A round Broughton and Brigg at the end of the Victorian period, there appears to have been a series of nasty and violent assaults, sometimes related to drink but not always so. In Brigg there had been an occasion when extra police were brought into the town to control mobs of lads out for trouble, and there had been a serious riot in the place when an Irishman was hit by a truncheon and all his friends were out to attack Peelers. The police were barricaded in the Angel Hotel for protection.
But there were several cases in which more severe trouble was evident, and one involved a man who had been a threat to women in Broughton for some time. This was one Alfred Taylor, and he was obviously a dangerous man. It seems hard to believe that he had escaped a prison sentence before the occurrence that finally led him into a serious crime.