Leading criminal barristers Sasha Wass and Jeremy Dein look back at their inquiry into their oldest case to date - the murder of a female canal boat passenger 180 years ago, which resulted in the boat crew being convicted and publicly hanged in front of 10,000 spectators.

Rugeley, Staffordshire, 1839. At dawn on a summer morning, labourers pulled the lifeless body of 37-year-old Christina Collins from the Trent and Mersey Canal; she had drowned. Within an hour, the narrowboat’s crew were in custody, most of them still drunk from the whisky they had stolen from their cargo hold. They claimed Christina had committed suicide.

At trial, the damning evidence of a controversial key witness led to three men, including 27-year-old George Thomas, being convicted of Christina’s murder. Two of them, including Thomas, would hang.

180 years later, two of George Thomas’s relatives, Jeanette and Patricia, were convinced of his innocence and called upon the barristers to see if they could shed new light on the unusual legal proceedings. Exploring questions of character, forensic evidence and legal history, Jeremy and Sasha attempted to find enough new evidence to convince a judge that George Thomas was wrongly convicted.

Now, just a year on from their initial investigation, Jeremy and Sasha catch up with Jeanette to discover that the case is far from closed. Determined to seek justice for the three convicted men, Jeanette has called upon the assistance of some high profile supporters as she begins her campaign for a royal pardon. Show less