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Colin Elford

Colin Elford spends his days alone - alone but for the deer, the squirrels, the rabbits, the birds, and the many other creatures inhabiting the woods. 
 
From the crisp cold of January, through the promise of spring and the heat of summer, and then into damp autumn and the chill winds of winter, we accompany the forest-ranger as he goes about his work - stalking in the early morning darkness, putting an injured fallow buck out of its misery, watching stoats kill a hare, observing owls, and simply being a part of the outdoors. 
 
A Year in the Woods is an enthralling journey deep into the heart of the English countryside.

A Year in the Woods

The Diary of a Forest Ranger

Peter Walker

A revolution on the roads is approaching. Is it time for drivers to Give Way? Guardian news correspondent, Peter Walker, takes us on a journey around the world, exploring the varying attitudes to cycling on our highways. 
 
Visit the shining examples of Amsterdam and Copenhagen, where cycling culture is an intrinsic part of the approach of politicians and officials. How have these cities made provision for cyclists and what are the extraordinary benefits? 
 
And then take to the less welcoming roads of Britain, USA and Australia, where cycling can still be a terrifying experience. What are the tragic mistakes being made when planning and developing cities, and how do these mistakes lead to aggression towards the cycling community? 
 
Millions of us find ourselves frustrated by the motor mentality and fighting for our rights to ride. This brilliant, shocking investigation will prepare you with all you need to know to confidently claim your place on the road.

Bike Nation

How Cycling Can Save the World

Rib Davis

Eight dramatised documentaries of landmark trials that changed the law 
 
What do you do when a judge sentences your child to be beaten? 
 
If someone who has been stabbed dies after refusing a blood transfusion, is it a straight case of murder? 
 
How did a murder case end up changing the law for battered women who kill? 
 
In this gripping series, Helena Kennedy, celebrated human rights lawyer, broadcaster and civil liberties expert and playwright Rib Davis bring to life eight groundbreaking twentieth century trials. With the help of a full cast they reveal how the British legal system has been influenced by powerful, human stories that redefined the law to better reflect our modern society. 
 
A Case of Blasphemous Obscenity - Mary Whitehouse brings a libel case against the editor of Gay News, for publishing an allegedly obscene poem. 
 
A Bunch of Twigs - The parents of four 15-year-old boys, sentenced to be birched, launch an appeal against corporal punishment. 
 
The Case of The Ladies' Directory - What is moral? Publishing information on how to contact sex workers brings Fredrick Shaw to court on moral grounds. 
 
85 Burglaries and a Phone Tap - Who's listening? The trial of eight people in 1978 leads to a much more important investigation into State secrecy. 
 
I've Only Just Learnt To Cry - The tragic story of Emma Humphries, who in 1985 was tried for the murder of her boyfriend. 
 
Only a Phase - A group of young men in 1970s Belfast appeal to the British Government for gay rights. 
 
Breaking the Chain - A young Jehovah's Witness is stabbed and dies. The court must decide if it was murder or if she contributed to her own death by refusing a blood transfusion. 
 
On Self Deliverance - Murder or 'mercy'? An organisation finds itself in court after offering practical help to those wishing to commit suicide. 
 
Presented by Helena Kennedy 
Written by Rib Davis 
 
First Broadcast BBC Radio 4, 10-31 July 1998 (Series 1) and 1-22 December 1999 (Series 2) 
© 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P) 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Unwritten Law

A BBC Radio True Crime Series

Virginia Nicholson

Turn the page back to the 1960s, a decade whose radiant light-show seemed to shower everything it touched with stardust: in the midst of Beatlemania, Penguin Books are found 'Not Guilty' in the Lady Chatterley trial, Mary Quant introduces the mini-skirt, and the Pill becomes available on the NHS. Time magazine coins the phrase 'Swinging London', the first female High Court Judge is appointed and abortion is legalized. 
 
But did the world really change for women? And what did the women of the 60s ultimately take away from a youth supposedly given over to sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll? This book is an act of homage and a journey for those engaging in similar questions today. How Was It For You? reconstructs the real 1960s, through the eyes of the women who lived it. From Floella Benjamin and Pattie Boyd to ordinary, remarkable women, this is their story.

How Was It For You?

Women, Sex, Love and Power in the 1960s

Alfie Moore

Ever wondered what sort of a police officer you might make? 
 
Alfie Moore spent eighteen years on the Humberside police force before turning to stand-up comedy. In each episode of this live stand up show, he takes his audience through a scenario based on a real life case, and tasks them with deciding how they would have acted in the circumstances. 
 
