Cambridge Independent Press 18 Apr 1863: Thomas Cooper guilty of indecent assault on child
TRUMPINGTON. — Thomas Cooper, of Trumpington, was charged by Ellen Rayner, of the same place, with indecently assaulting her daughter, on the 8th inst., at Trumpington. The little girl was questioned and examined. It appeared that she was going to a water closet, when the defendant indecently assaulted her. The girl’s account, who has the charge of her, deposed to the child telling her that Cooper had been taking liberties with her. She immediately went to look after prisoner, whom she saw running as hard as he could toward Grantchester. She finally caught him, and when she accused him of pulling the child about, he denied it, but refused to come back and face the girl. Witness thereupon deprived him of his “wide-a wake,” and told him she should keep it if he did not go back with her. Witness said that “where he went she would go,” and if she followed him all night she would have him by some means or other. Prisoner took to his heels and ran, witness did likewise with a determination to catch him, and at last Mr. Wallis, of Haslingfield, caught him and secured him. Mr. Wallis asked witness what prisoner had been doing, and she replied that he had been interfering with a child not eight years old. Mr. Wallis overtook him in Barton parish, and they all went to Barton, but could not find a policeman there, though Cooper was safely lodged in the custody of the parish constable and his son. Another witness was called, who saw the girl crying and asked her what was the matter. She said a man had been kissing her, and putting his hands in an indecent manner upon her person. — Mr. FRENCH, for prisoner, was instructed that a horse and cart was coming, and that he merely took the child off the road into the garden, in order to get her out of danger. — The Magistrates ordered that the expenses of the case should be deducted from the money found upon him, and that he should be committed to two months’ hard labor.