As in "couldn't speak in his own defence", and Garrow made a pig's ear out of his defence, so the boy was promptly sentenced to hang. I found this episode really quite disturbing: a TWELVE year-old!
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On the BBC Garrow's Law website, Mark Pallis (the series' law consultant) writes this:
CHILDREN SENTENCED TO DEATH
In Garrow’s time, the age of criminal responsibility was seven. The Old Bailey archives show that in 1795, Peter Tracy, a nine-year-old boy was sentenced to death (although in that case the Jury recommended him to mercy). Garrow often defended children, such as his successful defence of eleven-year-old William Horton in 1784, or his defence of 9-year-old Peter Miller. In the latter case, although Garrow saved Peter from the rope, he couldn’t stop the lesser punishment: whipping.
The case that inspired Episode 4 is that of Thomas Wiley, a 13-year-old boy sentenced to death in 1797 for stealing from the mail. This was not a Garrow case.
In the real case, Thomas' letter was read out in court, but the idea of Thomas being mute is a dramatic invention.
You can read more here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wljbb
I don't know about you, but I feel quite a lot of dramatic licence has been taken with this production. I've enjoyed it greatly, but feel that truth would have been just as fascinating as fiction.
If you can't be a good example -- then you'll just have to be a horrible warning.
Yeah - that was very poignant, as was Garrow's temporary loss of confidence in his personal, 'criminal conversation' case.
Top notch drama all round - more please, BBC...
;0)
Ricos.
If I remember, in the trial it was that guy's word against the kid's, and it wasn't the first kid that guy had got other kids punished whilst he got away with it. I hope in the next series HE gets sentenced to hang.
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