A man hanged for the brutal murder of a colliery cashier on Tyneside 102 years ago may, in fact, have been the victim of a terrible miscarriage of justice, according to a new book. Its author, John J Eddleston, talks to Andy White.

ON Friday, March 18, 1910, colliery cashier John Innes Nisbet boarded the 10.27 train at Newcastle Central Station. The 44-year-old was carrying a bag containing £370 in wages for the men who worked at the Stobswood Colliery, in Northumberland.

He never made the delivery.

Nisbet’s blood-spattered body was found stuffed beneath a carriage seat by porter Thomas Charlton after the train pulled into Alnmouth, on the Northumberland coast.

He had been shot five times, the interior of his head “literally smashed to atoms”, according to a lurid report in The Northern Echo.

Two calibres of bullets were recovered, indicating two guns had been used, and the bank bag was missing.

A witness soon came forward to say he had seen the victim with another man, 46-year-old professional gambler John Alexander Dickman.

Dickman was arrested and the evidence against him soon mounted.

Witnesses saw the suspect boarding the train with Nisbet and sitting in the same carriage.

One even picked Dickman out of a police lineup.

Blood spots were found on Dickman’s clothing and there was evidence he had come into possession of a gun. He appeared to have financial problems, suggesting a motive.

A witness saw Nisbet alive in his carriage at Stannington station. Six minutes later, at the next stop in Morpeth, Nisbet was dead.

Dickman had alighted at Morpeth.

The missing bag was found down a mine shaft near enough to Morpeth to give Dickman ample time to dispose of it and return to catch a later train. And Dickman’s account of his movements in that time – that he had taken ill and lain down in a field until recovering – was unconvincing.

Dickman protested he was “entirely innocent of this cruel deed”, but the evidence was enough for a jury to convict him of murder and for judge Lord Coleridge to impose the death sentence.

NOW, more than 100 years later, author John J Eddleston has re-visited the case.

With the help of his wife, Yvonne, he has examined the evidence, checked the trial data and visited key locations.

And he has concluded that there has been a miscarriage of justice.

What’s more, in his new book on the case, And May The Lord Have Mercy On Your Soul…, he names for the first time who he believes really murdered John Nisbet.

Questions and doubts about Dickman’s guilt first emerged shortly after the verdict was delivered.

What had he done with the money? Why had he not dumped the murder weapons down the mine shaft with the bag? And anyway, why had the bag not been discovered on two previous mine inspections? Bloodstains on Dickman’s clothing may not even have been human and the witness evidence appeared unreliable.

It even emerged that a police officer had deliberately allowed a witness to glimpse Dickman moments before picking him out of an identification parade.

Despite this, Dickman’s conviction was upheld on appeal. But public opinion had now turned. Thousands signed a petition calling for a reprieve – even jurors who sat at the trial said they would now have voted not guilty.

The case was referred to Home Secretary Winston Churchill, but he could find no reason to commute the death sentence.

Mr Eddleston, who believes his theory is at least as plausible as Dickman being the killer, has now called for the Court of Appeal to look again at the evidence.

“The bottom line is I would like Dickman to be adjudged to be an innocent man and this conviction overturned,” he says “If I can get especially a North-Eastern lawyer or barrister interested in taking this to the Court of Appeal, then that’s where it should go. I’m sure any right-minded person would say this conviction is unsafe.”

JOHN ALEXANDER DICKMAN became the last man to be executed at Newcastle gaol on Tuesday, August 9, 1910.

In a letter to his wife the night before, the condemned man wrote: “There is something still keeps telling me that everything will be made clear some day, when it is too late to benefit me.”

Mr Eddleston says: “For me, this man’s name has been sullied with the label of hanged murderer and he shouldn’t have been.

“In his last letter, he said one day everything would become clear. It doesn’t matter to me whether that one day comes a week later or 100 years later.”

• And May The Lord Have Mercy On Your Soul… is available from true-crimes.co.uk, priced £12.99, and on Amazon as a Kindle download.