From: ce11son@yahoo.ca   
      
   On Thu, 18 Oct 2018 15:27:51 +0100, David Marshall   
    wrote:   
      
   >On 5th February 1905 the naked body of a baby girl was found in a   
   >backyard in Cymmer, Glamorganshire. Presumably acting on a tip-off, the   
   >doctor examined a young girl living nearby and declared that she "had   
   >the appearance of having given birth to a child". She was arrested and   
   >charged with concealing a birth.   
   >At her trial the magistrate was at pains to get the doctor to testify   
   >that the child had not "had an independent existence" and urged the jury   
   >to acquit her "in accordance with the medical evidence" which they duly did.   
   >The newspaper accounts are a bit sparse, but it seems clear that the   
   >girl, who would have been aged about twelve and a half at the time of   
   >conception, had successfully concealed her pregnancy and had given birth   
   >(unaided and undetected) to a full term, possibly stillborn, child which   
   >she had neither hidden nor reported.   
   >What was the law in 1905? Might the magistrate have bent the rules out   
   >of sympathy for a young girl?   
   >   
   s.60 Offences Against the Person Act 1861 so (apart from the effects   
   of intervening case law) it is the same statutary offence then as now.   
   The offence applied "whether such Child died before, at, or after its   
   Birth". If anything the magistrate seemed to be putting beyond doubt   
   that the only offence (if any) was concealment not murder and avoid   
   any accusation of being too lenient.   
      
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