The Doncaster Michaelmas Quarter Sessions were being held on Monday 22 October 1849 when a mother and her twelve year old son were brought before the Magistrates. They were both charged with feloniously inciting another twelve year old boy to steal two half crowns at Rotherham, the property of Abraham Jackson. The elder prisoner was a forty five year old woman called Mary Linten who pleaded guilty, although her son, Henry pleaded not guilty to the charge. The prosecution, Mr Overend told the court that he was acting on behalf of his client, Mr Jackson the proprietor of the White Swan on Westgate, Rotherham.

At the time the offence was committed, he said the prisoners lived in a house nearby at a time when Mr Jackson had his nephew Joseph Hobson staying with him. Mr Jackson himself told the court that he understood that the elder prisoner encouraged her son to go out and play with his nephew. He had no objection as both boys were around the same age. What he later established however, was that Mary somehow found out from young Hobson where his uncle kept the public house takings. The boy told her that they were kept in a special drawer at the Inn. It was not long before this evil woman encouraged her son to bet Hobson that he would not be able to take some of his uncles money without being detected.

Mr Overend said that the female prisoner made it seem like a game, but at first Hobson refused to steal from his uncle. However, meeting him in the street one day, Mary told him that she thought that he was a very clever child. She was convinced that his uncle would never even miss the money that had been taken, particularly if he just took a portion of it. This evil woman suggested that if he just took something like a single half crown, and left the rest behind, no one would suspect that it was him. When the nephew demurred, she told him not to worry and that if he was ever found out, Hobson could simply come and live with them.

After much persuasion over the next few days, the nephew finally agreed to do it. Mary convinced him to just steal a half crown and give it to Henry, who was instructed to hand it immediately over to his mother. Finally, under great pressure, the boy gave way and the money was handed over. After praising Hobson again for his astuteness, the female prisoner once again convinced him to do it again and a second half crown was similarly removed successfully. However it was not long before Mary got greedy, and it was on the third attempt that the young nephew was finally caught taking money from the drawer.

At this point Mr Overend reminded the magistrates that although the charge against the younger prisoner was one of incitement to steal, he was in fact only guilty of a lesser offence of aiding and abetting. The prosecution reminded the magistrates that the boy had only committed the offence in the first place under the influence and advice of his mother. Mr Overend therefore suggested that the ends of justice would surely be served by charging the mother alone. With this in mind he said that he proposed therefore not to bring any charges before the court concerning young Henry Linten, to which the court agreed.

Then, it was time for the chairman of the magistrates, Mr E B Dennison MP to address the prisoners. He asked Mary Linten why she had pleaded guilty and she told him that she had received the money and that was all she felt that she was guilty of. Mr Dennison told her:

‘We have no doubt of the fact that you induced your own son to aid you in inciting the boy Hobson to rob his own uncle. For behaving so shamefully to your own child and that of your neighbours, it is the sentence of the court that you be imprisoned with hard labour for six months.’

The prisoner turned to leave, but before she got out of the dock, he told her that on the advice of magistrates on both sides of him, that her son would be set at liberty. The chair concluded that he hoped that

‘His father would now take care and ensure that he is removed from the contaminating influence of such a wretch as you have proved yourself to be.’