Cambridge Independent Press 13 Apr 1888: Alice Rayner robbed

OBTAINING MONEY BY MENACES.

Mary Shaw, alias Towgood (52), described as a hawker, was charged with demanding and obtaining by menaces, with intent to steal, 2s. 3d., the moneys of Alice Rayner, at Cambridge, on March the 21st.

The prisoner pleaded guilty.

Mr. W. MAYD appeared for the prosecution, and informed the court that the prosecutrix was very much frightened when she was stopped by the prisoner.

The prosecutrix was then called, and, in reply to the Recorder, she stated that she was thirty-four years of age. When the prisoner stopped her, she told her she should not go on to Trumpington, stood in front of her, and would not allow her to pass; but when she gave her the two shillings and threepence she allowed her to pass.

The prisoner said she only borrowed the money until the next morning, and she was on her way to repay the prosecutrix when Detective Carter took her into custody. She had nine children to keep, and she had not got any food for them at the time she received the money. She did not mean to rob the prosecutrix.

The RECORDER remarked that the story of the accused was all nonsense. She could not have meant to borrow the money when she had no money with which to repay the prosecutrix the next morning. He saw that she had been convicted on two previous occasions for offences of this kind. She was punished at Chesterton in 1885 for being a rogue and vagabond, and she was sentenced to one calendar month’s imprisonment with hard labour. In February, 1886, she was convicted for fortune telling and cheating a girl of half-a-crown, and she then had two calendar months with hard labour. He found, on the depositions, that she was trying to get the girl to allow her to tell her fortune (Prisoner: No, sir). The Recorder said it was sworn upon the depositions, and she had pleaded guilty to the offence, and he should make an example of her. The sentence would be that she be imprisoned and kept to hard labour for four calendar months, and if ever the prisoner came there again, or before another court for a similar offence, she would get a more severe sentence. He hoped this would be a warning to her.