Preece Family Tree

CHARGE AGAINST AN ARMY OFFICER.

At the Somerset Quarter Sessions, Clifford James Parish, 32, an ex-officer in the Army, late of Burnham-on-Sea, was indicted for obtaining by false pretences from Emily Brewer the sum of £1 6s. 6., on the 2nd June; for obtaining £5 from Alice Susan Lewis, on the same date, and for obtaining a gold watch from John Haslehurst on May 23rd, all by false pretences. Mr. Hall prosecuted, and Mr. F. A. Wilshire, appeared for the prisoner, who pleaded guilty, and said sixteen years ago prisoner met with a railway accident and was injured in the head, and he had never lost the effects of it. He was a married man, with one child. The extraordinary part of the case was that prisoner was not short of money when he did these things. In July, 1916, prisoner was badly gassed and had an attack of shell shock, and in March last he was discharged from the Army on account of ill-health.

Dr. Geo. Pope, medical superintendent of the Wells Asylum, said to his mind prisoner was utterly irresponsible for his conduct. He had physical signs consistent with having been shell-shocked and gassed, and there was also serious lung trouble.

John Whitting Parish, of Banbury, Oxo, father of the prisoner, said he considered his son mad, as there was no occasion for him to have done these things. He (the father) was prepared to pay for prisoner being sent to a private institution for treatment.

The chairman told the prisoner that in the circumstances they would not send him to prison, but would bind him over for 18 months, on his own recognisances and those of his father on condition that he entered a suitable medical home for treatment, and that he reamined there for that period.