"In Hammersmith there lived a shoemaker named John Graham. His apprentices had been frightening his three children with ghost stories. To teach these apprentices a lesson, Graham decided to frighten the apprentices with a trick of his own. He made a ghost costume and ran the streets of Hammersmith at night intending to frighten his apprentices. Some began speculating the ghost was that of a man who had committed suicide a year earlier. His remains had been interred in the cemetery of the local church. A brewer's servant, Thomas Groom, later testified that, while walking through the churchyard with a companion one night, close to 9:00 pm, something rose from behind a tombstone and seized him by the throat. Hearing the scuffle, his companion turned around, at which the ghost "gave me a twist round, and I saw nothing; I gave a bit of a push out with my fist, and felt something soft, like a great coat." The panic quickly gave way to mass hysteria as more tales of the ghost’s attacks were told. Sightings became a nightly occurrence. Soon, a group of young men took to patrolling the streets of Hammersmith at night, seeking to put an end to this reign of terror before any further harm was done. Among them was a 29-year-old excise officer, Francis Smith. On 3 January 1804, Smith was on patrol, armed with a shotgun. Just after 11:00 pm, Smith encountered Thomas Millwood, a bricklayer who was wearing the normal white clothing of his trade: "linen trousers" entirely white, washed very clean, a waistcoat of flannel, apparently new, very white, and an apron, which he wore round him". Millwood had been heading home from a visit to his parents and sister, who lived in Black Lion Lane. According to Anne Millwood, the bricklayer's sister, immediately after seeing her brother off, she heard Smith challenge him, saying "Damn you; who are you and what are you? Damn you, I'll shoot you." after which Smith shot him in the left of the lower jaw and killed him. At the The Lord Chief Baron observed that Smith had neither acted in self-defence nor shot Millwood by accident; he had not been provoked by the supposed apparition, nor had he attempted to apprehend it. Millwood had not committed any offence to justify being shot, and even if the supposed ghost had been shot, it would not have been acceptable, as frightening people while pretending to be a ghost was not a serious felony, but a far less serious misdemeanour, meriting only a small fine. The judge closed his remarks by reminding the jury that the previous good character of the accused meant nothing in this case. Macdonald directed the jury to find the accused guilty of murder if they believed the facts presented by the witnesses. After considering for an hour the jury returned a verdict of manslaughter. Macdonald informed the jury that "the Court could not receive such a verdict", and that they must either find Smith guilty of murder, or acquit him; that Smith believed Millwood was a ghost was irrelevant. The jury then returned with a verdict of guilty. After passing the customary sentence of death Macdonald said that he intended to report the case to the King, who had the power to commute the sentence. The initial sentence of hanging and dissection was commuted to a year's hard labour. John Graham, the shoemaker, was never recorded to have been punished. The question of whether acting on a mistaken belief was a sufficient defence to a criminal charge was debated for more than a century until it was clarified at the Court of Appeal in the case R. v Williams (Gladstone) (1984), concerning an appeal heard in November 1983. The defendant, in this case, Gladstone Williams, witnessed a man dragging a youth across the ground. He thought the young man was being attacked and intervened. In doing so he inflicted serious injury to the person he assumed was the attacker. It was soon revealed that Williams had interrupted the apprehension of the youth who had committed theft. He was initially found guilty of assault, however, Williams appealed the verdict. His appeal was successful and the flawed legal code was finally corrected and the correction was written into law, stating that “if an individual believed mistakenly that force was necessary to protect him or herself or to prevent a crime being committed, then so long as that belief was reasonably held and the prosecution could not prove otherwise, no crime could be said to have taken place.” The 180-year-old question from the trial of Francis Smith finally had an answer." https://londonist.com/london/features/hammersmith-ghost-story-murder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammersmith_Ghost_murder_case?wprov=sfla1