the time by Lord Denning. Bodkin Adams case During the committal hearing of John Bodkin Adams on a charge of murder in January 1957, Goddard was seen dining with Sir Roland Gwynne (Mayor of Eastbourne from 1929 to 1931) and chairman of the local panel of magistrates, and ex-Attorney-General Hartley Shawcross at an hotel in Lewes: the subject of their conversation is unreported and unknown. Goddard had already appointed Patrick Devlin to try Adams's case. Three months later, on 15 April, while the jury was out discussing the verdict on Adams's first charge of murder, Goddard telephoned to Devlin to suggest to him, if Adams were found not guilty, to grant Adams bail before he was tried on a second count of murder. Devlin was at first surprised since a person accused of murder had never been given bail before in British legal history, but on consideration saw its merit, but this move has been plausibly suggested as a warning to the prosecution of strong judicial displeasure over the Attorney-General's plan to proceed with the second indictment. As Lord Chief Justice, Goddard had a responsibility for the conduct of all courts in England and Wales, from magistrates' courts to the Court of Appeal. Adams was acquitted on the first count of murder, and the second charge was controversially dropped via a nolle prosequi—an act by the prosecution that was later called by Devlin an "abuse of process", saying: "The use of nolle prosequi to conceal the deficiencies of the prosecution was an abuse of process, which left an innocent man under the suspicion that there might have been something in the talk of mass murder after all". The pathologist Francis Camps considered the deaths of up to of 163 of Adams' patients might be suspicious, but he only conducted post-mortem examinations on two of these which produced nothing of significance. The assistant investigating officer, Charles Hewett suspected political interference to ensure Adams' acquittal, rather than accepting that the police investigation was sloppy, and their case was weak. A month after Adams' trial, on 10 May 1957, Goddard heard a contempt of court case against Rolls House Publishing, publishers of Newsweek, and chain of newsagents W.H. Smith, who on 1 April during Adams's trial had respectively published and distributed an issue of the magazine containing two paragraphs of material "highly prejudicial to the accused", saying that Adams's victim count could be