Public Evidence Audits

Public samples of the method.

Each investigation below applies the same method used in commissioned work: source hierarchy, provenance assessment, contradiction mapping, and evidential classification. These are public records of what the evidence can and cannot bear.

Criminal Record

TBA-001

Jane Clouson

Eltham, 1871

Found dying on Kidbrooke Lane. The evidence against the accused was largely circumstantial. The trial record reveals a prosecution built on inference, not fact.

Full audit available →

TBA-002

Julia Martha Thomas

Richmond, Surrey, 1879

A domestic servant and her employer. A dismembered body recovered from the Thames. A suspect who fled to Ireland. One of the most forensically complex trials of the Victorian period.

Claim tested →

TBA-014

Hawley Harvey Crippen

Camden, London, 1910

The first fugitive caught by wireless telegraphy. A disputed scar identification, a 2011 DNA challenge, and a “confession” quote that doesn’t match the trial transcript.

Full audit available →

TBA-004

The Bermondsey Murder

London, 1849

What the contemporary record establishes about one of the Victorian period’s most discussed domestic homicides, and where the popular account departs from the evidence.

Distortion identified →

TBA-005

Amelia Dyer

Reading, 1896

Archive notes and source reconstruction of the Dyer case — examining what the contemporary record confirms and where the popular narrative extends beyond the evidence.

Source review complete →

TBA-006

The Phoenix Park Murders

Dublin, 1882

The assassination of the Chief Secretary for Ireland and his Under-Secretary. A political crime with a contested evidence trail and a prosecution that raised significant procedural questions.

Claim tested →

TBA-007

The Death of Amy Robsart

Cumnor, 1560

Found at the foot of a staircase with a broken neck. Wife of Robert Dudley, favourite of Elizabeth I. What the contemporary record says — and what four centuries of speculation have added to it.

Source review complete →

Medieval & Early Modern

TBA-003

Anne Boleyn

Tower of London, 1536

The indictment contains dates that make the alleged offences impossible. The Black Archive reads the document itself — what it claims, what contemporary records refute, and what the prosecution cannot reconcile.

Distortion identified →

TBA-008

The Death of William Rufus

New Forest, 1100

Shot by an arrow while hunting. No inquest, no trial, no contemporary account that names a killer. What the record actually establishes about the death of William II — and where the distortion enters.

Distortion identified →

TBA-009

Johnnie Armstrong of Gilnockie

Scottish Borders, 1530

Hanged by James V after being summoned under what may have been a safe conduct. What the surviving record says about the meeting at Caerlanrig — and what the ballad tradition has added.

Distortion identified →

TBA-010

The Trial of Agnes Sampson

Edinburgh, 1591

Accused of witchcraft in the North Berwick trials. Tortured and executed. What the trial record actually says — and what the confession extracted under torture can legitimately establish.

Claim tested →

TBA-011

The Tower, 1381

London, 14 June 1381

A King’s Bench record names Joanna Ferrour in the Savoy, Clerkenwell and Tower accusations. A Middlesex jury acquitted her on the first two; the Tower allegation remained unresolved because it lay outside that jury’s jurisdiction.

Distortion identified →

TBA-015

The Commission at Brentwood

Brentwood, Essex, 1381

Six centuries of retellings call him a tax collector. The Crown’s own enrolled record ties him to a peace commission instead, and doesn’t say what sent him to Brentwood at all.

Distortion identified →

TBA-016

Charles I

Whitehall, London, 1649

A king tried by a court most of its own named members refused to sit under, executed before a crowd kept deliberately out of earshot. The martyrdom that followed rests substantially on a book almost certainly not his own work.

Full audit available →

TBA-017

The Bonfires of Paperwork

St Albans, Cambridge, the Savoy, June 1381

Rebels burned more than buildings in 1381 — they burned the paperwork of lordship itself. What the chronicles support about the strategy, and why the fire didn’t achieve what it aimed at in law.

Claim tested →

TBA-018

The Princes in the Tower

Tower of London, 1483

A royal warrant called the remains “supposed.” The tomb above them named a killer as settled fact. What five centuries of retelling added to a case that never reached a court.

Claim tested →

Myth & Distortion

TBA-012

King Arthur

Britain, 5th–6th century

What the sources actually say — and when they say it. A systematic review of the earliest references to Arthur against the weight of later tradition, from Nennius to Geoffrey of Monmouth.

Unsupported →

TBA-013

The Arrow That Found Achilles

Classical tradition

The arrow that found Achilles isn’t where you think it is — and the heel itself doesn’t appear in the record for a thousand years. A source-hierarchy analysis of one of antiquity’s most familiar stories.

Distortion identified →

Commissioned work

Private dossiers apply the same method to your subject: source inventory, claim schedule, contradiction table, reliability classification, narrative distortion analysis and a final conclusion section. The format is adapted to the client’s intended use — broadcast, publication, exhibition or legal.