In pictures: Donald Findlay QC lectures on the trial of Madeleine Smith

 

Donald Findlay QC lectured a rapt audience at the weekend on one of Scotland’s most notorious murder trials – that of Victorian socialite Madeleine Smith, who, in 1857, was accused of murdering her lover, Pierre Emile L’Angelier after he threatened to expose their relationship, which broke the strict conventions of the day.

 

 

At a trial in the High Court in Edinburgh, the jury returned a verdict of “not proven”, but the episode was sufficiently scandalous that Smith left Scotland and married twice, ending her days in America, where she died in 1928, at the age of 93.