ONE vicious blow followed another. Even when a mutual friend desperately intervened, publican John Bury still rained punches on his hapless wife, yet astonishingly when he stood in the dock of Hampshire Assizes, she still painted a picture of being happily married.

But from reading papers in the case, Mr Justice Hawkins knew otherwise - and the bully was ultimately to pay for the outrage.

Teetotal for several months after the tragic death of two of their six children, Bury's festering anger and frustration over his loss inevitably surfaced and he succumbed to his old vice of drink. Not just one. A second led to a third and by the time he had returned to his own pub, he was fighting drunk.

His wife, Ann, refused to talk to him and that inflamed him further, letting fly with a series of blows to her head and face. As she lay on the floor screaming and helpless, the friend rushed in and tried pulling him away.

"What are you doing?" he demanded. "You had better get into the other room and compose yourself." 

Bury did not reply but continued with his savage onslaught before desisting. She pleaded with the friend to get the police but Bury muttered he would do it himself and staggered out of the Greyhound pub in Bugle Street.

Bury was charged with wounding with intent to murder but his wife, doubtless anxious to protest her husband's reputation, diluted the level of violence inflicted on her. However, under questioning, she perceptively changed her account on key points, so much so magistrates rejected the defence's submission it amounted to no more than assault and committed him for trial.

Once more at the 1877 hearing, she stood by him, insisting to jurors they had been happily married for 11 years and she had borne him six children. After the death of two of them, he had given up drink.

However, the judge was suspicious, questioning her - as had the magistrates - why she had delivered conflicting accounts, even denying the evidence of the friend that her husband had attacked with her a hammer.

"That's not true," she protested. "He only used his fists."

Pc Smith then related how he had found the victim with her face smeared with blood and a mallet lying on the counter with specks of blood on it.

Police surgeon Dr Welch told the court Mrs Bury had suffered a facial wound in inch long as well as bruising to the jaw. "The mallet might have produced such wounds but she was in no great danger. A fall against the beer engine and cistern would have caused such a wound."

The prosecution's final witness was Inspector Harris who confirmed Bury had given himself up, condemning his wife in interview as "a bad woman who has led a miserable life. And he could not stand it any longer."

Expressing his love for his children, he  bemoaned: "I hoped I had killed her and wished I had killed myself."

The judge recalled Mrs Bury and demanded to know why her husband had denounced her as "a bad woman," remarking: "I think there is much more to this than the woman tells."

However, she refused to be drawn and remained silent.

Jurors convicted Bury on the lesser charge of wounding and he was further remanded in custody overnight for sentence. The following morning, the judge told him: "You have had been properly found guilty, notwithstanding your wife's efforts to screen you from the punishment you deserve."

He then jailed him for 12 months.