Imagining A Murder: The Cartland Case Revisited

In the early hours of Monday, 19th March 1973, the mutilated body of British businessman and academic John Basil Cartland was discovered on waste ground near the town of Pelissanne in the south of France. Why would anyone wish to murder Mr Cartland and in such brutal fashion?

Described as a ‘Brighton headmaster’ over the coming days and weeks a picture of an exceptionally complex individual would emerge. Cartland was a man with a past - a very colourful past.

Suspicion eventually fell upon his son Jeremy who had been travelling with his father through France on the night of the murder. Had a son killed his father? The story made headlines around the world throughout and beyond 1973.

Vengeance, lies and political machinations, ‘Imagining a Murder’ relates a gripping story of human frailty and betrayal.