Dennis O'Neill case
Encyclopedia
Dennis O'Neill was a 12-year-old Welsh
boy whose death at the hands of his foster parents led to an enquiry into and overhaul of fostering provisions in the United Kingdom
.
, Monmouthshire
. On 30 May 1944, Dennis and his younger brothers Terence (Terry), 9, and Frederick (Freddie), 7, were committed to the care of Newport County Borough Council
by Newport Juvenile Court on the grounds that they were in need of care and attention. On 5 July 1944, the Newport Education Committee sent Dennis and Terence to live with Reginald Gough, 31, and his wife Esther, 29, at their remote farm
, Bank Farm, in the Hope Valley, near Minsterley
, Shropshire
, England
. Frederick was sent to a Mr and Mrs Pickering nearby.
At 1:00 pm on 9 January 1945, Esther Gough telephoned the local doctor to tell him that Dennis was having a fit. The doctor arrived at 3:30 pm to find that he was already dead and was in an appalling condition. An inquest
found that he had died of cardiac failure after being struck several heavy blows on the chest, and had also been beaten with a stick on the back. He was undernourished, thin and wasted, and well below normal average weight for his age. He had a number of septic
ulcers on his feet and his legs were severely chapped.
On 3 February 1945, Reginald Gough was charged with manslaughter
and Esther Gough with wilful ill-treatment, neglect and exposure likely to cause suffering and injury, although on 12 February 1945, she too was charged with manslaughter.
Magistrates' Court
.
and butter
each per day, and that and tea
was their only sustenance. They stole whatever they could from the pantry
to supplement this. Dennis would suck milk
from the teats of the farm cows. Every night both boys were given a severe thrashing on their hands and/or legs, sometimes up to 100 blows each.
On 6 January 1945, Dennis had been ordered out to collect sticks. He came home shivering with only a handful of sticks and was forced out again by Gough using his stick. He stood in the yard crying and was dragged to the spinney by his hair by Mrs Gough. That night he was thrashed for taking a bite from a swede
. The following day he was stripped naked by Gough and thrashed with a stick so hard that it broke; Gough then thrashed him with another stick until his legs were blue and bleeding. The next day he was unable to stand up and when Terence came home from school he found his brother locked in a cubbyhole in the kitchen. His feet were by now in a terrible condition and Gough hit him to try to make him stop crying. Dennis complained that his back hurt. Gough beat him with his fists again the following morning; he died in the afternoon.
On the second day of the committal proceedings Terence gave another three hours of testimony about their mistreatment. The following day he was recalled again and admitted that the boys had sometimes misbehaved and deserved to be punished. Gough had played cricket
and football with them and the Goughs insisted the boys said their prayer
s every night. This time he said that they all ate the same food.
On the third day, Police Sergeant Macpherson testified that he had visited the farm following Dennis's death and found that the boys' bedroom was dirty and poorly furnished, whereas the Goughs' room was pleasant, neat and tidy. He said that Mrs Gough stated that Dennis had started complaining that his feet hurt soon after he came to live with them and that he was always late getting up. She had stated that the boys had been fighting the night before Dennis's death and it was this that had caused the marks on his body. She and her husband had, she said, hit the boys only very rarely, and then only on the hand for misbehaving.
Assizes
and were refused bail
. However, on 27 February 1945, Mr Justice Hilbery transferred the case to Stafford
Assizes at the request of counsel.
The trial opened at Stafford on 15 March 1945, before Mr Justice Wrottesley. W. H. Cartwright Sharp KC prosecuted, J. F. Bourke represented Mr Gough, and A. J. Long KC represented Mrs Gough.
The court heard that the Goughs' contract required them to bring up Dennis O'Neill as one of their own children in return for £1 per week. The court heard much the same testimony as in the committal hearings. However, it appeared that Terence had initially been somewhat confused about the sequence of events. The prosecution claimed that Dennis was tied to a bench and beaten with a stick for eating a swede the day before he died.
Dr Holloway Davies, the local doctor called by Mrs Gough, testified that Dennis had been dead for between four and six hours when he arrived (in other words, he had already been dead for some time when Mrs Gough called him).
