their independent post mortem reports that there were no traces of poison or glass in Percy Thompson's body should have been proof of the fantasy defence. One of her main lines of defence, that she was constantly seeking a divorce or separation from her husband, and that it rather than murder was the main object of the attested five-year compact between her and Bywaters shown in her letters, was dismissed by the Judge as a sham. "If you think these letters are genuine, they mean that she is involved in a continual practice of deceit; concealing the fact of her connection with Bywaters, and not reiterating it with requests for her husband to let her go." Filson Young argues that the Defence used the wrong tactics. He said: "If the defence had said on behalf of Mrs. Thompson, 'I did not murder Percy Thompson, I had nothing to do with it. I had no knowledge of it, and I was stunned and horrified when it took place, and I defy the prosecution to introduce any evidence with which that denial is not absolutely compatible,' and had rested on that, I do not think you could have found a British jury to convict her." There is undoubtedly an air of a presumption of guilt surrounding her trial. However, Young's point, that the burden of proof was on the Crown, to prove murder, rather than on the Defence to rebut a presumption of murder, is certainly a valid one. The Judge, Mr. Justice Shearman, placed much weight on inconsistencies in her evidence, particularly her statements to the police concerning the night of the murder that suggested she had intended to conceal her witness of the crime, and perhaps conversations of criminal intent with Bywaters preceding it, although she always vigorously denied foreknowledge of it. In The Innocence of Edith Thompson, Lewis Broad states that the Judge's summing up was considered to be at the time "deadly, absolutely against her" and that he 'was pressing the case much more strongly than the Solicitor-General had done.' The Defence did succeed in some points, showing that guesswork by the prosecution over ambiguous content of some of the letters was fanciful and wrong. An autopsy on Percy Thompson had failed to reveal any evidence that he had been fed ground glass or any type of detectable poison. That her letters did not necessarily reflect her deeds