Gascoyne's colleague on the bench, Mr Justice Gundry, had written to the Undersheriff of Dorset, who knew John Gibbons and William Clarke. The Undersheriff wrote back claiming that they "would not have given evidence had it not been true". Clarke may have been in a relationship with Lucy Squires, and claimed that he had stayed with the Squires in Ridgeway. Fifteen prominent residents of Abbotsbury, including churchwardens, Overseers of the Poor, a schoolmaster and a tithing man swore that the Squires were in Dorset in January and that their witnesses were trustworthy men. A further six Abbotsbury men walked to sign an affidavit corroborating their neighbours' evidence.