The Silverwood Poaching Case
Leeds Assizes, Saturday

The trial of six men charged with the murder of William Lilley, a gamekeeper, on the night of the 10th October last was proceeded with.  The trial commenced on Thursday morning, and it did not conclude till two o’clock to-day.  The first two days were devoted to the examination of witnesses and the hearing of counsel.  This morning, the Learned Judge commenced his address to the jury - recapitulating the evidence and noting its bearings on the various prisoners, and then concisely but eloquently laying down the law affecting the case.

The jury consulted together in the box for a few moments, and then asked the judge whether the three keepers were allowed to communicate with each other before they stated to Mr. Gillett which of the men they could identify.

The Judge: I don’t think it appears on the evidence, but we will ask.

Superintendent Gillett was called, and was asked by The Judge: You have told us that some of the prisoners at the bar, having been put in a corridor along with some other prisoners not implicated in this matter, the three keepers went up and down the line and examined the prisoners to see if they knew any of them; now, had they an opportunity of communicating together, of speaking to each other, before stating to you which of the men they recognised?

Superintendent Gillett: The three keepers and myself all came out together, and when we got to the front of my house, each keeper said who he recognised.

The Judge: But the had an opportunity of speaking to each other before speaking to you?

Superintendent Gillett: They had not, my lord.

The Foreman: A juror wants to know if we have a verdict to consider as to Woodhouse. (A laugh.)

The Judge: No, not at all.

The jury then retired to consider their verdict, and after an absence of an hour they returned into Court.  They found the prisoners JOHN TEALE, WM. SYKES, HENRY BONE & JOHN BENTCLIFFE, GUILTY OF MANSLAUGHTER; and BENTCLIFFE they recommended to mercy, DAVID BOOTH and AARON SAVAGE they found NOT GUILTY.

In passing sentence, the Judge, who was evidently annoyed with the verdict, said: The jury, in the exercise of their discretion - and I have no doubt conscientiously exercised accordingly, to their views of your case - have not found you guilty of the crime of wilful murder, but of the crime of manslaughter.  They have taken a very merciful view indeed of your case.  I did not feel myself sitting here under the obligation of the solemn oath which I have taken, to administer justice according to the law - I did not feel myself at liberty to suggest the alternative verdict of manslaughter to the jury.  Upon them, not upon me, is the responsibility of that verdict.  You have the benefit of it.  But as respects two of you, at least, I doubt if there is any one of your fellow subjects, competent to form an opinion upon the evidence, have been satisfied if a verdict of wilful murder had not been returned against you.  I am saved that most painful of all duties, the duty of passing sentence of death upon fellow creatures, but it is my duty to pass a most severe sentence upon you.  The sentence upon you JOHN TEALE and upon you WILLIAM SYKES is that you be kept in PENAL SERVITUDE for your LIVES; and upon HENRY BONE and JOHN BENTCLIFFE that you are each to be kept in PENAL SERVITUDE for TWENTY YEARS.

On hearing the sentence the prisoner Teale clapped his hands in evident satisfaction, and Mrs. Bentcliffe, whose husband received a less sever sentence, immediately fainted away.

Mr. Blackburn said that on the reassembling of the Court on the 9th January they would state to his lordship what they intended to do as to prosecuting Booth and Savage for night poaching.

The Judge said he would be glad to attend to any communication.

The Court then adjourned till the 9th of January.

There are about a dozen cases yet to try, amongst them being two murders - one from Sheffield - two manslaughters, a charge of defrauding an insurance society, &c.

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It is to be hoped that no spirit of exultation will anywhere be manifested in the results of the trial of the Silverwood poachers.  The security of society depends on the maintenance of respect for the law, and in a special determination to respect the sanctity of human life.  What we do know is that a man in the prime of life was murdered, that somebody did the deed, and that the murderers must have been of the gang lately tried at Leeds.  Let who will make heroes of those men, no right-minded man will do so.  The blood of LILLEY lies upon one or more of their number.  The murder was a voluntary thing - a supererogatory wickedness - wilful, wanton, gratuitous, and cowardly.  It was not done in self-defence.  Had the poachers been content to make their escape from the field nothing could have prevented it.  They were masters of the situation.  They had not even been touched by a blow, and the man upon whom they concentrated their merciless fury lay deserted and helpless at their feet.  If the poor fellow was armed they were ignorant of the fact, and if he is now to be censured for going so formidably prepared to the performance of his duty, our censure should be modified by the knowledge that he knew he had to encounter ruffians capable of such superfluous brutality as that under which he so soon received his death.  And while we deprecate all championing of night poachers, it may not be amiss to say something in deprecation of the inconsiderate abuse which is sometimes heaped on witnesses for the Crown.  It is pardonable in counsel for the defence to take very great license in matters of this kind.  They direct the hottest fire of their artillery of abuse at the informer, and storm at him with well-simulated rage, and we do not blame them for that.  It is part of their business, as is the art of making artificial thunder and lightning is part of the business of the stage, and in the way of business it is allowed for the counsel to point his finger at the approver and say, in the words of NATHAN, “Thou art the man.” But the same license is not allowable to the press.  The barrister thinks only of the interests of his client, but the journalist must think of the interests of justice and law.  The approver may be, and generally is, no better than his companions in crime, and we may find it as impossible to admire him as it would be to admire some creature that devours its own tribe; but if he is, morally speaking, something of a nuisance, he is a necessary nuisance, and therefore to be treated with a certain reticence.  What, for instance, could have been made of this shocking business of the killing of LILLEY if none of the poachers could have been induced to break silence?  Without the aid of informers there was no case, and no chance of making one.  The keepers had recognised no one, and so far as they went the murderers might have been phantoms, who spoke broad Yorkshire, and who made the field resound with the noise of their blows.  But for the information derived from the ranks of the criminals themselves, we should have had the slayers of LILLEY mingling with honest men, and harbouring in their hearts the idea that, having once purchased their safety by the taking of life, they might perhaps be driven to do so again.  Now, a tragedy, where justice is at fault - a dark deed of blood enveloped in mystery - is a double evil, for it stands before the world as an example of successful gilt, and is an incentive to similar crimes.  There is nothing even about the poacher who does not proceed to violence to give him a claim upon our sympathies.  He is never a happy man, for the necessities of his position forbid it.  The daylight is not his friend, the law is his enemy; and to succeed in his business he must imitate the fox, who lies for the most part in ambush when the world is awake, and then steals out with furtive glance and stealthy tread when the world is asleep.  If he is not an idle or a bad man himself, he must consort with some of the idlest and worst that the neighbourhood can offer him to accompany him in his raids on the neighbouring preserves.  His companions, vain of their animal strength, will familiarise his mind with the idea of desperate resistance if interfered with, and the maxims and morals of society in general will give place in their minds to the morals and maxims men whose talk is of their brute force, whose delight is in being thought terrible in conflict, and who make it a point of honour to vaunt to each other the recklessness they are prepared to show in any encounter with the keepers.  Such men are not to be countenanced, either directly or indirectly.  Their way of life is demoralising, and anything like partisanship with their class cannot fail to be of evil effect.

Supplement to the Sheffield Telegraph, 30th December 1865