From the Southeastern Gazette, 22 May 1866.

SEVENOAKS.

At the clerk’s office, on Monday, before C. R. C. Petley and M. Lambarde, Esqrs., John Cook and Robert Smith, navvies, were charged with assaulting Matthews, 7 K.C.C. It appeared that shortly after midnight on Saturday, the constable was called to clear the “Oak Tap,” as the people in refused to leave for the landlady. When he got them out, the prisoners being of the number, they commenced shouting and creating a disturbance, and told Matthews that if he came near them they would split his head. A great number of stones were then thrown at him, and he was compelled for safety to leave the road, and to send for assistance. He distinctly I saw the two prisoners throwing, and when other constables came up Cook was taken with a piece of brick in his hand, and it was with considerable difficulty he was taken to the police station. The other prisoner ran away, but was apprehended on Sunday afternoon.

Smith, who had only been released from Maidstone gaol on the Saturday morning, having been committed from this place for drunkenness, denied having thrown, and said that all the policemen in the town picked on him, but he did not know what for. Supt. Colman said that Smith had had four months before for felony, and the first thing he did on Saturday on returning from Maidstone was to go into a public-house and take off his coat and want to fight. He was the most quarrelsome man in the town. The magistrates considered that their conduct had been most brutal, and sentenced them to two months’ imprisonment with hard labour. Mr. Knocker, magistrates’ clerk, when the case was completed, said that the shouts of the people at the time spoken of by Matthews, was more like that of brute beasts than of human creatures.