0:00:06 > 0:00:08Kate Summerscale is at home with crime.
0:00:08 > 0:00:10The Suspicions Of Mr Whicher unravelled a true Victorian
0:00:10 > 0:00:13mystery with meticulous and atmospheric relish,
0:00:13 > 0:00:18and in The Wicked Boy, she's back on that same fertile ground,
0:00:18 > 0:00:22on the trail of a terrible murder in the East End of London.
0:00:22 > 0:00:23It was matricide.
0:00:23 > 0:00:27The story takes us from the East End to the Old Bailey to the dark
0:00:27 > 0:00:30confinement of Broadmoor, and eventually to the colonies.
0:00:30 > 0:00:35The story ends in Australia.
0:00:35 > 0:00:40It's a dark and violent story, but one that has heroism
0:00:40 > 0:00:43and redemption at its heart, too.
0:00:43 > 0:00:46Welcome.
0:01:00 > 0:01:04Tell us how you came across the story.
0:01:04 > 0:01:09What led you on the trail into this very dark mystery or happening?
0:01:09 > 0:01:14I came across the story in an old newspaper.
0:01:14 > 0:01:19There was a report of these two boys, aged 12 and 13,
0:01:19 > 0:01:22who had been found living in a house in east London with the corpse
0:01:22 > 0:01:28of their murdered mother.
0:01:28 > 0:01:30And one of the boys immediately confessed to having committed
0:01:30 > 0:01:33the crime, and both were arrested and charged with murder.
0:01:33 > 0:01:36What is interesting is you were able to discover quite a lot
0:01:36 > 0:01:42about the story relatively easily, and begin to piece it together.
0:01:42 > 0:01:46The newspaper coverage at that time, 1895, was really fantastic,
0:01:46 > 0:01:50so in the local press, the East London press
0:01:50 > 0:01:54but also the national press, this story was covered in detail
0:01:54 > 0:01:58with a lot of colour, and with images, courtroom sketches
0:01:58 > 0:02:00of the boys, pictures of the house.
0:02:00 > 0:02:02Those were the days!
0:02:02 > 0:02:03You wouldn't get it now.
0:02:03 > 0:02:05No.
0:02:05 > 0:02:08So there was instantly, as soon as I had decided to look
0:02:08 > 0:02:11into the story and started researching, a lot of detail
0:02:11 > 0:02:17about the events of that summer, and the trial of the brothers.
0:02:17 > 0:02:20When people come to read the book, the account of the trial is,
0:02:20 > 0:02:22apart from being dramatic as all these things
0:02:22 > 0:02:26are because the stakes are so high, really quite shocking.
0:02:26 > 0:02:29Robert Coombes, the older of the two brothers, the 13-year-old,
0:02:29 > 0:02:33his lawyers were pleading that he was insane at the time
0:02:33 > 0:02:38of the crime, and the judge was really having none of it,
0:02:38 > 0:02:43and tried very hard to steer the jury towards
0:02:43 > 0:02:45a straightforward guilty verdict.
0:02:45 > 0:02:47But one way and another, they resisted, so for as much
0:02:47 > 0:02:54as the judge was a stereotype of the harsh Victorian morality,
0:02:54 > 0:03:02the jury showed something different, which was a capacity for mercy.
0:03:02 > 0:03:05One of the things that emerges in the public
0:03:05 > 0:03:07debate that was reflected in all the newspaper coverage that
0:03:07 > 0:03:10you spoke of was the influence of the so-called Penny Dreadful,
0:03:10 > 0:03:13the supposed influence.
0:03:13 > 0:03:15These rather shocking adventure stories, as many people
0:03:15 > 0:03:17thought they were.
0:03:17 > 0:03:19Tell us how big their influence was at that time,
0:03:19 > 0:03:23and what the debate around them was.
0:03:23 > 0:03:27As soon as the boys were arrested, the police collected evidence
0:03:27 > 0:03:30from the house, and among the evidence they collected
0:03:30 > 0:03:35was a pile of Penny Dreadfuls, sensational comic story books
0:03:35 > 0:03:38for boys, and the inquest jury seized on this,
0:03:38 > 0:03:43because it was a huge moral panic at the time,
0:03:43 > 0:03:47the effect of the Penny Dreadfuls on the youth of Britain.
0:03:47 > 0:03:50Rather like the video game today, people said, they watch these things
0:03:50 > 0:03:52and they go out and do the same thing.
0:03:52 > 0:03:53Just so.
0:03:53 > 0:03:56They were modelling their behaviour on the criminals and the violence
0:03:56 > 0:03:58that they found in these books, that was the assumption.
0:03:58 > 0:04:01What are your reflections, having looked at the case of these
0:04:01 > 0:04:03boys who were ending up at the Old Bailey,
0:04:03 > 0:04:06off to Broadmoor?
