The 'Not Proven' trial that served as inspiration for the Sherlock Holmes books

For me, even more than the case of alleged poisoner Madeleine Smith – probably the most famous or infamous trial ever to end in a not proven verdict – the Monson verdict proves how unsatisfactory is the “bastard verdict” as it was called by Sir Walter Scott. Next week I will give my conclusion as to whether Scotland should switch to guilty and not guilty verdicts or continue with not proven as a second form of acquittal.

In the trial, Monson faced two charges – one of attempting to murder Hambrough and the second the capital charge of murder. If found guilty of the latter he would be hanged – an important point to remember.

We learned last week how Monson was taken on as a tutor to Hambrough in preparation for an army career. Cecil’s father Major Dudley Hambrough, a wastrel who had spent the family’s wealth, had obtained his son a commission in the Yorkshire Militia and Cecil had moved to Risley Hall in Derbyshire to stay with Monson, his wife Agnes and their three children.

The Monsons decamped to Ardlamont Estate near Kames on the Cowal peninsula in Argyllshire for the summer and soon formed a completely fictitious and fraudulent scheme to buy the estate. It was fictitious because the previous year Monson had been made bankrupt – a fact that only came to light much later.

In early August they were joined by Hambrough and a man called Scott who purported to be an engineer but was in fact either Edward Sweeney or a bookmaker called Ted Davis.

On the evening of August 9, Monson and Hambrough went fishing in a boat on Ardlamont Bay which lies between the Kyles of Bute and the entrance to Loch Fyne. Hambrough ended up in the water and clung to a rock until he was rescued by Monson. Nevertheless that incident led to the attempted murder charge against Monson who in turn argued “so far from attempting on that evening to take young Hambrough’s life, I consider that I saved it”.

The following morning the weather was less than summer-like, with rain and wind sweeping across the Ardlamont Estate. Monson and Scott entered the woods some distance apart with Hambrough in between them. A shot rang out, both Monson and Scott claiming they were not close enough to see what happened never mind shooting Hambrough. They both said they found the young man with a fatal wound in the head, with the location and disposition of the body showing that Hambrough had fallen over and accidentally shot himself.

Local GP Doctor John MacMillan concurred with their verdict of accidental death, and Scott/Sweeney left by the next boat to go on the run – he would not to be found for over a year, while Monson arranged for Hambrough’s body to be taken to the Isle of Wight where he was buried in the family tomb of St Catherine’s Church near Ventnor, a church which had been paid for by a Hambrough ancestor.

That would have been that, except that Monson got his friend and financier, Beresford Tottenham, to try and cash in two insurance policies secured on the life of Hambrough. These policies had been assigned to Mrs Agnes Monson by Hambrough, allegedly as some sort of indication that he would pay them out of his inheritance of £200,000 that would come to him on his 21st birthday that was due on May 16 the following year.

The local procurator fiscal’s office had made perfunctory inquiries up to that point with the doctor’s verdict of accidental death seemingly unchallengeable, but probably realising that it would be out in the open soon, Monson himself told the fiscal that there were two policies of £10,000 on the life of Hambrough assigned to his wife. It looked a lot like a motive for murders, but Monson always maintained that he knew that the policies could not be paid as Cecil had been a minor when they were assigned.

Now a full investigation was put in place with the chief constable of Argyllshire, no less, taking personal charge. The press went wild, and hints that Monson was guilty were widespread. The fact that Scott/Sweeney was on the run gave them justification for all sorts of lurid stories in a bid to find the absconder.

The body of Hambrough was exhumed and a full post-mortem examination carried out, confirming that he had bled to death from a shotgun blast. Dozens of witnesses and potential witnesses were interviewed and armed with their testimony and seemingly impregnable forensic evidence, the Crown charged Monson with attempted murder and murder, with Edward Sweeney – his real name – also charged with murder as an associate.

The trial in Edinburgh’s High Court began on Tuesday, December 12, 1893, in quite sensational fashion. Sweeney/Scott had absconded and despite an extensive search had not been found. The presiding judge Lord Justice Clerk the Rt Hon Sir John Hay Athole MacDonald declared the missing accused to be an outlaw, meaning that he would be arrested by anyone.

Much of the first days of the trial was taken up with witnesses for the prosecution detailing how Monson and Scott had returned to Ardlamont House and cleaned their guns and dealt with their cartridges. The fatal wound had been inflicted by a 12-bore shotgun using an Amberite cartridge – definitely not Hambrough’s usual equipment.

