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Over the months of rationing and food shortages, opportunist thieves had been taking advantage of the crowds that queued at the local shops. Villagers were asked to be on the look out for anyone acting suspiciously and a thirteen year old boy was arrested. He was charged with 'theft by pocket-picking' and sentenced to eighteen stripes with the birch rod. His mother pleaded guilty to receiving a 'ten shilling Treasury note' from him. She was given a warning.
Later in April an eleven year old boy was apprehended for the theft of purses. His parents admitted that he was beyond their control. He was sent to an Industrial School for a period of five years.
Another court case highlights how very different were attitudes to crime and the punishment of children in wartime West Calder.
A father was charged with assaulting his nine year old son, by 'striking him with a fist to make him bleed'. The lad had disobeyed an order given by his father and left the house to stay with friends. The father had flown into a temper and marched round to the friends house to confront his son, striking him about the face in punishment. 'The sheriff said an assault on a boy of tender years causing an effusion of blood was a very serious matter.' 'No doubt children required chastisement, but it should be administered on another part of the body, and not the face, and certainly not to the effusion of blood.'
The father was fined three pounds, despite the fact that he had already served a sixty day sentence in prison for hitting another son.
Judging by reports in the Advertiser, the year got of to a very 'lawless' start.
'A mild sensation was created on Thursday morning when it became known that three cases of burglary had taken place the preceding night. .. It would appear that the burglars had commenced operations at the Pawnbrokers Shop ... made all the more daring by the fact that the constable was going his rounds at the time ... The burglars must have watched him pass by before taking the shop shutters down, using a diamond to cut a hole in the window and then taking what they could reach.'
'They then crossed the street to Mr R Duncan's watchmaker and jeweller and did the same .. they smashed the glass here and had to make of in a hurry ... while police searched the village, the culprits walked along the railway line to the Railway Station, they broke in , ransacked the office and took several parcels .. while police were searching the village on bicycle, the thieves walked up the line to Addiewell where they caught the next train to Edinburgh.'
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