Penge Penal Insti­tute, 28 April, 12–30 pm

Two 17-year-old youths, one male, one female, birched for an act of gross inde­cen­cy at a bus stop on Sat­ur­day night. Youth A (male) sen­tenced to 24 strokes of the birch, youth B (female) to 12 strokes. SCO Rod­well asked the youths why the court had not sen­tenced them to the same pun­ish­ment, ‘Because that’s how them sil­ly judges think,’ said youth A. ‘It ain’t fair.’ SCO Rod­well asked youth B if she con­curred that the sen­tenc­ing was unfair. Youth B, after con­sid­er­ing the mat­ter, said she did. ‘After all, we was both doing what we was doing, wasn’t we?’ SCO Rod­well asked whether, since there was una­nim­i­ty on the point, it would be rea­son­able for her to give each youth 18 strokes, thus equal­is­ing their sen­tences. The youths, after delib­er­at­ing with each oth­er, agreed. The 18-stroke birch­ings were duly admin­is­tered, full force, by DCO Pren­der­gast. Both youths were reduced to tears, but thanked the cor­rec­tion offi­cers for treat­ing them fairly.

Signed: SCO RODWELL

Penge Penal Insti­tute, 18 April, 6–30 pm

Male youth of 16 caught loi­ter­ing out­side the Insti­tute. On being chal­lenged by DCO Pren­der­gast, who had seen him from the win­dow, the youth con­fessed that he had been lis­ten­ing to the sound of a female shoplifter, a for­mer neigh­bour of his, being caned on the bare bot­tom. ‘It real­ly excit­ed me,’ he admit­ted. DCO Pren­der­gast warned the youth that loi­ter­ing in such a man­ner for pur­pos­es of sex­u­al grat­i­fi­ca­tion was a crim­i­nal offence: she would either have to report him to the police, with a court sum­mons sure to fol­low, or bring the mat­ter to the atten­tion of SCO Rod­well, who could admin­is­ter appro­pri­ate sanc­tions on the spot. The youth, after much dither­ing, chose the lat­ter. SCO Rod­well rep­ri­mand­ed the youth severe­ly, then placed him over her knee, pulled down his under­pants and spanked him for the next fif­teen min­utes, using a strap and hair­brush. The youth sub­se­quent­ly apol­o­gised and promised not to repeat the offence.

Signed: SCO RODWELL

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