By Press Release
On October 5th, 1878, the Isle of Wight Observer published a lengthy piece giving an opinion on how the law was interpreted by a local magistrate. This extract leaves no doubt about the editor’s views on the woman involved in the case. Elsewhere in the paper the parties are named as Neil Cameron and Jane Mary Smith, both living in Oakfield. Mr Cameron tells the court that he will be moving as soon as possible!
AN UNSUPPORTED OATH
The state of the law, as far as it relates to the power of summoning persons before the magistrates for alleged threatening language, seems to us hardly satisfactory, or perhaps we should say that the manner in which Mr. LEACH expounded it is not. On Tuesday a somewhat singular case was brought before the attention of the county magistrates. A respectable-looking man was brought up on a charge of using bad language towards a woman whose character is stated to be very bad. Although the man solemnly denied that he had ever uttered one threatening word; although the oath of the woman was entirely unsupported; and MR LEACH himself acknowledged he believed the man told the truth; yet he said the state of the law was such he was obliged to put the man to the expense and degradation of being bound over to keep the peace towards a woman who was believed to have brought these proceedings entirely out of spite because the defendant had rejected her advances. Defendant had found himself, he said, among bad neighbours, and complainant who lived next door, was nothing better than a common prostitute. A long experience of county and police courts has assured us that the form of oath as at present administered frequently carries none of the weight of sanctity and that some persons are so utterly depraved that they have not the slightest hesitation to commit perjury in order to gain their own ends or gratify their revengeful feelings… Who is safe if the word of a thoroughly bad woman is to be taken in this way?… The complainant would appear to have found a very safe method of annoyance against any person she does not like, and it ought to be within the power of the magistrate, when he has his doubts about the veracity of the complainant in a case of this description to dismiss it…