Rejection of Burrows' appeal.

Glossop Advertiser 27 July 1923

BURROWS TO DIE FOR HIS CRIMES.
Monday's Appeal Fails.
Justice Darling says there is “No Doubt of Guilt.”
“Could Not Have Been a More Atrocious Murder.”
No Ground Whatever to Interfere With Sentence.

The last hope of Albert Edward Burrows, the Glossop murderer, vanished on Monday, when the Court of Criminal Appeal, London, dismissed his application for leave to appeal against the death sentence passed on him at Derby Assizes for murdering Hannah Calladine and their fourteen-months-old son, whose bodies were found in the Simmondley pit shaft.
Throughout the country great interest has centred in the appeal, though it was generally felt that the verdict and sentence passed on Burrows at Derby would be upheld.
The Court consisted of Justices Darling, Salter, and Swift.
Justice Darling said there could be no doubt that Burrows was guilty
The prisoner was present in the dock while his case was argued by Mr. Winning.
Counsel said that the man had bigamously married the woman before she disappeared, and for three years her body had laid in a disused pitshaft. In proving their case against the man the prosecution attached much importance to his letters and actions, but he (counsel) submitted that a considerable amount of the evidence against him was wholly irrelevant on a charge of murder.
There was not one fact in the case for the prosecution which was not consistent with the woman having committed suicide.
This woman, said counsel, was very easily depressed, and she had quarrelled with her parents because of the life which she had been leading.
Mr. Justice Darling remarked that there appeared to have been a regular plan by this man to make people believe that the woman was alive, and he told lies as to where she was and what she was doing.
Counsel admitted that the man made untrue statements.
Mr. Justice Darling: Why was not the man called on the suggestion of the woman’s suicide?
Mr Winning said it was difficult to put a man in the witness-box as he had been almost found to be a convicted liar.

Sir H. Maddocks, K.C., for the Crown, submitted that no man could have had a fairer trial,
Mr. Justice Darling, giving the decision of the Court, said there could be no doubt whatever that this man was guilty.
His counsel had raised every minute point in his defence that could be raised,but it was noticeable that those points were merely points suggested by the lawyers who defended him. They were not the prisoner’s points at all.
He gave not evidence, and his lordship should say that he was well advised in giving no evidence.
In the opinion of the Court there could not be a clearer ease than that which was laid before the jury.
There could not have been a more atrocious murder.
There was no ground whatever for interfering with the sentence, and the application would be dismissed.

The Court of Appeal’s decision on Monday is the law’s last word on one of the most amazing series of murders that has ever occurred in the north of England.
The murderer, Albert Edward Burrows, a labourer, is a married man, 62 years of age. He was sentenced to death for two crimes — the murder of Miss Hannah Calladine and her baby boy. Two other murder charges were ordered to stand over to the next Derby Assizes. These concerned the murder, by Burrows, of Miss Calladine's little daughter, and the boy, Tommy Wood. Both these children's remains were found at the bottom of the same pit shaft at Simmondley, near the murderer’s Glossop home.
The woman whom Burrows had bigamously married was murdered, with her two children, over three years ago, and the bodies were thrown down the shaft.
Probably this triple crime would never have been discovered if it had not been for the mysterious disappearance of the little Glossop boy, Tommy Wood, in the spring of this year.

Burrows's demeanour during the search for Tommy Wood aroused so much suspicion that the police decided to search the pit shaft. This was done and the boy’s body was found. Then, shortly after Burrows had been sent for trial on the charge of murdering Tommy Wood, the police, learning that nobody had seen Miss Calladine or her two children for over three years, searched the pit shaft again and found the other three bodies.
Burrows's “motive” in killing Miss Calladine and her two children was to avoid payment of money on an affiliation order for the maintenance of the baby boy, of whom he was the father.
He bore himself with remarkable composure at the two inquests, and the two series of police court proceedings. He preserved his self-possession when confronting judge and jury at Derby Assizes, and protested his innocence to the end. His last, words before being sentenced to death were:— “I am not afraid of death, but I am not guilty. I loved, these children and the woman, too. As true as I hope to meet my God, I am innocent”.

A clairvoyant in the Glossop neighbourhood claimed to have obtained the following prediction during a period of “automatic writing” just before the discovery of the remains of Miss Calladine and her children:
“There are some bodies lying on the mud beneath the surface of the emptied pit. Nobody will be able to identify these remains, as they are lying denuded of their fleshly coverings.
“The woman and her children were in the way, and so were thrown over by one who had promised to care for and cherish them. It will perhaps be difficult to prove this crime, since the evidence must be circumstantial, but you will find that my words will be true.
“These skeletons will be found. I will say no more. These people — a woman, a girl, a boy — have been on our side of life for a period — I know not exactly — but about two or three years”.

It is officially stated that August 8 has been the date provisionally fixed for the execution of Albert Edward Burrows, for the murder of Hannah Calladine and her child. The execution will take place in Bagthorpe Prison, Nottingham, at 8 a.m.

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