Catch up TV

Series 4: 1. Maybrick

Leading criminal barristers Sasha Wass QC and Jeremy Dein QC re-examine an infamous Victorian poisoning case in which a wife was convicted of the murder of her husband. \n\nLiverpool, 1889. On 11 May, cotton broker James Maybrick passed away after a two-week battle with illness. A post-mortem revealed that his body contained traces of the deadly poison arsenic. Suspicion soon fell on his wife, Florence, after servants saw her handling some poisons.\n\nAmerican-born Florence had met James, a man 23 years her senior, whilst travelling to Britain on an ocean liner. Their marriage was a picture of Victorian happiness and success, but behind closed doors James’s business was in trouble, the family faced financial difficulties, and rumours of extra-marital affairs swirled around the couple. \n\nDespite protesting her innocence, Florence was charged with James's murder, and on 7 August 1889, after a week-long trial, Florence was found guilty and sentenced to death. But her story didn’t end there.\n\nNow, over 130 years later, Florence and James’s relative Dave Maybrick, who has known about the story since he was a child, is seeking to question the original conviction and has called upon the barristers to see what they make of this infamous case. Exploring questions around cause of death and Victorian prejudice, can Jeremy and Sasha find any new evidence to convince Judge Radford that Florence Maybrick was wrongly convicted?

Source: BBC 1