Wrongful Conviction
He was wrongly convicted of the eighth of the ''Great Wyrley Outrages', but cleared as the result of a campaign by Arthur Conan Doyle. His wrongful conviction led to the creation of England's Court of Criminal Appeal in 1907. Nonetheless, despite the Home Office's conclusion that Edalji was innocent of slashing animals, the Home Office stood by the idea that Edalji was responsible for sending menacing letters in Staffordshire during the summer of 1903. Long after the incident had faded from public memory, a fifty-seven year old labourer named Enoch Knowles confessed to having sent further offensive letters over a thirty-year period.
Edalji died at 9 Brockett Close, Welwyn Garden City, on June 17, 1953, from coronary thrombosis.
Read more about this topic: George Edalji
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“Just as every conviction begins as a whim so does every emancipator serve his apprenticeship as a crank. A fanatic is a great leader who is just entering the room.”
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