Office clerk Albert Smith staggered out of the accounts office at Messrs. Cook in Nottingham city centre, clutching his chest. Ive been shot and robbed, he gasped. He was taken to hospital, where he died shortly afterwards but not before naming his attacker.
Next morning, Sunday, NOVEMBER 4th, 1906, William Sanday, a 23-year-old factory worker, was arrested at his home. Police found a loaded revolver under his pillow.
Before he died Smith had said that Sanday tried to chloroform him, then strangle him, then hit him with an iron bar. As he fell to the floor Sanday rifled his pockets and found the key of the safe.
At Nottingham Assizes the judge made it clear that the motive was robbery and the crime was murder and nothing else. Incredibly, though, the jury voted only for manslaughter, and before Sanday was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment the court heard that he had a previous conviction for robbing a bank.