Penge Penal Insti­tute, 11 April, 9 am

A train­ing day for new staff mem­ber DCO Clara Hewitt from Kent, under the super­vi­sion of SCO Rod­well, with DCO Pren­der­gast in atten­dance. DCO Hewitt, who will be deputis­ing for DCO Pren­der­gast in August, when she is on hol­i­day with her fam­i­ly, was instruct­ed in the use of all the imple­ments of chas­tise­ment rou­tine­ly deployed at the Penge Penal Insti­tute. Her tech­nique was good, as befit­ted a for­mer deputy head­mistress at a small pri­vate school, and she was par­tic­u­lar­ly accu­rate with the cane, but she strug­gled to achieve the sever­i­ty lev­els appro­pri­ate for a place of adult cor­rec­tion. Asked if she was will­ing to be on the receiv­ing end of a demon­stra­tion by SCO Rod­well, DCO Hewitt reluc­tant­ly assent­ed. A 12-stroke can­ing was then admin­is­tered, with under­gar­ments removed. DCO Hewitt, despite twice cry­ing out in shock, bore her pun­ish­ment with for­ti­tude and promised to strive to incor­po­rate what she had learnt into her future cor­rec­tive work.

Signed: SCO RODWELL

Penge Penal Insti­tute, 7 March, 8–30 am

Strap­pings of 24, 24 and 48 strokes, respec­tive­ly, admin­is­tered to Miss Bar­bara Har­ris, 19, Miss Cather­ine Wilmot, 20, and Mrs Joanne New­man, 45, all of Ten­nyson Avenue, West Penge, where they had been caught solic­it­ing on Sun­day evening. The mag­is­trates accept­ed the plea of the two younger women that they had only engaged in illic­it activ­i­ty at the coax­ing of Mrs New­man, a woman of ill repute with three pre­vi­ous sen­tences to her name; a lighter sen­tence was accord­ing­ly award­ed. The strap­pings were admin­is­tered on the bare bot­toms of the women by SCO Rod­well and DCO Pren­der­gast, oper­at­ing in tan­dem. Miss Har­ris screamed con­tin­u­ous­ly after the third stroke, Miss Wilmot after the sev­enth. Mrs New­man bore her pun­ish­ment in silence. It was not­ed that her but­tocks bore the marks of pre­vi­ous strap­pings. SCO Rod­well sub­se­quent­ly wrote a let­ter to the mag­is­trates express­ing her con­cern at the inad­e­qua­cy of the strap to effect a change in Mrs Newman’s behav­iour, and rec­om­mend­ing, in the event of Mrs New­man re-offend­ing, a recourse to the cane or birch.

Signed: SCO RODWELL