From drink driving to a missing gnome, road traffic collisions to the tricky subject of Stop and Search, not to mention a case in which you must imagine what it would be like if Bruce Lee came from Scunthorpe and had been hammering the kebabs for twenty years… 
 
Along the way Alfie spills the beans on what it's really like to be one of Britain's finest, tells us some great anecdotes about law breakers and makers that he's come across and gets his audience to divulge secrets about their own, sometimes less than strictly law-abiding lives. 
 
"Genuinely funny, sharp observational comedy....deftly done" - Chortle 
 
"Brilliantly funny, genuinely hilarious" - David Mitchell 
 
"A large dash of police gallows humour" - The Telegraph 
 
"Offbeat, revealing and very funny" - Daily Mail 
 
"A very funny man" - Rhod Gilbert 
 
Series 1 
1: Duncan Driver 
2: Peaceful Protest 
3: Ethel's Day Out 
 
Series 2 
1: Gobby Nobby 
2: An Englishman’s Home 
3: Trevor the Twoc’er 
4: Spliffhanger (or Searching Question) 
5: Help, I’m Being Harassed 
6: Property Predicament 
 
Series 3 
1: Barry the Burglar 
2: Punching Judy 
3: Cedric the Gnome 
4: Collision Decision 
 
Written and performed by Alfie Moore 
Produced by Alison Vernon-Smith

It's a Fair Cop: Series 1-3

The BBC Radio 4 stand-up comedy show

Miles Corwin

Meet Pete Razanskas, 22-year veteran homicide cop and Marcella Winn, a rookie detective who grew up in the 'hood. They're an unlikely partnership whose job it is to attempt to close some of the hundreds of murder cases that happen every year in the gang-infested streets of South-Central LA. Crime reporter Miles Corwin gained unprecedented access to shadow them for the usual hot summer of endless homicide. We meet the cops, the victims and the murders (Crips and Bloods, drug dealers, psychopaths and even killer kids), witness their incredible daily lives and hear their stories in intimate detail. The Killing Season is a raw, shocking and riveting story of an extreme place not far from the ordinary world where war rages on the streets and life has little value.

The Killing Season

A Summer in South-Central with LAPD Homicide

Karen Farrington

Five Women. Five families’ search for justice. 
 
All Sarah Chesham wanted was to survive, at a time when crops were poor and money was tight. By the time she died she was branded a merciless child killer. 
 
All Emily Swann wanted was the love of a man who wouldn’t abuse her. By the time she died she was depicted as a vengeful, drunken hussy. 
 
All Edith Thompson wanted was a romance with a man who adored her. By the time she died she was seen as a scheming and manipulative adulteress. 
 
All Louie Calvert wanted was to be heard. Yet when she died she slipped almost immediately into the shadows, like thousands of other women like her. 
 
All Charlotte Bryant wanted was a distraction from a dreary life. By the time she died she was deemed a seductress and an arch poisoner. 
 
No one wants to believe that their mother, sister or daughter is capable of murder. When a woman is charged with a killing, we judge more harshly and punish more severely than when a man does the same. 
 
Murder, Mystery and My Family explores five historical true-crime tales from the hit BBC series, each with a woman at the heart of the story, from a case of ‘poison panic’ in the 19th century to a post-war murder that gripped the nation. Tales of infidelity and greed, corruption and deceit run throughout – but was justice served for all? Descendants of those convicted revisit each case in search of answers. 
 
Based on extensive research, including original court records and interviews with descendants, Murder, Mystery and My Family delves deeper into each crime, while also looking at our changing attitudes to women who have found themselves at the centre of our darkest dramas.

Murder, Mystery and My Family

A True-Crime Casebook from the Hit BBC Series

John Grisham

__________________ 
***NOW A MAJOR NETFLIX SERIES*** 
 
A gripping true-crime story of a shocking miscarriage of justice, from international bestselling thriller author John Grisham. 
 
In the baseball draft of 1971, Ron Williamson was the first player chosen from Oklahoma. Signing with Oakland, he said goodbye to his small home town and left for California to pursue his dreams of glory. 
 
Six years later he was back, his dreams broken by a bad arm and bad habits - drinking, drugs and women. He began to show signs of mental illness. Unable to keep a job, he moved in with his mother and slept 20 hours a day on her sofa. 
 
In 1982, a 21 year-old cocktail waitress, Debra Sue Carter, was raped and murdered, and for five years the crime went unsolved. Finally, desperate for someone to blame, police came to suspect Ron Williamson and his friend Dennis Fritz. The two were finally arrested in 1987 and charged with murder. 
 
