HE was indifference personified, taking no interest in what was happening around him and shuffling off to an uncertain future.

Maurice Holbrook was ill, mentally and physically. A murderer, a despised killer who cut the throat of a boy he met by chance in a local park, so reviled he might have been lynched but for his police escort’s dedication.

It was the last day of the summer holidays in August 1898 and Percy Hayter had been playing with two friends, swinging on the bow of a tree in a meadow commonly known as Barrack Field, Parkhurst.

But then it began to rain and his two playmates ran home, leaving the nine-year-old alone.

Some half an hour later, Holbrook left the field via its only entrance and trudged a mile to the local police station where he told an incredulous police sergeant he had murdered a child.

Initially, because of his grubby appearance, Sgt Adams was inclined to disbelieve him.

But Holbrook, looking remarkably cool and collected and somewhat remorse, was insistent.

“I wish to give myself up, I have cut a boy’s throat,” he said, producing a single bladed pocket knife.”Here is what I did it with.”

The sergeant cautioned him. “This is a serious matter.” But Hayter made no reply.

The sergeant examined the knife which he found bloodstained and noticed minute traces of blood around the man’s fingernails.

Holbrook was held in custody while the sergeant and Chief Inspector Ayres investigated his story and tragically found it to be true.

There under a tree by a fence, just a quarter of a mile from his home, lay the victim on his front. The grass and ground underneath his body were saturated with blood and when the inspector turned over his body, they found two gashes to his throat, one of which had severed his windpipe.

The inspector remained on guard while the sergeant summoned Dr Allan Waterworth, medical officer of the nearby workhouse who met them as they were carrying the corpse on a stretcher from the scene.

It was taken to the workhouse mortuary where the doctor not only confirmed life to be extinct but death mercifully would have been instantaneous.

Extraordinarily, as time passed, no parent report a child to be missing and the police had to issue his description as being about 4ft 7in tall, of fair complexion, with brown eyes and light brown hair and at the time was wearing a bluish waistcoat, a pink flannellette shirt, Eton collar, black stockings with white elastic garters and new lace boots tipped and nailed.

As news of the shocking killing spread, so rumour announced it was one and then another before the horrible truth dawned on the Hayter household.

At the police station, his labourer father, Henry, identified the clothing but was so overcome a neighbour in Worsley Road, Hunnyhill, formally identified the body.

Several people, including soldiers who had been playing football in the field, reported to the police they had observed a tall man – Holbrook was about six foot tall – walking in the field but they had left as the rain settled in.

When questioned, Holbrook complained of being unwell and apart from for a few halfpenny buns, had not eaten for three days. He confessed to seeing the boy alone, went after him, and cut his throat on the orders of a man in red.

It transpired Hayter was a native of the Isle of Wight but had been away from the Island for some 10 years, during which time he had been wandering in America. On his return to England, he had suffered typhoid fever in Bristol before he was transferred to the workhouse where he had been living for some two months before discharging himself less than a week before the murder.

An inquest was held 24 hours later on August 27, 1898. when the jury returned a verdict of wilful murder and the following day he appeared at the Guildhall court in Newport where he cut a dismal figure, The local reporter described him as a tall, gaunt figure, who “evidently belongs to the great unwashed. He had the appearance of a half-starved man who had been stricken down with a severe illness and his clothing was decidedly of the shabby order. Viewed in the dock, his appearance was most repulsive. Not only did he give a haggard and dejected look, he seemed to take little interest in the proceedings. Altogether his demeanour was such to show a man of little intellect.”

When asked if he had anything to say in answer to the charge, he replied in a thin, frail, voice, “No, sir.”

Told he would be remanded in custody, he simply nodded.

Holbrook was then bundled out of the court by Chief Inspector Ayres and two other officers into a waiting cab, only to be confronted by a baying mob vent on expressing their hatred, yelling, hooting and pelting the vehicle. Eventually a path was cleared but at Cowes, they were met by yet another hostile demonstration before He was firmly escorted on to a steamer to be taken to Portsmouth Prison.

The following Tuesday, the funeral took place, the service first being conducted outside his home by the Salvation Army of which the family were staunch members, as the polished coffin with its brass furniture lying on two small biers stood in the centre of the road. Covered with a mass of floral tributes but adorned with a simple message, ‘Percy Hayter, died August 26, aged nine years,’ the coffin was conveyed past Newport Board School, where he was taught, and onto Carisbrooke Cemetery.

Holbrook appeared at Hampshire Assizes on November 22 where he was charged with ‘feloniously, wilfully and with malice aforethought, killing and murdering’ Percy Hayter.’ Before he was asked to plead, the judge, Mr Justice Kennedy raised his concern with prosecutor C T Giles MP that he was unrepresented and adjourned proceedings while he heard two other short cases, while a barrister called Charles accepted the dock brief.

Holbrook duly returned to court the same Saturday morning, looking perceptibly better than he did on his appearance at Newport, but still wearing the grimy coat, he pleaded ‘Not guilty,’ leading the prosecutor to allege the attack was inexplicable.

“There is no evidence he was acquainted with boy or the family itself. There is no evidence whatsoever by which we could assign any motive whatever for this offence. Indeed the only explanation it seems to me upon the facts is that the offence was committed by an uncontrollable impulse of a mad man, and it is right that every investigation should take place with regard to the antecedents of the prisoner.”

Giles then detailed Holbrook’s recent illness and treatment by Dr Waterworth who had not witnessed any symptoms that he suffered from brain fever and similar traits. However, the prosecution did accept that prior to the typhoid fever, he had suffered from a series of epileptic attacks.

The court, he said, would hear testimony from a Dr Worthington of his previous mental and physical state.

“When you have heard the doctor, I do not think you can come to any other conclusion than that in the first place he committed the crime and at the time he committed it he must have been in such a condition of mind that it will be your duty to find him guilty but insane.”

Not unnaturally the defence concurred with that reasoning and the jury, following a brief direction from the judge, duly returned that verdict. Holbrook, who had demonstrated no interest in the case, was ordered to be confined to the Hampshire Lunatic Asylum and unemotionally accompanied warders to the cells.