That habit existed practically all the time he was in my house. When the prisoner said, 'I cannot leave him because I love him," she spoke very earnestly. When I told her the deceased had said she was no class she said, "I am a brewer's daughter." I said, "Is it possible, what do you live with a brute like him for?" It was then that she said "Because I love him, and I have lost my character, and I cannot get any work." I said, "Why are you always screaming like that?" She said, "Well, how can I help it when he comes and strangles me, and puts his hand on me like that; how can I help it?" I had not heard her screaming constantly, but I had that night. I asked her why she lived with a brute like that, because he was always knocking her down. As soon as he came home, the quarrelling began, and then you heard a bang. When he was sober, he was a perfect gentleman, but he was very seldom sober. Dickens' spirited defence pleaded manslaughter, claiming that Byron had bought the knife to threaten to kill herself, and had only killed Baker in the heat of the moment after great provocation. However, the judge did not agree with the defence's plea of manslaughter and summed up against her in favour of a murder verdict. On 17 December 1902 the jury returned a guilty verdict on the charge of murder with a strong recommendation to mercy. The Home Secretary, Aretas Akers-Douglas, received a fifteen thousand signature petition asking for a reprieve and it was duly granted on 23 December 1902 with the sentence being reduced to life imprisonment; this she served in Holloway Prison and later in Aylesbury Prison. In 1907 her life sentence was reduced to ten years, and after having served exactly six years of her sentence Byron was released from Aylesbury Prison on 17 December 1908 on condition that she stayed in Lady Henry Somerset's home for reforming inebriate females near Reigate. After her release Byron disappears from the historical record. The case was dramatised by BBC Radio in the 1957 series "Secrets of Scotland Yard" in the episode 'A Lesson in Love' .