ABOVE: ORIGINAL OIL PAINTING BY IN- HOUSE GLOUCESTERSHIRE ARTIST PAUL BRIDGMAN HERE ON DISPLAY AT THE JAIL WITHIN OUR ” DARK TOURIST ART GALLERY ”
ABOVE : ORIGINAL OIL PAINTING BY OUR IN-HOUSE GLOUCESTERSHIRE ARTIST PAUL BRIDGMAN DEPICTING THE FAILED ATTEMPT TO HANG JOHN “BABBARCOMBE” LEE IN EXETER PRISON.
THIS PAINTING NOW BEING HERE ON DISPLAY AT THE JAIL.
FIRSTLY, AND FOR THE RECORD
A FORMAL STATEMENT FROM ANDY JONES, OWNER & CURATOR OF THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION HERE AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL ……
IT HAD BEEN BROUGHT TO OUR ATTENTION THAT THE HIT CHANNEL 4 TV SERIES – FOUR ROOMS, FIRST BROADCAST AT THE END OF MAY 2011, FEATURED FELLOW CRIME MEMORABILIA COLLECTOR STEWART P EVANS, AUTHOR OF THE 2004 PUBLICATION OF THE BOOK ENTITLED “EXECUTIONER- THE CHRONICLES OF JAMES BERRY VICTORIAN HANGMAN” . HE TOOK ONTO THE SHOW A SO-SAY JAMES BERRY HANGMAN’S NOOSE CLAIMING IT TO HAVE BEEN THE ORIGINAL ONE USED ON BERRY’S FAILED EXECUTION OF JOHN ” BABBACOMBE ” LEE ON JULY 23RD 1885 AT EXETER JAIL .
WE WISH TO MAKE IT ABUNDANTLY CLEAR THAT THIS WAS NOT THE NOOSE USED, AND THAT THE ORIGINAL HANGMAN’S NOOSE , ALONG WITH A PERSONALLY HANDWRITTEN AND SIGNED LETTER FROM JAMES BERRY TO THIS EFFECT,DATED 3 JULY 1897(WRITEN DURING HIS RETIREMENT YEARS ) ARE HERE AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL ON PUBLIC DISPLAY . (SEE ORIGINAL NOOSE AND LETTER PICTURES HERE ABOVE & BELOW FOR REFERENCE )
THESE EXHIBIT ITEMS WERE PURCHASED AT AUCTION BY THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION BACK IN THE YEAR 2000. STEWART HAD ALSO ATTENDED THE AUCTION WITH A VIEW TO PURCHASE BUT WAS SUBSEQUENTLY OUTBID BY OURSELVES .
THE PROPOSED SALE OF THE OTHER NOOSE OWNED BY STEWART P EVANS FAILED TO SELL ON THE CHANNEL 4 TV SERIES “FOUR ROOMS” . THIS WAS PROBABLY DUE TO KNOWLEDGE THAT THE ORIGINAL NOOSE AND LETTER OF PROVENANCE FROM THE EXECUTIONER -JAMES BERRY WERE KNOWN TO BE HERE ON PERMANENT DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL, UK .
ON A PERSONAL LEVEL ANDY JONES WISHES TO ADD IT WAS DISAPPOINTING TO NOTE THAT WITH FELLOW CRIME MEMORABILIA COLLECTOR AND FORMER POLICE OFFICER STEWART EVANS HAVING KNOWINGLY BEEN AWARE OF THESE FACTS, HE STILL SADLY TRIED TO DECEIVE TV SHOW PRODUCERS , THE VIEWING PUBLIC , AND OTHER FELLOW COLLECTORS OF CRIME MEMORABILIA .
REF: ORIGINAL JAMES BERRY CALLING/BUSINESS CARD
FURTHERMORE & FOR THE RECORD WE WOULD WISH TO ALSO ADD THAT WE HAVE HERE ON DIPLAY AN ORIGINAL JAMES BERRY PUBLIC EXECUTIONER CALLING/BUSINESS CARD . ( SEE BELOW)
AS AUTHOR STEWART P EVANS WILL ALSO AGREE AND ACCEPT ANDY JONES OF THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION HAD ORIGINALLY INTRODUCED HIM TO THE FORMER OWNER OF THIS CALLING CARD – JOE MAWSON ( NOW DECEASED FORMER CRIME MEMORABILIA COLLECTOR ) .
JOE HAD, AS RECOMMENDED BY ANDY JONES ,SUBSEQUENTLY PROVIDED WITHOUT CHARGE TO STEWART, AN IMAGE OF THIS CARD FOR HIS BOOK, AS ACKNOWLEDGED WITHIN THE CREDITS OF HIS BOOK. #
HOPEFULLY THIS WILL RESPECTFULLY PUT THE RECORD STRAIGHT ON THESE SAID FRONTS.
ABOVE: An original oil painting by Gloucestershire artist Paul Bridgman of James Berry , here on display at The Crime Through Time Collection , Littledean jail .
Above & below: The original James Berry personally handwritten and signed letter that had been originally acquired alongside his noose, for which Berry clearly states the provenance of this noose as being both the one he had used in his first execution and thereafter the historic failed attempted execution on John “Babbacombe” Lee.
ABOVE & BELOW: AN ORIGINAL JAMES BERRY EXECUTIONER CALLING/BUSINESS CARD AND ORIGINAL LETTER FROM SCOTLAND YARDS BLACK MUSEUM CURATOR BILL WADDELL AKNOWLEDGING SIGHT OF THIS EXTREMELY RARE EXHIBIT PIECE .
THIS CALLING CARD HAVING BEEN PARY OF THE JOE MAWSON ( DECEASED) CRIME MEMORABILIA COLLECTION, LATER ACCQUIRED BY THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION. THIS ITEM ALONG WITH THE OTHERS FEATURED HERE ARE NOW ON PUBLIC DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL .
Below: A rare and unseen personal photograph of fellow crime memorabilia and ephemera collector Joe Mawson who was the previous owner of the exceptionally rare James Berry Executioner calling/business card.
