A TEARFUL mother begged a judge to acquit her son who was accused of attempting to murder her. "I freely forgive him for what he has done."

What he did, according to the prosecution, was to repeatedly strike her over the head with a poker at their Southampton home after trying to sleep off a heavy drinking bout.

The trial at Hampshire Assizes in 1909 ironically only went ahead after a concerned Mr Justice Lush challenged a confused Thomas Orman as to whether he recognised the ramifications of his plea of guilty. "Probably you are not aware of the enormity of the offence which you are admitting. Do you say you did it with intent to murder your mother?"

The 20-year-old hawker - shamefully unrepresented by a barrister - replied: "I don't know. I was drunk when I did it, sir."

The judge immediately ruled: "That's it then, not guilty."

Having had her appeal for clemency rejected, his 43-year-old mother, Maria, recalled how she had disturbed her son when she opened a bedroom door. "Oh, Thomas, I did not know you were there."

He followed her downstairs in "a most frightening way," and struck her twice on the hand "as though he did not know what he was doing. He then picked up a piece of iron which I use as a poker and struck me over the head with it.

"I cried out 'What has your mother done for you thus to hurt her?' I was knocked down by the first blows of his fist but I did not fall when struck with the poker as I held onto the mantlepiece."

Prosecutor Mr Warry asked her about the effects of the beating, and she replied: "My head bled very much. I went into a neighbour's house and then to the police station and afterwards I was sent to the infirmary where I remained some three weeks. I don't feel any pain in my head now."

Sympathetically pointing to her son, she lamented: "I am the only supporter he has."

When asked if he had any questions to put to his mother, Orman shook his head, explaining: "No, I don't remember anything about it."

Pc Richard Bessant saw Mrs Orman sitting in a chair bleeding profusely from the head and arrested her son.

"There was blood all over the floor where she had been walking about. I took possession of the poker and took him to the police station. On the way, he said 'That poker is a false witness."

Dr Skettle, house surgeon at the Royal South Hants Hospital, confirmed she had suffered two black eyes and severe bruising about the head and body. "She had a scalp wound about an inch long going down to the bone, inflicted with a heavy instrument like that produced. She was in a very weak condition and there was a danger of her contracting erysipelas from the wound."

Orman cried throughout his testimony. "I am very sorry. I was in drink and didn't know what I was doing, otherwise I would not have done it."

In his summing up, the judge said the case, though painful, was in essence very simple.

"He said he was in drink at the time and his mother said so, too, but that is no excuse and you as the jury cannot take it as such. That he committed grievous bodily harm is absolutely proved and it cannot be considered for one moment that because a man was drunk and did not know what he was doing, he should be excused from the consequences of such a crime such as this."

Within seconds, jurors acquitted him of attempted murder but convicted him of wounding, a verdict with which the judge evidently disagreed.

Passing a sentence of 12 months hard labour, he told Orman the jury had taken a merciful view of the case.

"This is another sad instance of the consequences of indulging in intoxicants. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. You must be extremely thankful you are not being tried for murder, for if your mother had died that would have been the case.

"I hope this will be a warning to you, though I am afraid warnings are of little use, either from the pulpit or elsewhere, in the case of drunkenness."