John Docherty (1926 – ?)

JOHN Docherty tried to take his own life, was sentenced to death, but survived both.

From the north-east of England, but described as a clerk of ‘no fixed abode’, he was engaged to Sybil Hoy, of Felling, Co Durham.

The couple had met some three years earlier, when he was being treated for tuberculosis in a sanatorium. He had been advised to return for further treatment and Miss Hoy broke off the engagement.

He was distressed by this and she returned the presents he had given her.

In 1954, Miss Hoy was visiting friends, Mr and Mrs Elliott, from Newcastle, who lived in a flat for Aveling Barford workers, at Arnoldfield, Grantham.

Docherty was also in town, staying at the White Hart Hotel, High Street. It is known he was at a dance in Newcastle the night previous.

The couple met in the grounds of Arnoldfield and in a frenzied attack, he stabbed her 19 times to the throat and chest with a butchers knife,  on the verge of drive leading to Arnoldfield, which was then just off the Great North Road A1) on the outskirts of Grantham.

He then climbed the railway embankment and threw himself under the London-Edinburgh express.  He failed to kill himself but severed both legs. They were amputated in hospital.

He pleaded guilty to her murder and was sentenced to hang at Lincoln Assizes.

But his sentence was commuted by the Home Secretary, as he was unable to walk to the scaffold.

What happened after his release is unknown.