The only 'modern’ example of a Practitioner from within the Criminal justice system (CJS) being subjected to Capital punishment - although several others, including Solicitors, Police officers, Prison officers and Justices of the Peace (JPs) have, since the Abolition of Capital punishment, been given a Sentence of Life Imprisonment for Murder; whilst, in former times, many Officials, Judges or Lawyers Suffered thus due to the Political wind.

Armstrong was a solicitor and the part-time Justices' clerk at Hay-on-Wye in the Welsh Borders (hence Aka ‘The Hay Poisoner’); and originally from Newton Abbot, Devon. He went to the Gallows at Gloucester Prison in utter Denial, his last words being, ‘I am Innocent of the Crime for which I am about to die’. He virtually 'got away with murder' - but attracted Suspicion / a Whispering campaign after a rival solicitor, the local inspector of taxes (see, now, Revenue and Customs) and other acquaintances fell ill after being entertained by him on separate occasions; followed by the Exhumation of Mrs. Katherine Armstrong’s Body - a full 12 months after her funeral. The body was found by Bernard Spilsbury the Pathologist to contain traces of Arsenic (and see, generally, Poison); then a common ingredient of cosmetics, medicines and used neat as a weedkiller; causing some Commentators to excuse Armstrong on the basis of Contamination, others to regard him as having been Insane.

R v. Armstrong (1922 35 Cr. App. Rep. 72) remained a leading Ruling of the Court of Appeal re Evidence of Similar facts until the Criminal Justice Act 2003, following which this may need to be reconsidered. The Events have been the subject of various books (such as Exhumation of a Murder: The Life and Times of Major Armstrong (2006), Odell, R, Mandrake Press; and The Hay Poisoner: Herbert Rowse Armstrong (1988), Beale M, Robert Hale Ltd. (Beale, a solicitor himself, having acquired Armstrong’s former home, Mayfield at Cussop Dingle, near Hay). A not dissimilar Trial took place two years earlier when Harold Greenwood secured an Acquittal – some people discerning doubtful Influences at work to avoid repetition of that Outcome; not least in the scheduling of a 'no-nonsense' trial Judge, Mr. Justice Darling; to whom Armstrong is said to have attempted to give Freemasonry signals.

Other intrigues include: a 'dark lady' whom Armstrong visited in London (said to be a member of the Hampshire brewing family/dynasty, the Gales); vagueness re Armstrong's background save that he attended Cambridge University and was called up into the British Army as a captain on the outbreak of the First World War; and a Debate re whether he also killed his first partner in his Hay practice, the aging Mr. Cheese. See also generally, Crippen, Hawley Harvey; Maybrick, Florence; Palmer, William; and for a justices’ clerk as a Victim of murder, Giffard, Miles.