Late in the evening Peace found Mrs. Dyson talking to some neighbours about his extraordinary conduct, and asked if she were talking about him.
She replied that she was, and apparently in a sudden burst of passion he produced a revolver and presenting it at her head said he would blow her brains out—of course using an expletive—and subsequently he threatened to blow her husband’s brains out as well.
In consequence of that a summons was taken out against him, but he did not appear, and a warrant was granted against him. He seemed to have known that a warrant had been obtained, and from that time until October he was not seen in the neighbourhood.
To be quite out of the way of his annoyance the Dysons decided to remove, and took a house at Bannercross, a village about three miles to the west of Sheffield, and consequently about six miles from Darnall.
They removed on the 29th, following the furniture by train, and when they arrived at Bannercross the first person they saw was the prisoner. Some conversation took place between him and Mrs. Dyson, and the prisoner said, “I am here to annoy you, and I will annoy you wherever you go.”
Mrs. Dyson told him there was a warrant out against him, and he replied that he did not care for the warrant and he did not care for the police. That sort of conversation would tend to show that there was the same bad blood, the same ill-feeling, in the breast of the prisoner against both Mrs. Dyson and her husband which had existed in the previous July.
Mr. Campbell Foster put in a plan of Bannercross-terrace, and described its surroundings to the jury. Prisoner, he added, went to the shop of a man named Gregory at the end of October, and engaged him in conversation, and at that time he was particularly noticed by Mrs. Gregory.
In about a month afterwards he again called, asked if her husband was in, and upon being answered in the negative, he went out and was seen to be loitering about.
During that time he was seen by a Mrs. Colgrave, who was going to Gregory’s shop. The meeting took place in the road.
The prisoner engaged her in conversation, and asked if she would take him a message to Dyson’s house, asking Mrs. Dyson to come out.