| 14 December 1864 There is a report of his previous offence in the Wolverhampton Chronicle and Staffordshire Advertiser Wednesday 14 December 1864 p.4 col.4: A JUVENILE THIEF.-William Bennett, a lad about ten years of age, was brought before B. Hicklin and G. L Underhill, Esqs., at the Police Court, Monday, charged with having stolen a dozen leather boot laces, the property of Mr. Carrier, hosier. Cock-street, who has also a stall In the Market Hall. The laces were stolen from the prosecutor's stall on Saturday morning, and the prisoner was apprehended directly afterwards with the laces in his possession. Mr. Carrier said the prisoner was one of a gang of young thieves who infest the Market Hall nearly every day, and both he and the other stall keepers there were continual sufferers by their depredations. The prisoner, it appeared, had not been in custody before. He pleaded guilty to the charge, and the Magistrates, after severely reprimanding him for his bad conduct, sentenced him to have ten strokes with a birch rod. |
| 28 December 1864 There is a report of the crime in the Wolverhampton Chronicle and Staffordshire Advertiser Wednesday 28 December 1864 p.6 col.3: COMMITTAL TO A REFORMATORY. - William Bennett, aged 10 years, was charged with shop robbery. It appeared that the boy went to the shop of Mr. Turner, hosier, in Cock Street and asked to be shown some purses. Whilst looking at a box of them, he was seen to secrete three about his person. The Chief-constable said the father of the boy was dead, and his mother had deserted him. He was therefore thrown on the town to get his living as best he could. He was brought up before the Magistrates on the 12th instant, and was ordered to be whipped, for stealing shoe-laces from a stall in the Market-hall.-Mr. Spooner expressed an opinion that the punishment of whipping offenders like the prisoner had no lasting influence in deterring them from again committing the offence for which they were punished. He thought the best course for him to take was, to sentence Bennett to fourteen days' imprisonment, and at the expiration of that time to order him be kept in a Reformatory for five years. |