With no physical evidence, the prosecution's case was built on junk science and the testimony of jailhouse snitches and convicts. Dennis Fritz was found guilty and given a life sentence. 
 
Ron Williamson was sent to Death Row. 
 
But as Grisham methodically lays out, there was no case against him. Ron Williamson was wrongly condemned to die. 
 
If you believe that in America you are innocent until proven guilty, this book will shock you. If you believe in the death penalty, this book will disturb you. If you believe the criminal justice system is fair, this book will infuriate you. 
__________________ 
In 2018, THE INNOCENT MAN was adapted by Netflix into a gripping six-part true crime series. 
__________________ 
‘A master at the art of deft characterisation and the skilful delivery of hair-raising crescendos' – Irish Independent 
 
'John Grisham is the master of legal fiction' – Jodi Picoult 
 
'The best thriller writer alive' – Ken Follett 
 
‘John Grisham has perfected the art of cooking up convincing, fast-paced thrillers’ – Telegraph 
 
‘Grisham is a superb, instinctive storyteller’ – The Times 
 
‘Grisham's storytelling genius reminds us that when it comes to legal drama, the master is in a league of his own.’ – Daily Record 
 
‘Masterful – when Grisham gets in the courtroom he lets rip, drawing scenes so real they're not just alive, they're pulsating’ – Mirror 
 
‘A giant of the thriller genre’ – TimeOut

The Innocent Man

A gripping crime thriller from the Sunday Times bestselling author of mystery and suspense

Farida Khalaf

Andrea C. Hoffmann

In August 2014, Farida, like any ordinary teenage girl, was enjoying the summer holidays before her last year at school. But Farida lived in the mountains of northern Iraq — and what happened next was unimaginable. Her village was an ISIS target. 
 
ISIS jihadists murdered the men and boys, including her father and brother, before taking Farida and the other women prisoner. This is the story of what happened to Farida after she was captured: the beatings, the rapes, the markets where ISIS sold women like cattle, and Farida's realisation that the more resistant she became, the harder it was for her captors to continue their atrocities against her. So she struggled, she bit, she kicked, she accused her captors of going against their religion, until, one day, the door to her room was left unlocked. She took her chance and, with five younger girls in her charge, fled into the Syrian desert. 
 
Farida showed incredible courage in the face of the unthinkable, and now with The Girl Who Beat ISIS she bravely relives her story to bear witness. Searing and immediate, this is the first memoir by a young woman that shows first-hand what life is like for innocents caught up in the maelstrom of day-to-day life with ISIS.

The Girl Who Beat ISIS

Farida's Story

John Preston

The bestselling book that inspired the Bafta-winning BBC drama, starring Hugh Grant and Ben Whishaw 
 
Corruption. Blackmail. Conspiracy to murder. A Very English Scandal has all the hallmarks of a classic thriller with one difference. It's all true. 
 
In the late 1960s Jeremy Thorp, the charismatic leader of the Liberal Party, was at the height of his political career. But homosexuality had only just been legalized, and a former relationship with a younger man named Norman Scott threatened to destroy Thorp's carefully curated facade. Helped by fellow politicians, Thorpe schemed, deceived and embezzled until he saw only one way to silence his ex-lover for good. 
 
Meticulously researched and endlessly extraordinary, Thorp's trial captured the moment that British society discovered the truth about its political class - and learned just how far the Establishment will go to protect its own. 
 
'Gripping. A story of cack-handed assassins, buffoonish policemen, dodgy Home Secretaries' Daily Telegraph 
 
'I loved it; eccentric, dark, humane and English in the very best sense' Alain de Botton 
 
'Retold with masterful skill . . . It grips like a detective story' Daily Mail, Book of the Week

A Very English Scandal

Now a Major BBC Series Starring Hugh Grant

Nusrit Mehtab

When Nusrit Mehtab joined the Met Police in the late 80s the organisation was rife with racism and misogyny. Officers refused to patrol with her, or even call her by her name. Her attempts to get promoted were met with hostility and ridicule and she was subject to cruel pranks. 
 
As the years passed and her seniority grew, Nusrit was dismayed to find that these problems got worse, not better. After 30 years, she finally had enough and left the MET, initiating an employment tribunal against them in the process. Now lecturing new recruits in policing law and criminology, she's confident that we can mould the next generation of officers to create a more inclusive police force, safer for both the officers and the public. 
 
