Tynemouth

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North Shields Daily News - 9th March, 1883

To the Right Honourable Sir William Vernon Harcourt. M.P. Her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Home Department. The memorial of the undersigned inhabitants of the Borough of Tynemouth in the county of Northumberland HUMBLY SHEWETH, that on Sunday night, the 24th day of December, 1882, three young men, named John George Graham, Richard Ponton and Wm Ponton, were returning home, and in passing through Northumberland square, in the Borough of Tynemouth, a police-constable charged them with hounding a dog ( which belonged to Graham ) on to worry a cat. They denied the charge, and an altercation ensued, resulting in blows being exchanged. The police-constable was knocked down, and two of the young men, namely, John George Graham and Richard Ponton, were injured about the head, the later seriously, by the truncheon of the constable. Graham was apprehended the same night and brought before the magistrates on the 26th December, when he was sentenced to two months imprisonment with hard labour, without the option of a fine. The two Pontons were summoned and brought before the magistrates on Thursday 28th December when they also were sentenced to the same term of imprisonment with hard labour. The case of the whole three prisoners rested entirely on the uncorroborated testimony of the police constable. The contestion on the part of the prisoners was, that the constable was the aggressor and they struck him in self defence. At the same court at which the prisoner Graham was tried, a returned convict was charged with an exactly similar offence, and notwithstanding his previous bad character, he was only sentenced to pay a fine of 40s and costs, or in default to be only imprisoned for one month. The fine and costs were paid. We are of the opinion that in the case of the three first named prisoners, against whom there was no previous convictions or complaint of any kind. The sentence was unnecessarily harsh and severe in comparison with the sentence upon the returned convict. We pray you to enquire into the case of the three young men, with a review to remitting at least a portion of the sentence imposed by the magistrates, and we make this request on the ground that the inequality of the sentences to which we have directed your attention is likely to cause a strong feeling of dissatisfaction. And your memorialists will ever pray, &c

We, the three young men alluded to in the Memorial to the Secretary of State, Sir William Vernon Harcourt, feel an everlasting debt of gratitude to the clergy, nobility, gentry, and other leading inhabitants of the Borough of Tynemouth, whose signatures are attached to the memorial. The high honour conferred upon us by having their sympathy and written protest of such wealth and intelligence against the decision of the magisterial Bench of the Borough constrains us to publicly acknowledge that the punishment inflicted upon us is far more than compensated for by the result of such an expression of public feeling. We beg also most respectfully, and most courteously, to intimate to the memorialists that each of us will retain a copy of the memorial, with the weighty list of signatures, as a momento of our high appreciation of their kindness and good intentions towards those who they believe to have been sentenced beyond the merits of the case. We beg further to intimate to the young gentlemen who devoted so much of their valuable time in drawing up the memorial, and obtaining the signatures to the petition, that their kind and spontaneous labour will be long remembered with many pleasing reflections by us who have been undoubtedly the recipients of a miscarriage of justice.