SEVENTY years ago Rawtenstall witnessed its first recorded murder.

Margaret Allen, known as Maggie, confessed to a brutal attack on Nancy Ellen Chadwick. She was beaten about the head, leaving her skull partially caved in.

Now a new book on the murder, written by researcher Denise Beddows, has unearthed discrepancies in the case, including evidence the police seemingly discounted and never shared with the defence and an alibi that was never debunked.

Rawtenstall Cricket Club's clubhouse overlooks where Maggie’s tiny rundown corner house stood – and the road where Nancy’s body was discovered.

The book asks whether she would have been treated differently had this case happened today – and was she even guilty?

Author Denise said: “As a child we would visit the Rossendale Valley to escape the grey working class area of Manchester where I was brought up.

“Like Maggie, my mother had also been a bus conductor during the war years.

“The lack of any apparent motive led me to investigate the case further; however my discoveries prompted more questions than they provided answers.”

Maggie was transgender and liked to be known as Bill. The former bus conductor dressed as a man and was described by some as ‘abnormal’.

She was close to divorcee Annie Cook and they had holidayed together in Blackpool, signing in as ‘Mr and Mrs Allen’.

Nancy’s body was discovered on Bacup Road, Rawtenstall, in the early hours of Sunday August 29 1948. Bloody drag marks could be seen leading the few feet from Maggie’s home to where the body lay.

Just three days, later Maggie gave a statement to police admitting her guilt.

She said she attacked Nancy, a landlady, and bloodstains were found inside Maggie’s house on Bacup Road.

But Maggie and her supposed victim shared the same blood group.

The motive was believed to be robbery, as the victim was rumoured to carry a lot of cash, but no money was ever found.

Denise’s book ‘Odd Man Out – A Motiveless Murder?’ raises a number of questions, in particular whether the police were too quick to accept Maggie’s confession.

Eight witnesses said they saw the victim alive after the time Maggie claimed to have murdered her, while a further seven gave statements about Maggie’s whereabouts, contradicting her confession.

On December 8 1948 at her trial at Manchester Assize Court, she never took to the witness stand and a plea of insanity was rejected.

A jury of nine men and three women took 15 minutes to find her guilty and she was sentenced to death. Although appeals for clemency were made on her behalf, she never appealed personally.

On January 12 1949 she was executed while a crowd of 2,000 gathered outside Strangeways in Manchester. She was made to wear a prison dress, not her usual male clothing.

Among the onlookers was Violet Van der Elst, who used a loudspeaker to protest against capital punishment just as she had done at many similar executions. She would do so again in 1955 when Ruth Ellis became the last woman to hang in Britain.

In April 1948 the House of Commons voted for a five year suspension of the death penalty, but that was overturned in November of that year. It was not until November 1965 that it was finally suspended and then abolished in December 1969.

Rossendale Civic Trust has arranged for Denise to be interviewed by journalist Catherine Smyth at Rawtenstall Cricket Club on August 28, 70 years to the day since the murder took place.