This calling card having been previously featured in the book below and now on permanent display here at the jail.
ABOVE & BELOW: THE BOOK WRITTEN BY STEWART P EVANS ALONG WITH A PERSONAL DEDICATION AND THANK-YOU NOTE TO PREVIOUS OWNER OF THE JAMES BERRY CALLING CARD JOE MAWSON .
A COPY OF ORIGINAL SIGNED PHOTO OF JAMES BERRY – EXECUTIONER AND HANGMAN
NEWSPAPER ARTICLE BACK ON 05TH OCTOBER 2000 RELATING TO THE UPCOMING AUCTION SALE OF THE NOOSE AND HANGMAN’S LETTER …….SUBSEQUENTLY BOUGHT BY THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, NOW ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL
ABOVE: TRUE CRIME MAGAZINE FEATURE ON LITTLEDEAN JAIL INCLUDING A REFERENCE TOO THE ORIGINAL NOOSE USED BY JAMES BERRY ON THE FAILED EXECUTION ON THE MAN THEY COULD NOT HANG ….JOHN ” BABBACOMBE ” LEE. ACQUIRED FROM AUCTION IN THE YEAR 2000 ALONG WITH FIRM LETTER OF PROVENANCE FROM JAMES BERRY STATING THAT NOT ONLY HAD IT BEEN USED ON LEE , THAT IT HAD ALSO BEEN USED FOR HIS FIRST EXECUTION IN 1884 . TO ALL OTHERS THAT CLAIM THEY HAVE THE ORIGINAL NOOSE USED ON LEE ……. SORRY BUT ITS HERE ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL ALONG WITH THE HANDWRITTEN AND SIGNED LETTER OF 03RD JULY 1897 FROM JAMES BERRY ‘ ON HIS HOME ADDRESSED LETTER HEADED PAPER
NEWSPAPER ARTICLE FEATURING THE HANGMAN’S NOOSE USED BY JAMES BERRY ON THE FAILED ATTEMPT TO EXECUTE JOHN ” BABBACOMBE” LEE FEATURED IN THE WESTERN DAILY PRESS ON NOVEMBER 21ST 2002
ABOVE: Certificate of inspection of failed trap door
Above: Certificate of John Lee’s prison release
John Henry George Lee (1864 – c. 19 March 1945), better known as John “Babbacombe” Lee or “The Man They Couldn’t Hang”, was an Englishman famous for surviving three attempts to hang him for murder. Born in Abbotskerswell, Devon, Lee served in the Royal Navy, and was a known thief. In 1885, he was convicted of the brutal murder of his employer, Emma Keyse, at her home at Babbacombe Bay near Torquay on 15 November 1884. The evidence was weak and circumstantial, amounting to little more than Lee having been the only male in the house at the time of the murder, his previous criminal record, and being found with an unexplained cut on his arm. Despite this and his claim of innocence, he was sentenced to hang.
Execution attempts and aftermath
On 23 February 1885, three attempts were made to carry out his execution at Exeter Prison. All ended in failure, as the trapdoor of the scaffold failed to open despite being carefully tested by the executioner, James Berry, beforehand. As a result, Home Secretary Sir William Harcourt commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. Lee continued to petition successive Home Secretaries and was finally released in 1907. The only other man in history known to have survived three hanging attempts was Joseph Samuel.
Many theories have been advanced as to the cause of the failure, but Home Office papers show that the official report stated that incorrect assembly of the gallows mechanism allowed the trapdoor hinges to rest upon an eighth of an inch of drawbar, preventing them from opening when the doors were weighted. This incident helped lead to a standard gallows design to prevent a recurrence.
Later years and identifications
After his release, Lee seems to have exploited his notoriety, supporting himself through lecturing on his life, even becoming the subject of a silent film. Accounts of his whereabouts after 1916 are somewhat confused, and one researcher even speculated that in later years, there was more than one man claiming to be Lee. It was suspected that he died in the Tavistockworkhouseduring the Second World War. However, one recent piece of research concludes that he died in the United States under the name of “James Lee” in 1945. According to the book The Man They Could Not Hang by Mike Holgate and Ian David Waugh, Lee’s gravestone was found at Forest Home Cemetery, Milwaukee.
ABOVE : Iconic English Folk Rock Band Fairport Convention’ s 1971 album cover entitled “Babbacombe Lee”
Below: The Hanging Song performed by Fairport Convention .
Above & below : One of several handwritten and signed James Berry letters to include close-up image here on display at Littledean Jail
AN EXCEPTIONALLY RARE AND MOST CERTAINALY HISTORICALLY UNIQUE ENGRAVED 1861 HALF PENNY COIN PRESENTED BY JAMES BERRY PUBLIC EXECUTIONER TO J.BREEZE, 25 JULY 1886
ABOVE , Sadly unsure as to the origins and historical significance of this equally historically rare and unique 1861 half penny coin, which is intricately engraved,
” Presented by J. Berry Public Executioner to J Breeze, 25th July 1886″.
This was presented some 17 months after the failed execution by James Berry of John “Babbacombe” Lee on February 23, 1885 .
( If anyone can shed any light on the significance of this coin and whom J Breeze was, please let us know.)
ABOVE AND BELOW: Pictured here are both sides of this rare coin, giving an indication of the actual size.
TRUE CRIME, MURDERABILIA , MAIMERABILIA , WITCHCRAFT,SATANISM, THE OCCULT,THE ILLUMINATI, SECRET SOCIETIES …. AND MUCH MORE HERE AT THE UK’S CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL .
TOUCHING UPON A GREAT MANY SAD, DISTURBING AND MACABRE SUBJECT MATTERS THAT NO OTHER VISITOR ATTRACTION DARE COVER . CERTAINLY NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN OR THOSE EASILY OFFENDED OR OF A SENSITIVE NATURE .
IAN BRADY AND MYRA HINDLEY
‘ MAY THEY ROT IN HELL !’
