LAW & ORDER – Stealing clothes from a drying-ground at Coatham

Accreditation the Redcar and Saltburn-by-the-Sea Gazette 08/09/1876

 STEALING CLOTHES FROM A DRYING-GROUND AT COATHAM

            Are respectably dressed child, eight years of age, named Ada Catchasides, was charged before the Guisborough magistrates, on Monday (03/09), with stealing some articles of underclothing, of the value of 14s, from a drying-ground at Coatham, on the 20^th ult. The drying-ground is near the Convalescent Home, and a number of articles have been missed from the ground, a boy named Redman was sent on the day named to watch the clothes. During the afternoon the prisoner entered the drying-ground, and after filling airbag she had with her, she walked off in the direction of her home. She was followed overtaken by the boys Redman, who took her to the police station. Sgt Alexander stated that the prisoner had been previously caught in the act of stealing, and the Bench expressed their decided contradiction that the parents of the child, and not the child herself, were to blame. They thought the justice of the case would be met by inflicting a fine of £1 and costs, but in the event of another similar case being preferred against the prisoner, they would send her to a reformatory where her parents would have to maintain her.