The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-10-27 00:00:00

CONVICTION OF AN INNOCENT MAN.

On the 27th of last month, a poor man, named
Thomas Nott, a tailor, was convicted of felony at the
Clerkenwell sessions, and sentenced to three months'
imprisonment and hard labour. Ills innocence has since
been made apparent under very singular circumstances.
A girl, named Mary Ann Bevans, only fourteen years
of age, in the service of a Mr. Still, accused Nott of
having robbed her master. The evidence taken against
him at the Thames Police-court went to show, that Mr.
Still had missed a great many articles of linen and wear-
ing apparel, and the girl swore that on the night pre-
ceding the apprehension of Nott she easy him in the rear
of her master's house, and after he had gone a quantity
of children's linen and wearing apparel, hung out upon
the lines to dry, were missing, and that a portion of them
were found in an adjoining yard, which the thief must
have passed over, on the same night. She also stated,
that on the following morning, when she got up, she
saw the prisoner standing close to the parlour window
of her master's house, and immediately recognized him
as tLe man she had seen in the yard the night previous,
and that sonic time afterwards he came to the house with
a bundle which contained a portion of the stolen pro-
perty, and placing the bundle in her hand, begged of her
not to say anything to her toaster and mistress, and he
would reward brr for her secrecy.
A policeman, named Bowling, 347 K, deposed that he
was sent for by the girl's master, that she made the same
statement to him, and he took the prisoner into custody ;
and that upon proceedii.g to the house with the girl on
the same night, he found a child's cap (identified by Mrs.
Still as her property) in the passage leading to the stair-
cae. The girt, to give a further colouring to the mutter,
stated that when she entered the rrisoner's house with
Rowling, she saw the cap thrown from the top of the
landing on the top of the staircase, but although she saw
the hand which threw it down stairs, she did not see the
body of the person.
On this evidence the magistrate had no alternative but
to commit the prisoner for trial, and he was sent away in
the police van to gaol, not before he had loudly protested
his innocence, and declared that the girl was perjured.
The same evidence was given on the trial, and his pro-
testations of innocence, and the excellent character he re-
ceived from several witnesses, availed him nothing. lie
was found guilty, and sentenced to be imprisoned and
kept to hard labour in, the House of Correction fur three
tll,

mouths.
Among the witnesses to character was a respectable
woman, named Swift, a former landlady of the prisoner's,
who after the trial expressed publicly a strong opinion of
his innocence, and the
.wickedness and penury of the girl
Evans. Two or three nights after the trial, the girl
Evans was sent out upon an errand, and she returned
with her bonnet torn, her clothes in disorder, and blood
streaming from her face. On the master and mistress
inquiring how she came to be in that state, she stated that
she had been waylaid by the woman Swift, who made a
furious attack upon her and cut her face. On the evening
of Friday, the 2nd instant, the girl was again sent out, to
fetch some milk, and she returned apparently suffering
from violence inflicted upon her, and said the woman
Swift had again waylaid her in the Back-road, and after
striking her several times about the head and face ran
away. On the following day, she complained that Mrs.
Swift had assaulted her while she was cleaning the door
stets. In consequence of these alleged repeated attacks
on the girl, she was advised to seek redress at the pollee-
court, and obtained a peace-warrant against Mrs. Swift.
On the following afternoon (Sunday, the 4th instant,)
about half-past one o'clock, the attention of the girl and
her ei les for help, and upon proceeding into the front par-
lour, armed with a large carving-knife, and after knocking

Oct. 27, 1846.

her down with the child in ber arms she opened the front
door and ran away. Immediate pursuit was made, but
,no,tidings of Mr. Swift could be gained. Some wearing
apparel, linen, and other property, were missing directly
afterwards, and Mr. Still made an application at the sta-
tion-house for assistance to police-sergeant Harris, who
immediately suspected the girl was the thief, and on in-
quirf being made, it was found that on the Saturday
morning, when Swift was represented to be in Lucas-
street, she was upwards of two miles from the spot. A
lodger, who had some suspicion that the girl was an im-
poitor, looked up the chimney in the girl's bedroom,
where he found a bundle of wearing apparel fastened with
a cord, which the girl had led Mr. and Mrs. Still to be-
lieve had been stolen by Mrs. Swift. Sergeant Harris made
further inquiries, which satisfied him of the innocence of
the man Nott, and of Mrs. Swift, and that everything
the girl had said about them was false from beginning to
end. She afterwards made a full confession of her guilt,
and said that Nott was innocent, and that she bad dropped
the child's cap in his house for the purpose of securing a
conviction against him ; that all she had said relating to
Mrs. Swift was false, and had inflicted the bruises on her
head and face with her own hands, to be revenged on
Mrs. Swift for the observations she had made concerning
her. She signed two declarations, affirming the inno-
cence of Nott and Mrs. Swift, and expressing her regret
at having made false charges against them. The inspec-
tor's report, the declarations of the girl, and a memorial
from Mr. Still, have been laid before the Home Secre-
tary, and Nett has been since discharged. The girl Evans
has been discharged from her situation, and is at large.

Oct. 27, 1846.