Jacoby

Two of the UK’s top criminal barristers, Sasha Wass QC and Jeremy Dein QC, investigate a case from 1922 in which a lowly hotel pantry boy was convicted for the murder of a titled lady.

On 13 March 1922, after an evening playing cards, wealthy widow Lady Alice White retired to bed at the Spencer Hotel in Marylebone. During the night she was subjected to a brutal assault, and the following morning a chambermaid discovered her covered in blood and clinging to life. She had suffered horrendous injuries, including a fractured skull, and died the following day.

Police quickly launched an investigation, but with few clues to go on they were confronted with a baffling whodunnit.

Eventually, 18-year-old hotel pantry boy Henry Julius Jacoby made a confession to police and was charged with the crime. However, at trial he pleaded his innocence, but it took the jury just 43 minutes to find him guilty. And on 7 June 1922, Henry Jacoby became one of the youngest people to be hanged in the United Kingdom in the 20th century.

Now, nearly 100 years later, Henry Jacoby’s relative Peter, whose grandmother cared for Jacoby when he was young, is seeking to question the safety of the original conviction and has called on the barristers to see what they make of this case. Exploring questions around Jacoby’s supposed confession and class prejudice, will Sasha and Jeremy find enough new evidence to convince judge David Radford that Henry Jacoby’s case was a miscarriage of justice?