On the second day, Reginald Gough gave evidence. He claimed that he and his wife were kind to the boys and fed them very well. The boys were frequently naughty, but were rarely disciplined. He claimed that the incident with the bench occurred, but he was only having a joke, did not actually tie Dennis to the bench, did not beat him, and they were all laughing about it.
Mrs Gough gave evidence on the third day of the trial. She testified that she had married her husband in February 1942, having left the Women's Auxiliary Air Force
(WAAF) in June 1941. They had no children of their own. She corroborated some of Terence's testimony about her husband's treatment of Dennis, and said she was afraid of her husband and that she believed that had she originally told the truth to the police she would also be dead. Her husband had told her that Dennis was dead and instructed her to lie to the doctor.
The judge instructed the jury
that they could not find Mrs Gough guilty of manslaughter, since only Mr Gough was strong enough to have inflicted the trauma which killed Dennis, but they could still find her guilty of neglect.
On 19 March 1945, Reginald Gough was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to six years in prison. Esther Gough was found guilty of neglect and sentenced to six months' imprisonment. The jury deliberated for only twenty minutes.
It transpired that Gough had been convicted of common assault
against his wife in 1942 and she had left him in July of that year, applying for a separation order on the grounds of persistent cruelty on 6 August 1942, but had later returned to live with him. The judge said that he took this into account before sentencing her, but her own ill-treatment was no excuse for her neglect of the boys.
on 8 February 1945, by Kenneth Lindsay
MP. It was raised on a number of occasions thereafter.
, Herbert Morrison
, announced that a public inquiry would be held into the case. Sir Walter Monckton KC was appointed to head the inquiry.
The inquiry opened at Newport Civic Centre
on 10 April 1945. It reported on 28 May 1945. The report criticised both councils involved, but did not name any specific individual(s) and acknowledged that the failings were not deliberate.
and Ministry of Health regulations on the boarding-out of children came into force as a direct result of the Monckton Report. The principal requirements were:
In 1947, Agatha Christie
wrote a radio play called Three Blind Mice
loosely based on the case. This eventually developed into the long-running play The Mousetrap
.
Terry O'Neill has published a non-fiction book about the case. Called Someone to Love Us, it was released on 4 March 2010, the day after Dennis's birthday.
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
boy whose death at the hands of his foster parents led to an enquiry into and overhaul of fostering provisions in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
.
Circumstances of death
Dennis O'Neill, 12, came from NewportNewport
Newport is a city and unitary authority area in Wales. Standing on the banks of the River Usk, it is located about east of Cardiff and is the largest urban area within the historic county boundaries of Monmouthshire and the preserved county of Gwent...
, Monmouthshire
Monmouthshire (historic)
Monmouthshire , also known as the County of Monmouth , is one of thirteen ancient counties of Wales and a former administrative county....
. On 30 May 1944, Dennis and his younger brothers Terence (Terry), 9, and Frederick (Freddie), 7, were committed to the care of Newport County Borough Council
Newport City Council
Newport City Council is the governing body for the city of Newport, one of the subdivisions of Wales within the United Kingdom. It consists of 50 councillors, representing the city's 20 wards. Since the 2008 election, the council has been controlled jointly by the Conservatives and Liberal...
by Newport Juvenile Court on the grounds that they were in need of care and attention. On 5 July 1944, the Newport Education Committee sent Dennis and Terence to live with Reginald Gough, 31, and his wife Esther, 29, at their remote farm
Farm
A farm is an area of land, or, for aquaculture, lake, river or sea, including various structures, devoted primarily to the practice of producing and managing food , fibres and, increasingly, fuel. It is the basic production facility in food production. Farms may be owned and operated by a single...
, Bank Farm, in the Hope Valley, near Minsterley
Minsterley
Minsterley is a village and civil parish in Shropshire, England. It is home to a large dairy operated by Uniq foods.The dairy currently employs nearly 500 people...
, Shropshire
Shropshire
Shropshire is a county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. It borders Wales to the west...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. Frederick was sent to a Mr and Mrs Pickering nearby.
At 1:00 pm on 9 January 1945, Esther Gough telephoned the local doctor to tell him that Dennis was having a fit. The doctor arrived at 3:30 pm to find that he was already dead and was in an appalling condition. An inquest
Inquest
Inquests in England and Wales are held into sudden and unexplained deaths and also into the circumstances of discovery of a certain class of valuable artefacts known as "treasure trove"...
found that he had died of cardiac failure after being struck several heavy blows on the chest, and had also been beaten with a stick on the back. He was undernourished, thin and wasted, and well below normal average weight for his age. He had a number of septic
Septic
Septic may refer to:* Septic tank, a component of a small scale sewage disposal system* Septic equation, a polynomial equation of degree seven* Septic shock...
ulcers on his feet and his legs were severely chapped.
On 3 February 1945, Reginald Gough was charged with manslaughter
Manslaughter
Manslaughter is a legal term for the killing of a human being, in a manner considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is said to have first been made by the Ancient Athenian lawmaker Dracon in the 7th century BC.The law generally differentiates...
and Esther Gough with wilful ill-treatment, neglect and exposure likely to cause suffering and injury, although on 12 February 1945, she too was charged with manslaughter.
Committal
On 13 February 1945, the Goughs were committed before PontesburyPontesbury
Pontesbury is a large village and civil parish in Shropshire and is approximately eight miles southwest of the county town of Shrewsbury. The village of Minsterley is just over a mile further southwest. The A488 road runs through the village, on its way from Shrewsbury to Bishop's Castle...
Magistrates' Court
Magistrates' Court
A magistrates' court or court of petty sessions, formerly known as a police court, is the lowest level of court in England and Wales and many other common law jurisdictions...
.
Terence O'Neill's testimony
On the first day of the committal proceedings, Terence testified that they were usually given three slices of breadBread
Bread is a staple food prepared by cooking a dough of flour and water and often additional ingredients. Doughs are usually baked, but in some cuisines breads are steamed , fried , or baked on an unoiled frying pan . It may be leavened or unleavened...
and butter
Butter
Butter is a dairy product made by churning fresh or fermented cream or milk. It is generally used as a spread and a condiment, as well as in cooking applications, such as baking, sauce making, and pan frying...
each per day, and that and tea
Tea
Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world...
was their only sustenance. They stole whatever they could from the pantry
Pantry
A pantry is a room where food, provisions or dishes are stored and served in an ancillary capacity to the kitchen. The derivation of the word is from the same source as the Old French term paneterie; that is from pain, the French form of the Latin panis for bread.In a late medieval hall, there were...
to supplement this. Dennis would suck milk
Milk
Milk is a white liquid produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals before they are able to digest other types of food. Early-lactation milk contains colostrum, which carries the mother's antibodies to the baby and can reduce the risk of many...
from the teats of the farm cows. Every night both boys were given a severe thrashing on their hands and/or legs, sometimes up to 100 blows each.
On 6 January 1945, Dennis had been ordered out to collect sticks. He came home shivering with only a handful of sticks and was forced out again by Gough using his stick. He stood in the yard crying and was dragged to the spinney by his hair by Mrs Gough. That night he was thrashed for taking a bite from a swede
Rutabaga
The rutabaga, swede , turnip or yellow turnip is a root vegetable that originated as a cross between the cabbage and the turnip; see Triangle of U...
. The following day he was stripped naked by Gough and thrashed with a stick so hard that it broke; Gough then thrashed him with another stick until his legs were blue and bleeding. The next day he was unable to stand up and when Terence came home from school he found his brother locked in a cubbyhole in the kitchen. His feet were by now in a terrible condition and Gough hit him to try to make him stop crying. Dennis complained that his back hurt. Gough beat him with his fists again the following morning; he died in the afternoon.
On the second day of the committal proceedings Terence gave another three hours of testimony about their mistreatment. The following day he was recalled again and admitted that the boys had sometimes misbehaved and deserved to be punished. Gough had played cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
and football with them and the Goughs insisted the boys said their prayer
Prayer
Prayer is a form of religious practice that seeks to activate a volitional rapport to a deity through deliberate practice. Prayer may be either individual or communal and take place in public or in private. It may involve the use of words or song. When language is used, prayer may take the form of...
s every night. This time he said that they all ate the same food.