Full of gritty and shocking stories from the heart of the organisation, Off the Beat shines the light on an institution that has lost sight of its mission to protect us and pleads the case for a brighter and safer future.

Off The Beat

My life as a brown, Muslim woman in the Met

Ajaz Ahmed

Stefan Olander

How can you win when the only certainty is change? Highly accessible, lively and inspiring, Velocity draws upon the authors’ unique perspectives and experiences to present seven timeless new laws for businesses and individuals in a world that is dominated by rapid change and digital technology. 
 
Written as a fascinating and enjoyable conversation between the authors – Stefan Olander, Vice President of Digital Sport from Nike and Ajaz Ahmed founder and Chairman AKQA – Velocity's up-to-date examples illustrate key lessons, together with insights, ideas and inspiration that individuals and businesses should adopt to thrive in the digital age. 
 
Velocity shares the vision and values required to succeed with the untold backstories to influential and iconic innovation. Fast paced, useful, provocative and highly motivating, Velocity is a management book that will arm you with actionable ideas to define your future. 
 
Features: 
- 4 Velocity principles: Speed, Direction, Acceleration, Discipline. 
- 7 Laws, including 'A Smith &amp; Wesson beats four aces', 'It’s easier done than said', 'Convenient is the enemy of right' and 'No good joke survives a committee of six'.

Velocity

The Seven New Laws for a World Gone Digital

Tom Moorhouse

'A necessary nature book, with prose as sharp as prickles' John Lewis-Stempel 
 
In poll after poll hedgehogs come out top as Britain's favourite mammal. And yet their numbers have been in freefall, estimated to have halved in less than twenty years. Why? Who or what is responsible for the disappearance of so many thousands of hedgehogs in recent decades? 
 
Hopeful and informative, in a story full of twists, turns and uncomfortable truths, conservationist Tom Moorhouse explores the trade-offs that exist between humans and wildlife. And, drawing on insights from other hedgehog experts, he hands readers the toolkit necessary to help bring our prickly friends back.

Ghosts in the Hedgerow

A hedghog whodunnit

Lady Hale

Lady Hale is an inspirational figure admired for her historic achievements and for the causes she has championed. Spider Woman is her story. 
 
 As 'a little girl from a little school in a little village in North Yorkshire', she only went into the law because her headteacher told her she wasn't clever enough to study history. She became the most senior judge in the country but it was an unconventional path to the top. 
 
 How does a self-professed 'girly swot' get ahead in a profession dominated by men? Was it a surprise that the perspectives of women and other disadvantaged groups had been overlooked, or that children's interests were marginalised? A lifelong smasher of glass-ceilings, who took as her motto 'women are equal to everything', her landmark rulings in areas including domestic violence, divorce, mental health and equality were her attempt to correct that. 
 
 As President of the Supreme Court, Lady Hale won global attention in finding the 2019 prorogation of Parliament to be unlawful. Yet that dramatic moment was merely the pinnacle of a career throughout which she was hailed as a pioneering reformer. 
 
 Wise, warm and inspiring, Spider Woman shows how the law shapes our world and supports us in crisis. It is the story of how Lady Hale found that she could overcome the odds, which shows that anyone from similar beginnings will find that they can cope too.

Spider Woman

A Life – by the former President of the Supreme Court

Sarah Langford

'As thrilling as a detective novel.' The Times 
'Powerful, moving and often captivating.' Financial Times 
'A compelling read for anyone who cares about fairness, justice and humanity.' Observer 
 
The Sunday Times bestseller 
 
___ 
 
 
Sarah Langford is a barrister. Her job is to stand in court representing the mad and the bad, the vulnerable, the heartbroken and the hopeful. She must become their voice. Sarah weaves their story around the black and white of the law and tell it to the courtroom. These stories may not make headlines but they will change the lives of ordinary people in extraordinary ways. They are stories which, but for a twist of luck, might have been yours. 
 
With remarkable candour, Sarah describes eleven cases which reveal what goes on in our criminal and family courts: these are tales of domestic fall out, everyday burglary, sexual indiscretion, and children caught up in the law. They are sometimes shocking and they are often heart-stopping. She examines how she feels as she defends the person standing in the dock. She also shows us how our attitudes and actions can shape not only the outcome of a case, but the legal system itself. 
 
