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From the Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald. 19 October 1867. Price 1d.
SECOND COURT.
(Before Thomas Sidney Clarice, Esq.)
USING A KNIFE.
William Seeley Copping was indicted for maliciously cutting and wounding
Edmund Jordan at Minster, in Sheppy, on the 4th August.
Mr. E. T. Smith, prosecuted; the prisoner was undefended. Prosecutor stated that he was a labourer living at Sheerness, and on the
evening of the 4th August be met Coppins and went with him to the
“Queen's Hotel," and there had some rum. When they were about to leave
the house Coppins said some one had robbed him of three-pence. Witness
replied “Don't make a fuss about it, I will give it you.” He did so, and
presently he saw prisoner take a knife out of his pocket and sharpen it,
and after having done so ran after Bradley, whom he stabbed in the face.
Witness then went up to the prisoner and told him to put the knife away
when he stabbed him on the left side under the arm. He ran into the
“Queen's Head” Hotel, and told them he had been stabbed and felt very
weak from loss of blood. Witness had been unwell ever since. In answer to the Court Jordan said neither he nor the prisoner was
drunk. They commenced “ soaking" about nine o'clock and this continued
up to about eleven o'clock. Bradley, a youth, referred to by the last
witness gave corroborative evidence, but added, however, that they came
out of the Hotel in a very orderly manner, but shortly afterwards heard
Jordan say “I'm stabbed, I'm stabbed.”
Mr. John Japp, a surgeon, practising at Sheerness, stated that the
prosecutor was brought to him bleeding from an incised wound under the
blade bone on the left side. It was half an inch in width and would have
been produced by such a knife as that shown him. Jordan was in danger
for some time, pleurisy having set in. The knife had penetrated through
the membrane of the chest, close to the lung. The whole of the parties
appeared to have been drinking. A police-constable who apprehended the prisoner produced a knife which
he found near the spot where the affray took place. The knife was
covered with blood, and was identified as having been been in the
prisoner's possession during the evening in question. William Davis said he was near the public-house at the time, and saw
Bradley and Jordan both set upon the prisoner. He parted them once or
twice but they persisted in going at him again. The prisoner, in defence, said Jordan and Bradley taunted him about some
girls that they said they would have over to Sheeness from
Sittingbourne. This ended in a quarrel, in the course of which he (the
prisoner) was knocked and kicked about; but prisoner declared that he
did not stab Jordan and that the knife was not his. The jury found the prisoner guilty on the second count—that of
inflicting grievous bodily harm—but recommended him to mercy on account
of their believing that he had received provocation. Sentence, nine months' hard labour. |
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