Mr Dolling sued for damages of £1,000 (in the eyes of the law his wife was seen as his property). In court Samuel was accused of ‘beastly lust’, ill becoming a man in his 60th year. However, the jury may have had a sneaking admiration for him as he was let off the charges.
Albert and Ebenezer Fox, identical twins and infamous poachers, also managed to avoid punishment on numerous occasions. They used their facial similarity to claim mistaken identity and bamboozle the magistrates.
The advent of fingerprint analysis put an end to their schemes – even identical twins have different fingerprints. It didn’t seem to deter them as they ended up with a total of 120 criminal convictions between them!