Dennis O'Neill Case - Trial

Trial

The Goughs were both committed for trial at Shrewsbury Assizes and were refused bail. However, on 27 February 1945, Mr Justice Hilbery transferred the case to Stafford Assizes at the request of counsel.

The trial opened at Stafford on 15 March 1945, before Mr Justice Wrottesley. W. H. Cartwright Sharp KC prosecuted, J. F. Bourke represented Mr Gough, and A. J. Long KC represented Mrs Gough.

The court heard that the Goughs' contract required them to bring up Dennis O'Neill as one of their own children in return for £1 per week. The court heard much the same testimony as in the committal hearings. However, it appeared that Terence had initially been somewhat confused about the sequence of events. The prosecution claimed that Dennis was tied to a bench and beaten with a stick for eating a swede the day before he died.

Dr Holloway Davies, the local doctor called by Mrs Gough, testified that Dennis had been dead for between four and six hours when he arrived (in other words, he had already been dead for some time when Mrs Gough called him).

On the second day, Reginald Gough gave evidence. He claimed that he and his wife were kind to the boys and fed them very well. The boys were frequently naughty, but were rarely disciplined. He claimed that the incident with the bench occurred, but he was only having a joke, did not actually tie Dennis to the bench, did not beat him, and they were all laughing about it.

Mrs Gough gave evidence on the third day of the trial. She testified that she had married her husband in February 1942, having left the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) in June 1941. They had no children of their own. She corroborated some of Terence's testimony about her husband's treatment of Dennis, and said she was afraid of her husband and that she believed that had she originally told the truth to the police she would also be dead. Her husband had told her that Dennis was dead and instructed her to lie to the doctor.

The judge instructed the jury that they could not find Mrs Gough guilty of manslaughter, since only Mr Gough was strong enough to have inflicted the trauma which killed Dennis, but they could still find her guilty of neglect.

On 19 March 1945, Reginald Gough was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to six years in prison. Esther Gough was found guilty of neglect and sentenced to six months' imprisonment. The jury deliberated for only twenty minutes.

It transpired that Gough had been convicted of common assault against his wife in 1942 and she had left him in July of that year, applying for a separation order on the grounds of persistent cruelty on 6 August 1942, but had later returned to live with him. The judge said that he took this into account before sentencing her, but her own ill-treatment was no excuse for her neglect of the boys.