The trial of the year in 1950 was of Donald Hume, a North London petty thief accused of stabbing car dealer Stanley Setty to death, of cutting up his corpse and dropping his body parts from an aeroplane.
It sheds new light on Hume and his crimes, especially the murder of Setty, and gives the reader a rare insight into the criminal underworld of the time..
Jonathan Oates\'s compelling account of Hume\'s notorious life of crime is based on extensive primary research.
Arrested, he stood trial and was sentenced to life, but was later deemed criminally insane and was returned to Britain and to Broadmoor.
Then in 1959 his attempt to rob a bank failed and he shot dead a bystander.
He carried out two armed robberies, shooting a member of the bank staff, but getting clean away.
He then fled Switzerland, taking up with a Swiss woman in Zurich, but he needed money to finance his lavish lifestyle and he returned to robbery.
But Hume was convicted and gaoled as an accessory - he later claimed his wife was guilty of the crime.
The press and public were horrified and fascinated by the details.
The trial of the year in 1950 was of Donald Hume, a North London petty thief accused of stabbing car dealer Stanley Setty to death, of cutting up his corpse and dropping his body parts from an aeroplane
