The evidence was deemed sufficient, and both prisoners were fully committed for trial at the Newcastle spring assizes of 1879. It is now known that certain facts, damaging to the prosecution, had been brought to the notice of the police. They had positive information that other persons had been abroad from Alnwick that night; they had received a statement, made with much force by one who had good reason to know, that the wrong men had been arrested; while there were witnesses who had met the prisoners soon after the burglary on the other side of Alnwick. On the other hand, fresh evidence against them was forthcoming at the trial. This was the discovery of a piece of fustian cloth with a button attached, which had been picked up by a zealous police-officer under the drawing-room window, a month after the burglary. Here again was damaging evidence, for this scrap of cloth was found to fit exactly into a gap in Brannagan’s trousers. It was said afterwards, at the trial of the police, that they had purposely cut out the piece; and it was proved in evidence that a tailor of Alnwick, to whom the trousers and piece were submitted, expressed his doubts that the accident could have happened in jumping out of the window. The tear would have been more irregular, the fitting-in less exact. Moreover, the piece of cloth was perfectly fresh and clean when found, whereas, if it had lain out for nearly a month in the mud and snow, it must have become dark and dirty, and hard at the edges, as corduroy goes when exposed to the weather. As, however, the judge would not allow the cloth and button to be put in evidence, they played no important part in the case until the subsequent prosecution of the police, except possibly in prejudicing the minds of the jury against Brannagan and Murphy.
The prisoners were ably defended by Mr. Milvain, afterwards a Q.C. His case was that Mr. Buckle (who had corrected his first denial, and, later, had identified the men) was mistaken in the confusion and excitement of the burglarious attack; and that the police had actually conspired to prove the case with manufactured evidence, so as to avoid the reproach of another undetected crime. In support of this grave charge he argued that even if the footprints had not been made deliberately with the boots and clogs in their possession, there had been a great crowd of curious folk all around the house after the crime, any of whom might have made the marks. But a still stronger disproof was that there were no distinct footmarks under the drawing-room window, only vague and blurred impressions; a statement borne out long afterwards, when it was found that the real burglars had taken the precaution to cover their feet with sacking. Again, the evidence of the newspaper was altogether repudiated on the grounds that it had not been sooner detected, and had been put with malicious intention where it was found. Lastly, several witnesses swore that they had never seen in the possession of old Redpath any chisel such as that produced; while as to the gun, it was denied that either prisoner had ever possessed any firearms. Their poaching was for rabbits, and they always used a clever terrier.
The judge (Manisty) summed up strongly against the prisoners, but the jury did not so easily agree upon their verdict. They deliberated for three hours, and at last delivered a verdict of guilty, whereupon the judge commended them, and proceeded to pass the heaviest sentence in his power, short of death. He sought in vain, he said, “for any redeeming circumstance” that would justify him in reducing the sentence. Had Mr. or Miss Buckle succumbed to their wounds, he must have condemned the prisoners to death. It is clear, then, that Judge Manisty was only saved by mere accident from making as grievous a mistake as any into which a judge ever fell.
Brannagan and Murphy were removed from court protesting their innocence. They went into penal servitude with the same disclaimer.
Seven years dragged themselves along, and there seemed no near prospect of release, “life” convicts being detained as a rule for at least twenty years. But now, by some unseen working of Providence, a light was about to be let in on the case. It came to the knowledge of a young solicitor in Alnwick that a certain George Edgell had been “out” on the night of the Edlingham burglary, and that when he came in, a little before the general alarm, his wife had begged their fellow-lodgers to say nothing about his absence. Mr. Percy, Vicar of St. Paul’s, Alnwick, through whose unstinting exertions justice at last was done, knew Edgell and questioned him, openly taxing him with complicity in the now nearly forgotten crime. Edgell at first stoutly denied the imputation, but seemed greatly agitated and upset. Added to this, it was stated authoritatively that Harkes, the police superintendent, who was now dead, admitted that he had been wrong, but that it was too late to rectify the mistake.
There was some strong counter influence at work, and Mr. Percy found presently that another man, named Charles Richardson, was constantly hanging about Edgell. The reason came out when at last Edgell made full confession of the burglary, and it was seen that this Richardson was his accomplice. They had been out on a poaching expedition, but had had little success. Then Richardson proposed to try the vicarage, and they forced their way in. Richardson used a chisel which he had picked up in an outhouse to prise open the windows and doors. All through he had been the leader and moving spirit. He it was who had first thought of the burglary, who had carried off the only bit of spoil worth having, Miss Buckle’s gold watch, and this, by a curious Nemesis, afforded one of the strongest proofs of his guilt. A seal or trinket had been attached to the chain, and years afterwards, the jeweller to whom he had sold it came forward as a witness against him. The watch itself he had been unable to dispose of, he said, and he threw it into the Tyne. Richardson was a burly ruffian of great stature, and possessed of enormous strength; a quarrelsome desperado, who had already been tried for the murder of a policeman but acquitted for want of sufficient legal proof.
The matter was now taken up by Mr. Milvain, Q.C., who, it will be remembered, defended Brannagan and Murphy, and who had become Recorder of Durham. At his earnest request, backed by strong local representations, the Home Secretary at length ordered a Commission of Inquiry, admitting that the circumstances of the case were “most singular and unprecedented.” A solicitor of Newcastle was appointed to investigate the whole matter, and the fresh facts, with Edgell’s confession, were set before him. On his report the conviction was quashed. It was now seen that the evidence which had condemned those innocent men to a life sentence was flimsy, and much of it open to doubt. All the weak points have been already set forth, and it is enough to state that Brannagan and Murphy were forthwith released, and returned in triumph to Northumberland. The Treasury adjudged them the sum of £800 each, as some slight compensation for their seven years spent in durance vile, and the money was safely invested for them by trustees. Brannagan at once obtained employment as a wheelwright, the handicraft he had acquired in prison, and Murphy, who was a prison-taught baker, adopted that trade, and married the girl Agnes Simm, who had befriended him in regard to the coat on the morning after the burglary.
The real offenders were in due course put upon their trial at Newcastle, before Mr. Baron Pollock, were found guilty, and sentenced each to five years’ penal servitude. A petition, with upwards of three thousand signatures, was presented to the Home Secretary, praying for a mitigation of sentence on the ground that Edgell’s voluntary confession had righted a grievous wrong. The reply was in the negative, and this decision can no doubt be justified. But it is impossible to leave this question of sentence without commenting upon the extraordinary difference in the views of two of her Majesty’s judges in dealing with precisely the same offence. There is no more glaring instance on record of the inequality in the sentences that may be passed than that of Mr. Justice Manisty inflicting “life” where Mr. Baron Pollock thought five years sufficient.
Another trial was inevitable before this unfortunate affair came to an end. The conduct of the police had been so strongly