LAW & ORDER – A warning to juveniles

Accreditation The Redcar and Saltburn-by-the-Sea Gazette 09/11/1877.

A WARNING TO JUVENILES

            At the Guisborough police court, on Tuesday (06/11), John Outhwaite, aged 15, was charged with robbing his master, Thomas Wilson Pennock, a grocer in business at Coatham, of £1.1s. on the previous day. The prosecutor stated that the prisoner had been in his service about six months, and, having frequently missed money from his cashbox – two sovereigns being stolen last week – he remarked the whole of the money he had by, amounting to £22 odd. This he placed in his cashbox, and placed it in his bedroom at his residence, 7, York Terrace. During Monday afternoon (05/11), he sent the prisoner to light the kitchen fire at his house, and directed a you man in his employee, named John Dixon, to watch him. The latter afterwards told him that whilst he leg concealed under the bed in his bedroom. The prisoner entered, took the cashbox from the shelf, and after abstracting some money, he locked it, and returned it to its place. After lighting the kitchen fire e left the house and proceeded to the shop. In consequence of this the police were sent for. Sgt Alexander stated that in searching the prisoner’s pockets he failed to discover any of the stall in money. He then asked him to take off his boots and socks, and after taking off his left boat and sock he said, to witness, “You see I have got nothing.” On taking off the other boat, however, a sovereign and a shilling dropped out. Both were marked, the prosecutor, identifying the mark as those he had placed on the coins. In answer to the Bench, the Sergeant stated that the boy bore a very bad character, and that his father had declined to appear before the Bench to say anything on his behalf. The prisoner, who pleaded guilty, was then sentenced to three months’ imprisonment with hard labour.