The Sun.
London, England, 1859-01-08 00:00:00

CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT—Jan. 7.

OLD COURT.

(Before Mr. Baron Martin.'
Frederick Goodey, 33, was indicted for felo-
niously cutting and. wounding Sarah Goodey, with
intent to murder her.

There was the usual common counts in the
indictment charging the prisoner with intending
to do grievous bodily harm, &c.
Mr. Poland prosecuted. The prisoner was
defended by Mr. Metcalfe.
The learned counsel for the prosecution, in open-
ing the case to the jury, described it as one of a
melancholy and painful character. The prisoner
and the prosecutrix, who was his wife, had only
been married three years, and they had unhappily
separated two or three times during that period,
and it was while they were thus separated upon
one occasion that the offence imputed to the pri-
soner was committed. He then gave a brief nar-
rative of the facts, and the following evidence was
adduced :
Sarah Goodey said—l am the wife of the pri-
soner. We have been married three years and a
half. I left him on the 13th of Sept. and was
living at 4, Rope-place, Stepney, and the prisoner
found me out there, and I removed to Wellington-
street, Stepney, where I remained till the 14th of
Dec. I occupied a room on the ground floor, and
a little boy, the son of the prisoner, lived with me.
On the morning of that day I and the little boy
were in bed, and the prisoner came into the room.
I said to him, " Well, Fred., what do you want
here ?" He replied, " I have come to see you, but
shall not stay long." He then came to the bed
side, and I told him I wanted to get up to get some
tea. He told me to be still, there was plenty of
time for that, and forced me down on the bed. I
said to him, " None of your nonsense, or I shall
cry murder." The prisoner then asked where the
boy was, and I pulled the bedclothes down, and
showed him to him. He then went out, locked
the door, and went towards the window, and I
got out of bed and I saw him pull something out
of his pocket which I thought was a cigar-case,
and I said, " What a fine cigar-case you have
got." He said, " Yes, it is," and replaced it in his
pocket. He then came up to me, and as I was
putting on my clothes he came behind me, and I
felt a cut across my throat, and I saw the prisoner
had a razor in his hand. I fell down, and he kept
one hand on my chest and one knee on my legs,
and tried to cut my throat, and I received three
wounds. I saw the razor in his hand quite plainly,
and I at length succeeded in laying hold of it, and,
in doing so, my hands were both cut, and I received
eight wounds upon them. When I had hold of the
razor the prisoner straggled to get the razor from
me, and the blade broke from the handle, and the
former remained in my hand. All this time I was
screaming " Murder." When the prisoner found I
had got the blade of the razor he called out, " Oh,"
and ran to the table and tried to lay hold of a dinner-
knife that was upon it, but he over-balanced himself,
and I was thus enabled to get up. I unlocked the
door and went into an adjoining room, and threw
away the razor, and do not remember anything
more that happened until I found myself in bed,
and on the same morning I was taken to the hos-
pital. There was no razor in the room when the
prisoner came into the room. I have since seen a
razor-case, which is the same thing that I took for
a cigar-case.
Cross-examined—l was married to the prisoner
in May 1855, and the child was born in July, 1856.
I never heard that the prisoner had fractured his
skull, or that he had a silver plate in his head. We
separated three times. I knew a man named Cook.
I swear that he never slept in the same room with
me. Cook is a shipwright. He comes from my
own neighbourhood, Somersetshire. I have known
him about four months. I used to visit a person
named Davis, at Stepney. Cook lodged with Mrs.
Davis. I swear that I was never discovered on the
bed in Cook's room. I receive some money from a
gentleman, but this is entirely owing to the pri-
soner's brutality.
Baron Martin (to the witness)—You receive this
money from some gentleman with whom you have
been intimate ?

Witness—Yes, my lord.
Cross-examination continued—l once lived in the
Old Kent-road, but I swear I was not visited by a
gentleman there.
Re .examined—The prisoner was aware, when he
married me, that I had lived with a gentleman
before, and that he sent me money.
Mrs. Powell, the landlady of the house in Wel-
lington-street, said that the prosecutrix had lodged
with her for about two months on the 14th of
December. She remembered the prisoner coming
to the house that morning and inquiring for the
prosecutrix and she showed him her room, and he
went in, and soon afterwards she heard Mrs. Goodey
say. "If you do, I'll shriek murder." Witness
tried the door, and found it was locked, and she
heard a great scuffle in the room, and witness tried
to force open the door but could not, and shortly
afterwards some one unlocked the door from the

inside, and Mrs. Goodey came out covered with
blood. The prisoner came after her, and he lifted
up his arms and said, "I am mad." Witness asked
him to have mercy upon her, and begged him to go
into the room, and she locked him in, and he got
out of the window into the street. The police were
then sent for, and Mrs. Goodey was taken to the
hospital.
Cross-examined—A man named Cook used to
come and see the child while Mrs. Goodey was in
the hospital. 4p. did not know whether he used
to come and -Visit Mrs. Goodey. He might have
come every day. She had seen him sometimes in
Mrs. Goodey's room; but she could not say how
often. She did not know that Cook slept in the
room of Mrs. Goodey upon any occasion.
Mr. Hayes, an inspector of the K division, deposed
that he went to the house in Wellington-street on
the morning in question, and found Mrs. Goodey
bleeding from several wounds in the throat, and
he immediately had her conveyed to the hospital.
He searched the place, and found a razor blade in
the fire-place of the back room, and a portion of
the handle in the front room. He met the prisoner
about a quarter of a mile from Wellington-street,
and he appeared to be very drunk. He was taken
into custody the same afternoon. He was then
sober. Witness read the charge to him, and cau-
tioned him that what he said would be related to
the magistrate, and he replied—" I know nothing
of it, I have no recollection of it."

William Peller, police-constable, deposed that
about half-past ten in the morning of the day the
occurrence happened, he saw the prisoner near Wel-
lington-street very drunk, and throwing half-
crowns and shillings to some boys. Witness took
him into custody, and noticed that the back of his
right hand was covered with blood. Witness asked
him where the blood came from, and he made no
reply. As they were going to the police-station,
the prisoner stopped suddenly and said, " I have a
burden in my pocket," and pulled out the lower
part of a razor-case and threw it on the ground,
and witness picked it up. When he first saw the
prisoner throwing the money about he asked him if
he knew what he was doing, and he replied, " We
all have a propensity. I don't belong to this earth.
I am going to arise to another country, and I shall
not return to this earth again."
Mr. Hill, the house-surgeon at the London Hos-
pital, proved that the injuries the prosecutrix had
received were of a dangerous description, and it
appeared she was still an out-patient.
Mr. Metcalfe made an able speech to the jury on
behalf of the prisoner, and he called witnesses who
proved that the prosecutrix was a drunken, violent
woman, and that she had left him after they had
been married two months.

Baron Martin summed up, and
The jury, after a short deliberation, found the
prisoner guilty of wounding, with intent to do
grievous bodily harm.
The learned judge, in passing sentence, said there
could be no doubt that the prisoner had made an
unfortunate marriage, and that he was very un-
happy ; but this was no excuse for his acting as he
had done ; and if the jury had convicted him upon
the capital charge, they would have been perfectly
justified, upon the evidence, in returning that
verdict. He then sentenced the prisoner to be kept
in penal servitude for four years.
This case concluded the sessions, and the Court
adjourned to Monday, Jan 31.