ABOVE: ORIGINAL OIL PAINTING BY GLOUCESTERSHIRE ARTIST PAUL BRIDGMAN OF IAN BRADY AND MYRA HINDLEY ALONG WITH THE BAPHOMET SATANIC SYMBOLISM.
THIS PAINTING IS ON PERMANENT DISPLAY WITHIN THE BRADY & HINDLEY EXHIBITION AREA HERE AT THE JAIL .
ABOVE: ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPH OF BRADY AND HINDLEY LOVED UP PRIOR TO THEIR ARREST FOR THE CHILD MURDERS .
HERE BELOW IS SOME INTRIGUING INTERACTIVE BACKGROUND INFORMATION AND VARIOUS VIDEO FOOTAGE RELATING TO THESE HIDEOUS MURDERS COMMITTED BY THESE SATANIC DRIVEN KILLERS. BOTH OF WHOM HAD A FASCINATION IN WITCHCRAFT AND THE OCCULT .
WE ALSO FEATURE VARIOUS PERSONAL BELONGINGS AND HANDWRITTEN MEMORABILIA ITEMS FROM BOTH BRADY AND HINDLEY .
ABOVE AND BELOW: ORIGINAL OIL PAINTINGS BY GLOUCESTERSHIRE ARTIST PAUL BRIDGMAN OF EVIL CHILD KILLERS BRADY AND HINDLEY, HERE ON DISPLAY AT THE JAIL
ABOVE IS AN EDITORIAL PIECE DONE BY THE SUNDAY PEOPLE ON VARIOUS EXHIBIT ITEMS KINDLY DONATED TO THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION BY LINDA CALVEY – THE BLACK WIDOW , WHO HAD SERVED TIME WITH MYRA HINDLEY …. WHOM SHE HAD HATED BUT HAD TO TOLERATE WITHIN THE PENAL SYSTEM . THESE ITEMS WERE FOR SOME UNKNOWN REASON LEFT TO LINDA PRIOR TO THE DEATH OF HINDLEY. AND FOR OBVIOUS REASONS NOT WANTED BY HER. … HENCE NOW THEY ARE IN OUR POSSESSION FOR DISPLAY HERE AT THE JAIL
BELOW IS A HANDWRITTEN AND SIGNED CHRISTMAS CARD FROM MYRA HINDLEY GIVEN TO HER FELLOW INMATE AND HER THEN PERSONAL HAIRDRESSER …. LINDA CALVEY – “THE BLACK WIDOW”
BELOW : A SIMPLE HAND SIGNED GREETINGS CARD FROM MYRA HINDLEY TO ONE OF THE PRISON GUARDS
BIZARRE GIFT FROM MYRA HINDLEY TO LINDA CALVEY “BLACK WIDOW” , WHILST INCARERATED IN THE SAME PRISON AT HMP HIGHPOINT .
BELOW: FROM THE HANDS OF EVIL SERIAL KILLER IAN BRADY . HERE ARE SOME EXAMPLES OF HIS VARIOUS HANDWRITTEN AND SIGNED LETTERS ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLCTION LITTLEDEAN JAIL
PROBABLY THE LAST CLOTHING WORN BY MYRA HINDLEY DURING HER LAST DAYS IN HIGHPOINT PRISON BEFORE SHE DIED IN 2002 AT A NEARBY HOSPITAL AGED 60. THESE CLOTHES AND OTHER PERSONAL ITEMS WHICH HAD BEEN GIVEN TO LINDA CALVEY “THE BLACK WIDOW ” TO LOOK AFTER ON HER BEHALF.
ON LINDA’S RELEASE FROM PRISON IN 2008, SHE LATER DONATED THESE ITEMS TO THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL , UK .
BELOW ARE VARIOUS IMAGES RELATING TO SOME OF THE EXHIBIT MATERIAL WE HAVE ON DISPLAY HERE AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL
Few have attracted such notoriety or public loathing as the Moors murderers, so-named after they kidnapped and murdered five children over 18 months, between July 1963 and October 1965.
The pair were jailed for life in 1966 for murdering five children – Pauline Reade, 16, John Kilbride, 12, Keith Bennett, 12, Lesley Ann Downey, 10, and Edward Evans, 17, all from the Manchester area.
Brady and Hindley, who were both in their 20s, lured the youngsters to their deaths, sexually torturing their victims before burying them on Saddleworth Moor in the Pennines above Manchester.
Pauline disappeared on her way to a disco on July 12 1963 and John was snatched in November the same year.
Moors murders
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ian Brady and Myra Hindley
Brady (left) and Hindley, October 1965
Background information
Birth name
Ian Duncan Stewart
Myra Hindley
Also known as
The Moors murderers
Born
Brady: 2 January 1938 (age 74) Hindley: 23 July 1942
The Moors murders were carried out by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley between July 1963 and October 1965, in and around what is now Greater Manchester, England. The victims were five children aged between 10 and 17—Pauline Reade, John Kilbride, Keith Bennett, Lesley Ann Downey and Edward Evans—at least four of whom were sexually assaulted. The murders are so named because two of the victims were discovered in graves dug onSaddleworth Moor, with a third grave also being discovered there in 1987, over 20 years after Brady and Hindley’s trial in 1966. The body of a fourth victim, Keith Bennett, is also suspected to be buried there, but despite repeated searches it remains undiscovered.
The police were initially aware of only three killings, those of Edward Evans, Lesley Ann Downey and John Kilbride. The investigation was reopened in 1985, after Brady was reported in the press as having confessed to the murders of Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett. Brady and Hindley were taken separately to Saddleworth Moor to assist the police in their search for the graves, both by then having confessed to the additional murders.
Characterised by the press as “the most evil woman in Britain”,[1] Hindley made several appeals against her life sentence, claiming she was a reformed woman and no longer a danger to society, but she was never released. She died in 2002, aged 60. Brady was declared criminally insane in 1985, since when he has been confined in the high-security Ashworth Hospital. He has made it clear that he never wants to be released, and has repeatedly asked that he be allowed to die.
