Edgar Lustgarten used to open his hugely popular True Crime BBC programme in the 1950s with the words "Have you ever murdered anyone? Perhaps you'd rather not say". Up to six million listeners tuned in every week to hear Lustgarten drily recount the details of major trials. It is probably fair to say that he invented the True Crime audio genre.

The Chiron True Crime series was recorded by Lustgarten in a London studio in Dolby quality in 1976. Lustgarten's voice is austere but not without wit, gripping yet somehow addictive. The voice of a top Barrister presenting the facts of the case with the hangman's noose waiting silently in the shadows.

"Norman Birkett was an advocate who was always happier when defending, says Edgar Lustgarten, but he did not flinch from appearing for the Crown. On such occasions he could be deadly but always scrupulously fair. Both characteristics were to the fore in the case of Alfred Arthur Rouse.
Both by what he did and by what he refrained from doing, Birkett provided a model for all aspiring prosecutors. Whether the owner of that now legendary burnt-out car would have got away with murder against a less formidable opponent has been debated ever since his eventful trial."