In 1885, a five-year-old boy fell into the Grand Surrey Canal in Deptford and nearly drowned. Two strangers dived in and saved his life.

Twenty-three years later, a detective-sergeant stood up in the Central Criminal Court and called that same boy — now a man, five foot four, twenty-five convictions to his name — the most violent and dangerous man in South London. The inhabitants of Deptford, he said, were terrorised by him.

His name was Maurice Brown. What happened between the canal and the courtroom is a story of poverty, violence, drink, and a system that processed him without ever understanding him. This is his story, told through the records that survived him.