___ 
 
 
What readers are saying: 
 
***** 'Absolutely fascinating . . . thought provoking, powerful and a compelling read.' 
***** 'This book broke my heart at times but also contained humour and such poignant insights into the criminal justice system.' 
***** 'Sarah writes incredibly well - she's informative while maintaining suspense and tension, and conveys so much emotion in her writing

In Your Defence

True Stories of Life and Law

John Mortimer

Who rose to enduring fame on Blood and Typewriters, told the pregnant Portia of the Chambers it would come out in the end, advised Guthrie Featherstone, Q.C. to adopt a more judicial attitude, returned in the tender gloaming of each evening - via Pommeroy's and a glass of Chateau Fleet Street - to She Who Must Be Obeyed? The answer is Horace Rumpole whose legal triumphs, plundering sorties into the 'Oxford Book of English Verse' and less-than-salubrious hat are celebrated here in this first omnibus edition which includes 'Rumpole of the Bailey', 'The Trials of Rumpole' and 'Rumpole's Return'.

The First Rumpole Omnibus

Ever wondered what sort of a police officer you might make? 
 
In Series 4-6, Alfie dives into deeper topics than before. How many times were you filmed without your knowledge today? What is the legacy of ASBOs? Alfie takes the audience with him as he navigates the twisted world of government surveillance. 
 
Alfie Moore spent 18 years on the Humberside police force before turning to stand-up comedy. In each episode of this live stand-up show, he takes his audience through a scenario based on a real-life case and tasks them with deciding how they would have acted in the circumstances. 
 
Along the way Alfie spills the beans on what it's really like to be one of Britain's finest, tells us some great anecdotes about law breakers and makers that he's come across and gets his audience to divulge secrets about their own, sometimes less than strictly law-abiding lives. 
 
Series 4: 
1. The Wrath of Zeus 
2. Office Banter 
3. Hedgerow Hedge Row 
4. Pass the Person 
5. Misper Mervyn 
 
Series 5: 
1. Police Complaints 
2. Babysitter 
3. Wild Westwood 
4. Informant 
 
Series 6: 
1. Dog Theft 
2. Malicious Communication 
3. Sudden Death 
4. Vehicle Stop 
5. Exposure 
6. Policing Covid 
 
Written and performed by Alfie Moore. 
Produced by Alison Vernon-Smith. 
 
© 2020 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd 
(p) 2020 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

It’s a Fair Cop: Series 4-6

The BBC Radio 4 stand-up comedy

Alex McBride

Nineteen year-old Madeleine Smith may have been charged in 1857 with poisoning her lover, Emile L'Angelier, but her real sin was having sex - a lot of sex - out of wedlock. Her mistake was to write him frank and passionate letters, described by the trial judge as 'without any sense of decency', which L'Angelier threatened to send to her father when she cooled on the idea of marriage, having secretly engaged herself to someone else. 
 
Some fifty years later, the trial of Robert Wood, a respectable, hard-working illustrator by day, who frolicked with prostitutes by night, including the unfortunate Emily Dimmock, also hinged on a dangerous correspondence. Dimmock's murderer had evidently ransacked her rooms for a postcard written by Wood. Was there something he was desperate to hide? The author of his trial is certain he was guilty. 
 
But both escaped conviction - in Wood's case, thanks to the defence of the best defence barrister in the land. In Madeleine Smith's, the three judges ruled two-to-one to exclude from evidence L'Angelier's pocket book, which recorded her meetings with him on the day of the murder. These two salacious and controversial trials demonstrate how the dramatic difference between 'guilty' and 'not guilty' can sometimes be decided by a mere scrap of paper.

Famous Trials: Lucky Escapes

Denise Mina

Denise Mina examines the most famous - and infamous - cases in Scottish legal history, and participates in a mock trial 
 
Denise Mina is well known for her bestselling 'Tartan Noir' novels. She has twice won the Theakston Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year Award, and her 'Paddy Meehan' series has been adapted for BBC TV. Before becoming a novelist, she studied law, and she has a particular interest in true crime. 
 
In these six episodes, she uncovers some of Scotland's most dramatic trials that continue to fascinate us years later. Also included is a bonus documentary, The Street Lawyer. 
 
The Paisley Snail - 1928. When May Donoghue pours ginger beer into her ice-cream float and a decomposed snail slithers out of the bottle, it sparks a case that will make legal history... 
 
Oscar Slater - Rich spinster Marion Gilchrist is brutally murdered in her Glasgow home in 1908. The hunt for her killer leads to Scotland's most dramatic miscarriage of justice: the Oscar Slater trial. 
 
The Douglas Cause - In this notorious 18th Century cause célèbre, two leading aristocratic families go head-to-head in a scandalous inheritance battle involving a secret elopement and stolen babies. 
 