Other testimony
Miss Eirlys Edwards, a clerk with Newport Education Committee, testified on the second day that she visited Bank Farm on 20 December 1944, and observed that the boys were treated with little affection, and while Terence appeared to be well cared for, Dennis appeared ill and frightened; she asked Mrs Gough to call a doctor to examine him, which she said she would do. She had recommended that the boys be removed and Mr W. J. Edmonds, Newport's Deputy Director of Education, confirmed that he had requested Shropshire Education Committee to do so, although the Goughs had not yet been informed of this decision.On the third day, Police Sergeant Macpherson testified that he had visited the farm following Dennis's death and found that the boys' bedroom was dirty and poorly furnished, whereas the Goughs' room was pleasant, neat and tidy. He said that Mrs Gough stated that Dennis had started complaining that his feet hurt soon after he came to live with them and that he was always late getting up. She had stated that the boys had been fighting the night before Dennis's death and it was this that had caused the marks on his body. She and her husband had, she said, hit the boys only very rarely, and then only on the hand for misbehaving.
Trial
The Goughs were both committed for trial at ShrewsburyShrewsbury
Shrewsbury is the county town of Shropshire, in the West Midlands region of England. Lying on the River Severn, it is a civil parish home to some 70,000 inhabitants, and is the primary settlement and headquarters of Shropshire Council...
Assizes
Assizes
Assize or Assizes may refer to:Assize or Assizes may refer to:Assize or Assizes may refer to::;in common law countries :::*assizes , an obsolete judicial inquest...
and were refused bail
Bail
Traditionally, bail is some form of property deposited or pledged to a court to persuade it to release a suspect from jail, on the understanding that the suspect will return for trial or forfeit the bail...
. However, on 27 February 1945, Mr Justice Hilbery transferred the case to Stafford
Stafford
Stafford is the county town of Staffordshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It lies approximately north of Wolverhampton and south of Stoke-on-Trent, adjacent to the M6 motorway Junction 13 to Junction 14...
Assizes at the request of counsel.
The trial opened at Stafford on 15 March 1945, before Mr Justice Wrottesley. W. H. Cartwright Sharp KC prosecuted, J. F. Bourke represented Mr Gough, and A. J. Long KC represented Mrs Gough.
The court heard that the Goughs' contract required them to bring up Dennis O'Neill as one of their own children in return for £1 per week. The court heard much the same testimony as in the committal hearings. However, it appeared that Terence had initially been somewhat confused about the sequence of events. The prosecution claimed that Dennis was tied to a bench and beaten with a stick for eating a swede the day before he died.
Dr Holloway Davies, the local doctor called by Mrs Gough, testified that Dennis had been dead for between four and six hours when he arrived (in other words, he had already been dead for some time when Mrs Gough called him).
On the second day, Reginald Gough gave evidence. He claimed that he and his wife were kind to the boys and fed them very well. The boys were frequently naughty, but were rarely disciplined. He claimed that the incident with the bench occurred, but he was only having a joke, did not actually tie Dennis to the bench, did not beat him, and they were all laughing about it.
Mrs Gough gave evidence on the third day of the trial. She testified that she had married her husband in February 1942, having left the Women's Auxiliary Air Force
Women's Auxiliary Air Force
The Women's Auxiliary Air Force , whose members were invariably referred to as Waafs , was the female auxiliary of the Royal Air Force during World War II, established in 1939. At its peak strength, in 1943, WAAF numbers exceeded 180,000, with over 2,000 women enlisting per week.A Women's Royal Air...
(WAAF) in June 1941. They had no children of their own. She corroborated some of Terence's testimony about her husband's treatment of Dennis, and said she was afraid of her husband and that she believed that had she originally told the truth to the police she would also be dead. Her husband had told her that Dennis was dead and instructed her to lie to the doctor.
The judge instructed the jury
Jury
A jury is a sworn body of people convened to render an impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Modern juries tend to be found in courts to ascertain the guilt, or lack thereof, in a crime. In Anglophone jurisdictions, the verdict may be guilty,...
that they could not find Mrs Gough guilty of manslaughter, since only Mr Gough was strong enough to have inflicted the trauma which killed Dennis, but they could still find her guilty of neglect.
