Robbery Of £700 At Mirfield.—
William Mosley (40) who has carried on business as a fruit salesman in the Wakefield Borough
Market, and alleged to be a betting man, was indicted for stealing £700 in cash, cheques, a bankers' draft, &c., and a leather bag, the property of the New Sharlston
Collieries Company Limited, from Mr. James Womack, at Mirfield, on the 22ud of January last. The case, which occupied from 12.30 noon until 3.10 p.m., appeared to excite great
interest, and the court was crowded. Mr. W. Curr, instructed by Mr. Watts, of Dewsbury, prosecuted; and Mr. Kershaw, instructed by Mr. Lodge, of Wakefield, defended. The
evidence in support of the charge was of a circumstantial character. On the day in question Mr. James Womack, of Knowle-road, Mirfield, a collector in the service of the
prosecutors, went to Bradford, and there received about £700 on behalf of his employers, which he carried in a small black leather hand bag. He appears to have imbibed
somewhat freely, and he was scarcely to be called sober about 5.30 p.rn, when he went to the railway station to proceed by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Company's train to
Mirfield. It was alleged that whilst Womack was on the platform the prisoner was seen and heard talking with two other men in a suspicious manner, and it was insinuated that a
robbery was being plotted by Mosley and his confederate, Womack travelled from Bradford to Mirfield in a first-class carriage, and Mosley rode in a third-class compartment
near to Womack. When the tram arrived at Mirfield Womack was assisted down the steps by a young porter named Watson, who asserted that as he returned up the steps he saw
Mosley talking to two other men. Womack decided to drive to his residence from the railway station, in a cab. and whilst he was proceeding to get into it Mosley, it was
asserted, accosted him, said that he did not need a cab, and that he would walk home with him. He also told Womack that a guard on the platform wished to see him, but Womack
declined to go back, and determined to drive home in a cab. The prisoner then said that he was going up Knowle-road, and Womack very foolishly offered to give him a lift on
the road, and Mosley took the opposite seat to Womack inside the cab. Immediately after they had started the door on the off-aide of the cab was opened, two men ran round the
back of the cab, Mosley got out of the vehicle, and the three men disappeared. Womack at once missed the bag containing £700, and the same night a schoolboy found it lying
empty in the road. On the following Sunday the prisoner was apprehended at his own home at Wakefield, and in answer to the charge he said, "I know nothing about it: its a
rum 'un if I have to go for that.'' Mr. Kershaw, for the prisoner,contended that it was a case of mistaken identity. The jury, after consulting for about a quarter
of an hour, returned a verdict of "Guilty," Colonel Brooke read a list of thirty-two previous convictions against Mosley for various offences, and then sentenced him
to five years penal servitude.
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