The Moorov Doctrine - Glasgow, 1930, and a #MeToo-style case of sexual harassment in the workplace establishes one of the most important legal principles in Scottish law today. 
 
Madeleine Smith - In 1857, socialite Madeleine Smith is on trial for murder, accused of poisoning her French lover Emile L'Angelier. But did she do it, or not? 
 
Burke and Hare - Denise Mina looks at the notorious 19th Century murderers, talking to fellow authors Marisa Haetzman and Ian Rankin about the legalities of body snatching and the legacy of Burke and Hare's grim deeds. 
 
The Street Lawyer - Mina joins street lawyer Emmanuel De Abreu and sixth-formers from Glasgow's Lochend Community High School as they take on the roles of defence and prosecution to simulate a famous US murder case. 
 
 
Credits 
 
Denise Mina's Case Histories 
Presented by Denise Mina 
Legal consultant: Andrew Tickell 
Produced by Liza Greig 
Edited by Heather Kane 
Senior Producer: Lynsey Moyes 
 
With Katie Barclay, Alice Bowman, John Cairns, Clare Connelly, Owen Dudley Edwards, Lindsay Farmer, Pamela Ferguson, Michael Fry, Eleanor Gordon, Marisa Haetzman, Martin Hannan, David Hay, Andy Hughes, Helena Kennedy, Bruno Longmore, Hamish MacPherson, Nadine Martin, Mandy McIntosh, Allan Nicol, Janet Philip, Ian Rankin, Alison Rosie and Susanne Tanner 
 
First broadcast BBC Radio Scotland, 1 May - 27 December 2019 
 
The Street Lawyer 
Presented by Denise Mina 
With Emmanuel De Abreu and pupils from Lochend Community High School 
 
First broadcast BBC Radio Scotland, 2 April 2019 
 
© 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Denise Mina’s Case Histories

John Lewis-Stempel

Everybody thinks they know what sheep are like: they're stupid, noisy, cowardly ('lambs to the slaughter'), and they're 'sheepwrecking' the environment. 
 
Or maybe not. Contrary to popular prejudice, sheep are among the smartest animals in the farmyard, fiercely loyal, forming long and lasting friendships. Sheep, farmed properly, are boons to biodiversity. They also happen to taste good and their fleeces warm us through the winter - indeed, John Lewis-Stempel's family supplied the wool for Queen Elizabeth's 'hose'. 
 
Observing the traditional shepherd's calendar, The Sheep's Tale is a loving biography of ewes, lambs, and rams through the seasons. Lewis-Stempel tends to his flock with deep-rooted wisdom, ethical consideration, affection, and humour. This book is a tribute to all the sheep he has reared and sheared - from gregarious Action Ram to sweet Maid Marion. In his inimitable style, he shares the tales that only a shepherd can tell.

The Sheep’s Tale

The story of our most misunderstood farmyard animal

Thomas Cream, erstwhile Sunday school teacher and serial poisoner, has an unsettling air and wonky eye. He also happens to be a doctor, which provides him with ample means and an ideal cover for his murderous activities. His victims are vulnerable young women, whose trust he gains with drinks and trips to the music hall, before offering them pills or swigs from a medicine bottle. A few hours later, they are dying in agony. 
 
The Honourable Thomas Ley, meanwhile, has an even better disguise: he's the former Justice Minister for New South Wales and a successful businessman, albeit with a shady past. Rumours abound when a political opponent disappears without trace and a business partner winds up at the bottom of a cliff. 
 
Neither killer can help themselves - and this, in the end, leads to their downfall - and both defy our comprehension. Brilliantly reconstructed here, their trials, in 1892 and 1947, reveal a deeply sinister conundrum: by the time you've discovered the secrets in their heart, it's inevitably much too late.

Famous Trials: Thrill-Killers

A respectable solicitor in the town of Hay-on-Wye, harried by his troubled wife, slowly and carefully poisons her to death. Pleased with the results, he sees an opportunity for another quick-fix solution and turns his murderous attentions to his business rival... 
 
Trapped in a marriage of convenience to an aging man almost thirty years her senior, thirty-eight year-old Alma falls in love with seventeen year-old George, when he answers her advertisement for a 'willing lad' to do the housework. It's the perfect set up - a well-disposed husband and a passionate lover - until George destroys it all by trying to get the husband out of the way... 
 
