Alan Beeton

Alan Beeton vanished in October 1921. However, his 20-year-old mother later went into a King's Cross Road police station and told them that she had killed him and buried him in a garden at Bushey.

She was tried for murder at the Hertfordshire Assizes, but pleaded not guilty and was convicted of burying the body and preventing an inquest.

She was said to have killed him on or about 27 October 1921.

The girl’s mother, who had lived in Windsor Road in Watford, said that her daughter had run away from home, but returned two years later with a baby, Alan Beeton. She said that Alan Beeton was then boarded out and her daughter took a position in Bushey.

The woman in Watford that had taken Alan Beeton, said that she had done so for 10s a week, but that after six or seven weeks the mother called and told her that she would take him to a home in London.

After going to the police, in a long statement, Alan Beeton's mother said that she had gone for a bus ride to Kilburn in July 1919 and met a man who found her lodgings for the night and that about Christmas they went to Tufnell Park and lived as man and wife.

She said that when Alan Beeton was 8 months old that she got a letter from the man saying that he was in trouble and that the best thing for her would be to go home, which she did.

She added that she later drowned Alan Beeton and buried him in the garden where she was working at Grove Bank House, Bushey Hall Road, Bushey, and then ran away from her employment because she was frightened.

She said:

After making her statement, Alan Beeton's mother said that it was all true.

When she was asked in what part of the garden she buried Alan Beeton, she said:

When the police went to Grove Bank House and dug at the spot indicated they found the body of a decomposed child about two feet under.

At the time of her arrest, she had been a domestic servant in Highbury.

Alan Beeton's mother was tried at the Hertfordshire Assizes on 26 September 1922, but pleaded not guilty.

The court heard that she had confessed to the police in London, but when she was asked at her trial if she had anything to say, she said: