Woolmington v DPP [1935] AC 462 is a landmark House of Lords case, where the presumption of innocence was re-consolidated (for application across the Commonwealth).

In criminal law the case identifies the metaphorical "golden thread" running through that domain of the presumption of innocence.

At his first trial, heard at the Taunton Assizes in January 1935, Woolmington made for the first time his claim about the gun accidentally discharging.

The trial judge, Mr Justice Finlay directed the jury that: The case for the prosecution is deliberate shooting.

[This quote needs a citation]In other words, they must acquit if the prosecution had failed to prove Woolmington's guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

[2] At the Bristol Assizes, Judge Swift ruled that the case was so strong against him that the burden of proof was on him to show that the shooting was accidental.

Lord Justice Avory refused leave to appeal, relying on a passage of Foster's Crown Law (1762): In every charge of murder, the fact of killing being first proved, all the circumstances of accident, necessity, or infirmity are to be satisfactorily proved by the prisoner, unless they arise out of the evidence produced against him; for the law presumeth the fact to have been founded in malice, until the contrary appeareth.

Stating the judgment for a unanimous Court, Viscount Sankey made his famous "Golden thread" speech: Throughout the web of the English Criminal Law one golden thread is always to be seen that it is the duty of the prosecution to prove the prisoner's guilt subject to... the defence of insanity and subject also to any statutory exception.

No matter what the charge or where the trial, the principle that the prosecution must prove the guilt of the prisoner is part of the common law of England and no attempt to whittle it down can be entertained.

When it was announced that his conviction was quashed, contemporary newspaper reports indicate that Woolmington simply stood there stupefied, unable to understand what was happening.