File(s) not publicly available
'Ideal home' or 'house of horror'? Domestic murder scenes in post-war London
This paper uses case files for murder trials at the Old Bailey in the 1950s and 60s to examine the ways in which police, judicial system, and press ‘read’ and represented home spaces that were also scenes of crime. I argue that contemporary imaginings of the ‘ideal home’ influenced recording and interpretation of homes in this period as never before, frequently creating bias against victims and defendants alike who failed to meet or maintain a domestic ideal that was framed as British, private, and increasingly family-centred. Though the science of the crime scene, of forensics and ‘trace’ analysis were developing apace in this period, pushing investigations into the laboratory, these techniques were slow to overtake more established readings of home spaces in cases of domestic murder. Rather I argue that the ways that people lived in their homes and organised them remained key to police in determining a narrative that explained who killed, why, and how criminal or culpable they were. I explore the ways in which police, court and press interpreted and explained the scenes of domestic murders, highlighting evidence of strategies for negotiating comfort, privacy, security and safety, in places inhabited by people for whom the ‘ideal’ of the suburban semi was less accessible.
History
Publication status
- Published
Presentation Type
- paper
Event name
European Social Science History ConferenceEvent location
University of Valencia, SpainEvent type
conferenceEvent date
30 March - 02 April 2016Department affiliated with
- History Publications
Full text available
- No
Peer reviewed?
- No
Legacy Posted Date
2016-10-13Usage metrics
Categories
No categories selectedKeywords
Licence
Exports
RefWorks
BibTeX
Ref. manager
Endnote
DataCite
NLM
DC