Constance Kent case
Encyclopedia
Constance Emily Kent was an English
woman who confessed to a notorious child murder
, that took place when she was sixteen years old. The Constance Kent case in 1865 raised a series of questions about priest-penitent privilege in England. In later life Kent changed her name to Ruth Emilie Kaye.
moved to the boy's sixteen-year-old half-sister, Constance. She was arrested on 16 July, but released without trial. The family moved to Wrexham
, in the north of Wales
, and sent Constance to a finishing school in Dinan
, France.
clergyman, the Rev. Arthur Wagner, and she expressed to him her resolution to give herself up to justice. He assisted her in carrying out this resolution and he gave evidence of this statement before the magistrate
s. But he prefaced his evidence by a declaration that he must withhold any further information on the ground that it had been received under the seal of "sacramental confession"
. He was but lightly pressed by the magistrates, the fact of the matter being that the prisoner was not defending the charge.
The substance of the confession was that she had waited until the family and servants were asleep, had gone down to the drawing-room and opened the shutters and window, had then taken the child from his room wrapped in a blanket that she had taken from between sheet and counterpane in his cot (leaving both these undisturbed or readjusted), left the house and killed him in the privy with a razor stolen from her father. Her movements before the killing had been conducted with the child in her arms. It had been necessary to hide matches in the privy beforehand for a light to see by during the act of murder. The murder was not a spontaneous act, it seems, but one of revenge - and it was even suggested that Constance had, at certain times, been mentally unbalanced.
There was much speculation at the time that Constance Kent's confession was false. Many supposed that her father Samuel Savill (or Saville) Kent, a known adulterer, was having an affair with the toddler's nursemaid, and in a fit of rage, murdered the child after coitus interruptus. It fitted a pattern with the senior Kent, who had romanced the family nanny Mary Drewe Pratt while his first wife Mary Ann Kent née Windus (Constance's mother) was dying, and subsequently married Mary Drewe Pratt (who was Francis's mother). Many were suspicious of Mr. Kent from the start, including the novelist Charles Dickens
.
In her 2008 book The Suspicions of Mr Whicher or The Murder at Road Hill House, however, author Kate Summerscale
comes to the conclusion that if Constance Kent's confession was indeed false and merely an act to shield another person, it was not for the benefit of her father but for the benefit of her brother, William Saville-Kent
, with whom she shared a very close brother-sister relationship which was even deepened by the circumstances that her father Samuel Savill Kent turned his paternal attentions away from the children from his first marriage to Mary Ann Windus to the children he had with his second wife Mary Drewe Pratt. William Saville-Kent was indeed suspected during the investigations, but never charged. Summerscale states that if Saville-Kent wasn't the culprit solely responsible for Francis Savill Kent's death, he was at least an accomplice to Constance Kent.
Constance Kent never recanted her confession, neither after her father's nor her brother's death. She also kept her silence about the motive for the murder. In all of her statements she emphasized and insisted that she bore no hatred nor jealousy towards her murdered half-brother. As a result of her research, Summerscale comes to the conclusion that the murder of Francis Savill Kent was - no matter whether it was committed by Constance Kent or William Saville-Kent either alone or by both of them - an act of revenge to Samuel Savill Kent for turning his attention to the children of his second marriage, of whom Francis Savill Kent was his reported favourite.
, Constance Kent pleaded guilty
and her plea was accepted so that Wagner was not again called. The position which Mr Wagner assumed before the magistrates caused much public debate in the press. There was considerable expression of public indignation that it should have been suggested that Mr Wagner could have any right as against the state to withhold evidence
on the ground that he had put forward. The indignation seems to have been largely directed against the assumption that sacramental confession was known to the Church of England.
, Richard Bethell, 1st Baron Westbury
, Lord Chancellor
, in reply to George Thomas John Nugent, 1st Marquess of Westmeath, stated that:
He stated that it appeared that an order for committal for contempt of court
had in fact been made against Mr Wagner. If that is so, it was not enforced.
