Lifestyle

Ernest Churchman escaped the rope and a long drop to eternity after claiming his sister-in-law “provoked” him into killing her – almost severing her head from her body with a knife he had grappled with her. But the Wimbledon father was still sentenced to five years of penal servitude. Here, JAN BONDESON tells another tale of a gruesome Victorian killing which shines a light on our modern attitude to fatal levels of domestic abuse.

10 years ago – An investigation was launched after a pensioner died in a fire at her flat, a day after being released from a mental health care home.

The headquarters of Doulton & Co, one of the country’s most famous ceramics companies, can still be seen in Lambeth.