These two classic cases of spousal murder - one chillingly domestic, the other bizarre and touching - took place in 1922 and 1935. In these brilliant reconstructions, they continue to confound our expectations of how murderers are meant to proceed.

Famous Trials: Unwanted Spouses

Carmen Callil

'A triumphant family memoir' Hallie Rubenhold 
'Powerfully told...an impressive work' The Times 
'Oh Happy Day gives a voice to the voiceless' Australian Book Review 
 
In this remarkable book, Carmen Callil discovers the story of her British ancestors, beginning with her great-great grandmother Sary Lacey, born in 1808, an impoverished stocking frame worker. Through detailed research, we follow Sary from slum to tenement and from pregnancy to pregnancy. We also meet George Conquest, a canal worker and the father of one of Sary's children. George was sentenced - for a minor theft - to seven years' transportation to Australia, where he faced the extraordinary brutality of convict life. 
 
But for George, as for so many disenfranchised British people like him, Australia turned out to be his Happy Day. He survived, prospered and eventually returned to England, where he met Sary again, after nearly thirty years. He brought her out to Australia, and they were never parted again. 
 
A miracle of research and fuelled by righteous anger, Oh Happy Day is a story of Empire, migration and the inequality and injustice of nineteenth-century England. 
 
'A remarkable tale...drawing chilling parallels to the inequalities of our times' Observer

Oh Happy Day

Those Times and These Times

Every day, criminal barrister Alex McBride stands up in court and attempts to save people from conviction, prison, even a lifetime behind bars. Sometimes it's a hopeless case. Sometimes he has the chance to right a wrong. But mostly his clients are just plain guilty. 
 
In Defending the Guilty, McBride takes us behind the scenes of Britain's criminal justice system. He introduces us to its extraordinary characters and arcane eccentricities, and tells astonishing stories of courtroom triumph and defeat. Whether he's defending hapless teenagers at Harlow Youth Court or prosecuting gold bullion robbers at the Old Bailey, these hair-raising tales reveal that justice rarely operates in quite the way we expect. Throughout, McBride grapples with that most important of questions: how do we ensure that the guilty are convicted and the innocent walk free?

Defending the Guilty

Truth and Lies in the Criminal Courtroom

Jack Fairweather

‘FIVE STARS … Magnificent’ Telegraph 
‘Compulsively readable’ Financial Times 
‘Gripping and timely’ The Times 
'Crackingly told' Philippe Sands 
'A kind of masterclass' Sebastian Junger 
 
 
THE NEW BOOK FROM THE BESTSELLING, COSTA PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE VOLUNTEER 
 
The true story of a Jewish lawyer who returned to Germany after WWII to prosecute war crimes, only to find himself pitted against a nation determined to bury the past. 
 
At the end of the Nuremberg trial in 1946, some of the greatest war criminals in history were sentenced to death, but hundreds of thousands of Nazi murderers and collaborators remained at large. The Allies were ready to overlook their pasts as the Cold War began, and the horrors of the Holocaust were in danger of being forgotten. 
 
In The Prosecutor, Jack Fairweather brings to life the remarkable story of Fritz Bauer, a gay German Jew who survived the Nazis and made it his mission to force his countrymen to confront their complicity in the genocide. In this deeply researched book, Fairweather draws on unpublished family papers, newly declassified German records, and exclusive interviews to immerse readers in the dark, unfamiliar world of postwar West Germany where those who implemented genocide run the country, the CIA is funding Hitler’s former spy-ring in the east, and Nazi-era anti-gay laws are strictly enforced. But once Bauer lands on the trail of Adolf Eichmann, he won’t be intimidated. His journey takes him deep into the rotten heart of West Germany, where his fight for justice will set him against his own government and a network of former Nazis and spies determined to silence him. 
 
In a time when the history of the Holocaust is taken for granted, The Prosecutor reveals the courtroom battles that were fought to establish its legacy and the personal cost of speaking out. The result is a searing portrait of a nation emerging from the ruins of fascism and one man’s courage in forcing his people––and the world––to face the truth.

The Prosecutor

One Man’s Battle to Bring Nazis to Justice

A.L. Kennedy

Nathan Staples is consumed by loathing and love in roughly equal measures. Frustrated by his life and the way he lives it, he is sustained only by his passionate devotion for his estranged wife and their teenage daughter, Mary. When Nathan contrives to have Mary invited to the island where he lives in retreat, he sets in motion the possiblity of telling her he is her father, and becoming whole and complete and alive again.