On the same occasion Frederic Thesiger, 1st Baron Chelmsford
, a previous Lord Chancellor, stated that the law was clear that Mr Wagner had no privilege at all to withhold facts which came under his knowledge in confession. Lord Westmeath said that there had been two recent cases, one being the case of a priest
in Scotland
, who, on refusing to give evidence, had been committed to prison
. As to this case Lord Westmeath stated that, upon an application for the priest's release being made to the Home Secretary
, Sir George Grey, 2nd Baronet
, the latter had replied that if he were to remit the sentence without an admission of error on the part of the Catholic priest and without an assurance on his part that he would not again in a similar case adopt the same course, he (the Home Secretary) would be giving a sanction to the assumption of a privilege by ministers of every denomination which, he was advised, they could not claim. The second case was R v Hay.
Lord Westbury's statement in the House of Lords drew a protest from Henry Phillpotts
, the then Bishop of Exeter
, who wrote him a letter strongly maintaining the privilege which had been claimed by Mr Wagner. The bishop argued that the canon law
on the subject had been accepted without gainsaying or opposition from any temporal court, that it had been confirmed by the Book of Common Prayer
in the service for the visitation of the sick, and, thus, sanctioned by the Act of Uniformity
. Phillpotts was supported by Edward Lowth Badeley
who wrote a pamphlet on the question of priest-penitent privilege. From the bishop's reply to Lord Westbury's answer to his letter it is apparent that Lord Westbury had expressed the opinion that the 113th canon of 1603 simply meant that the "clergyman must not ex mero motu and voluntarily and without legal obligation reveal what is communicated to him in confession". He appears, also, to have expressed an opinion that the public was not at the time in a temper to bear any alteration of the rule compelling the disclosure of such evidence.
, but this was commuted to life in prison owing to her youth at the time and her confession. She served twenty years in a number of gaols including Millbank Prison
and was released in 1885, at the age of 41. During her time in prison, she produced mosaics for a number of churches, including one of a young boy with angel wings that was installed in the crypt of St. Paul's cathedral. In Noeline Kyle's book A Greater Guilt she discusses the work Constance Kent was engaged in while incarcerated, and what Kyle describes as the myth of the mosaics.
early in 1886 and joined her brother William in Tasmania, where he worked as a government adviser on fisheries. She changed her name to Ruth Emilie Kaye and trained as a nurse at the Alfred Hospital, Prahran, Melbourne, before being appointed sister-in-charge of the Female Lazaret at the Coast Hospital, Little Bay, in Sydney. She worked for a decade at the Parramatta Industrial School for Girls from 1898 to 1909, was domiciled in the New South Wales country town of Mittagong for a year, and was then made matron of the Pierce Memorial Nurses' Home at East Maitland, serving there from 1911 until she retired in 1932, Constance Kent died in a private hospital in the Sydney suburb of Strathfield at the age of 100, on 10 April 1944. The Sydney Morning Herald (on 11 April 1944) reported that she was cremated at nearby Rookwood Cemetery
.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
woman who confessed to a notorious child murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
, that took place when she was sixteen years old. The Constance Kent case in 1865 raised a series of questions about priest-penitent privilege in England. In later life Kent changed her name to Ruth Emilie Kaye.
The crime
Sometime between the night of 29 June and the morning of 30 June 1860, Francis Savill Kent (almost four years old) disappeared from his home, Road Hill House, in the village of Rode (spelled "Road" at the time), then in Wiltshire. His body was found in the vault of an outhouse (a privy) on the property. The child, still dressed in his nightshirt and wrapped in a blanket, had knife wounds on his chest and hands, and his throat was slashed so deeply that the body was almost decapitated. Although the boy's nursemaid was initially arrested, she was soon released and the suspicions of detective Jonathan Whicher of Scotland YardScotland Yard
Scotland Yard is a metonym for the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service of London, UK. It derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which had a rear entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard. The Scotland Yard entrance became...
moved to the boy's sixteen-year-old half-sister, Constance. She was arrested on 16 July, but released without trial. The family moved to Wrexham
Wrexham
Wrexham is a town in Wales. It is the administrative centre of the wider Wrexham County Borough, and the largest town in North Wales, located in the east of the region. It is situated between the Welsh mountains and the lower Dee Valley close to the border with Cheshire, England...
, in the north of Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, and sent Constance to a finishing school in Dinan
Dinan
Dinan is a walled Breton town and a commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department in northwestern France.-Geography:Its geographical setting is exceptional. Instead of nestling on the valley floor like Morlaix, most urban development has been on the hillside, overlooking the river Rance...
