This is a court case from 21 July 1886, when John Gayford, a 19-year old labourer, was tried in the Guildhall in Norwich with the judge being Baron Pollock.
The crime was sexually assaulting a six year old girl for which he was found guilty and sentenced to six months hard labour for his offences. This seems unduly lenient to me from today’s standards, but one substantial change is that they were merrily naming the poor girl who had been assaulted. To give some context, and although it was a repeat offender, the court the same week gave a criminal twelve months hard labour for stealing 14lbs of plums.
The victim was Nellie Baldwin and in an earlier hearing it was decided that although the only witness to the crime was a five year old boy, the courts accepted that they would take his evidence into account. Nellie, aged six, her five year old friend and a baby in a pram all went out together for the day. When the group returned home, Nellie explained what had happened and a police doctor was called. Some of the case relied upon it must have happened as she was physically hurt and how else would a little girl be able to describe what had happened.
John Gayford went on to become a self-employed gardener, he married Rosanna and they had two children, Rosa and Florence. Someone guilty of his crime today would have likely left the area after they were released, but at the 1921 census he was living at 20 Northumberland Street in Norwich, just a short walk from where the crime took place. He lived there until his death in 1942 and I imagine that just about everyone not directly impacted by the crime had forgotten about it, in those days when searching for information was somewhat harder.