The Sun. — 1844-05-01 (London, England)

RICHARD ANDREWS.  Mr. MILLER applied to the Court on behalf of Richard Andrews, a prisoner in Warwick gaol, on a charge of murder,. that he might be admitted to bail before the magistrates of Birmingham, in the county of Warwick. He made this ap plication on the ground, that there was not a scintilla of evidence in the case to support the charge. The deceased was the infant child of the prisoner. She was about three or four years of age. The prisoner's wife was dead, and he lived with this child in a state of akect poverty, in a small house in a court of Birmingham. The prisoner had been remarkable for the very great attachment he had for his child, and the kindness he invariably showed to it. About half-past seven in the morning of a day in January, the prisoner having gone out some little time, the people in thecourt were alarmed by screams of distress which proceeded from the house, and going to the window they perceived a fire in the room, and a child (to use theirown expres• sit,n) " fighting with the flames." They went into the house and found the child on a bed of shavings, with au old rug over it—the shavings being on fire. The child, which was very much burnt, was at once rescued and conveyed to the hospital. Near the place (and this was one of the grounds of suspicion) where the child's hand had been observed " fighting with the flames" was a small cinder; which, however, in his (Mr. Miller's) opinion would, upon the trial, decidedly manifest the innocence of the prisoner. When the child was being taken to the hospital by the wife of a man who had been first to rescue it—and who kept a Louse of ill-fame in the court, this woman said—" I believe it was her father who set her on fire." The child, before it had been taken to the hospital, was asked how she got on fire, and she replied she had felt .so very cold that she had gone down stairs to warm herselfthat she had played with the fire, and then had got into the rug. In two or three hours after, about eleven or half-past eleven, when in the 'hospital, somebody spoke to her on the matter. and she said it was her father put her there. At this time the mind of the child was giving way, and there was no doubt (and the affidavits stated it) that, in her then wandering state, she feebly recollected what had fallen from the woman when carrying her to the hospital. Before twelve o'clock the evidence of the medical gentlemen.testified that she was in a state of complete delirium. lie should state, that as soon as ever the father heard of the accident he hurried to the hospital in the greatest agony, and that the moment the child saw him she strove to get to him, and hugged him in the fondest way, which she certainly would not have done, had he been the cause of the dreadful torture she was enduring. Unfortunately the inquest upon the child was taken before a Coroner who was of the medical, and not of the legal profession, and who admitted these expressions of the child in evidence, which the Court would be aware a lawyer would not have done. The consequence of the admission of this illegal evidence was, that a verdict of " Wilful murder" was returned, and the man was committed under the Coroner's warrant to Warwick Gaol, - to take his trial. At the last assizes an application was made by the prosecution to put off the trial, on the ground that the two persons he had alluded to who first discover«l the fire, were not present, and their evidence was essential. They, in fact, were persons of bad character—the police had been after them for some crime or other, and they had absconded. The prisoner had applied to the Court that the depositions of these witnesses should be read, in order that the Court might be satisfied there was no sufficient evidence against him, and so authorise him to go at large on bail until the absconding witnesses were brought forward; but Mr. Baron Gurney hesitated about this, on the ground that he could not recognize consents in criminal cases. Before the witnesses went up to the grand jury the solicitor to the prosecution had very propel ly warned them that they must not repeat to that tribunal the illegal evidence which the Coroner had so improperly admitted before his jury. Mr. Justice