Act of Parliament | |
Long title | An Act to empower the Court of Queen's Bench to order certain Offenders to be tried at the Central Criminal Court. |
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Citation | 19 & 20 Vict. c. 16 |
Territorial extent | England and Wales |
Dates | |
Royal assent | 11 April 1856 |
Status: Current legislation | |
History of passage through Parliament |
The Central Criminal Court Act 1856[note 1] (19 & 20 Vict. c. 16), originally known as the Trial of Offences Act 1856 and popularly known as Palmer's Act, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Act allowed a crime committed outside the City of London or the County of Middlesex to be tried at the Central Criminal Court, the Old Bailey, rather than locally.[1]
The act was passed in direct and urgent response to anxieties that doctor and accused murderer William Palmer would not be able to have a fair trial at the assize court in his native Staffordshire because of public revulsion at the allegations. By conducting Palmer's trial at a neutral venue, there could be no appeal for a retrial on the basis that the court and jury had been prejudiced against the defendant.[1]
However, an alternative hypothesis is that Palmer was a popular figure in Rugeley and would not have been found guilty by a Staffordshire jury: the implication being that the trial location was moved for political reasons so as to secure a guilty verdict. Lord Chief Justice Campbell—the senior judge at Palmer’s trial—suggested in his autobiography that, had Palmer been tried at Stafford Assizes, he would have been found not guilty.[2]