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Leading criminologist Professor David Wilson and guests reinvestigate Scotland鈥檚 most notorious miscarriages of justice, looking for the reasons they occur.

Investigative journalist Fiona Walker presents a short film about the Edwardian era case of Oscar Slater, a German Jewish immigrant falsely accused of murdering an elderly lady and stealing her diamond broach. Fiona joins David in the studio and, in relation to Slater鈥檚 case discuss the idea of 鈥榗onfirmation bias鈥�, a form of tunnel vision in a police investigation where detectives believe someone to be guilty and go on to make the evidence fit the crime. In Slater鈥檚 case, anti-immigration sentiment also most probably formed part of police bias, blinding detectives to who the real killer was.

David鈥檚 next guest is Scottish crime fiction author and practising defence lawyer William McIntyre. In a humorous and insightful interview, William discusses how his own real-life experiences feed into his novels. We focus on his novel Stitch Up, in which a lawyer must defend his own father, a retired cop accused of planting evidence to convict a suspected serial killer.

In a short film David examines the recent case of a man imprisoned for armed bank robbery, convicted on the evidence of four eyewitnesses, including two police officers. He discusses how the eyewitness remains the most compelling evidence in any criminal trial, because it is human and relatable, and yet it can also be extremely unreliable. He reveals how, on appeal, DNA evidence proved that all four eye witnesses in the bank robbery case were incorrect.

In the studio David meets eyewitness expert Graham Pike, who works with the police and the criminal justice system. In a fascinating discussion they explore in depth how the human brain works when it comes to remembering events and dissect how flawed our capacity to remember unfamiliar faces is. In even more stressful situations, like an armed bank robbery, our ability to remember is deeply compromised鈥�
David鈥檚 master interview guest on this episode of Crime Files is American attorney David Rudolf, one of the world鈥檚 most famous defence lawyers. He featured in the Netflix Documentary hit The Staircase. In interview he reveals his professional battles with detectives and criminal justice systems that will go to any lengths to convict the 鈥榳rong guy鈥� and the toll this has taken on his health and belief in justice.