, France.
Committal
Constance Kent was prosecuted for the murder five years later, in 1865. She made a statement confessing her guilt to a Church of EnglandChurch of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
clergyman, the Rev. Arthur Wagner, and she expressed to him her resolution to give herself up to justice. He assisted her in carrying out this resolution and he gave evidence of this statement before the magistrate
Magistrate
A magistrate is an officer of the state; in modern usage the term usually refers to a judge or prosecutor. This was not always the case; in ancient Rome, a magistratus was one of the highest government officers and possessed both judicial and executive powers. Today, in common law systems, a...
s. But he prefaced his evidence by a declaration that he must withhold any further information on the ground that it had been received under the seal of "sacramental confession"
Seal of the Confessional
In the Roman Catholic Church, the Seal of Confession is the absolute duty of priests not to disclose anything that they learn from penitents during the course of the Sacrament of Penance.-History:...
. He was but lightly pressed by the magistrates, the fact of the matter being that the prisoner was not defending the charge.
The substance of the confession was that she had waited until the family and servants were asleep, had gone down to the drawing-room and opened the shutters and window, had then taken the child from his room wrapped in a blanket that she had taken from between sheet and counterpane in his cot (leaving both these undisturbed or readjusted), left the house and killed him in the privy with a razor stolen from her father. Her movements before the killing had been conducted with the child in her arms. It had been necessary to hide matches in the privy beforehand for a light to see by during the act of murder. The murder was not a spontaneous act, it seems, but one of revenge - and it was even suggested that Constance had, at certain times, been mentally unbalanced.
There was much speculation at the time that Constance Kent's confession was false. Many supposed that her father Samuel Savill (or Saville) Kent, a known adulterer, was having an affair with the toddler's nursemaid, and in a fit of rage, murdered the child after coitus interruptus. It fitted a pattern with the senior Kent, who had romanced the family nanny Mary Drewe Pratt while his first wife Mary Ann Kent née Windus (Constance's mother) was dying, and subsequently married Mary Drewe Pratt (who was Francis's mother). Many were suspicious of Mr. Kent from the start, including the novelist Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
.
In her 2008 book The Suspicions of Mr Whicher or The Murder at Road Hill House, however, author Kate Summerscale
Kate Summerscale
Kate Summerscale is an award-winning English writer and journalist.She is the author of The Suspicions of Mr Whicher or The Murder at Road Hill House which won the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction 2008, and the bestselling The Queen of Whale Cay, about Joe Carstairs, 'fastest woman on water',...
comes to the conclusion that if Constance Kent's confession was indeed false and merely an act to shield another person, it was not for the benefit of her father but for the benefit of her brother, William Saville-Kent
William Saville-Kent
William Saville-Kent was an English marine biologist.Born in Sidmouth, Devon, his childhood was marred by the death of his mother, the murder of his half-brother and conviction of his sister Constance to twenty years in prison...
, with whom she shared a very close brother-sister relationship which was even deepened by the circumstances that her father Samuel Savill Kent turned his paternal attentions away from the children from his first marriage to Mary Ann Windus to the children he had with his second wife Mary Drewe Pratt. William Saville-Kent was indeed suspected during the investigations, but never charged. Summerscale states that if Saville-Kent wasn't the culprit solely responsible for Francis Savill Kent's death, he was at least an accomplice to Constance Kent.
Constance Kent never recanted her confession, neither after her father's nor her brother's death. She also kept her silence about the motive for the murder. In all of her statements she emphasized and insisted that she bore no hatred nor jealousy towards her murdered half-brother. As a result of her research, Summerscale comes to the conclusion that the murder of Francis Savill Kent was - no matter whether it was committed by Constance Kent or William Saville-Kent either alone or by both of them - an act of revenge to Samuel Savill Kent for turning his attention to the children of his second marriage, of whom Francis Savill Kent was his reported favourite.
Press excitement
At the AssizesAssizes
Assize or Assizes may refer to:Assize or Assizes may refer to:Assize or Assizes may refer to::;in common law countries :::*assizes , an obsolete judicial inquest...
