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Evidential onus in the criminal law was defined in the English House of Lords case Woolmington v DPP [1935] AC 462. In his speech on behalf of the Lords, Viscount Sankey set out the details of 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 what I have already said as to the defence of insanity and subject also to any statutory exception. If, at the end of and on the whole of the case, there is a reasonable doubt, created by the evidence given by either the prosecution or the prisoner, as to whether the prisoner killed the deceased with a malicious intention, the prosecution has not made out the case and the prisoner is entitled to an acquittal. 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 dealing with a murder case the Crown must prove (a) death as the result of a voluntary act of the accused and (b) malice of the accused.”

It is arguable that the golden thread metaphor was based on the myth of Ariadne, where a thread was laid down by the mythical Ariadne in order to find her way back out of a labyrinth in which she feared she might become lost. Part of their Lordships’ genius in the discovery of new common law is the resort to the firm ground of mythical archetypes on which to ground their reasoning.

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