The murders, reported in almost every English-language newspaper in the world,[2] were the result of what Malcolm MacCulloch, professor of forensic psychiatry at Cardiff University, called a “concatenation of circumstances”, which brought together a “young woman with a tough personality, taught to hand out and receive violence from an early age” and a “sexually sadistic psychopath”.[3]
Victims
Saddleworth Moor, viewed from Hollin Brown Knoll. The bodies of three of the victims were found in this area.
The full extent of Brady and Hindley’s killing spree did not come to light until their confessions in 1985, as both had until then maintained their innocence.[4] Their first victim was 16-year-old Pauline Reade, a neighbour of Hindley’s who disappeared on her way to a dance at the British Railways Club in Gorton on 12 July 1963.[5] That evening, Brady told Hindley that he wanted to “commit his perfect murder”. He told her to drive her van around the local area while he followed behind on his motorcycle; when he spotted a likely victim he would flash his headlight, and Hindley was to stop and offer that person a lift.[4]
Driving down Gorton Lane, Brady saw a young girl walking towards them, and signalled Hindley to stop, which she did not do until she had passed the girl. Brady drew up alongside on his motorbike, demanding to know why she had not offered the girl a lift, to which Hindley replied that she recognised her as Marie Ruck, a near neighbour of her mother. Shortly after 8:00 pm, continuing down Froxmer Street,[6] Brady spotted a girl wearing a pale blue coat and white high-heeled shoes walking away from them, and once again signalled for the van to stop.[4] Hindley recognised the girl as Pauline Reade, a friend of her younger sister, Maureen.[7] Reade got into the van with Hindley, who then asked if she would mind helping to search for an expensive glove she had lost on Saddleworth Moor. Reade said she was in no great hurry, and agreed. At 16, Pauline Reade was older than Marie Ruck, and Hindley realised that there would be less of a hue and cry over the disappearance of a teenager than there would over a child of seven or eight. When the van reached the moor, Hindley stopped and Brady arrived shortly afterwards on his motorcycle. She introduced him to Reade as her boyfriend, and said that he had also come to help find the missing glove. Brady took Reade onto the moor while Hindley waited in the van. After about 30 minutes Brady returned alone, and took Hindley to the spot where Reade lay dying, her throat cut. He told her to stay with Reade while he fetched a spade he had hidden nearby on a previous visit to the moor, to bury the body. Hindley noticed that “Pauline’s coat was undone and her clothes were in disarray … She had guessed from the time he had taken that Brady had sexually assaulted her.”[4] Returning home from the moor in the van—they had loaded the motorcycle into the back—Brady and Hindley passed Reade’s mother, Joan, accompanied by her son, Paul, searching the streets for Pauline.[8]
Accompanied by Brady, Hindley approached 12-year-old John Kilbride in the early evening of 23 November 1963 at a market in Ashton-under-Lyne, and offered him a lift home on the pretext that his parents would be worried about him being out so late. With the added inducement of a proffered bottle of sherry, Kilbride readily agreed to get into the Ford Anglia car that Hindley had hired. Brady told Kilbride that the sherry was at their home, and they would have to make a detour to collect it. On the way he suggested that they take another detour, to search for a glove he said that Hindley had lost on the moor.[9] When they reached the moor Brady took the child with him while Hindley waited in the car. Brady sexually assaulted Kilbride and attempted to slit his throat with a six-inch serrated blade before fatally strangling him with a piece of string, possibly a shoelace.[10]
Twelve-year-old Keith Bennett vanished on his way to his grandmother’s house in Longsight during the early evening of 16 June 1964,[11] four days after his birthday. Hindley lured him into her Mini pick-up—which Brady was sitting in the back of—by asking for the boy’s help in loading some boxes, after which she said she would drive him home. She drove to a lay-by on Saddleworth Moor as she and Brady had previously arranged, and Brady went off with Bennett, supposedly looking for a lost glove. Hindley kept watch, and after about 30 minutes or so Brady reappeared, alone and carrying a spade that he had hidden there earlier. When Hindley asked how he had killed Bennett, Brady said that he had sexually assaulted the boy and strangled him with a piece of string.[12]
Brady and Hindley visited a fairground on 26 December 1964 in search of another victim, and noticed 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey standing beside one of the rides. When it became apparent that she was on her own, they approached her and deliberately dropped some of the shopping they were carrying close to her, before asking for the girl’s help to carry some of the packages to their car, and then to their home. Once inside the house Downey was undressed, gagged, and forced to pose for photographs before being raped and killed, perhaps strangled with a piece of string. Hindley maintained that she went to draw a bath for the child and found the girl dead (presumably killed by Brady) when she returned. In Dr. Chris Cowley’s book Face to Face with Evil: Conversations with Ian Brady, Brady states that it was Hindley who killed Lesley Ann Downey. The following morning Brady and Hindley drove with Downey’s body to Saddleworth Moor,[13] where she was buried, naked with her clothes at her feet, in a shallow grave.[14]
On 6 October 1965 Brady met 17-year-old apprentice engineer Edward Evans at Manchester Central railway station and invited him to his home at 16 Wardle Brook Avenue in Hattersley, where Brady beat him to death with an axe.[15]
Initial report
The empty plot where 16 Wardle Brook Avenue in Hattersley, once stood. The house was demolished in the 1980s by the local council.
