault, 1 June 1867
Henry Vine, of Bedford-street, was charged with assaulting his son Henry on Sunday morning.
— Complainant said on Sunday morning he went home and his father tied his hands behind him and his legs, and then gave him a good kicking on his leg and left him tied. In the afternoon his father called in a man named Lockley, and asked him if he wanted to buy a dog. The man asked where the dog was, and his father pointed to him. After a time his father began to kick and punch him about the bowels. He cried out, and Lockley and another young man caught hold of his father, who had pulled his coat off and swore he would kill him. Some of the neighbours came in, and pulled him out and cuts the strings. He had not been home since. His mother was dead. He ran away from home on Friday because his father had been beating him very badly, and said he had only three
shillings to buy bread for the children. The mark on the chin was either from a kick or a knife; his father had some tobacco and a knife in his hand at the time.
— George Sutton spoke to cutting the strings with which complainant's legs and arms were tied. His shirt was covered with blood, and his chin was bleeding either from a cut or kick.
— Defendant in reply to the charge said the complainant was a very unruly boy.
— The Mayor said this was the worst case he had had to deal with since he had been a magistrate. It was a most brutal act, and no one could imagine that the boy would be likely to be reclaimed by such an act of ill-usage. The only means of teaching him better was inflicting the severest sentence they could, which was to be imprisoned for four months with hard labour, after that to enter into his own recognizances to keep the peace for six months.
The Leicester Mail, Saturday, June 8th, 1867
Note: The surname given in the article is Vine, not Vines, so confirmation is needed that it relates to the family identified. The younger Henry in this database (Henry James Vines) would have been 6 years old at this date.
See also: The Leicester Chronicle and Leicestershire Mercury report of this case which says the mother is "deaf", rather than "dead".