Brighouse & Rastrick Gazette. — 1889-07-13 (Brighouse, West Yorkshire, England)

VIOLENT FATHER.  At Greenwich, Dr. Percy Chatterton, 47, of Sydenham, has been charged, on remand, with assaulting his daughter Grace, aged 15. The prisoner is alleged to have struck the girl, and given her severe black eyes, because she went to the assistance of her stepmother, whom he was beating. She also stated that her father took up a knife and threatened to rip her up, saying that she had only five minutes more to live, and that "Jack the Ripper" would be nothing to it. A second charge against the accused of assaulting his daughter Amy, aged 13, was now gone into.—The child said that her father told her to sweep up the fireplace. She did not understand what he said, and he took up a poker and beat her with it on the back, shoulders, and arms. She got under the table, and he pulled her out by the hair and dashed her on the floor. She fell, and her father kicked her. She had not been impertinent or given any provocation.—Louisa Smith, stated that Amy Chatterton called at her house, and shewed her 18 to 20 marks, about three inches long, on her back. The skin was not cut, but the arm was black,and she thought the marks were too severe to have been caused by a cane. The girl begged her not to tell her father she had complained,as he would, she said, beat her worse.—lnia Brabham, sister-inlaw of the accused, was called for the defence. She said Grace was idle and disobedient, and was defiant towards her stepmother. The prisoner had been a kind husband and father.—Percy Harry Chatterton, a child, said the prisoner was his father. He remembered his father caning Amy for being disobedient to his stepmother and for stealing threepence. Witness had the cane himself when he was naughty. His father had acted very kindly towards witness and towards his sisters.—Cross-exammed, witness said he had been caned by his father about once in the last three or four months, and his sisters about twice.—Sergeant Snelgrove said in 1879 Chatterton was committed at Bromley for assaulting his late wife, and was ordered to find sureties in £5O and himself in E5O to .keep the peace.—The magistrate said he had no dolibt the prisoner had used undue violence towards his children. He ordered him to find two sureties in £25 each to keep the peace for six months, or to go to prison for a month.—Prisoner said he could not find bail, and his children would starve. He had been in prison for 16 days already.  William Kerif, blacksmith, of Dalston, Cumberland, has been tried at Carlisle Assizes for the wilful murder of a woman named Sebra Troughear, on the highway near Dalston. The unfortunate woman was walking home alone in the evening when she was met by the prisoner, who knocked her down and outraged her, the cause of death being choking from vomiting produced by the prisoner's violence. The jury found Kerr guilty, and he was sentenced to death.  Whilst a train from New Cross to Richmond was entering Baker-street Station, OA the Metropolitan Railway oil Sunday night, a passenger, recpectably dressed, either fell or threw himself directly in front of the engine, and was cut to pieces. The officials have not been able to find any papers which would afford them a clue to the unfortunate vietim's ideptity. He was apparently about 35 years of age.