On This Day, 18 November 1918

Birmingham Mail

Monday 18 November 1918

CELEBRATING THE ARMISTICE

DISCHARGED SOLDIERS AND THE STOUT

Having regard to the natural excitement last week, the prosecution took a lenient view in regard to three men, charged before the magistrates in the Third Court of Birmingham Police to-day with stealing bottles of stout from a lorry in Aston Road and assaulting two carters, Charles Bale and Harry Eaves, in the employ of Heeley, Ltd., bottlers, of Lichfield Road.

The defendants were Harry Griffiths (31), sawyer, 122, Lichfield Road; Thomas Hobday (24), turner, 67, Adam Street; and Albert Atkins (25), labourer, back of 37, Johnson Street, Nechells.

Mr. Joseph Ansell, for the prosecution, said though a robbery with more or less violence could not be excused under ordinary conditions, one had to consider the surrounding circumstances.

Two of the accused were discharged soldiers. The firm and the carters, one of whom was also an old soldier, wished, with the consent of the Bench, to withdraw from the prosecution, defendants undertaking to pay any damage that might have been sustained.

Mr. A. Hall-Wright, for Griffiths, urged that the men had no felonious intention; and Mr. Willison, for the other defendants, said a soldier, unconnected with the men now charged , jumped on the cart and commenced handing out of the bottles of stout. His clients took a bottle each of the seventeen that disappeared in the way.

Mr. Arnold Butler (presiding magistrate) said it was very generous of the prosecution to take the view they had. The Bench were of the opinion that the men had lost their heads, and so they allowed the case to be withdrawn.