After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal

In a century of poisoners, William Palmer stands out as the prince of them all. Charles Dickens called him "the greatest villain that ever stood in the Old Bailey".

Maddy tells Anthony the story this …

 Why do people kill in the season of goodwill? Why are we fascinated when they do? And what does it say about us?

Professor David Wilson, leading criminologist and bestselling author, joins Maddy and …

The Red Barn Murder in 1827 was ground zero for true crime podcasts. It become one of the first cases to explode in the media and caused a national sensation. It had everything - sex, murder and a gh…

We talk the ghost of Anne Boleyn, Queen of England before Henry VIII chopped off her head, with the marvellous Tracy Borman.

Where can Anne Boleyn's ghost be seen? What form does it take? And why does…

Sex, Satanism and Scandal surrounded the Hellfire Club that operated out of a network of caves in the country estate of 18th century aristocrat Francis Dashwood. The most powerful men in the country …

Some estimates have it that Amelia Dyer killed more than 400 babies. It's hard to say for sure because so few victims were recovered. She was a phantom that grew up in a very dark corner of Victorian…

Have you ever wondered what the ancient origins of witchcraft is? How did the black-hat-broomstick stereotype emerge? And what causes the waves of witch trials throughout history, right up to the pre…

The Victorians created the unsettling art of death photography - posing their deceased love ones in family portraits as if they were alive. How did they manage to make corpses strike poses? Why did t…

Did a Tudor prophetess correctly predict the English Civil War, the Crimean War, the sinking of the Titanic, World War One and the end of days? And what does she have to do with turning teddy bears i…

Witch hunts blazed across Europe from the 1400s right into the 1700s. Their terror has been burned into the collective memory. But how accurate are the pictures we have in our heads?

For this episode,…

For Albert Pierrepoint, execution was a family affair. His father and uncle were hangmen and from the 1940s until the late 1950s Albert was Britain's "Number One" executioner. Which meant he was the …

What is spectrophilia? Well, it's a fetish for ghosts (as well as mirrors), so being turned on by anything lurking in the non-physical realm. What are the historic origins of this fetish and phenomen…

What lurks beneath the dark waters of Loch Ness? The legendary monster? A piece of Celtic folklore? A warning of the Nazis' rise to power? A fraudster?

Today Anthony and Maddy are examining grainy pho…

Other countries celebrate their victories and independence. But in Britain, we celebrate a bungling terrorist from the 17th century. Why? Who was Guy Fawkes? What was the Gunpowder Plot? And why must…

Can it be murder if you think you're killing a ghost? In 1804 the London suburb of Hammersmith was being terrorised by a ghost. One man set out to hunt down whoever, or whatever, this was. He almost …

Bodmin Jail can claim to be one of the most haunted buildings in Britain. Perhaps that's because of all the hangings that took place here. Or the postmortem punishment the jail dolled out to prisoner…

In 1727, Janet Horne of the Highland community of Dornoch became the last person in Britain to be tried and executed for witchcraft.

As the poet Edwin Morgan put it; They tarred her and feathered her,…

Today Siobhán McSweeney (Derry Girls) joins Anthony Delaney and Maddy Pelling for the story of the Banshee. In Irish folklore the Banshee heralds the death of a family member, usually by shrieking, o…

Was ever a ship more aptly named? In 1845, HMS Terror (and its forgettably named sister ship HMS Erebus) set off from Victorian Britain. Their quest was to discover the fabled Northwest passage throu…

They’re the most famous grave-robbers in the world…except they never actually robbed any graves. Discover the true story of Burke and Hare’s murderous rampage through the streets of Edinburgh, all to…