Murder, Mystery and My Family

Criminal barristers Jeremy Dein and Sasha Wass scrutinise the case of John Dickman, who, after being convicted of murder in 1910, became the last man to be hanged at Newcastle Prison.

On Friday 18 March 1910, 46 year-old John Nisbet boarded a 10.27am train from Newcastle Central Station. By the time the train reached the end of the line, he was dead.

He had been shot five times: his bag, containing £370 in cash, had been stolen, and his body stuffed beneath the carriage seats. Local bookmaker John Dickman was convicted of his murder and sentenced to death, but he always protested his innocence. Now, more than 100 years later, his great grandson Rowan is on a mission to find out the truth.

As Rowan delves into his family history and retraces the steps his great grandfather took on that fateful day, Sasha and Jeremy work together to try to determine whether Dickman may have been the victim of a miscarriage of justice.