The trial of Robert Wood for the Camden Town murder
at the Old Bailey ended on Wednesday in a verdict of "Not guilty." Sir Charles Mathews, for the Crown, con- cluded his speech by saying :—" If you find that while there may be great suspicion yet you are not satisfied,
you should give the prisoner the benefit of the doubt"; and Mr. Justice Grantham in his summing up, after com- menting severely on Wood's continuous deceptions, stated that although there was the gravest possible suspicion against him, he did not think the evidence sufficient to justify the jury in bringing him in guilty. That evidence, it may be added, was wholly circumstantial and far from complete. There was also an entire absence of motive, and the prisoner's attempt to procure false witness to cover up a compromising association could not be regarded as inconsistent with his innocence. The case, which presented many remarkable features, lent itself to some of the worst developments of journalistic enterprise and the most unwholesome manifesta- tions of public sentimentality.
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