Sad and tragic tale of sisters ; Girls saw mother strangled by father

11 May 1973 TWO little girls, whose life was described by alawyer as the "saddest and most tragic tale it has ever been mymisfortune to recount", received Pounds 7,000 in the High Court thisweek.

They were Jane and Ruth Ward, who lived with their aunt and unclein Orchard Avenue, Brentwood.

Since 1967, when Jane was five years old and her sister was onlytwo, their young lives had been a catalogue of horror.

For in that year, their father, Ernest Ward, then a porter atHigh Wood hospital, was crippled when his motorcycle was incollision with a lorry owned by Mac Fisheries Ltd.

While he was in hospital, Jane's twin brother, Philip, died bysuffocating in his …