ASSAULTS AT THE DERBY.

STRANGE ACCUSATION.

The Illustrated Police News – 12 June 1897

ASSAULTS AT THE DERBY.
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STRANGE ACCUSATION.

Before the Epsom magistrates William Gobey, an ostler, was charged with assaulting three policemen on Epsom Downs, on Derby Day. The officers were protecting a bookmaker, who was being badly treated by a gang of roughs, when Gobey rushed through the crowd and assaulted them.

Thomas Hardy, of 62, Dorling Road, Fulham, the bookmaker referred to, stated that a man came up to him and demanded 12s.6d.  He told him that he had not had a bet with him, which was a fact, and although witness had been paying his way a cry of “Welsher!” was raised. Witness was pulled off his stand and knocked down, and had all his clothing, even to his trousers, torn off. The mob stole his watch and chain and his satchel, containing £11 in gold, and a quantity of silver. The prisoner was one of the men.

By the Bench: When & man was Accused of being a “welsher” the crowd did not wait to consider what it should do. (Laughter).

An old man of the gipsy class, named Marney, living at Stratford, Essex, said he had employed the prisoner “these eight year,” and always found him respectable.

Mr. Young (for the prisoner) contended that a small fine would meet the case, but the Chairman said the Bench were determined to check these assaults, and sent Gobey to gaol for fourteen days.

John James, forty-six, of Hungerford, Wilts, was also charged with assaulting Frederick Toon, ostler at the Eclipse Inn, West Hill, Epsom; and George Gayton, landlord of the Eclipse Inn, was charged with assaulting James. In the charge against Gayton, James told an ‘extraordinary story. He said he knocked at the defendant’s door half an hour after closing time and asked for a bed. He went inside and had two pork pies and two glasses of ale, at the same time treating Gayton, the landlord, to some whisky. The landlady told him that she could not let him have a bed, but he could have a “sort of a shakedown” for 3s. At that moment the landlady pulled out a revolver and passed it to her husband, and as witness went to the door to leave the house he was followed by Toon and Gayton, the latter striking him on the back of the head five or six times with the revolver.

Gayton declared that James did not come to the house until one o’clock, when he was accompanied by two men, it being their intention, he believed, to rob the house. Directly he opened the door he was attacked, and he hit James with the revolver. As to what James said about the whisky and pork pies, it was a tissue of lies.

Gayton was released on his own recognisances in the sum of £50, and James was required to find one surety in £50, with forty-eight hours’ notice to the police, pending which he was conveyed to Holloway prison.