Assume Nothing

BBC Radio Ulster

4.4 (151)
TRUE CRIME
SERIES

The teams assume nothing as they examine events through fresh eyes.

EPISODE 1

1. A Man in His Usual Health

The story of Dr William Jackson Crawford, an engineer and teacher, who carried out a series of strange experiments with a teenage medium and her family before his untimely death on the shores of Belfast lough in 1920. Dr Crawford’s findings were extraordinary and widely published – but was it all a hoax? Episode 1 – A Man in His Usual Health. The body of a man is found on a rocky shore near Bangor, Northern Ireland. In his pockets are a sealed letter to his wife, a silver watch stopped at 7.50 and a small bottle of whiskey. Dr Crawford was a respected engineer, but in the years before his death he carried out a series of elaborate and increasingly unusual experiments – to prove that Belfast teenager Kathleen Goligher could communicate with the dead. Written and presented by Reggie Chamberlain King Readings by Dave Fleming Lucy McConnell Mark Claney Stephen Beggs Produced by Conor McKay Editor Andy Martin A BBC Northern Ireland production

12 min
EPISODE 2

2. The Unseen Operators

The story of Dr William Jackson Crawford, an engineer and teacher, who carried out a series of strange experiments with a teenage medium and her family before his untimely death on the shores of Belfast lough in 1920. Dr Crawford’s findings were extraordinary and widely published – but was it all a hoax? Episode 2 – The Unseen Operators Dr Crawford invites a visitor to attend a séance with Kathleen and her family, known as the Goligher Circle. Sir William Barrett, a highly respected physicist and parapsychologist, is astonished when a wooden table appears to float into the air. Meanwhile, nearly one hundred years later – Reggie Chamberlain King’s plans to give a lecture about Dr Crawford and Kathleen Goligher are disrupted when a protest is announced. Readings by Dave Fleming Lucy McConnell Mark Claney Stephen Beggs Produced by Conor McKay Editor Andy Martin A BBC Northern Ireland production

14 min

See All Season 33 (2)

Dave Fleming

Guest
Lucy McConnell

Guest
Mark Claney

Guest
Stephen Beggs

Guest

4.4

out of 5

151 Ratings

Misleading title

31/10/2025

Raxo1983

I liked this a lot but at no point does the presenter/journalist properly delineate why these boys are defined as satanists. I’m not saying there wasn’t evidence of satanic practice, but in a world of hyper Christian fundamentalism, and the stains of Satanic panic still haunting a lot of discourse, it seems a bit reckless to mention Satanism so boldly in the title without then clearly defining the ways in which this group was actively ‘satanic’. The tenets of satanism actually say not to hurt others.
Radiation Holiday

11 Apr

Jo3782

Loved the Radiation Holiday episodes. Such a moving and surprising story.
Storming Spy Ring

20 Jan

Blogsc

Why spoil a perfectly good podcast with incessant heavy guitar music. It made the podcast impossible to listen to.
Series 1 Episode 1. Did The Right Man Hang.

18 Jan

Selective user.

This appears to be just another conspiracy theory, without any actual evidence to substantiate the opinions of those concerned. I never heard any direct evidence to prove that he didn’t hang or that he didn’t murder the woman. If the theory is to believed, why would any doctor in his right mind attempt an illegal home abortion of an eight month pregnancy. Even in 1933 it would be beyond belief. That would result in the death of a child, capable of existence outside of the womb. I personally cannot believe that part of the story. That is completely horrifying. The remainder of the evidence provided is purely gossip and hearsay without any positive corroboration. Also, if he didn’t hang, then somebody did so in his place and that in itself is murder. That would take a conspiracy, that big it would need the cooperation of so many people, it would have eventually been exposed. This podcast never got even near to that. Other than by hearsay conflicting gossip. It sounds like just another Irish folk law story. It’s probably stories like this over the years that help to keep Irish sectarianism alive. Also, badly presented with too much, irrelevant, presenters personal detail and with too many unwarranted sound effects and ancillary noisy distractions. I certainly didn’t wish to hear the sound effect of the Irish upheaval. Or the continuous annoying background music and other distracting noises. Most of all it was so difficult to identify who you were listening to or what they were actually trying to say. There were so many different directions and contradictions. Nothing I heard, convince me to believe, that he wasn’t guilty and hanged, based on the available tools of investigation and legal processes of the time. We can always go back over things in the past and apply present day methods and throw doubt of certain processes. However, without the new methods and processes, one has to use what is available at the time. What the podcast revealed was a lot of totally unreliable information and you cannot disprove the official result with that. Maybe it’s a shame you weren’t around with your modern technology then. Even without the aid of social media, in those days, gossip and conspiracies circulated like wildfire. Especially, when it was remotely related to anything to do with the growing sectarianism in the country. And, in this case such a large scale conspiracy would definitely have been pointing towards one side or the other. I must stress, that this is purely my opinion, based on what I deduced from listening to all episodes of this podcast.