Poor Inspector Cook, on this fateful day, was yet to meet two more men who wanted trouble. Another Kelly (Patrick) managed to avoid striking the poor policeman, but eventually, after using his fists a deal, was hit by a motor vehicle and he was silenced. But this Saturday in February, 1938 still had a certain Frederick Speed, but not an Irishman. Speed went into a fit of cursing and violence so extreme that first, near his home in Alexandra Road, Ashby, as he rode a bike, and then when arrested, he attacked the law officer and had to be handcuffed. Inspector Cook had had a busy day.

The Chairman of the Bench, Mr Nixon, clearly had the unfortunate detective in mind when he said that he could not overlook the assault on the officer of the law, and that a custodial sentence on Kelly was necessary. He received two short concurrent prison sentences.

These offences are typical of the period and the place; casual labour was arriving in the area both for labouring in the steel industry and for casual farm labour up the road in Brigg and Scawby areas. Farmlands on the Trentside had also been improved steadily since the 1850s, and always needed extra labour.

At the time this very visible and alarming fracas took place in the streets of Scunthorpe, J B Priestley was writing of the Irish immigrants in Liverpool, ‘The Irishman in Ireland may be the…. best fellow in the world. But the Irishman in England too often cuts a very miserable figure.’ There were some miserable figures in the Scunthorpe police cells that Saturday night in February over seventy years ago.