Episode Three: The Runaway

Seventeen year-old John Bean worked as a newsvendor in London. His disability - an acute case of curvature of the spine – meant that throughout his life he had been the target of cruel discrimination. In mid-June 1842, just before his 18th birthday, and days after John Francis’s attempt on the Queen, Bean ran away from home. Presenter Bob Nicholson finds a letter John wrote to his parents telling them he’d run away but promising to stay on the straight and narrow – no matter how bad things got. ‘It will be useless to seek for me as I am determined never to be at home again.’ We discover that he then bought a flintlock pistol that was later described by the shopkeeper as ‘very old, rather rusty, but it could be discharged’ – it might be falling apart but it could fire a lethal shot. John Bean lived rough on the streets and hung around Buckingham Palace waiting for Victoria to appear. Dr Bob Nicholson traces John’s story, by scouring police archives, newspaper s and trial transcripts. He uncovers a tragic and gripping tale.