Two true-crime cases: the Newcastle train murder of 1910 led to a verdict based on identification; in 1924, Patrick Mahon admitted to dismembering a body but denied committing the murder.

Two true-crime trials involving Norman Birkett: in 1934, he summed up a case for the defence with matchless eloquence; in 1931, he brilliantly prosecuted an accused murderer.

It seemed impossible that quiet, respectable Lizzie could have hacked her parents to death with an axe. But in 1893, she stood trial in perhaps the most famous murder case in American legal history.

Two true-crime trials: both Mrs Maybrick and Mrs Merryfield were accused of committing murder by means of poison.

Take a lovely chorine, a young heir to millions, and a middle-aged libertine who was, in 1907, the foremost architect of his generation. Mix well. No fictional trial has ever surpassed the thrills and sensations of the resulting drama.

Here it is: the original Bible-versus-evolution trial. In 1925, Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, two of the greatest lawyers ever, joined battle in the case of a young schoolmaster charged with teaching the theory of evolution. An historic and very entertaining trial resulted.

The principal criminal court of England, historically reserved for the more serious and high-profile trials, Court Number One opened its doors in 1907 after the building of the 'new' Old Bailey. In the decades that followed it witnessed the trials of the most famous and infamous defendants of the twentieth century. It was here that the likes of Madame Fahmy, Lord Haw Haw, John Christie, Ruth Ellis, George Blake (and his unlikely jailbreakers, Michael Randle and Pat Pottle), Jeremy Thorpe and Ian Huntley were defined in history.... 

Edward Marshall-Hall, who was born in Brighton in 1858, became perhaps the country's most successful advocate of all time, building his reputation on a phenomenal talent for acquitting defendants in murder trials where a guilty verdict had seemed a foregone conclusion. Given that murder during this period carried a sentence of execution by hanging, he can be said to have saved a considerable number of souls, male and female, from the horrors of the noose.

Four chilling episodes from the famous 1940s BBC radio series, introduced by Valentine Dyall, AKA The Man in Black. These are the four sole surviving episodes from the BBC archive: ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’ by Edgar Allan Poe (18/9/1943); ‘The Speaking Clock’ by John Dickson Carr (13/4/1944); ‘The Clock Strikes Eight’ by John Dickson Carr(18/5/1944); ‘And The Deep Shuddered’ by Monckton Hoffe (20/11/1945). Amongst the cast are Marjorie Westbury, Marius Goring and Gladys Spencer.

Twenty-four sensational docu-dramas based on real-life historical murder cases, presented by Nick Ross. In these four series, Nick Ross introduces two dozen true tales of murder from days gone by - complete with gory details. As he recounts infamous crimes from the 1900s to the 1960s, he transports us to a time when police cars had bells and the men from the Yard wore Trilby hats.