[1] On 5 July 1944 the Newport Education Committee, exercising powers under the Children and Young Persons Act 1933, sent Dennis and Terence to live with Reginald Gough, 31, and his wife Esther, 29, at their remote farm, Bank Farm, in the Hope Valley, near Minsterley, Shropshire, England.
[1] An inquest found that he had died of cardiac failure after being struck several heavy blows on the chest, and had also been beaten with a stick on the back.
The next day he was unable to stand up and when Terence came home from school he found his brother locked in a cubbyhole in the kitchen.
[5] Miss Eirlys Edwards, a clerk in Newport Education Department (with no training or experience in matters of child welfare), testified on the second day that she visited Bank Farm on 20 December 1944, and observed that the boys were treated with little affection, and while Terence appeared to be well cared for, Dennis appeared ill and frightened; she asked Mrs Gough to call a doctor to examine him, which she said she would do.
[1] On the third day, Police Sergeant Macpherson testified that he had visited the farm following Dennis's death and found that the boys' bedroom was dirty and poorly furnished, whereas the Goughs' room was pleasant, neat and tidy.
[7] The court heard that the Goughs' contract required them to bring up Dennis O'Neill as one of their own children in return for £1 per week.
The prosecution claimed that Dennis was tied to a bench and beaten with a stick for eating a swede the day before he died.
[7] Dr Holloway Davies, the local doctor called by Mrs Gough, testified that when he arrived Dennis had been dead for between four and six hours.
She testified that she had married her husband in February 1942, having left the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) in June 1941.
[10] It transpired that Gough had been convicted of common assault against his wife in 1942 and she had left him in July of that year, applying for a separation order on the grounds of persistent cruelty on 6 August 1942, but had later returned to live with him.
[12] Some sources state incorrectly that the manslaughter conviction was overturned and his sentence increased after he was convicted of murder[13] but this is not the case as evidenced by the fact that in June 1951 he pleaded guilty at Salop Assizes to "a serious offence" against a girl of 15 at Western Lullingfield, Shropshire, between 1 September 1950 and 20 March 1951.
The girl subsequently gave birth to a child but the judge felt there were "mitigating circumstances" and did no more than fine Gough £25.
[14] Gough changed his name to Richard Lockett and in 1955 was charged with sending "postcards bearing grossly offensive words" to another woman.
On 22 March 1945, the Home Secretary, Herbert Morrison, announced that a public inquiry would be held into the case.
[19] On 1 January 1947 new Home Office and Ministry of Health regulations on the boarding-out of children came into force as a direct result of the Monckton Report.
The principal requirements were:[20] The case was a significant contributory factor leading to the Curtis Report of 1946 and the Children Act 1948.
[21] In 1947 Agatha Christie wrote a radio play called Three Blind Mice inspired by the case.