On 19 March 1945, Reginald Gough was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to six years in prison. Esther Gough was found guilty of neglect and sentenced to six months' imprisonment. The jury deliberated for only twenty minutes.
It transpired that Gough had been convicted of common assault
Common assault
Common assault was an offence under the common law of England, and has been held now to be a statutory offence in England and Wales. It is committed by a person who causes another person to apprehend the immediate use of unlawful violence by the defendant. It was thought to include battery...
against his wife in 1942 and she had left him in July of that year, applying for a separation order on the grounds of persistent cruelty on 6 August 1942, but had later returned to live with him. The judge said that he took this into account before sentencing her, but her own ill-treatment was no excuse for her neglect of the boys.
Parliament
The case was first raised in the House of CommonsBritish House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
on 8 February 1945, by Kenneth Lindsay
Kenneth Lindsay
Kenneth Martin Lindsay was a Labour Party politician on the United Kingdom who joined the breakaway National Labour group....
MP. It was raised on a number of occasions thereafter.
Public inquiry
Politicians and the public were shocked by the case, especially that Gough had been given custody of the boys despite the fact that he was known to the police and had a conviction for violence and that no inspection of the boys' welfare was made until they had been with the Goughs for six months. On 22 March 1945, the Home SecretaryHome Secretary
The Secretary of State for the Home Department, commonly known as the Home Secretary, is the minister in charge of the Home Office of the United Kingdom, and one of the country's four Great Offices of State...
, Herbert Morrison
Herbert Morrison
Herbert Stanley Morrison, Baron Morrison of Lambeth, CH, PC was a British Labour politician; he held a various number of senior positions in the Cabinet, including Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister.-Early life:Morrison was the son of a police constable and was born in...
, announced that a public inquiry would be held into the case. Sir Walter Monckton KC was appointed to head the inquiry.
The inquiry opened at Newport Civic Centre
Newport Civic Centre
Newport Civic Centre is the seat of government for the city of Newport, South Wales and is a Grade II* Listed building in the Art Deco style. Newport City Council has its main offices located in the building which also includes Magistrates' Courts and a Crown Court complex...
on 10 April 1945. It reported on 28 May 1945. The report criticised both councils involved, but did not name any specific individual(s) and acknowledged that the failings were not deliberate.
Shropshire inquiry
On 26 March 1945, Shropshire County Council began its own inquiry, although this was held in private. It was chaired by Sir Offley Wakeman. The inquiry reported on 30 June 1945, and called for a thorough reorganisation of the boarding-out of children. It accepted all blame placed upon the council by the public inquiry, but did not place any particular blame on any specific individual(s).Results
On 1 January 1947, new Home OfficeHome Office
The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...
and Ministry of Health regulations on the boarding-out of children came into force as a direct result of the Monckton Report. The principal requirements were:
- Each local authority was required to appoint a boarding-out committee, at least three of whose members were to be women and which had to meet at least every three months. The committee was to be responsible for finding suitable foster homes and to exercise supervision over all the authority's foster children.
- An official was required to visit every foster child within a month of their being placed and thereafter at least once every six weeks. They were required to submit a written report, taking into account any complaint made by the child.
- A doctor was to be appointed for every foster child and was to examine the child within one month of their being placed and at least once a year thereafter.
- No child was to be fostered or remain fostered by a person with any criminal conviction rendering them unsuitable to be a foster parent or in any environment likely to be detrimental to them.
In 1947, Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
wrote a radio play called Three Blind Mice
Three Blind Mice (radio play and short story)
Three Blind Mice is the name of a half-hour radio play written by Agatha Christie and broadcast on the BBC Light Programme at 8.00pm on Friday May 30, 1947....
loosely based on the case. This eventually developed into the long-running play The Mousetrap
The Mousetrap
The Mousetrap is a murder mystery play by Agatha Christie. The Mousetrap opened in the West End of London in 1952, and has been running continuously since then. It has the longest initial run of any play in history, with over 24,500 performances so far. It is the longest running show of the modern...
.
Terry O'Neill has published a non-fiction book about the case. Called Someone to Love Us, it was released on 4 March 2010, the day after Dennis's birthday.