Old Bailey - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

As the court in which the most serious criminal cases in London, and often the whole of England and Wales, have been heard for centuries, there are many references to the Old Bailey.

• In the book A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, the Old Bailey is the courthouse named in the book where Charles Darnay is put on trial for treason.
• In the movie Witness for the Prosecution, the court scenes are set in the Old Bailey.
• In the novel Patriot Games and the eponymous film, terrorist Sean Miller is tried in the Old Bailey for the attempted kidnapping of the Prince & Princess of Wales (which killed two guards), and sentenced to life in prison after Jack Ryan's testimony (Ryan foiled the plot by disabling Miller and killing another terrorist with Miller's gun).
• In the book Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih, Mustafa Sa'eed was tried in the Old Bailey for the crime of murdering his English wife Jean Morris and was sentenced to seven years imprisonment.
• The Old Bailey is destroyed with explosives by the vigilante V in the graphic novel V for Vendetta and its film adaptation. In the graphic novel, V entertains a long, one-sided conversation with the statue of Justice on the roof, in which he professes his love for her but accuses her of being a whore for the fictional fascist government, and tells her of his new mistress named Anarchy.
• The television series Rumpole of the Bailey concerns a defence lawyer who works at the Bailey. Sir John Mortimer, a criminal barrister and author, often appeared at the Old Bailey. His courtroom experiences led him to create the fictional character Horace Rumpole.
• In the popular Australian folk song "Botany Bay", the first verse references the "well known Old Bailey". The song tells the tale of a group of prisoners being taken from Britain to the penal colonies of Australia.
• In the television series Bad Girls, the character Nikki Wade's successful appeal took place at the Old Bailey.
• The book Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman has a character named Old Bailey.
• In the television series Law & Order: UK several interior scenes are shot in the Grand Hall of the Central Criminal Court, with the murals and axioms clearly visible.
• The entire sketch "Court Charades" from the British comedy show Monty Python's Flying Circus happens at the Old Bailey, appearing when it's showing the arrival of the Spanish Inquisition.
• It is featured in the rhyme "Oranges and Lemons", which, in turn, is featured in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.
• In the Leon Uris novel QB VII the courtrooms in the Old Bailey feature prominently.
• In Leon Garfield's Smith, in which the setting is at some point in Old Bailey.
• In the television series Garrow's Law, a fictional retelling of the life of 18th Century barrister William Garrow, many of the scenes take place within the Old Bailey.
• In an episode of the television series Sherlock, a BBC adaption of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.
• In the 2011 murder mystery Death Comes to Pemberley, by P.D. James, the 1804 trial for a murder committed in Derbyshire is held at the Old Bailey, although, as explained above, venue would not have been proper at the Old Bailey at that time for a crime committed in a distant county.