The attack on Edward Evans was witnessed by Hindley’s 17-year-old brother-in-law, David Smith, the husband of her younger sister Maureen. The Hindley family had not approved of Maureen’s marriage to Smith, who had several criminal convictions, including actual bodily harm and housebreaking, the first of which, wounding with intent, occurred when he was aged eleven.[16] Throughout the previous year Brady had been cultivating a friendship with Smith, who had become “in awe” of the older man, something that increasingly worried Hindley, as she felt it compromised their safety.[17]
On the evening of 6 October 1965 Hindley drove Brady to Manchester Central Station, where she waited outside in the car while he selected their victim; after a few minutes Brady reappeared in the company of Edward Evans, to whom he introduced Hindley as his sister. After they had driven back home and relaxed over a bottle of wine, Brady sent Hindley to fetch her brother-in-law. When they got back to the house Hindley told Smith to wait outside for her signal, a flashing light. When the signal came Smith knocked on the door and was met by Brady, who asked if he had come for “the miniature wine bottles”.[15] Brady led Smith into the kitchen and left him there, saying that he was going to collect the wine. A few minutes later Smith heard a scream, followed by Hindley shouting loudly for him to come and help.[18] Smith entered the living room to find Brady repeatedly striking Evans with the flat of an axe, and watched as he then throttled Evans with a length of electrical cord.[19] Evans’ body was too heavy for Smith to carry to the car on his own—Brady had sprained his ankle in the struggle—so they wrapped it in plastic sheeting and put it in the spare bedroom.[20]
Smith agreed to meet Brady the following evening to dispose of Evans’ body,[20] but after returning home he woke his wife and told her what he had seen. Maureen told him that he must call the police. Three hours later the couple cautiously made their way to a public phone box in the street below their flat, Smith taking the precaution of arming himself with a screwdriver and a kitchen knife to defend them in the event that Brady suddenly appeared and confronted them. At 6:07 am Smith made an emergency services call to the police station in nearbyHyde and told his story to the officer on duty.[21] In his statement to the police Smith claimed that:
[Brady] opened the door and he said in a very loud voice for him … “Do you want those miniatures?” I nodded my head to say yes and he led me into the kitchen … and he gave me three miniature bottles of spirits and said: “Do you want the rest?” When I first walked into the house, the door to the living room … was closed. … Ian went into the living room and I waited in the kitchen. I waited about a minute or two then suddenly I heard a hell of a scream; it sounded like a woman, really high-pitched. Then the screams carried on, one after another really loud. Then I heard Myra shout, “Dave, help him,” very loud. When I ran in I just stood inside the living room and I saw a young lad. He was lying with his head and shoulders on the couch and his legs were on the floor. He was facing upwards. Ian was standing over him, facing him, with his legs on either side of the young lad’s legs. The lad was still screaming. … Ian had a hatchet in his hand … he was holding it above his head and he hit the lad on the left side of his head with the hatchet. I heard the blow, it was a terrible hard blow, it sounded horrible.”[22]
Arrest
Early on the morning of 7 October, shortly after Smith’s call, Superintendent Bob Talbot of the Cheshire Police arrived at the back door of 16 Wardle Brook Avenue, wearing a borrowed baker’s overall to cover his uniform. Talbot identified himself to Hindley as a police officer when she opened the door, and told her that he wanted to speak to her boyfriend. Hindley led him into the living room, where Brady was sitting up in a divan writing a note to his employer explaining that he would not be able to get into work because of his ankle injury. Talbot explained that he was investigating “an act of violence involving guns” that was reported to have taken place the previous evening.[23] Hindley denied that there had been any violence, and allowed police to look around the house. When they came to the upstairs room in which Evans’ body was stored the police found the door locked, and asked Brady for the key. Hindley claimed that the key was at work, but after the police offered to drive her to her employer’s premises to retrieve it, Brady told her to hand the key over. When they returned to the living room the police told Brady that they had discovered a trussed up body, and that he was being arrested on suspicion of murder.[24] As Brady was getting dressed, he said “Eddie and I had a row and the situation got out of hand.”[25]
Hindley was not arrested with Brady, but she demanded to go with him to the police station, accompanied by her dog Puppet, to which the police agreed.[26] Hindley was questioned about the events surrounding Evans’ death, but she refused to make any statement beyond claiming that it had been an accident. As the police had no evidence that Hindley was involved in Evans’ murder she was allowed to go home, on condition that she return the next day for further questioning. Hindley was at liberty for four days following Brady’s arrest, during which time she went to her employer’s premises and asked to be dismissed, so that she would be eligible for unemployment benefits. While in the office where Brady worked she found some papers belonging to him in an envelope that she claimed she did not open, which she burned in an ashtray. She believed that they were plans for bank robberies, nothing to do with the murders. On 11 October Hindley was charged as an accessory to the murder of Edward Evans and was remanded at Risley.[27]
Initial investigation
Brady admitted under police questioning that he and Evans had fought, but insisted that he and Smith had murdered Evans between them; Hindley, he said, had “only done what she had been told”.[28]Smith told police that Brady had asked him to return anything incriminating, such as “dodgy books”, which Brady then packed into suitcases. Smith had no idea what else the suitcases contained or where they might be, but he mentioned in passing that Brady “had a thing about railway stations”. The police consequently requested a search of all Manchester’s left-luggage offices for any suitcases belonging to Brady, and on 15 October British Transport Police found what they were looking for at Manchester Central railway station[29]—the left-luggage ticket was found several days later in the back of Hindley’s prayer book.[30] Inside one of the suitcases were nine pornographic photographs taken of a young girl, naked and with a scarf tied across her mouth, and a 13-minute tape recording of her screaming and pleading for help.[31] Ann Downey, Lesley Ann Downey’s mother, later listened to the tape after police had discovered the body of her missing 10-year-old daughter, and confirmed that it was a recording of her daughter’s voice.[32]
Police searching the house at Wardle Brook Avenue also found an old exercise book in which the name “John Kilbride” had been scribbled, which made them suspicious that Brady and Hindley might have been involved in the unsolved disappearances of other youngsters.[33] A large collection of photographs was discovered in the house, many of which seemed to have been taken on Saddleworth Moor. One hundred and fifty officers were drafted to search the moor, looking for locations that matched the photographs. Initially the search was concentrated along the A628 road near Woodhead, but a close neighbour, 11-year-old Pat Hodges, had on several occasions been taken to the moor by Brady and Hindley and she was able to point out their favourite sites along the A635 road.[34] On 16 October police found an arm bone sticking out of the peat; officers presumed that they’d found the body of John Kilbride, but soon discovered that the body was that of Lesley Ann Downey. Her mother (later Ann West after her marriage to Alan West) had been on the moor watching as the police conducted their search, but was not present when the body was found.[35] She was shown clothing recovered from the grave, and identified it as belonging to her missing daughter.[36]
A photograph taken by Ian Brady of Myra Hindley with her dog, Puppet, crouching over John Kilbride’s grave on Saddleworth Moor in November 1963.
