Bad Characters from Desborough
Northamptonshire Quarter Sessions, Jan 1903
Thomas Flude,
34, shoe rivetter;
Thomas Yeomans, 26, shoe rivetter; and
George Summerley
(46), shoe laster, all of Desborough, pleaded guilty to an indictment
charging them with stealing seven live tame fowls, of the value of 17s.
6d., the property of John Keech, at Brampton Ash, on the 15th November,
1902.
—Mr. W. R. D. Adkins for the prosecution, said that Sergeant
Markham could give the Court information as to the characters of the
men.
—Sergeant Markham said that the men were all bad characters. Yeomans
was the worst man in Desborough. He could have work if he cared to do
it, but be preferred to go poaching and thieving. He had been convicted
for stealing fowls and a ferret. Summerley was a lazy, drunken fellow,
an associate of poachers and thieves. Flude's troubles were mainly due
to drunkenness. He was a terrible man to drink.
—The Chairman said that the three men had been 54 times
convicted of drunkenness.
—Sentencing the prisoners, the Chairman said that Flude was the
least bad character of the three. He had been 12 times summarily
convicted in seven years, and he would be sentenced to Six Months' Hard
Labour. Yeomans, who had been 17 times convicted of drunkenness and game
trespass in nine years, would be sentenced to Twelve Months' Hard
Labour. Summerley, who since 1877 had been convicted of stealing an
umbrella, and who had been 25 times convicted of drunkenness, would be
sentenced to Twelve Months' Hard Labour.
Northampton Mercury,
Friday 09 January 1903