[Coquet]

JANE MORDUE (15½), charged with the murder of her own father, Thomas Mordue, at Acklington, near Warkworth was acquitted. In this case several witnesses were examined, who deposed to knowing the deceased, to having seen him in his last illness, and at and after the time of his decease. The two medical gentlemen who examined the body after death could not say that death had been occasioned by poison ; and the gentlemen who examined the contents of the stomach, saw the appearance of poison, but had not analyzed such contents so as to be able to swear to the presence of poison. In addressing the jury, the learned judge severely reprehended the conduct of Edward Nicholson, one of the witnesses, grocer, at Warkworth, for having sold so young a girl an ounce of arsenic, which, if it had been used to poison the deceased, made the murder in a great degree chargeable to his account. The constable, William Tate, was reproved for the part he had unlawfully taken in getting the girl to make a confession to him. His lordship then adverted to the general good conduct of the prisoner, and to the uniform testimony of the different witnesses that she had lived on the very best terms with her father, for whom she had been housekeeper for 4 years.

Against SUSANNAH STEPHENSON (26), charged with aiding aid assisting Jane Mordue no bill was found.

NC, 2 Aug 1839 (Reporting on the Nortrhumberland Spring Assizes)