Chichester express and West Sussex journal-Tuesday 11 April 1865

Cuckfield - another attempt at suicide.-on Tuesday a young woman named Emma Knight, aged 21, was charged before Major McAdam with attempting to destroy herself. It appeared that on the previous day she was at Haywards Heath station standing on the platform, and on the approach of an express train that did not stop, placed herself in a dangerous position, and in the attitude as if about to throw herself before the engine, which was perceived by one of the porters, who immediately seized hold of her and held her back by force until the train had passed by. Mr Norman and Mr Sergison, magistrates, witnessed it, and she shortly after taken to Cuckfield and placed under the care of Superintendent Akehurst, who has had three cases of aberration of intellect at the police station in a month.

It was ascertained that she lived in London, and had been in service as a lady's maid, but meeting with a disappointment, through misplaced affection, she became in a low state of mind, having been sent to Lindfield, where she had been staying with some friends named Wells, but her strange actions plainly bespoke a deranged intellect. Her brother was sent for from London and was present at the examination, and doctor Byass, expressing an opinion that she was harmless, although suffering from a derangement of intellect, she was ordered to be handed over to him, and he took her home by rail