Daily Casefile · Verdict
Sweet Secrets at Thornbury Mill
≈ 4 min
On the afternoon of 12 August 2026, Thornbury Mill's head chocolatier discovered that binder TC-04 — containing the classified Peruvian-Madagascan cacao blend ratios and annotated conching schedules — had been removed from the archive shelf, photographed, and returned. Image metadata traced the transmission to a mobile device registered to Felix Carne, who was on shift that afternoon. Carne insists he was operating Conching Machine 2 the entire time and never entered the archive room. The jury must decide whether the evidence supports the charge or whether the transmission can be explained another way.
Subject
Felix Carne, junior conching technician at Thornbury Mill
Charged with Industrial espionage — photographing proprietary conching schedules and single-origin blend ratios from the locked archive room and transmitting them to a rival confectionery firm
The scene
Thornbury Mill Artisan Chocolatiers, a converted watermill in rural Devon, England, present day — comprising a roasting room, a conching hall with three machines running continuously, a climate-controlled tempering gallery, and a small locked archive room where master recipes are stored in numbered binders.
The witnesses
- Hazel Drummond — Head Chocolatier and Co-Owner, Thornbury Mill
- Rory Spain — Sales Representative, Brandt & Fallow Confections
- Nadia Cork — Mobile Plant Maintenance Engineer, contracted to Thornbury Mill
- Tom Birch — Thornbury Mill Delivery Driver
Play today’s Verdict.
This case first aired on August 18, 2026. A fresh verdict runs every morning — same rules, five minutes, one solution.