There was also considerable testimony, particularly from Tottenham, about the intricate financial dealings of Monson and the Hambrough family. The Crown tried to make out that money was the motive and that Monson was ignorant of the law on minors signing contracts and assignations – as I reported last week, he said he was well aware and his defence lawyers argued that shooting Hambrough meant that Monson would have gained nothing at all, whereas if Hambrough had lived to the following May, he would have gained money enough to put him back on his feet.

The key evidence was not financial, however, but forensic, and I feel that was what led the jury to its decision. The science of ballistics was in its infancy, which is why the Crown called James MacNaughton, a gunmaker from Edinburgh, to provide technical expertise by way of experimentation on the shotguns.

MacNaughton testified ringingly: “Judging from my experiments and the injuries to the head which I saw, I am unable to see the possibility of the wound having been self-inflicted, accidental or otherwise.”

Dr Joseph Bell’s testimony seems to have been crucial. He had examined both the skull of the dead man and witnessed MacNaughton’s experiments. The inspiration for Sherlock Holmes fairly testified that the fatal shot could have been fired anywhere from four feet to nine feet from Hambrough, but added: “As the result of my examination of the case, my opinion is that this wound must have been inflicted by a gun in the hand of another than the deceased.”

Bell and his colleague Dr Henry Littlejohn were regular witnesses at criminal trials as was Professor Matthew Hay. The latter, however, testified that from his examination the fatal shot could not have been fired from any more than four feet away. Now the seed of doubt was being sown in the jury’s mind – had the fatal shot been from nine feet away, the pellets would have spread out more but from four feet or less there would have been some sort of blackening or singeing around the entry wound. Except that there was no such blackening.

The defence called Tom Speedy, and his evidence was, I believe crucial to the acquittal.

Speedy was no academic, and was in fact a gamekeeper by trade. Yet he was an acknowledged expert on guns and wrote many tracts on natural history to which he took a truly forensic approach.

He told the court that in his career he had shot many injured horses, upwards of 500, and he invariably despatched them with a shotgun cartridge discharged into their skulls from one or two feet at most.

Asked by defence advocate Comrie Thomson what distance he thought Hambrough had been shot from, Speedy was adamant: “Not more than two feet.”

His next piece of evidence was startling. The wound had been caused by pellets from an Amberite cartridge which explained the lack of blackening around the wound – Amberite was a new form of gunpowder that neither singed or gave off a smell.

To prove his point Speedy testified: “My wife came out and took down her hair, and I fired a shot at two feet distance through her hair with a full cartridge of amberite powder, and it did not singe it; it did not even leave a smell in it.”

Reports at the time indicate that Speedy’s evidence made a big impression, especially getting his wife to let down her hair.

Other expert witnesses gave similar testimony that the shot could have been fired accidentally despite Dr Belll and others insisting it could not. Comrie Thomson made great play of the ballistic evidence, or lack of it, and also said the motive for the killing – gaining money – made no sense as Monson stood to gain much more just ten months later.

With the Crown evidence on means and motive now less than concrete, the not proven verdict looked almost inevitable because this was a trial in which the accused was facing the death penalty – and we know from research over the decades how much that fact played on the minds of jurors. After the ten days of the trial it took the jury just 73 minutes to deliver the bastard verdict of not proven on both charges.

The Saturday Review of December 30, 1893, explained the verdict thus: “In the Monson case it can easily be understood that where the prisoner’s life and conduct had been so disreputable, and where, if he was innocent, so many odd and suspicious things had happened, the jury were by no means particularly anxious to pay him the compliment … of a verdict of ‘not guilty’.”

Monson walked away but not for long. He tried to make money out of his ordeal by publishing a pamphlet giving his side of the story that blamed Scott/Sweeney for the bad publicity. Not thinking that his former bookie would turn up, Monson faked a diary allegedly kept by the outlaw.

Sweeney broke cover and told Pall Mall magazine: “Now, I have not once during my story tried in any way to blame Mr. Monson for what has happened, believing and knowing him to be quite blameless, so far as an intention to cause me trouble is concerned; but I cannot understand ... why he should have done me the injustice of allowing this absurd and fictitious diary to be published in my name.”

Monson also sued Madame Tussauds in London for briefly putting his waxwork amongst notorious killers – he won a farthing in damages for libel by innuendo.

Within a few years Monson was in jail for yet another financial scam that went wrong. He had also divorced his wife on grounds of her admitted adultery with Lt Hambrough in the months before the soldier’s death.

Now that really was a motive for murder, but nobody knew about it in 1893.