Maidstone Telegraph, Rochester and Chatham Gazette, Saturday 4th August 1860.

Perjury at Cranbrook.

Horace Fuller, a decently dressed young man, was indicted for having committed wilful and corrupt perjury, at Cranbrook, on 16th December.

Mr. Barrow was for the prosecution, Mr. Ribton defended the prisoner.

The charge arose out of an affiliation case which came before the magistrates in petty sessions at Cranbrook, on the 1st December, when Arthur Fuller, brother of the prisoner, was alleged to be the father of the child of a young woman name Caroline Penfold. The prisoner who is a horse dealer at Canterbury, was then called as a witness for the defence, and swore that on the second night of Maidstone fair, in October, 1858, Penfold stayed with him at an inn in Maidstone, which was the perjury now alleged against him. The summons, in consequence of the evidence, was dismissed, but a fresh information was taken out, and the case re-heard on the 3rd May. Prisoner then repeated the above statement, but an order was made, and the magistrates directed the present proceedings to be taken against Fuller.

The young woman Penfold was now called, and stated that she was at Maidstone during the fair of Michaelmas, 1858, but on the first night she slept at the "Papermakers' Arms," Stone Street, and the second at the "Gardeners; Arms," Earl Street; and that at the last named place three women also slept in the same room.

Fanny Spice, Elizabeth Couchman, and Thomas Brooker, the latter keeping the "Gardeners' Arms," were called to corroborate the statement.

Mr. Ribton urged that the prisoner had simply made a mistake, when before the magistrates, as for its being the second instead of the first night of the fair. In support of this defence he called Hepzibah Pooley, who stated that on the second day of the fair Penfold admitted to her that she slept with the prisoner on the previous night; Joshua Aldridge, the landlord of the "Rodney's Head," said that on the first night of the fair the prisoner slept at his house in the same room with two females, one of whom he believed was Caroline Penfold. Richard Parritt, of Horsmonden, who stated that Penfold had asked him to swear that he saw her come downstairs at the "Papermakers' Arms" on the second morning of the fair and William Farley, horse-dealer, of Goudhurst, spoke to the prisoners good character.

Superintendent English, one of the witnesses for the prosecution, was recalled, and said that on the 3rd May, in a conversation he had with a witness Aldridge, that witness told him that none of the Fullers slept at his house during the fair in question; that one of them ordered a bed, but did not sleep there, and that no girl or stranger to him slept at his house during the fair.

The hearing of the case occupied the court several hours, and the jury ultimately found the prisoner guilty.

One year's hard labour.