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THE TIMES |
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Friday, 7th November 1873. |
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(Page 11) |
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COURT OF QUEEN’S BENCH, WESTMINSTER, NOV.6 |
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(Sittings at Nisi Prius, before Baron PIGOTT and a Common Jury.) |
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STEVENS V. GOODERSON |
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This was an action to recover 50l. which had been offered as a reward by the defendant, |
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Mr Castle appeared for the plaintiff: the defendant appeared to defend in person. |
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The plaintiff and his brother are greengrocers, who have a van and horses which they lend out for hire. The defendant is a flour factor in hermitage-street, Wapping. Early in February a van and two horses belonging to the latter were stolen, and with them a quantity of flour. The van and horses were found, and the defendant caused a placard to be published offering a reward of 20l. for information leading to the conviction of the thief, and a further 30l to be paid in proportion to the amount of the flour recovered. One evening in the same month a man named Woolff applied to he plaintiff to come with his van and cart away some flour. He went to Woolff’s stable, where some flour was loaded on his van and taken to a baker’s and he was told to come next morning at 6 o’clock for some more. On his return home, his brother, who had seen the placard, suspected that this was the stolen flour, and they immediately communicated with the defendant and the police. An arrangement was made that the one brother should go with one police constable in the morning to the baker’s and the other to Woolff’s stable. The latter went, accompanied by a police sergeant, and was admitted to the stables and loaded the van, being shut in with Woolff and his two confederates. The later, as they opened the door to let the van our, observed the police, and, drawing back, shut the gates, and one of them seizing Stevens by the throat, another tried to grasp a log of wood with which to strike him. Stevens, however, slipped away from them and managed to open the gates and let in the police. The flour was identified, and nearly all of it was restored to the defendant, and the men were subsequently convicted of the robbery at the Central Criminal Court. |
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The defence was that a Mrs. Irons had given previous information to the police, but the jury found a verdict for the plaintiff. – Damages, 47l. |