Detectives were able to locate another site on the opposite side of the A635 from where Downey’s body was discovered, and five days later they found the “badly decomposed” body of John Kilbride, whom they identified by his clothing.[37] That same day, already being held for the murder of Evans, Brady and Hindley appeared at Hyde Magistrate’s Court charged with Lesley Ann Downey’s murder. Each was brought before the court separately and remanded into custody for a week.[38] They made a two-minute appearance on 28 October, and were again remanded into custody.[39]
The search for bodies continued, but with winter setting in it was called off in November.[37] Presented with the evidence of the tape recording Brady admitted to taking the photographs of Lesley Ann Downey, but insisted that she had been brought to Wardle Brook Avenue by two men who had subsequently taken her away again, alive. Brady was further charged with the murder of John Kilbride, and Hindley with the murder of Edward Evans, on 2 December.[40] At the committal hearing on 6 December Brady was charged with the murders of Edward Evans, John Kilbride, and Lesley Ann Downey, and Hindley with the murders of Edward Evans and Lesley Ann Downey, as well as with harbouring Brady in the knowledge that he had killed John Kilbride. The prosecution’s opening statement was held in camera,[41] and the defence asked for a similar stipulation, but was refused.[42] The proceedings continued in front of three magistrates in Hyde over an 11-day period during December, at the end of which the pair were committed for trial at ChesterAssizes.[43]
Many of the photographs taken by Brady and Hindley on the moor featured Hindley’s dog Puppet, sometimes as a puppy. Detectives arranged for the animal to be examined by a veterinary surgeon to determine its age, from which they could date when the pictures were taken. The examination involved an analysis of the dog’s teeth, which required a general anaesthetic from which Puppet did not recover, as he suffered from an undiagnosed kidney complaint. On hearing the news of her dog’s death Hindley became furious, and accused the police of murdering Puppet, one of the few occasions detectives witnessed any emotional response from her.[37] In a letter to her mother shortly afterwards Hindley wrote:
I feel as though my heart’s been torn to pieces. I don’t think anything could hurt me more than this has. The only consolation is that some moron might have got hold of Puppet and hurt him.[44]
Trial
The trial was held over 14 days beginning on 19 April 1966, in front of Mr Justice Fenton Atkinson.[43] Such was the public interest that the courtroom was fitted with security screens to protect Brady and Hindley.[45] The pair were each charged with three murders, those of Evans, Downey, and Kilbride, as it was considered that there was by then sufficient evidence to implicate Hindley in Kilbride’s death. The prosecution was led by the Attorney General, Frederick Elwyn Jones.[43] Brady was defended by the LiberalMember of ParliamentEmlyn Hooson,[46] and Hindley was defended by Godfrey Heilpern, recorder of Salford from 1964—both experienced QCs.[47][48] David Smith was the chief prosecution witness, but during the trial it was revealed that he had entered into an agreement with a newspaper that he initially refused to name—even under intense questioning—guaranteeing him £1,000 (equivalent to about £10,000 as of 2012) for the syndication rights to his story if Brady and Hindley were convicted, something the trial judge described as a “gross interference with the course of justice”.[49][50] Smith finally admitted in court that the newspaper was the News of the World,[51]which had already paid for a holiday in France for him and his wife and was paying him a regular income of £20 per week, as well as accommodating him in a five-star hotel for the duration of the trial.[52]
Brady and Hindley pleaded not guilty to the charges against them; both were called to give evidence, Brady for over eight hours and Hindley for six.[53] Although Brady admitted to hitting Evans with an axe, he did not admit to killing him, arguing that the pathologist in his report had stated that Evans’ death was “accelerated by strangulation”. Under cross-examination by the prosecuting counsel, all Brady would admit was that “I hit Evans with the axe. If he died from axe blows, I killed him.”[54] Hindley denied any knowledge that the photographs of Saddleworth Moor found by police had been taken near the graves of their victims.[55]
The tape recording of Lesley Anne Downey, on which the voices of Brady and Hindley were clearly audible, was played in open court. Hindley admitted that her attitude towards the child was “brusque and cruel”, but claimed that was only because she was afraid that someone might hear Downey screaming. Hindley claimed that when Downey was being undressed she herself was “downstairs”; when the pornographic photographs were taken she was “looking out the window”; and that when the child was being strangled she “was running a bath”.[55]
On 6 May, after having deliberated for a little over two hours,[56] the jury found Brady guilty of all three murders and Hindley guilty of the murders of Downey and Evans. The Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act had come into force during the time that Brady and Hindley were held in prison, abolishing the death penalty for murder, and therefore the judge passed the only sentence that the law allowed: life imprisonment. Brady was sentenced to three concurrent life sentences and Hindley was given two, plus a concurrent seven-year term for harbouring Brady in the knowledge that he had murdered John Kilbride.[43] Brady was taken to Durham Prison and Hindley was sent to Holloway Prison.[55]
In his closing remarks Mr Justice Atkinson described the murders as a “truly horrible case” and condemned the accused as “two sadistic killers of the utmost depravity”.[57] He recommended that both Brady and Hindley spend “a very long time” in prison before being considered for parole but did not stipulate a tariff. He stated that Brady was “wicked beyond belief” and that he saw no reasonable possibility of reform. He did not consider that the same was necessarily true of Hindley, “once she is removed from [Brady’s] influence”.[58] Throughout the trial Brady and Hindley “stuck rigidly to their strategy of lying”,[59] and Hindley was later described as “a quiet, controlled, impassive witness who lied remorselessly”.[43]
Later investigation
Keith Bennett
In 1985 Brady allegedly confessed to Fred Harrison, a journalist working for The Sunday People, that he had also been responsible for the murders of Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett,[60] something that the police already suspected, as both children lived in the same area as Brady and Hindley and had disappeared at about the same time as their other victims. The subsequent newspaper reports prompted the Greater Manchester Police (GMP) to reopen the case, in an investigation headed by Detective Chief Superintendent Peter Topping, who had been appointed Head of GMP’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) the previous year.[61]
