Mexborough & Swinton, June 7, 1929

A Leeds Outrage.
Thurnscoe Girl Involved.

Ethel Crowe (22), a domestic servant and a native of Thurnscoe, was charged before the Leeds stipendiary magistrate yesterday, with Stanley Whitaker, of Newtown, with stealing a suit of clothes from Mrs. Leah Cainer, 9, Grange View, Leeds, by whom Crowe had been employed for a month. Whitaker was also charged with wounding Mrs. Cainer with intent to do her grievous bodily harm. Both were remanded for a week.

Mrs. Cainer was found in her house on Tuesday morning with a wound on the forehead, and was stated then to have said that she was entering the bathroom when a man came suddenly out of another room with a screwdriver in his hand. He demanded money and when she said she had none he struck her a heavy blow on the forehead.

She taken to the Leeds Infirmary. In court yesterday Mr. D. I. Sanderson, prosecuting said Whitaker was fortunate not to be there on a more serious charge. Mrs. Cainer would not be able to appear in court for some time.

The police had information of a man and a woman leaving the house about the time of the outrage, and Whitaker and Crowe Were searched for. They were arrested on Wednesday, near Leeds.

Ethel Crowe is the eldest of a family of 13. Her parents are Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Crowe, of 162, Houghton Lane, Thurnscoe, and her father is a mineworker at Hickleton Main.

Interviewed on Wednesday, Mrs. Crowe said Ethel had been in service since she left school. She worked about two years in Dewsbury and about two in Leeds, and had been with Mrs. Caner about a month. They had not seen her since she went to Mrs Cainers, but had had one letter from her saying she was doing very well. She and Whitaker had been engaged for about a year, but they did not approve of her association with Whitaker.