Baby

The body of a newly-born female child was found in a hedge-side at Spital House Farm near North Seaton.

A doctor who examined the body of the child said that in his opinion the child had been dead for two days.

Around the child's neck there was a strip of cloth tied tightly enough to have caused suffocation.

The post-mortem stated that the child had had a separate existence and that death was due to strangulation and that no other marks of violence were found.

The Coroner said, 'It seems quite clear that foul play has been committed in respect of this little child, and the cause of death has been that some person, at the present moment unknown, has deliberately tied round the neck of that living child a strip of cloth, tightened the knot, and strangled it. A year ago, that would have been in any case an act of murder, but by reason of an Act of Parliament, quite recently, provision is made by which the offence of murder is somewhat ameliorated, when that which would have been murder has been committed by a mother on her newly-born child. Of course, we do not know whether the offence was committed by the mother'.