The Establishment versus Sidney Harry Fox

Sidney Harry Fox was a thief, a conman and a forger who was devoted to his elderly mother Rosaline. He was also a male prostitute, openly gay at a dangerous time, who had slept with and accepted money from elderly army officers and titled gentlemen. Together he and his mother travelled around the country defrauding hotels, owning little more than the clothes they stood up in. Towards the very end of the roaring 1920s, this odd penniless pair were in a Margate hotel room. It was the era of flappers, big jazz bands and the Wall Street Crash. A fire broke out in Room 66 where Rosaline Fox was asleep, and she was found dead. The inquest returned a verdict of death by misadventure and she was quickly buried. But nine days later the famous pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury was asked to exhume the body. What he claimed to find remains today one of the most controversial pieces of evidence ever put forward in a murder trial.