0:04:06 > 0:04:08It is a terrible story of cataclysmic
0:04:08 > 0:04:13disruption to their lives.
0:04:13 > 0:04:15Morally, do you think they were treated in a way
0:04:15 > 0:04:18that we would now approve of?
0:04:18 > 0:04:19Was it fair?
0:04:19 > 0:04:25I think it was very strange to try children at that age,
0:04:25 > 0:04:29and they were considered children even by Victorian standards,
0:04:29 > 0:04:33and the older boy, even, had only just left school,
0:04:33 > 0:04:38the younger boy was still at school.
0:04:38 > 0:04:40Very strange to try them as if they were adults,
0:04:40 > 0:04:43but of course we still do now, and in fact, I was surprised
0:04:43 > 0:04:48by the fact that the jury showed a certain tenderness
0:04:48 > 0:04:50and pity towards the...
0:04:50 > 0:04:52It is an interesting aspect of the story, isn't it?
0:04:52 > 0:04:57They didn't behave according to type as it is often presented.
0:04:57 > 0:05:00No, and within my own lifetime I have been aware of the public
0:05:00 > 0:05:08reacting to juvenile, horrific juvenile crimes, murders,
0:05:08 > 0:05:12with a lot more rage and loathing towards the perpetrators
0:05:12 > 0:05:16than was certainly the case with the jury in this,
0:05:16 > 0:05:20so in that sense, there was a certain merciful,
0:05:20 > 0:05:25forgiving aspect to it, and also, in what actually
0:05:25 > 0:05:28went on at Broadmoor.
0:05:28 > 0:05:30You would think a 13-year-old boy being sent to Broadmoor,
0:05:30 > 0:05:34and he was by some stretch the youngest patient there,
0:05:34 > 0:05:37would be a thing of horror, but in fact he was treated
0:05:37 > 0:05:42with extreme kindness, as were most of the inmates there.
0:05:42 > 0:05:46One of the things you have done in the book is to paint a very vivid
0:05:46 > 0:05:48picture of the world of London, East London
0:05:48 > 0:05:51particularly at the time.
0:05:51 > 0:05:54This was the London of Sherlock Holmes, it was the London
0:05:54 > 0:05:56of Jack the Ripper.
0:05:56 > 0:06:01To try to understand why these boys committed the crime,
0:06:01 > 0:06:06I need to understand exactly what their days were like,
0:06:06 > 0:06:10what they were surrounded by, what their ideas about having fun
0:06:10 > 0:06:14were, or what their futures were going to be like.
0:06:14 > 0:06:17The story also has a pleasing element of redemption
0:06:17 > 0:06:21at the end, or recovery, I suppose you could call it,
0:06:21 > 0:06:25when he goes to Australia.
0:06:25 > 0:06:28I had been gripped by the story at first, a mixture of horror
0:06:28 > 0:06:34at what he and his brother had done, but also a sense of pity
0:06:34 > 0:06:39for what they had done to themselves as well as to their mother,
0:06:39 > 0:06:45and mystification about why, and what could possibly become of them.
0:06:45 > 0:06:48It was rather wonderful to discover that he was discharged at the age
0:06:48 > 0:06:55of 30 after 17 years in Broadmoor, and was able to serve
0:06:55 > 0:07:00in the First World War, to distinguish himself as a soldier.
0:07:00 > 0:07:02With acts of kindness?
0:07:02 > 0:07:04With acts of kindness.
0:07:04 > 0:07:07He was a stretcher bearer at Gallipoli, so although he served
0:07:07 > 0:07:09nobly, he didn't fight.
0:07:09 > 0:07:12He had non-combat roles, as a stretcher bearer and also
0:07:12 > 0:07:15as a band leader.
0:07:15 > 0:07:20You clearly find it frankly exciting to discover a letter
0:07:20 > 0:07:25in the National Archives at Kew or, as you did, to talk in Australia
0:07:25 > 0:07:31to someone who had actually shaken hands and actually much more that,
0:07:31 > 0:07:34shaken hands with one of the boys.
0:07:34 > 0:07:37Once the book had been commissioned, I had no idea that there was this
0:07:37 > 0:07:40sort of final act to the boy's life, and that there was a person,
0:07:40 > 0:07:48I discovered, still living, who had known him, to whom he,
0:07:48 > 0:07:51the boy who had killed his mother, had done good to this man
0:07:51 > 0:07:56still living, had really changed his life.
0:07:56 > 0:07:59But the living person did not know about the crime in the boy's
0:07:59 > 0:08:02childhood, and so I was confronted with this situation where the past
0:08:02 > 0:08:11that I was researching had come hurtling into the present,
0:08:11 > 0:08:16and had the capacity to affect lives now.
0:08:16 > 0:08:18Kate Summerscale, thank you very much.
0:08:18 > 0:08:21Thanks.
0:08:31 > 0:08:31Good