, Constance Kent pleaded guilty
Guilty
Guilty commonly refers to the feeling of guilt, an experience that occurs when a person believes that they have violated a moral standard.Guilty or The Guilty may also refer to:-Law:*Guilty plea, a formal admission of legal culpability...
and her plea was accepted so that Wagner was not again called. The position which Mr Wagner assumed before the magistrates caused much public debate in the press. There was considerable expression of public indignation that it should have been suggested that Mr Wagner could have any right as against the state to withhold evidence
Evidence (law)
The law of evidence encompasses the rules and legal principles that govern the proof of facts in a legal proceeding. These rules determine what evidence can be considered by the trier of fact in reaching its decision and, sometimes, the weight that may be given to that evidence...
on the ground that he had put forward. The indignation seems to have been largely directed against the assumption that sacramental confession was known to the Church of England.
Parliamentary comment
Questions were asked in both Houses of Parliament. In the House of LordsHouse of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
, Richard Bethell, 1st Baron Westbury
Richard Bethell, 1st Baron Westbury
Richard Bethell, 1st Baron Westbury PC, QC , was a British lawyer, judge and Liberal politician. He served as Lord Chancellor of Great Britain between 1861 and 1865.-Background and education:...
, Lord Chancellor
Lord Chancellor
The Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, or Lord Chancellor, is a senior and important functionary in the government of the United Kingdom. He is the second highest ranking of the Great Officers of State, ranking only after the Lord High Steward. The Lord Chancellor is appointed by the Sovereign...
, in reply to George Thomas John Nugent, 1st Marquess of Westmeath, stated that:
He stated that it appeared that an order for committal for contempt of court
Contempt of court
Contempt of court is a court order which, in the context of a court trial or hearing, declares a person or organization to have disobeyed or been disrespectful of the court's authority...
had in fact been made against Mr Wagner. If that is so, it was not enforced.
On the same occasion Frederic Thesiger, 1st Baron Chelmsford
Frederic Thesiger, 1st Baron Chelmsford
Frederic Thesiger, 1st Baron Chelmsford PC KC FRS was a British jurist and Conservative politician. He was twice Lord Chancellor of Great Britain.-Early life:...
, a previous Lord Chancellor, stated that the law was clear that Mr Wagner had no privilege at all to withhold facts which came under his knowledge in confession. Lord Westmeath said that there had been two recent cases, one being the case of a priest
Priest
A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...
in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, who, on refusing to give evidence, had been committed to prison
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
. As to this case Lord Westmeath stated that, upon an application for the priest's release being made to the Home Secretary
Home Secretary
The Secretary of State for the Home Department, commonly known as the Home Secretary, is the minister in charge of the Home Office of the United Kingdom, and one of the country's four Great Offices of State...
, Sir George Grey, 2nd Baronet
Sir George Grey, 2nd Baronet
Sir George Grey, 2nd Baronet, PC was a British Whig politician. He held office under four Prime Ministers, Lord Melbourne, Lord John Russell, Lord Aberdeen, and Lord Palmerston, and notably served three times as Home Secretary.-Background and education:Grey was the only son of Sir George Grey, 1st...
, the latter had replied that if he were to remit the sentence without an admission of error on the part of the Catholic priest and without an assurance on his part that he would not again in a similar case adopt the same course, he (the Home Secretary) would be giving a sanction to the assumption of a privilege by ministers of every denomination which, he was advised, they could not claim. The second case was R v Hay.
Lord Westbury's statement in the House of Lords drew a protest from Henry Phillpotts
Henry Phillpotts
Henry Phillpotts , often called "Henry of Exeter", was the Anglican Bishop of Exeter from 1830 to 1869. He was England's longest serving bishop since the 14th century and a striking figure of the 19th century Church.- Early life :...
, the then Bishop of Exeter
Bishop of Exeter
The Bishop of Exeter is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Exeter in the Province of Canterbury. The incumbent usually signs his name as Exon or incorporates this in his signature....
, who wrote him a letter strongly maintaining the privilege which had been claimed by Mr Wagner. The bishop argued that the canon law
Canon law
Canon law is the body of laws & regulations made or adopted by ecclesiastical authority, for the government of the Christian organization and its members. It is the internal ecclesiastical law governing the Catholic Church , the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches, and the Anglican Communion of...
on the subject had been accepted without gainsaying or opposition from any temporal court, that it had been confirmed by the Book of Common Prayer
Book of Common Prayer
The Book of Common Prayer is the short title of a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion, as well as by the Continuing Anglican, "Anglican realignment" and other Anglican churches. The original book, published in 1549 , in the reign of Edward VI, was a product of the English...
in the service for the visitation of the sick, and, thus, sanctioned by the Act of Uniformity
Act of Uniformity
Over the course of English parliamentary history there were a number of acts of uniformity. All had the basic object of establishing some sort of religious orthodoxy within the English church....
