The verdict of you all

In 1951 the novelist Rupert Croft-Cooke was convicted of an act of gross indecency with another male person and sentenced to nine months imprisonment, of which he served six months in Wormwood Scrubs and Brixton prisons. Three days after his release on 10th April 1952 he had a visit from a stranger warning him that he could easily find himself charged and convicted again if he wrote about how his previous conviction had been brought about - so he went to Morocco and wrote about the events in The Verdict of You All.

Croft-Cooke wrote that he felt that his conviction and imprisonment did not hinder his career. Indeed he wrote that he was glad that it had all happened because he had learned a great deal of the best and worst of human nature. "It has been the most immensely worthwhile experience in my life" (Chapter 14, section 7). Nearly sixty of his books were published over the next two decades.