The Wreckers

In January 2007 the MSC Napoli ran aground, spilling its cargo on a Devon beach. Opportunists plundered the ship's booty while the authorities struggled to police the scene. But the looters of the Napoli were reviving a tradition that stretched back centuries: wrecking. Author Bella Bathurst goes in search of the wreckers, in an epic journey that takes her from the Isles of Scilly to the Orkney Islands, from the Middle Ages to the 21st century, and from dramatic mythology to the remarkable social history of a national crime. 3/6.