There is a report in the Liverpool Mercury of May 15 1888 from the Liverpool Assizes in the Crown Court on May 14 1888 before Mr Justice Day which refers an unhappy outcome to this practice:-

A GOOD FRIDAY CUSTOM IN LIVERPOOL
John Grant, aged 15 years, pleaded not guilty to unlawfully and maliciously injuring Mary Jane Burns, an unfortunate, 25 years of age, at Liverpool. Mr. Segar prosecuted, and Mr. Swift defended. The prosecutrix stated that she was 25 years of age, and was at present an in-patient at the Royal Southern Hospital. She had lived at 45, Gore-street, Toxteth Park, and on Good Friday morning about five o'clock somebody knocked at her house door. She got up and went to the window, and saw a crowd outside, with an effigy of Judas Iscariot carried on a pole. She threw two pence to the crowd, and then closed the window. A quarter of an hour afterwards the prisoner and his crowd came along with another "Judas". The prisoner was carrying the "Judas". They tried to burst open the door, so she got up and went to the window, and told the crowd that she had no more money, and they had better go away. They stayed and commenced to break the windows. After the crowd had gone the prisoner remained and threw stones, one of which hit her in the eye. She called out, "Johnny Grant, you have done this at last." She became senseless. She had lost the sight of her left eye some time before, and now through this injury the sight of her right eye was gone, and she was totally blind. - Several witnesses were called to say that the prisoner was throwing stones. - Mr. Swift took the legal point that the affair was nothing more than an accident. The boys were evidently throwing stones, but they did not mean to hit the woman, nor could they have seen her. - His Lordship: If the boy threw that stone in the direction he did, utterly reckless and careless whether he hit the prosecutrix, hi is guilty of unlawful wounding. He thought the case ought to go to the jury. - For the defence, several witnesses were called to show that on Good Friday morning there was a good deal of stone throwing near Burns's house, and that the prisoner did not interfere with the house or throw any stones. - During the hearing of the case it was stated that much ill-feeling existed among the various crowds on sectarian grounds. There were five "Judas" effigies carried about the neighbourhood, each accompanied by a great crowd, and the custom was to call at houses and get coppers. At the conclusion of the effigy demonstration the figures were ripped up and set fire to. - His Lordship, in summing up to the jury, said the question for the jury was whether the boy threw the stone. He did not suppose that any of the boys intended to injure the woman, but that intention was not necessary. It was not at all necessary that the prisoner should have thrown the stone at her; if he threw it at the window in which she was standing and it hit her, then it was sufficient to make him guilty under the indictment. - The jury found the prisoner not guilty, and he was ordered to be discharged. - As the prisoner left the dock he said. "Thank you, my lord, and gentlemen of the jury."



I can't find any earlier examples of the custom in Liverpool, but in the previous year the same paper had described some Eastertide practices (see Liverpool Mercury, April 11, 1887; 'Eastertide') and had this to say:-

"Many people can still remember how Judas used to be paraded in Liverpool on a Good Friday morning, and finally set on fire amid the howls of a noisy mob; but, fortunately for us, those hideous old parodies on sacred things are fast going out of date."

Nicodemus