Bandit to be Birched

Daily Mirror, London, 16 January 1934, p.8

It was stated that Smith, with a stolen motor-cycle, snatched an attache case containing £18 from Miss Careman in Commercial-road, E. He snatched an attache case holding £21 rent money from Miss Balmer and her collar-bone was broken.Fifteen strokes with the birch and fifteen months’ imprisonment was the sentence passed at the Old Bailey yesterday on Edward Richard Smith, aged twenty-one, when he was found guilty of robbing Rhoda Careman and of robbing with violence Margaret Balmer. Smith was said to be one of a gang of six men.