It was New Year's Eve 1823, and a horse-drawn carriage bearing three officers of the law with a warrant for the arrest of a doctor who had not paid his court fine arrived in the parish of Shenley.

By the time the men left, the following day, a volunteer policeman from the village had been killed and the respected surgeon was facing a charge of murder and the hangman's noose. Special constable James Grainge, a shoemaker from Shenley Hill, was shot by Dr Patrick Connolly when he tried to apprehend him at Rabley House, in Rabley Park, off Packhorse Lane.

A journalist and historian from Shenley, Michael McEnhill, has studied the facts of this unfortunate incident as they were described in newspaper reports of Connolly's trial in Hertford.

The doctor, who lived and practised in Brighton, had been taken to court for defamation of character and ordered to pay £500 compensation, but he went on the run to avoid the bill.

He arrived at Rabley House, the home of one Captain Nestor, and Mr Stephens, a London attorney, Thomas Watson, a sheriff's officer, and Mr Dignam, his assistant, were sent to arrest him.

When the lawmen arrived at the door, Mrs Brown, a naval officer's widow who was in charge of the house in the captain's absence, told them she had never heard of Dr Connolly.

Mr Watson ordered her to let them in, and, when she refused, kicked the door and dislodged a pane of glass, which revealed that the doctor was standing with her in the hallway.

Watson declared him to be his prisoner and Connolly responded by thrusting first a braising iron and then a pitchfork through the door, which injured the sheriff's officer and his assistant.

The fugitive then called on a labourer in the house, Hugh Moran, to go out and get a gun from the nearby farm: "Shoot them, stick them, throw them into the pond!"

While the officers were still trying to break down the door, the gun was passed to a servant through the cellar window, and Connolly appeared with it at a first floor window.

By this time the local magistrate had been informed of the incident, and had sworn in several special constables, including Mr Grainge, to form a posse to catch the doctor.

After further attempts to get into the house, Mr Grainge told Connolly to give himself up, but he replied by threatening to shoot the first person who entered.

Mr Grainge was told to do his duty and began striking the door with an axe, but, within seconds, a gunshot sounded and he fell back with a severe wound to his arm.

The father-of-four was initially taken to the White Horse Inn, in Shenley Road, for treatment, and, after more men joined the posse at Rabley House, Connolly surrendered.

Of the incident, Mr McEnhill said: "I picture a rapidly disintegrating scene and Connolly losing his head it was chaotic with people running around with pitchforks."

The prisoners, Connolly and Moran, were kept under guard in the Cage, next to the village pond, overnight, and statements were taken from witnesses in the White Horse.

Mr Grainge died at his home at 3pm on New Year's Day, after an operation to amputate his arm, and the two prisoners later appeared at Hertford assizes.

Because the warrant had been improperly issued, Connolly escaped execution and was transported to Australia, while Moran was sentenced to six months of hard labour.

Mr McEnhill, of New Road, wrote a prize-winning article about the murder for the magazine Hertfordshire Countryside.