IN this short series about the uniquely Scottish not proven verdict, I have reached the stage of the controversial trial that led to the acquittal of Alfred John Monson on the charge of murdering Lieutenant Cecil Hambrough in 1893. For me, even more than the case of alleged poisoner Madeleine Smith – probably the most famous or infamous trial ever to end in a not proven verdict – the Monson verdict proves how unsatisfactory is the “bastard verdict” as it was called by Sir Walter Scott. Next week I will give my conclusion as to whether Scotland should switch to guilty and not guilty verdicts or continue with not proven as a second form of acquittal.
THE current controversy over the Not Proven verdict which is unique to the Scottish criminal justice system has rarely been placed in its historical context. That cannot be done in just one column, but I will attempt to do so over the next three weeks during which I will return to a particular case which continues to fascinate me – that of Madeleine Smith who I have now concluded got away with murder when the jury found the charge of poisoning her French lover not proven. That case in 1857 is usually claimed as the biggest not proven controversy of them all, but today and next week I am going to write about the most infamous case of the latter years of the 19th century that featured a contentious not proven verdict, namely the Ardlamont Murder of 1893, which is more properly known as the Ardlamont Mystery because the jury decided that the accused, Alfred John Monson, was not proven to have murdered Lieutenant Cecil Hambrough in a shooting incident. It was the most sensational