Ada Andrews, aged 23, wife of a Portsmouth gun wharf engineer but whose mother lived at 45 Cobden Street, Luton, first appeared before magistrates on Friday, July 25th, 1919, and was remanded in custody until the following Wednesday, charged with rioting stealing toilet requisites, value 32s 6d, the property of chemist Mr Walter S. Clark.

Her case was finally dealt with by magistrates on Friday, August 1st, when Town Clerk William Smith said that, having regard to the suspense and mental strain suffered by two of the women who were charged with rioting and larceny, he had decided to take the responsibility of dropping the rioting allegations, so that the prisoners might be dealt with summarily.

Ada Andrews, who pleaded guilty to having stolen toilet requisites valued at 32s 6d from the shop of Mr Clark, was fined 40 shillings, or 14 days. The Bench said the decision arrived at had taken into consideration the number of days she had already spent in prison.

Det-Sgt Arthur Bacon, said he found the articles in an attache case in the front room of the house where she was staying. When asked to account for their possession, she said: “I was standing in a chemist's shop doorway at the bottom of Wellington Street when a man brought these things to me out of the shop. I don't know who he was.”

Mr H. W. Lathom, defending, said Andrews had come to Luton from Portsmouth, where her husband was living, to attend to her mother in illness. She happened to be out in the town on the fateful night.

Her husband had travelled to Luton for his wife's trial.