. Phillpotts was supported by Edward Lowth Badeley
Edward Lowth Badeley
Edward Lowth Badeley was an English ecclesiastical lawyer, a member of the Oxford Movement, who was involved in some of the most notorious cases of the nineteenth century-Early life:...
who wrote a pamphlet on the question of priest-penitent privilege. From the bishop's reply to Lord Westbury's answer to his letter it is apparent that Lord Westbury had expressed the opinion that the 113th canon of 1603 simply meant that the "clergyman must not ex mero motu and voluntarily and without legal obligation reveal what is communicated to him in confession". He appears, also, to have expressed an opinion that the public was not at the time in a temper to bear any alteration of the rule compelling the disclosure of such evidence.
Sentence
Constance Kent was sentenced to deathCapital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
, but this was commuted to life in prison owing to her youth at the time and her confession. She served twenty years in a number of gaols including Millbank Prison
Millbank Prison
Millbank Prison was a prison in Millbank, Pimlico, London, originally constructed as the National Penitentiary, and which for part of its history served as a holding facility for convicted prisoners before they were transported to Australia...
and was released in 1885, at the age of 41. During her time in prison, she produced mosaics for a number of churches, including one of a young boy with angel wings that was installed in the crypt of St. Paul's cathedral. In Noeline Kyle's book A Greater Guilt she discusses the work Constance Kent was engaged in while incarcerated, and what Kyle describes as the myth of the mosaics.
Later life
Constance Kent emigrated to AustraliaAustralia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
early in 1886 and joined her brother William in Tasmania, where he worked as a government adviser on fisheries. She changed her name to Ruth Emilie Kaye and trained as a nurse at the Alfred Hospital, Prahran, Melbourne, before being appointed sister-in-charge of the Female Lazaret at the Coast Hospital, Little Bay, in Sydney. She worked for a decade at the Parramatta Industrial School for Girls from 1898 to 1909, was domiciled in the New South Wales country town of Mittagong for a year, and was then made matron of the Pierce Memorial Nurses' Home at East Maitland, serving there from 1911 until she retired in 1932, Constance Kent died in a private hospital in the Sydney suburb of Strathfield at the age of 100, on 10 April 1944. The Sydney Morning Herald (on 11 April 1944) reported that she was cremated at nearby Rookwood Cemetery
Rookwood Cemetery
Rookwood Cemetery is the largest multicultural necropolis in the Southern Hemisphere, located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...
.
Cultural references
- 1862: Elements of the case were used by Mary Elizabeth BraddonMary Elizabeth BraddonMary Elizabeth Braddon was a British Victorian era popular novelist. She is best known for her 1862 sensation novel Lady Audley's Secret.-Life:...
in Lady Audley's SecretLady Audley's SecretLady Audley's Secret is a sensation novel by Mary Elizabeth Braddon published in 1862. It was Braddon's most successful and well known novel. Critic John Sutherland described the work as "the most sensationally successful of all the sensation novels." The plot centers on "accidental bigamy" which...
(1862). - 1868: Elements of the case were used by Wilkie CollinsWilkie CollinsWilliam Wilkie Collins was an English novelist, playwright, and author of short stories. He was very popular during the Victorian era and wrote 30 novels, more than 60 short stories, 14 plays, and over 100 non-fiction pieces...
in The MoonstoneThe MoonstoneThe Moonstone by Wilkie Collins is a 19th-century British epistolary novel, generally considered the first detective novel in the English language. The story was originally serialized in Charles Dickens' magazine All the Year Round. The Moonstone and The Woman in White are considered Wilkie...
(1868). - 1870: Charles DickensCharles DickensCharles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
based the flight of Helena Landless in The Mystery of Edwin DroodThe Mystery of Edwin DroodThe Mystery of Edwin Drood is the final novel by Charles Dickens. The novel was left unfinished at the time of Dickens' death, and his intended ending for it remains unknown. Though the novel is named after the character Edwin Drood, the story focuses on Drood's uncle, choirmaster John Jasper, who...
