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Series 4: 10. Shaw

Leading criminal barristers Sasha Wass QC and Jeremy Dein QC investigate their first Scottish case, the murder of a reclusive pensioner nearly 70 years ago. Two men stood trial, but just one person was executed for the crime.\n\nLanarkshire, 1952. On a Sunday in August, two men stopped to check on pensioner and hermit Michael Connelly, known affectionately as Old Mick, at his tiny ramshackle hut. Inside they found his dead body, beaten and bloody. He had been attacked with an iron bar, a brick and a broken bottle. Police quickly launched a murder investigation and picked up important clues: a blood-stained discarded coat and a boot print.\n\nSuspicion fell on two farm labourers living in the area. One was 25-year-old George Francis Shaw. Along with his roommate, Shaw was charged with the pensioner’s murder and stood trial at the High Court in Glasgow, both pleading their innocence. Shaw claimed he had an alibi for the alleged day of Michael Connelly’s murder, and the evidence against him was circumstantial.\n\nShaw’s co-accused was found guilty of culpable homicide on grounds of diminished responsibility, but Shaw was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. On 26 January 1953, at Glasgow’s Barlinnie Prison, he was hanged.\n\nToday, nearly 70 years later, George Francis Shaw’s nieces, sisters Evelyn and Catherine, are seeking to question the conviction of the man they know as Uncle Frank. The family have long held the view that Frank Shaw was innocent, and the sisters have enlisted the help of the barristers to evaluate the case.\n\nExploring questions around the crime scene, forensic evidence and psychiatry, can Jeremy and Sasha find enough new evidence to cast doubt on George Francis Shaw’s conviction?

Source: BBC 1