A Matter for the Jury
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Ben is already defending a vicar, accused of indecent assault on a choir boy, when he is plunged into a capital murder case. The accused is Billy Cottage, charged with murder after a frenzied attack on a young courting couple aboard a houseboat. The young man, Frank Gilliam, dies in the attack, while his girlfriend, Jennifer Doyce, is raped and seriously injured. The attacker steals a gold cross and chain from Jennifer, which makes the crime a capital offence.
When the police recover the cross and chain from Billy's sister, and find his fingerprint inside the houseboat, things start to look ominous. But then comes the crucial piece of evidence of his propensity to sing a particular song. To make matters worse, Ben is being led by Martin Hardcastle, an arrogant QC with a serious drinking problem.
In his fight to save Billy Cottage's life, Ben finds that he has both the law and the facts against him; and the tide of public opinion has not yet turned against capital punishment.
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Born in 1946, Peter Murphy graduated from Cambridge University and pursued a career in the law in England, the United States and The Hague. He practised as a barrister in London for a decade, then took up a professorship at a law school in Texas, a position he held for more than twenty years. Towards the end of that period he returned to Europe as counsel at the Yugoslavian War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague for almost a decade. In 2007 he returned to England to take up an appointment as a judge of the Crown Court. He retired as Resident Judge and Honorary Recorder of Peterborough in 2015.
Peter started writing fiction more than twenty years ago, but following his retirement from the bench he became a full-time author, often drawing on the many experiences of his former career. Two political thrillers about the American presidency: Removal and Test of Resolve were followed by eight legal thrillers in the Ben Schroeder series about a barrister practising in London in the 1960s and 1970s. Alongside those he also penned the light-hearted series of short story colllections featuring Judge Walden of Bermondsey in the 'Rumpole' tradition, based in part on his own experiences as a lawyer and judge, and recently published A Statue for Jacob, based on the true story of Jacob de Haven.
Peter passed away in September 2022.