(1870) on Kent's early life. - 1945: The film Dead of NightDead of NightDead of Night is a British portmanteau horror film made by Ealing Studios, its various episodes directed by Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden and Robert Hamer. The film stars Mervyn Johns, Googie Withers and Michael Redgrave...
, UK Ealing 1945, included in its 5 separate stories, a section called "Christmas Party" with Sally Ann HowesSally Ann HowesSally Ann Howes is a British actress and singer, who currently holds dual British-American citizenship. Her career on stage, screen and television has spanned over six decades...
. This story is loosely based on the Constance Kent case; Constance is referred to often, and an actor plays her young brother Francis Kent. "Christmas Party" was an original screenplay based on an original story by the screenplay author Angus MacPhail. While playing hide and go seek in an old house, Howes hears a child sobbing and comes into a bedroom where she meets a little boy named Francis Saville Kent whose sister Constance is mean to him. Howes comforts the child, and then leaves him when he is asleep. Then she finds the others from the party and learns that Francis was killed by Constance over eighty years before. - 1980: The case was dramatised for television by the BBC over 8 episodes, starring Prue ClarkePrue ClarkePrue Clarke is a British actress.She first appeared on screen in 1974's Fall of Eagles. Since then her television credits have included Casualty, The Cleopatras, Doctors, Down to Earth, Holby City, Love Hurts and Midsomer Murders.-External links:...
as Constance Kent, and Joss AcklandJoss AcklandSidney Edmond Jocelyn Ackland CBE , known as Joss Ackland, is an English actor who has appeared in more than 130 films and numerous television roles.-Early life:...
as Samuel Kent, as one of three cases that comprised the series A Question of GuiltA Question of GuiltA Question of Guilt is a novel in the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew super mystery series....
(1980) about female murderers; - 1980: The Constance Kent case plays a central role in William TrevorWilliam TrevorWilliam Trevor, KBE is an Irish author and playwright. He is considered one of the elder statesman of the Irish literary world and widely regarded as the greatest contemporary writer of short stories in the English language....
's novel Other People's Worlds (1980) - 1983: Francis KingFrancis KingFrancis Henry King, CBE was a British novelist, poet and short story writer.He was born in Adelboden, Switzerland, brought up in India and educated at Shrewsbury School and Balliol College, Oxford. During World War II he was a conscientious objector, and left Oxford to work on the land...
's 1983 novel Act of Darkness is a fictional re-imagining of the Constance Kent case, transferring the setting to 1930's India. - 1989: James Friel's novel Taking the Veil (1989) is inspired by Kent's life.
- 1991: Sharyn McCrumbSharyn McCrumbSharyn McCrumb is an American writer whose books celebrate the history and folklore of Appalachia. McCrumb is the winner of numerous literary awards, and the author of the Elizabeth McPherson series, the Ballad series, and the St...
's 1991 novel Missing Susan refers to this case. - 2008: Kate SummerscaleKate SummerscaleKate Summerscale is an award-winning English writer and journalist.She is the author of The Suspicions of Mr Whicher or The Murder at Road Hill House which won the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction 2008, and the bestselling The Queen of Whale Cay, about Joe Carstairs, 'fastest woman on water',...
's book The Suspicions of Mr Whicher about this case was read as BBC Radio 4BBC Radio 4BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
's Book of the Week from 7 to 11 April 2008. It won Britain's Samuel Johnson PrizeSamuel Johnson PrizeThe Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction is one of the most prestigious prizes for non-fiction writing. It was founded in 1999 following the demise of the NCR Book Award and based on an anonymous donation. The prize is named after Samuel Johnson...
for Non-Fiction in 2008 - 2010: An episode of the Investigation Discovery channel series Deadly WomenDeadly WomenDeadly Women is a television series first aired in 2005 on the Discovery Channel, focusing on female killers. It was originally a mini-series consisting of three episodes: "Obsession," "Greed" and "Revenge". After a 2 year hiatus, the show resumed production in 2008 and began airing on the...
, "A Daughter's Revenge", features a segment on Constance Kent. - 2011: The case featured as a drama on ITV under the title The Suspicions of Mr Whicher on 25 April 2011.