Note 29 — Chapter IV
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The excuse put forward for this was his wish to raise money for Bate. The prisoner’s brother complains, in his letter to Lord Campbell, pp. 29, 30, and with justice, that though the evidence of the negotiation for this insurance was afterwards excluded as irrelevant, the statement was allowed to be made by the Attorney-General without a comment, which Lord Campbell must have known would prejudice the case against the prisoner. This exclusion of the evidence of a statement which has been allowed to pass unchallenged is nearly as useless as the formal warning not to pay any attention to some evidence that has been wrongly admitted—the prejudice has been raised, and the mischief already done. But for the result of this trial, he would have been tried for the murder of his wife, whose body had been exhumed and analysed.