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Denise Mina's Case Histories

Factual: History

Factual: Crime & Justice

Denise Mina - A Life of Crime Writing

Denise takes a look at the most famous and infamous cases in Scottish legal history

Denise Mina's Case Histories: Burke and Hare

Burke and Hare

BBC Radio Scotland - Denise Mina's Case Histories, Burke and Hare

Denise takes a look at the most famous cases in Scottish legal history.

Christmas Eve 1828 and William Burke is on trial for murder. Christmas Eve 2019 and Denise talks Burke and Hare with Ian Rankin and Marisa Haetzman.

On Christmas Eve 2019, you might be driving around desperately trying to find that perfect gift, but on Christmas Eve 1828 the only show in prohibition Edinburgh was the infamous trial of Burke and Hare. Not many people know this, but in fact it was only the trial of Burke and his common law wife Helen McDougal. Hare turned King’s evidence and was given immunity from prosecution. The family of one of his victims, Daft Jamie, tried in vain to take out a private prosecution against him, but a significant legal precedent was set when this was refused and Hare fled south of the border. Burke however, as the judge made sure, was subject to the same fate as their sixteen victims, landing on the dissection slab in the anatomy theatre. Denise comes face to face with Burke’s skeleton, talks through the legalities of body snatching with Marisa Haetzman, one half of the crime writing duo Ambrose Parry, and marvels at the culture legacy of these grim deeds with Ian Rankin, whose own novel The Falls has a bizarre twist on the case.

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