That is, of course, far too simple, and this was a major murder case. Mary Roberts, daughter of Violet of 25, Roxby Road, Winterton, enjoyed clubbing and drinking; she was not married, but had a child, and was expecting another that fateful night when she set off to Scunthorpe to enjoy a night out. When she left, very late that night, she met Roberts, who was on his bicycle at the time, and they started talking. Her lifestyle is naturally a relevant consideration here; being alone at that time of night is a chancy business.

The doctor on the scene at 2 am at the woodyard, said that she died around two hours earlier, consistent with the facts of her leaving the club. He had been called in the hope that she could be saved, but there was no possibility of that. Roberts had actually accompanied officers to the place of death, after making the call. Mary was having a tough time; her father, Wilfred, made the point that she had no job, although she had worked for a local wholesale newsagents for a time. A few months before she had been troubled with an attack of appendicitis. It is important to note that Dr Stanford, reporting on her condition after the autopsy, confirmed that this medical condition had no bearing on her death.

Inspector Tom Evinson confirmed that Roberts had made the call and led them to the woodyard. But his story remained the same, through to the trial at Nottingham: she had been dead before he acted. But he was remanded and charged with her murder and granted legal aid. Roberts, the warehouseman with two children, living a normal suburban life in a small provincial town, was to see his name in the national newspapers, but for all the wrong reasons. It was not to stay there long, because Ruth Ellis was hanged on 13 July.

The focus of the trial was on the strangling with the scarf. It was ascertained that he had picked Mary up with the intention of taking her to the woodyard for sex. It emerged that the girl started talking about other men she had known and something in Roberts snapped. He first strangled her with his hands, and then with her scarf. The problem was that the available medical evidence showed that it was the ligature caused by the scarf that killed her, not asphyxiation by hands. One line of thought for the defence was then clearly to assert Roberts’ first claim that she had died by means of something Roberts did not intend to use to kill her. This tenuous claim was to bring in the possibility of a manslaughter charge. It did not work.