Corpun file 24587 at www.corpun.com

Daily Mail, London, 13 August 1928, p.8

In the courts.

Caned boy's summons.

Prefect's defence.

Father withdraws case.

Click to enlarge

John King Day, aged 15, of Coddington Hall, Newark, Nottinghamshire, a prefect at Stamford Grammar School, Lincolnshire, and nephew of the headmaster, the Rev. J.D. Day, was summoned at Stamford on Saturday for assaulting John Henry Davis, aged 10, a pupil at the school.

The allegation was that Day administered excessive corporal punishment with a cane because Davis had broken one of the rules by failing to attend as a spectator a school cricket match.

Upon the case being called, the Mayor of Stamford, Ald. J.H. Bowman, the chairman of the Bench, made a strong appeal that the matter should be settled amicably. He asked the parties to retire and have a conference.

Mr. Herbert Kelham, solicitor for the prosecution, said that the case might not have been brought to court but for the hostile attitude of the headmaster when the boy's father, Mr. Albert C. Davis, who is president of the Stamford Chamber of Commerce, went to complain to him.

Mr. Godfrey Phillips, solicitor for the defence, denied that the punishment was excessive, only three strokes of the cane being given by Day.

After 15 minutes' conference between the solicitors and Mr. Davis the latter agreed to withdraw the summons, but he maintained that he bad been justified in bringing the case forward having regard to what he regarded as the excessive punishment inflicted on his boy, whom he had withdrawn from the school.

© Associated Newspapers Limited.