Everything You Need

Len Murray

Len Murray, described by a High Court judge as the most respected pleader of his generation, practised as a solicitor in Glasgow for over 40 years. As part of a triumvirate of top lawyers based in the city during its period of renaissance, he built up one of the most respected law practices in the country. 
 
Among the benchmark cases with which Murray was involved was that of Tony Miller, one of the last people to be hanged in Scotland. Despite a desperate appeal by Murray, the 19-year-old was sent to his death on 22 December 1960. In his candid account Murray describes both the legal arguments and the personal effect the case had on him. 
 
Murray was also involved in bringing the Nazi war criminal Antanas Gecas to justice after his discovery in Edinburgh, he was the only solicitor ever to be retained by both Rangers and Celtic footballers who were accused of assaulting each other during a match at Ibrox, and he made a cheeky defence of famous Beatle Paul McCartney who was arrested on drugs charges. The Pleader recounts these and many more tales of the courts and the characters who inhabited them, whether they sat on the bench or stood in the dock. 
 
Reluctant to go public until now, Murray has always upheld the simple tenet that client confidentiality is paramount. His decision to publish his memoirs at this time reflects a feeling that he has a responsibility to new students of law and to old friends to put the record straight on many of the fascinating stories to come before the Scottish courts. From the simplest of violations to the most serious of capital crimes, he opens his amazing and hitherto secret files to the world.

The Pleader

An Autobiography

Isabel Buchanan

Winner of the Saltire Society First Book Award 2016 
An Economist Book of the Year 2016 
A Spectator Book of the Year 2016 
 
In 2011, Isabel Buchanan, a twenty-three-year-old Scottish lawyer, moved to Pakistan to work in a new legal chambers in Lahore. The chambers was run by a determined thirty-three-year-old Pakistani lawyer, Sarah Belal, who had finally found her calling in defending inmates on Pakistan’s death row. 
 
Belal and Buchanan struck up an unlikely friendship, forged through working in a system that was instinctively hostile to newcomers – and doubly so if they were female. At Sarah’s side, and with the help of Nasar, the firm’s legendary clerk, Buchanan plunged into the strange and complex world of Pakistan’s justice system. The work was arduous, underfunded, and dangerous. But for a young Scottish lawyer like Buchanan it was an unparalleled education, offering a window onto a much-misunderstood country and culture. Filled with beautifully drawn characters, she creates a narrative brimming with ideas and bursting with humanity. It is a story of Pakistan, but it is also a universal story of the pursuit of justice in an uncertain world.

Trials

On Death Row in Pakistan

Amber Marks

Crime detection has gone to the dogs and squirrels are being busted for espionage. If you've never wondered about the new direction of 'intelligence-led policing' in our society, now is the time to start. 
 
It was a chance encounter with a police sniffer-dog that drew criminal lawyer Amber Marks into the hidden world of the science of smell and its law-enforcement applications. Soon she stumbled into a wonderland of contemporary surveillance, where the spying skills of bees, dolphins and a myriad other critters were being harnessed to build a 'secure world' of bio-intelligence. From the businesses, scientists and military departments developing new smell-based surveillance technologies, to good old-fashioned police dogs, Amber discovered a secret world of security forces, where animals and scent are as important as intelligence agents and CCTV. 
 
Part polemical exploration of our burgeoning surveillance society, part humorous memoir, this intriguing book will capture your imagination and get you wondering: just who stands to benefit from all this 'security'?

Headspace

Sniffer Dogs, Spy Bees and One Woman's Adventures in the Surveillance Society

Wendy Joseph KC

What is justice? Do our legal courts dispense it? Has our judicial process improved, for the victims, the accused and for society? What more must be done to ensure genuine justice is carried out in future? 
 
Following on the heels of her bestseller Unlawful Killings, Old Bailey judge Wendy Joseph KC skilfully reconstructs courtroom dramas affecting society’s most vulnerable - so often women and children, drawing on her many years’ experience as a murder trial judge, and asking the key questions of the institutions tasked to deliver what is right and fair. 
 
From the trial of a child charged with disposing of dismembered body parts, to the woman accused of killing her own husband, Joseph is utterly compelling as she sets out how our justice system works. But, as she compares these modern courtroom tales with eerily similar cases and miscarriages of justice from years ago, might the most chilling story of all be that the lessons of the past have yet to be learned? 
 
Incisive, masterfully crafted, Rough Justice illuminates the struggles of any one of us caught up in our legal system – but particularly the marginalized and the easily exploited – and grapples with the concept of ‘justice for all’ so that we might demand better.

Rough Justice

Do we have the law we deserve?

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