Penge Penal Insti­tute, 13 Feb­ru­ary, 11 am

Mr Gary Phillips, 57, caned for expos­ing him­self to a group of school­girls in the local park. His defence that he was psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly dis­turbed, and had been since child­hood, was dis­missed by the mag­is­trates, who deemed the defence friv­o­lous and added an addi­tion­al 12 strokes of the cane to his 36-stroke sen­tence. SCO Rod­well, who had been walk­ing her dog in the park and wit­nessed the pun­ish­ment, gave evi­dence for the pros­e­cu­tion. Her tes­ti­mo­ny that this was ‘utter­ly dis­gust­ing behav­iour for which there is no excuse and which should have no place in a civilised soci­ety’ was warm­ly wel­comed by the pre­sid­ing mag­is­trate, Mr Gul­liv­er, who asked SCO Rod­well whether, in view of all the cir­cum­stances, she would be will­ing to car­ry out the can­ing of Mr Phillips her­self. SCO Rod­well said she would. After his pun­ish­ment, Mr Phillips was admit­ted to the local hos­pi­tal, suf­fer­ing from severe bruis­ing to his buttocks.

                                                Signed: SCO RODWELL