On 3 July 1985 Topping visited Brady, then being held at Gartree Prison, but found him “scornful of any suggestion that he had confessed to more murders”.[62] Police nevertheless decided to resume their search of Saddleworth Moor, once more using the photographs taken by Brady and Hindley to help them identify possible burial sites. Meanwhile, in November 1986 Winnie Johnson, Keith Bennett’s mother, wrote a letter to Hindley begging to know what had happened to her son, a letter that Hindley seemed to be “genuinely moved” by.[63] It ended:
I am a simple woman, I work in the kitchens of Christie’s Hospital. It has taken me five weeks labour to write this letter because it is so important to me that it is understood by you for what it is, a plea for help. Please, Miss Hindley, help me.[64]
Police visited Hindley, then being held in Cookham Wood, a few days after she had received the letter, and although she refused to admit any involvement in the killings, she agreed to help by looking at photographs and maps to try to identify spots that she had visited with Brady.[65] She showed particular interest in photographs of the area around Hollin Brown Knoll and Shiny Brook, but said that it was impossible to be sure of the locations without visiting the moor.[66] The security considerations for such a visit were significant; there were threats made against her should she visit the moors, but Home SecretaryDouglas Hurd agreed with Topping that it would be worth the risk.[67] Writing in 1989, Topping said that he felt “quite cynical” about Hindley’s motivation in helping the police. Although the letter from Winnie Johnson may have played a part, he believed that Hindley’s real concern was that, knowing of Brady’s “precarious” mental state, she was afraid that he might decide to co-operate with the police, and wanted to make certain that she, and not Brady, was the one to gain whatever benefit there may have been in terms of public approval.[68]
Hindley made the first of two visits to assist the police search of Saddleworth Moor on 16 December 1986.[69] Four police cars left Cookham Wood at 4.30 am. At about the same time, police closed all roads onto the moor, which was patrolled by 200 officers, 40 of them armed. Hindley and her solicitor arrived by helicopter from an airfield near Maidstone, touching down at 8:30 am. Wearing a donkey jacket and balaclava, she was driven, and walked around the area. It was difficult for Hindley to make a connection between her memories of the area and what she saw on the day, and she was apparently nervous of the helicopters flying overhead. At 3:00 pm she was returned to the helicopter, and taken back to Cookham Wood.[67] Topping was criticised by the press, who described the visit as a “fiasco”, a “publicity stunt”, and a “mindless waste of money”.[70] He was forced to defend the visit, pointing out its benefits:
We had taken the view that we needed a thorough systematic search of the moor […] It would never have been possible to carry out such a search in private.[70]
Topping continued to visit Hindley in prison, along with her solicitor Michael Fisher and her spiritual counsellor, the Reverend Peter Timms, who had been a prison governor before resigning to become a minister in the Methodist Church.[70] She made a formal confession to police on 10 February 1987, admitting her involvement in all five murders,[71] but news of her confession was not made public for more than a month.[72] The tape recording of her statement was over 17 hours long; Topping described it as a “very well worked out performance in which, I believe, she told me just as much as she wanted me to know, and no more”.[73] He also commented that he “was struck by the fact that she was never there when the killings took place. She was in the car, over the brow of the hill, in the bathroom and even, in the case of the Evans murder, in the kitchen.”[74] Topping concluded that he felt he “had witnessed a great performance rather than a genuine confession”.[75]
During the 1987 search for Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett, Hindley recalled that she had seen the rocks of Hollin Brown Knoll silhouetted against the night sky.
Police visited Brady in prison again and told him of Hindley’s confession, which at first he refused to believe. Once presented with some of the details that Hindley had provided of Pauline Reade’s abduction, Brady decided that he too was prepared to confess, but on one condition: that immediately afterwards he be given the means to commit suicide, a request that was impossible for the authorities to comply with.[76]
At about the same time, Winnie Johnson sent Hindley another letter, again pleading with her to assist the police in finding the body of her son Keith. In the letter, Johnson was sympathetic to Hindley over the criticism surrounding her first visit. Hindley, who had not replied to the first letter, responded by thanking Johnson for both letters, explaining that her decision not to reply to the first resulted from the negative publicity that surrounded it. She claimed that, had Johnson written to her 14 years earlier, she would have confessed and helped the police. She also paid tribute to Topping, and thanked Johnson for her sincerity.[77] Hindley made her second visit to the moor in March 1987. This time, the level of security surrounding her visit was considerably higher. She stayed overnight in Manchester, at the flat of the police chief in charge of GMP training at Sedgley Park, and visited the moor twice.[77] She confirmed to police that the two areas in which they were concentrating their search—Hollin Brown Knoll and Hoe Grain—were correct, although she was unable to locate either of the graves.[78] She did later remember, though, that as Pauline Reade was being buried she had been sitting next to her on a patch of grass and could see the rocks of Hollin Brown Knoll silhouetted against the night sky.[79]
In April 1987 news of Hindley’s confession became public. Amidst strong media interest Lord Longford pleaded for her release, writing that her continuing detention to satisfy “mob emotion” was not right. Fisher persuaded Hindley to release a public statement, in which she explained her reasons for denying her complicity in the murders, her religious experiences in prison, the letter from Johnson, and that she saw no possibility of release. She also exonerated David Smith from any part in the murders, except that of Edward Evans.[80]
A map of Saddleworth Moor, showing the areas in which the bodies of three of the children were found, and the general area in which police searched for the body of Keith Bennett
Over the next few months interest in the search waned, but Hindley’s clue had directed the police to focus their efforts on a specific area. On the afternoon of 1 July 1987, after more than 100 days of searching, they found a body lying in a shallow grave 3 feet (0.9 m) below the surface, only 100 yards (90 m) from the place where Lesley Ann Downey had been found.[79][81]Brady had been co-operating with the police for some time, and when news reached him that Reade’s body had been discovered he made a formal confession to Topping.[82] He also issued a statement to the press, through his solicitor, saying that he too was prepared to help the police in their search. Brady was taken to the moor on 3 July, but he seemed to lose his bearings, blaming changes that had taken place in the intervening years, and the search was called off at 3:00 pm, by which time a large crowd of press and television reporters had gathered on the moor.[83]
