| Synopsis: |
Since 1909, the trial of Oscar Slater has been a cause of concern in British legal circles. This book is the first to have access to government records, which were released only three years ago, and parallels to the Dreyfus case make uneasy reading. Thomas Toughill's book is a readable unravelling of this scandalous miscarriage of justice. Arthur Conan Doyle claimed "the whole case will, in my opinion, remain immortal in the classics of crime as the supreme example of official incompetence and obstinacy". In 1909 Oscar Slater, a German Jew, was convicted of the murder of Marion Gilchrist, an elderly Glasgow spinster, and sentenced to death. After an appeal, he was reprieved and sent to Peterhead Prison, from which he was finally released in 1928 after intense public pressure led by William Roughead, the great Scottish criminologist, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Homes. An earlier failed attempt by John Thomson Trench, a Glasgow police officer, to uncover the truth about Slater's conviction had ended in Trench's dismissal from the force.The author's research, based on the government's files on the Slater case, not only identifies the real murderer but explains how Slater came to be wrongfully convicted. This book shows how Slater was the victim, not of a simple miscarriage of justice, but of a concrete conspiracy between senior law officers intent on framing Slater in order to protect the men involved in Miss Gilchrist's murder. |