Skip to content
The Prosecution Project Logo
Become Involved

Already Registered? Login

  • About
    • The research project
    • The research team
    • The data
    • Citation Guide
  • Search Trials
  • Research Briefs
  • Research Sources
    • Links to our sources
    • History of the Courts
      • Queensland Courts
      • South Australian Courts
      • New South Wales Courts
      • Victorian Courts
      • Tasmanian Courts
      • Western Australian Courts
      • Northern Territory Supreme Court
    • Criminal History Justice Online
  • Publications
  • Project Data
    • The Australian Criminal Justice History Dataverse
    • Tools – Documentation
    • Tools – Access
  • Contact Us

prosecutions

This page has moved. Please update your bookmarks to now point to https://app.prosecutionproject.griffith.edu.au

On this week in... 1919

Outhouse birth

On 2 September 1919, nineteen-year-old Ellen Jane Sutherland was tried at the Perth Supreme Court for the manslaughter of her infant child. It was alleged that Sutherland gave birth to the child in an outhouse of her parents’ home. A doctor testified that the child had died shortly after birth when it asphyxiated in the fluid into which it fell. Sutherland tearfully testified that not only had she not been aware that she was pregnant, but was not even aware that she had given birth until the infant’s body was later discovered. After a short retirement the jury found her not guilty, echoing the sympathetic treatment common in such cases at the time.

This trial report is from The West Australian

Download from Trove

 LastNext 

Connect With Us
This project is supported by the Australian Research Council, Griffith University and Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research.
Permission to use pictorial images on this site has been granted by the relevant agencies.
Theme by SiteOrigin