Garrow's travesty
The Guardian, Tuesday 15 November 2011 21.00 GMT
The first instalment of the new series of Garrow's Law (The weekend's TV, G2, 14 November) showed William Garrow, habitual advocate for the underdog, defending the madman Hadfield, accused of high treason for shooting at King George III. It was a travesty. The heroic defender who secured Hadfield's acquittal was not Garrow, but Thomas Erskine. Garrow was indeed involved: but as junior counsel for the crown. So his role was precisely the opposite of the one the BBC assigned to him. His task was to cross-examine the defence witnesses, to make them say that Hadfield, contrary to all appearances, was really sane. By 1800 Garrow's talents had been noticed by the government. He regularly appeared for the crown – a route which led him to preferment, first as attorney general and eventually to the bench. The BBC's charter and its producers' guidelines say all programmes should be "fair and show a respect for truth". The producers of Garrow's Law should look at it.
Professor JR Spencer QC
University of Cambridge
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/nov/15/garrow-law-travesty-bbc?newsfeed=true
Thomas Erskine: the real hero
The Guardian, Wednesday 16 November 2011 21.00 GMT
The travesty of history that is Garrow's Law goes much further than Professor Spencer points out (Letters, 16 December). In the first series Garrow was shown heroically defending a working-class campaigner for universal manhood suffrage. As in the case of James Hadfield, the role attributed to Garrow was based on that of the great liberal advocate Thomas Erskine. Throughout the 1790s, when the government of William Pitt was bending the law of high treason to prosecute campaigners for parliamentary reform, Garrow repeatedly appeared for the prosecution and never for the defence, while Erskine was gaining acquittals by exposing the charges as based on bad law and tainted evidence.
One reason why this matters is that Erskine really was a great defender of civil liberty. If we valued our freedoms more, he would be known as one of the greatest of national heroes. This series has not only stolen his achievements and given them to a man who was, in truth, a nasty piece of work, but has presumably made it impossible for television to make a programme celebrating Erskine as he deserves. The BBC should be ashamed.
Professor John Barrell
Centre for eighteenth century studies, University of York
• Hadfield's acquittal is of great significance for the way in which insanity pleas are treated by the law. Roy Porter's classic text, Mind-Forg'd Manacles, gives a succinct account of the affair.
Dr Valerie Pedlar
Southport, Merseyside
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/nov/16/thomas-erskine-the-real-hero
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