By Dr Jim Cox

Percy Toplis was a rapist, murderer and army deserter who, despite his criminality, was glamourised in a BBC TV series ’The Monocled Mutineer’ and is commemorated by a blue plaque.

After a UK-wide manhunt and a bungled police chase, he was shot on the A6 near Penrith in June 1920. An inquest jury took just three minutes to decide that he was justifiably killed by the police. The officers involved were rewarded with cash and honoured by the king. What really happened? And what was the role of a civilian known locally as ’the man who shot Toplis’?

Jim Cox explores the evidence.