Frederick Rushworth

Lydia Binks and Frederick Rushworth were convicted of the murder of a new born child who they buried alive. They were both sentenced to death. Lydia Binks was reprieved and Frederick Rushworth was executed.

They went to a wood and when they got to a stile Lydia Binks said that she gave the child to Frederick Rushworth who had a shovel and started to dig a hole. She said then that she put her hands over her face and ran away and sat on a tree stump and cried. She said that while she was sitting there she could hear her baby crying which made her feel worse. On the way back Lydia Binks said that Frederick Rushworth said 'Cheer up. It will be dead now, and nobody will know'.

Lydia Binks and Frederick Rushworth had been walking out together and had the child while Lydia Binks was working at The Dales Holiday Camp, in Carperby.

She gave birth to the child alone and met Frederick Rushworth that on the night of 25 March 1934 at Wensley Bridge where they went across some fields to a small plantation near Gellpool Farm. the child was in a basket that Lydia Binks had brought on her bicycle from Carperby to Wensley.

The autopsy stated that the child had been buried alive.

Frederick Rushworth said that they both dug the hole and said that he thought the child was already dead when Lydia Binks brought it from Carperby.

see National Archives - ASSI 45/94/9, PCOM 8/233