Woman Locked Up for 70 Years After Being Falsely Accused of Stealing 13p

Cheshire: Two brothers who believed their sister was long dead have discovered her by chance in an institution. Their sister, Jean Gambell, was 'certified' and institutionalised in 1937 by a doctor who believed she had stolen 13p from his surgery.

The money was later discovered but the decision to institutionalise the young woman was never reversed. When the brothers went to see her, now 85-years-old and deaf, she remembered them both by name and hugged them.

"They basically locked her up and threw away the key and she was stuck in the system. She just got moved from one institution to another. What a waste of a poor, innocent girl’s life," said her brother David.