However, the judges found that on election day a Mr John George Baker had give some fifteen people a small amount of money, usually a shilling or a half-crown. Baker, who was unknown to Fell's election agent, took a vehicle used by the Conservatives and delivered voters to the poll; he told the election court that he had no politics and had given money to men because they were unemployed. Both judges agreed that Baker had been bribing voters, but differed on the crucial point of whether he had done so on behalf of Fell: in legal terms, whether Baker was acting as Fell's agent. Justice Channell decided that Baker was indeed an agent of Fell, ruling that Baker's action fell clearly within the normal principles of agency; but Justice Grantham disagreed. The law required that both judges had to agree, and so the petition was dismissed. The judges were unable to award costs to Fell, and Channell observed that Fell had "escaped by the skin of his teeth". The Times newspaper described the decision as a "curious conclusion". Justice Grantham was himself a former Conservative MP, and this was the third petition hearing at that year in which he had been seen to express political partisanship, having previously heard petitions relating to the 1906 election in Bodmin and Maidstone. After an outburst in court in Liverpool, where he claimed the right to hold and express his political opinions, a motion was tabled in the House of Commons on the Great Yarmouth petition, which sought to begin the a formal process of examining "complaints that have been made of the partisan and political character of the conduct during the trial of that petition of Mr. Justice Grantham." The motion, which had been signed by 347 MPs, was moved by South Donegal MP J. G. Swift MacNeill, who attacked Grantham to repeated cheers in the House. Baker, he pointed out, was a boatman whose wife was being sued for non-payment of her milk bill; and Grantham had described Colomb as "my fear friend". In a lengthy debate, the Attorney-General Sir John Walton described Grantham's conduct as "most unfortunate", but warned the House that proceeding to ask the Crown to remove a judge was an extreme step, and one he advised against. MacNeill withdrew the motion. Subsequent elections At the January 1910 general election, Fell faced a strong challenge from the Liberal