Following the conviction for perjury of his main accuser – one of the children – he was granted the Royal Pardon and embarked on a series of court actions to win compensation for wrongful imprisonment.
In 1859, when Lucy was now seven and needed educating, Hatch and his wife decided to employ a governess and take on some paying pupils to defray the cost and provide some extra income.
They advertised in The Times, and Thomas and Caroline Plummer brought their daughters, Mary Eugenia, aged 11, and her seven-year-old sister Stephana Augusta to Wandsworth to receive tuition.
There was some disquiet in the press regarding the justice of the conviction given the nature of the accusations, ‘too disgusting to print’, and significant discrepancies in the prosecution testimony given.
Neither Hatch nor his wife had been allowed to give evidence, and his counsel, Serjeant William Ballantine, did not call any material witnesses.
While the Home Secretary, Sir George Cornewall Lewis, remained unconvinced, he did say that if Eugenia could be convicted of perjury, the petition would be reconsidered.
Two weeks after that, Eugenia too was released under The Royal Pardon; she was to spend several years away from her family under the control of a strict governess, where it was intended that she should receive some religious and moral education.
34: An Extraordinary Tale of Victorian Criminal Justice, by John Pulford, published by the Walton & Weybridge Local History Society, 2010, ISBN 978-0-901524-29-4