“I’m going to meet two nice soldiers,” servant girl Vera Glasspool, 15, told a colleague as she went off duty from the country house where she worked in Baybridge, Hampshire. Her mother, who had overheard her, said, “Don’t be so stupid.”

Next day, Tuesday, July 10th, 1917, Vera’s body was found a short walk away. Her throat was cut and she had been partly strangled with her coat sleeve. Her clothing was disarranged.

There was no direct evidence of rape or any other marks of violence on her body. The police theory was that she had consented to some foreplay but was killed when she refused to have full sex.