Free Great Train Crimes: Murder and Robbery on the Railways by Jonathan Oates

The man requested to leave at Vauxhall, but was told he must not.
    On arrival at Waterloo, they went to the superintendent’s office, being escorted by William Atter, a railway policeman. Her assailant was also taken there and was now very contrite:
    ‘I am very sorry if anything I did frightened you. I know your brother very well indeed; give me his address and I will write to him.’
    ‘You may do what you choose.’
    Miss Dickinson gave her name and address to the officials present, but did not give any information to her assailant. Accompanied by the clergyman, she went to her brother’s house in Chesterfield Street.
    Her assailant was detained. It was then that his identity became known. He was Colonel Valentine Baker. He had been born in Enfield in 1827, the son of a wealthy man. Baker bought a commission in the 10th Hussars in 1848. He had had a varied military career, serving in South Africa, the Crimea, Ireland and India, in both the Hussars and the Lancers. By 1865, he was a colonel and was a good officer, interested in both the theory of war and his men’s welfare. In 1865 he married and became a father to two children. He also became a friend of the Prince of Wales and gained an important contact with the Duke of Cambridge, commander in chief of the army. However, with the return of his regiment to England in 1872, he resigned his commission and, after an expedition in Asia, took a staff post at Aldershot in 1874. As assistant quartermaster general, he was told to supervise a great military review, to take place in August 1875. This, then, was the manwho travelled up to London to dine with the Duke of Cambridge on 17 June 1875 and met Miss Dickinson en route.
    Baker was very apologetic: ‘I am sorry I did it; I don’t know what possessed me to do it, I being a married man.’
    Baker was arrested by the Surrey police on the following day and on Saturday 19 June he appeared before the County Bench at Guildford. He was charged with indecent assault on Miss Dickinson. In the packed court room were Mr Poland for the prosecution and Mr Lilley for the defence. The latter asked that the hearing be postponed for a week to allow him time to prepare the defence, as he had only just received his brief. Poland said he would be happy for this to occur, or for the hearing to proceed. After some discussion, the magistrates agreed to Lilley’s suggestion and Baker was bailed for £500.
    When the hearing occurred, on 24 June, the witnesses told the court what they had seen. The defence would be reserved, it was announced. Baker then said he wanted to make a statement. This was an unusual request, but it was granted. He said:
I am placed here in a most delicate and difficult position. If any act of mine on the occasion referred to could have given any annoyance to Miss Dickinson, I beg to express to her my most unqualified regret. At the same time, I solemnly declare, upon my honour, that the case was not as it has been presented today by her under the influence of exaggerated fear and unnecessary alarm. To the evidence of the police constable Atter, I give the most unqualified denial. I may add that I don’t intend in the least to say that she wilfully misrepresented the case, but I say that she has represented it incorrectly, no doubt under the influence of exaggerated fear and unnecessary alarm.
     
    Baker was bailed for £4,000. There was no shortage of men who were willing to stand sureties for him. His brother Samuel and a fellow officer were happy to do so. He was then committed for trial.
    At Surrey Assizes, held at Croydon on 2 August, Baker was tried for both attempted rape and the lesser charge of indecent assault. The case had shocked the nation. Not only had a terrible act taken place and another, even more heinous one been allegedly attempted, but the victim was a young and innocent woman and the perpetrator an officer and a gentleman. Most people had already decided, in their moraloutrage, that Baker was