Derby Daily Telegraph - 19 April 1883

DERBYSHIRE ASSIZES
ARSON AT SHIRLEY

MARCUS LEMON (32), farm labourer, was indicted for setting fire to a stack of hay, the property of Philip John Lemon at Shirley.— The prisoner pleaded guilty.— Mr. Weightman, who prosecuted, stated that there had been a number of incendiary fires at Shirley during the past few years, and the prisoner appeared to have set fire to the present stacks for a drunken freak. The prosecutor was his own brother, and he had had a fire in his rickyard some time ago.— His lordship enquired whether there was any suspicion that the prisoner set fire to the stacks in order to assist his brother to get insurance money?— It was stated that the prosecutor had not claimed anything from the company, as the damage done was so slight.— His lordship, in passing sentence, said this was one of the most serious offences known to the law, and it did not lie in people's months to say that they did it as a drunken freak. The prisoner would be sentenced to five years penal servitude.