He assumed the black cap ‘amidst the most profound silence’ and passed sentence, commenting on the cruelty displayed by the girl, and on the ‘feelings of jealousy and anger’ that had motivated her.

All that remained was for Willes to pass the sentence of death by hanging. Bucknill, had advised that there was no basis for a plea of insanity. The accused, now a woman of 21, had recently confessed to the crime, and a medical expert, Dr J.C. The proceedings were intense and dramatic but very brief, the whole trial not lasting more than 10 minutes. 2 Constance Kent, the boy’s half-sister, was standing trial. This was the infamous and mysterious case in which a young boy had been brutally murdered in his home in the village of Road, Wiltshire. In Salisbury, six years later, Willes was again in tears, when he presided over the murder trial of Constance Kent. The presiding judge was Sir James Shaw Willes, and it was reported that during the trial, and especially while the details of the baby’s death were being described, ‘the learned Judge became painfully affected, so much so, that at one time he buried his face in his note-book and shed tears and seemed almost unable to proceed with the evidence’. When the case came to trial in Liverpool in 1859, the jury acquitted the woman, Agnes Bradley, on the grounds of insanity. The baby’s mother confessed that she was the poisoner and explained her reason: she was convinced she was guilty of some terrible sin for which she would soon be hanged and she ‘thought it better that her child should be sent to God, who would take care of it for her’. He had consumed a fatal dose of laudanum, administered to him in his bottle, mixed with milk and sugar. On Boxing Day 1856, a 10-month-old baby boy died in painful, violent convulsions.

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