They led us forth to the other side of the building where the court was. We waited in a passage underneath it, and were led up in turns to the prisoner’s box. The others, who had done nothing but break glass, were sentenced to the 3rd Division and hard labour for fourteen days, and some a month, without any option. Mrs. Brailsford and I were both given the alternative of being bound in money sureties for a year. In reality, this offered us no alternative, but in the estimation of the magistrate, I, who had done deliberately most harm, was given the option of going free, while the others, who were many of them younger than I was, first offenders and all had done much less damage than I had, were prisoners beyond their recall.
When it was my turn, I was prepared for the three charges I had seen on the paper the day before. First came the charge of assault on Sir Walter Runciman. I said that I did not know it was Sir Walter Runciman in the car, and that I threw the stone low down, so that it should not hit the chauffeur or anyone. They did not take up this charge. Then came the charge of damage, at which I was well pleased. But the man facing the magistrate, the clerk, who conducts most of the affairs in several courts I have been into, would not let this charge come on. He said that I had evidently not intended the damage to the car, and that part of the case was dismissed. I tried to tell him that I had no concern for the motor-car, and, though I didn’t know how a stone so small could have done so much harm, I was not in the least concerned over the £4 worth of damage, but he would not let me speak and passed on to the third charge, “disorderly behaviour in a public place.” I put in, with a loud voice, “My disorderly behaviour of throwing a stone with violence in a public place was deliberate and intentional.” After this, they could not but go on with it, since the whole court had heard what I had said. They apparently treated me as a lunatic, and began to ask if it was through not knowing what I was doing that I had thrown a stone? “If I had not known what I was about to do, I should not have held a stone in my hand,” I answered.
I had made up my mind, at one time of the trial, that I would deny the tales that had circulated about the Suffragettes and Mr. Lloyd George’s children. It had been said that we tried to kidnap them, that we had wished for their illness, and all kinds of invented evil. Who are the Suffragettes that they should make war on children? If the child of Mr. Lloyd George were ill or in any way suffering, we were sorry, we were sympathetic, as with every other child, and we were sad for him as the loving father of that child. I tried to speak, when I first was called on, and repeatedly afterwards, but I was always stopped and could get no innings. Finally, the magistrates convicted me of “disorderly behaviour with intent to disturb the peace,” and bound me over, myself in the sum of £50 and two sureties of £25 each, to be enforced for twelve months; in default, one month’s imprisonment in the 2nd Division. I, of course, had no option of finding sureties for twelve months, and was sentenced to the month’s imprisonment. My companion, Miss Davison, was dismissed, as she had literally done nothing.