The younger boy, Nathaniel, bolted when the police arrived, but his brother, Robert, stayed put. He promptly confessed to the crime.

‘I did it,’ Robert told the constable. ‘My brother Nattie got a hiding for stealing some food, and Ma was going to give me one.

So Nattie said that he would stab her, but as he could not do it himself he asked me to do it.’ Robert admitted that he and Nattie had been sharing the house with their mother’s corpse for 10 days, during which time they had been to Lord’s to watch the cricket, gone fishing at Southend-on-Sea, and seen a play at the theatre.