THE HORSE WITH A GREEN TAIL
(first published in the Virginia Woolf Miscellany, No. 34 [Spring 1990], 3-4)

Stuart N. Clarke

In Between the Acts, Isa Oliver picks up her father-in-law’s copy of the Times, and reads:

‘A horse with a green tail . . .’ which was fantastic.   Next, ‘The guard at Whitehall . . .’ which was romantic and then, building word upon word she read: ‘The troopers told her the horse had a green tail; but she found it was just an ordinary horse.  And they dragged her up to the barrack room where she was thrown upon a bed.  Then one of the troopers removed part of her clothing, and she screamed and hit him about the face. . . .’
    That was real; so real that on the mahogany door panels she saw the Arch in Whitehall . . . .(1)

This rape actually occurred on the night of 27 April 1938.(2)  The girl was aged fourteen and nine months at the time.  As she and two companions were passing under an archway leading to the stables, a soldier asked her if she wished to see a horse with a green tail.  Leaving her companions, she accompanied him to the stables.  There he tried to kiss her and got her into a loose box, but she resisted his advances.  Trooper Pullin arrived and the first soldier left.  The Times reports:

'The girl said that she was crying and shouting, and he said if she shouted it would be the worse for her.  She screamed and tried to push him away and punched him, and he said he would hit her back and hurt her, as he had been a champion boxer.'

She testified that then Pullin raped her.  Afterwards he allowed her to leave, but she:

'was intercepted by other soldiers and dragged upstairs to the barrack room and thrown on a bed and was again assaulted.'

The trials of Troopers Pullin, Thomas, and Reeves took place at the Old Bailey on the 27, 28, and 29 June 1938.  Since Pullin was tried separately from Thomas and Reeves, the girl had to give her evidence twice.  Pullin was found guilty of attempted rape.  In sentencing him to 22 months, Mr. Justice Du Parcq expressed his regret that the maximum sentence for the offence was only two years, for, he said:

'Sometimes an attempt to commit rape is as dreadful in its serious consequences as rape itself.  The girl went through a terrible experience.'

Thomas was found guilty of rape and Reeves was found guilty of aiding and abetting him.  In addressing them, Mr Justice Du Parcq said that he:

'found it impossible to make any distinction between their cases.  He had seldom heard of a more horrible case than this horrible offence.'

Since Pullin was found not guilty of rape:

'She went out of the place not yet ravished, although she had gone through an experience which must have reduced her to a condition of misery and despair.  One would think that every Englishman, especially English soldiers, would be anxious to help her and protect her.'

He then sentenced each to four years’ penal servitude.

As a result of the rape, the girl became pregnant.  Mr. Aleck Bourne, a respected surgeon at one of the London hospitals, openly performed an abortion.  He in turn ended up at the Old Bailey, where he was tried on 18 and 19 July 1938.  At that time abortion was completely illegal, except for the purpose of ‘preserving the life of the mother’.  Mr Justice Macnaghten extended the meaning of that phrase when he directed the jury that if:

'the probable consequence of the continuance of the pregnancy will be to make the woman a physical or mental wreck, the jury are quite entitled to take the view that the doctor, who, in those circumstances and in that honest belief, operates, is operating for the purpose of preserving the life of the mother.'(3)

The jury found the accused not guilty.  On 25 July the Minister of Health was asked in Parliament:

'whether, as this was a test case, he intended introducing legislation to clarify or amend the law dealing with such offences.'(4)

But nothing was done for almost another thirty years.  Until the passing of the Abortion Act 1967, R. v. Bourne remained the leading case on abortion in the United Kingdom.  Since the act did not extend to Northern Ireland, it is still the leading case there.

The counsel for the defence in R. v. Bourne was a Mr. Oliver.  Is this a coincidence?


Notes
(1) Virginia Woolf, Between the Acts (Hogarth Press, 1941), p. 27.
(2) See The Times, 28 June 1938, 11; 29 June 1938, 11; 30 June 1938, 11; 30 July 1938, 3.
(3) [1939] 1 K.B. 687-96 at 694; see also [1938] 3 All E. R. 615 at 619.
(4) The Times, 26 July 1938, 7.