The Potteries Examiner : — 1874-07-11 (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England)

HORRIBLE CRUELTY TO A WIFE.—HEARTLESS TREATMENT BY HER CHILDREN.—The examination of Patrick Riley before the Cardiff magistrates reveals • course of brutality and cruel neglect which we sincerely trust will be long without a parallel in Wales. Riley was brought before Mr. R. O. Jones and Mr. H. Bowen charged with having caused the death of his wife. Mr. L. T. Reece conducted the prosecution. It was considered desirable that the case shouldbe brought before the magistrates in order that the evidence of the children might be taken, as it was feared that the influence of the Irish residents might be used to induce the boys not to give evidence against their father. The little boy Thomas Riley was called, and stated that he went to bed with his mother on Friday evening, about nine o'clock; she had taken the bed from the bedstead and put it on the floor. He went to sleep,lbut he woke up on finding his father and mother quarrelling. He said that his father came up, and as she was lying on the floor he kicked her several times on the side of the head, and also on the body and the sides. She screamed out when he kicked her, and called out, "Oh, oh! " She afterwards, when he pushed her off the bed on to the floor, staggered along the floor to the fire-place, and there fell down. She then called oat, " Oh ! may God forgive your father for all that he has done." She lay down on the mattress that they had got for her mid there vomited. From the evidence of the older lads it appeared that they were woke up by the noise, but they only saw their fathe put his foot on their mother's face, but he had then his boot off. He afterwards slapped her on the face, but that was in consequence of her refusing to get up from the floor and come on to the bed which he had put on to the bedstead. When she was on the floor lying on the bed she vomited,and he called out to his sons that she would choke, but they paid no attention to her, and one of them said, "Let her be; she is all right.' When all were apparently asleep, Hugh got tip and put a rug over his mother. When the younger one proposed to get a bed for her to lie on from the coal-hole, the eldest son said, "No ; let her be ; " and another said that she was "shamming," and " she aid not want to fall down without she liked." She had been ailing for some days, and had taken bnt little food. Thursday night she sent Hugh for a pint of beer to make her sleep, and it was thought that the beer had taken an effect upon her. Several witnesses were called. They all proved that the woman on the Friday evening went to bed quite sober, and that she was a quiet, inoffensive woman, but that the husband treated her very cruelly. He often turned her out and left her out all night. Other witnesses proved that on the Thursday they had quarrelled and fought, and that he then gave her a black eye. The inquest was adjourned till Wednesday, but before the magistrates the cam was completed, and there Dr. Paine gave the result of his post-mortem examination, which proved that death resulted firma the congestion of blood on the brain, produced either by a blow from an instrument or a kick, but it must have been given with great force, as the fracture was on the opposite part of the skull to that on which the blow was given. Congestion of the lungs also served to accelerate death, but that had also resulted from violence, and all the injuries, excepting the black t ye, were of recent date. The prisoner when before the u.agistrates asked no questions nor made any reply, and was committed for trial on the charge of win] murder of his wife.