HE was one of the most experienced officers in the Hampshire force and his testimony carried considerable weight at the trial of a socially inept couple facing cruelty charges.
Inspector Tom Basil told Hampshire Quarter Sessions: "In all my experience, I don't think I have ever seen two children in such a worse condition that those two elder girls.
"Their heads were thick with vermin and their hair was full of nits and matter that had come from running sores. One of the girl's sores extended to the bladebones of her shoulders."
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But nothing could have been done to save their younger brother, John, whose death, with his weight less than one-third of what it should have been, brought the shameful couple, John Martin, 42, and his wife, Ellen, on a joint charge of wilful neglect.
Martin had been employed as a carter, earning 14s 6d a week with a tied cottage, but the prosecution made it clear his wages could not be held responsible for the inhuman way they "cared" for their five children.
The four surviving children attended school in Tichborne. Their teachers had issued several letters expressing concern about their pitiful condition to the couple, but with conditions worsening the school authorities eventually contacted the NSPCC, who were deeply shocked at their inspection of their hovel.
Prosecutor John Sanders told the court: "Five of the children slept in the same bed, their blankets were wet and evident of other neglect, while in the parents' bedroom, where the deceased child lay, the blankets were old and dirty. Their general appearance indicated their mother took little or no trouble about their home or the children."
Inspector Basil, endorsing his statement, said that with ordinary care and attention, the children should not have suffered.
"It is clear that a great deal of the food they ate went to nourish the vermin and not their own bodies," he said. When the police entered the house, the mother was heard to snipe at one child: "There, you little fool - I knew you would hang me."
Jurors heard that a verdict of pneumonia, accelerated by neglect, had been returned on the dead son. Martin was cleared but his wife claimed in defence she had done as much as she could on his wages.
"The case against me has been exaggerated and my children are as clean as anyone's," she said. "I attended to the school's warnings and cleaned the children's head with paraffin."
Jurors afforded little time convicting her and then discovered she had two previous convictions for false pretences. She was jailed for eight months.
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