Case of the Hooded Man

R v Williams (John)
Court	Court of Criminal Appeal
Decided	13 January 1913
Citation	(1913) 8 Cr App R 133
Court membership
Judges sitting	Lord Alverstone CJ, Ridley J and Phillimore J
Keywords
Murder

R v Williams (1913) 8 Cr App R 133 (known as the Case of the Hooded Man and the Eastbourne Murder) was a 1912 murder in England that took its name from the hood the defendant, John Williams, wore when travelling to and from court. After the murder of a police inspector in Eastbourne, with no witnesses and little forensic evidence, Edgar Power, a former medical student, told the police that his friend John Williams had committed the murder. Power helped the police conduct a sting operation to catch Williams; police also interrogated Williams's girlfriend Florence Seymour, who then confessed to having helped Williams hide the murder weapon.

However, Seymour later recanted her story, and another man came forth claiming to know the identity of the real killer. This new evidence, along with the behaviour of the judge in both the initial case and the appeal, made the case controversial enough that Members of Parliament from the three major political parties directly questioned the Home Secretary on the matter. Despite many requests for clemency, all appeals were denied, and Williams was executed in 1913. The case was one of the first investigations in Britain to use the emerging science of ballistics.