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Weekdays from Monday 28 June BBC One and BBC iPlayer
Not all of the discoveries that we make during our research into our family history are welcome. Inevitably, there are moments when we stumble upon relatives whose lives took a wrong turn – in extreme cases, because they were convicted of a killing. But, as has been proved over and over again, not all convictions are safe.
Enter criminal barristers Sasha Wass and Jeremy Dein, who, in a fifth series of the hit daytime show, look anew at another 10 historical murder cases. As ever, they focus on one crucial question: is there evidence that suggests a miscarriage of justice? For those who wanted these cases to be reinvestigated and have often become deeply invested in the fate of their relation, much rests on the barristers’ findings, even though they carry no legal weight.
The series begins with the case of Henry Jacoby. On 13 March 1922, after an evening playing cards, a wealthy widow named Lady Alice White headed for bed at the Spencer Hotel in London’s Marylebone. The next morning a chambermaid found White covered in blood and close to death. She had suffered horrific injuries, including a fractured skull, and died a day later.
Despite there being little evidence, an 18-year-old pantry boy, Jacoby, was hanged for the crime on 7 June. Having previously confessed, Jacoby changed his story at trial but it was to no avail. The jury took just 43 minutes to find him guilty. Nearly a century later, Jacoby’s relative Peter, whose grandmother cared for Jacoby when he was young, thinks there are grounds to question the conviction. Was the confession forced? Did class prejudice influence the decision?
Each episode concludes with David Radford, a retired judge, weighing up the evidence. And looking at the cases that are referenced in the list of episodes – including the brutal murder of a barge captain, an apparent case of matricide, and the 19thcentury ambush of a police van carrying two notorious political prisoners, leaders of a movement dedicated to ending British rule in Ireland by violent means if necessary – it should be fascinating work.