Crown Court

Crown Court

Last night we decided to watch the 'Crown Court' episodes that are a bonus feature on the DVD of 'Strangers'.

It's from 1977 so years away from being released by Network, though if they would like to make some more available then we'd be more than happy to buy them.

The story 'A Place To Stay' features  Don Henderson as Arthur Barnard alongside Anne Blake as Lady Corrie Stott, who are the plantiffs in a case of libel against Brian Capron as John Wragg and Tim Preece as Richard Livesey.

It also stars John Horsley as Mr Justice Mowbray.

The defendants have alleged that Arthur Barnard (the warden at a hostel for the homeless) treated the women in his care (including John Wragg's wife Tracey) badly, enforcing petty rules and even one time peeping through the keyhole of the bathroom door to watch her while she bathed.

The story doesn't feature Don Henderson very much, even though it is an extra on a series that he headlines.

He does appear in a couple of other 'Crown Court' stories ('Minnie' and 'Triangle') but perhaps someone thought that as this is a Season 6 story it wouldn't be appearing on DVD for quite some time. His earlier 1974 appearances are as Detective Sergeant / Detective Inspector Buzzard and he seems to get a rapid promotion as the stories were broadcast only a couple of weeks apart.

'A Place To Stay' is an interesting story and raises a lot of questions about the issues involved.
We always really enjoy watching 'Crown Court' and I sometimes get quite cross with the jury's verdict as I feel it's the wrong one.

Amongst my favourite stories are 'Persimmons and Dishwashers - Regina V Curl' and 'The Dogs' - the latter featuring Ian Marter, Mary Wimbush (who I once had the pleasure of meeting - she was lovely!) and the wonderful William Mervyn as The Hon. Justice Campbell  who is my favourite judge.

This concerns possible fraud at the Tote betting system at the Greyhound Racing track in Fulchester, where 'Crown Court' is set.

It contains an extraordinary speech about betting odds by Mary Wimbush that sends Ian Marter's Quentin Ingrams into stunned silence and must be seen to be believed.

'Persimmons and Dishwashers - Regina V Curl' is about the aforementioned Curl Brothers who are accused of demanding money with menaces and GBH. The Persimmons  (also known as Sharon fruit) are sold to local club owners to cover the demanding money with menaces part of the charge. Now for some reason when we watched this story for the first the repeated use of the word 'persimmons' made us laugh a lot and we had to stop the DVD for fear of missing what was going on.

Although the subjects covered in this story are quite nasty, they are covered in a light-hearted way which made the story quite fun to watch.

'Crown Court' can also cover some quite dark subjects such as infanticide in the 1973 story 'Infanticide or Murder?' which covers the death of a baby and is a story that we will probably never rewatch as it was extremely dark and disturbing.

But the range of stories and actors in 'Crown Court' is amazing and I really hope that more releases are forthcoming.

If you want to find out more about 'Crown Court' we'd recommend that you take a look at Ivan Kirby's wonderful blog. It's full of details about everyone involved in the cases and can be found here.

 (By Lisa Parker)