Beddingfeld (Sad Cypress)

In the novel Sad Cypress, Mr Justice Beddingfeld is the judge who presided over the trial of Elinor Carlisle for the murder of Mary Gerrard.

In his summing up at the end of the trial he highlighted the alternatives presented by the defence, in particular that someone else could have committed the murder. He drew the jury's attention to facts uncovered by Poirot in the course of his investigations. In particular the fragment of label purported by the prosecution to be for "morphine hydrochloride" was, according to the expert witness James Littledale actually for the emetic "apomorphine hydrochloride. Moreover the prosecution witness had claimed to have pricked her wrist on a rose bush but the defence witness Alfred Wargrave had shown that she had lied because the rose bush at that location did not have thorns. Mr Justice Beddingfeld instructed the jury that if they find that alternative hypothesis and killer (as developed by Poirot) and presented by the defence to be consistent with the evidence, then the accused must be acquitted.

Note that in some editions, such as HarperCollins, the name of the judge is spelled "Beddingfield".

Portrayals
In ITV's 2003 film adaptation of Sad Cypress, there is a judge portrayed by Timothy Carlton but the name of the judge is not given.