Clara Elizabeth Parker

Clara Elizabeth Parker was beaten by her husband and was later hit by a train.

However, it could not be determined whether she died from the injuries inflicted by her husband or the injuries inflicted by the train.

She had lived at 10 Pickard's Yard in King Street, Bedworth.

She was found on the line on the morning of 27 November 1913 and taken to Coventry Hospital, where she died later the same day.

It was heard that on the evening of 26 November 1913 that Clara Parker had gone to a man's house at Whitehall Cottages in Bedworth and that later on her husband called had called there for her. The man had to go out to an accident on the railway line and left Clara Parker and her husband alone in his cottage. However, he said that when he returned, he found that Clara Parker had a wound on her forehead and another on the side of her nose, and also found a broken bottle in the bedroom.

The man said that Clara Parker and her husband later left his cottage at about midnight and nothing more of Clara Parker was heard until about 6am the following morning when she was found on the railway line. She had a fractured skull, a fractured thigh, and some of her toes had been amputated.

Clara Parker was later seen walking about near the railway line and was told that she was trespassing and asked to leave.

Her husband was then arrested for having struck her on the head with a bottle and later charged with her manslaughter.

When he was arrested, he said, 'I went upstairs at the man's house. She was in bed. There was a bottle of beer on the chair. I drank the beer and hit her with my fist, and then with the bottle, but where she was all night I do not know'.

A doctor from Coventry Hospital said that Clara Parker's skull fracture might have been caused by the buffer of a train, by a fall on the line, or by a fall on the platform. He said that she died from shock due to her injuries but added that if she had not had had a fractured skull that she might still have died from her other injuries.

After the court heard the doctor’s evidence, Clara Parker's husband was acquitted of her manslaughter.