Topping refused to allow Brady a second visit to the moors,[82] and a few days after his visit Brady wrote a letter to BBC television reporter Peter Gould, giving some sketchy details of five additional murders that he claimed to have carried out.[84]Brady refused to identify his alleged victims, and the police failed to discover any unsolved crimes matching the few details that he supplied.[85] Hindley told Topping that she knew nothing of these killings.[82]
Hoe Grain leading to Shiny Brook, the area in which police believe Bennett’s undiscovered body is buried[86]
On 24 August 1987 police called off their search of Saddleworth Moor, despite not having found Keith Bennett’s body.[87] Brady was taken to the moor for a second time on 1 December, but he was once again unable to locate the burial site. Keith Bennett’s body remains undiscovered as of 2012, although his family continues to search the moor, over 40 years after his disappearance.[88]
Although Brady and Hindley had confessed to the murders of Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett, the Department of Public Prosecutions (DPP) decided that nothing would be gained by a further trial; as both were already serving life sentences no further punishment could be inflicted, and a second trial might even have helped Hindley’s case for parole by giving her a platform from which to make a public confession.[89]
In 2003 the police launched Operation Maida, and again searched the moor for the body of Keith Bennett. They read statements from Brady and Hindley, and also studied photographs taken by the pair. Their search was aided by the use of sophisticated modern equipment, including a US satellite used to look for evidence of soil movement.[90] The BBC reported on 1 July 2009 that Greater Manchester Police had officially given up the search for Keith Bennett, saying that “only a major scientific breakthrough or fresh evidence would see the hunt for his body restart”.[91] Detectives were also reported as saying that they would never again give Brady the attention or the thrill of leading another fruitless search on the moor where they believe Keith Bennett’s remains are buried.[92] Donations from members of the public funded a search of the moor for Bennett’s body by volunteers from a Welsh search and rescue team that began in March 2010.[93]
Perpetrators’ backgrounds
Ian Brady
Ian Brady was born in Glasgow as Ian Duncan Stewart on 2 January 1938 to Maggie Stewart, an unmarried 28-year-old tea room waitress. The identity of Brady’s father has never been reliably ascertained, although his mother claimed he was a reporter working for a Glasgow newspaper, who died three months before Brady was born. Stewart had little support, and after a few months was forced to give her son into the care of Mary and John Sloan, a local couple with four children of their own. Brady took their name, and became known as Ian Sloan. His mother continued to visit him throughout his childhood.[94] As a young child he took pleasure in torturing animals; he broke the hind legs of one dog, set fire to another, and decapitated a cat.[95] Aged nine, Brady visited Loch Lomond with his family, where he reportedly discovered an affinity for the outdoors, and a few months later the family moved to a new council house on an overspill estate at Pollok. He was accepted forShawlands Academy, a school for above average pupils.[96] As he grew older Brady’s “brutality escalated”, and soon he was hurting children smaller than himself.[95] At Shawlands his behaviour worsened; as a teenager he twice appeared before a juvenile court for housebreaking. He left the academy aged 15, and took a job as a tea boy at a Harland and Wolff shipyard in Govan. Nine months later he began working as a butcher’s messenger boy. He had a girlfriend, Evelyn Grant, but their relationship ended when he threatened her with a flick knife after she visited a dance with another boy. He again appeared before the court, this time with nine charges against him,[97] and shortly before his 17th birthday a court put him on probation on the condition that he went to live with his mother,[98]who had by then moved to Manchester and married an Irish fruit merchant named Patrick Brady, who got him a job as a fruit porter at Smithfield Market.[99]
Within a year of moving to Manchester, Brady was caught with a sack full of lead seals he had stolen and was trying to smuggle out of the market. Because he was still under 18, he was sentenced to two years in borstal for “training”.[100] He was initially sent to Hatfield but after being discovered drunk on alcohol he had brewed he was moved to the much tougher unit at Hull.[98] Released on 14 November 1957 Brady returned to Manchester, where he took a labouring job, which he hated, and was dismissed from another job in a brewery. Deciding to “better himself”, Brady obtained a set of instruction manuals on book-keeping from a local public library, with which he “astonished” his parents by studying alone in his room for hours.[101] In January 1959, Brady applied for and was offered a clerical job at Millwards Merchandising, a wholesale chemical distribution company based in Gorton. He was regarded by his work colleagues as a quiet, punctual, but short-tempered young man. He read books such as Teach Yourself German, and Mein Kampf, as well as works on Nazi atrocities. He rode a Tiger Cub motorcycle, which he used to visit the Pennines.[102]
Myra Hindley
Myra Hindley was born on 23 July 1942[103] and raised in Gorton, then a working class area of Manchester. Her parents, Nellie and Bob Hindley (the latter an alcoholic), beat her regularly as a young child. The small house the family lived in was in such poor condition that Hindley and her parents had to sleep in the only available bedroom, she in a single bed next to her parents’ double. The family’s living conditions deteriorated further when Hindley’s sister, Maureen, was born in 1946. Shortly after the birth, Hindley, then aged five, was sent by her parents to live with her grandmother, who lived nearby.[104]
Hindley’s father had fought in North Africa, Cyprus, and Italy during the Second World War, and had served with the Parachute Regiment.[105] He had been known in the army as a “hard man” and he expected his daughter to be equally tough; he taught her how to fight, and insisted that she “stick up for herself”. When Hindley was aged 8, a local boy approached her in the street and scratched both of her cheeks with his fingernails, drawing blood. She burst into tears and ran into her parents’ house, to be met by her father, who demanded that she “Go and punch him [the boy], because if you don’t I’ll leather you!” Hindley found the boy and succeeded in knocking him down with a sequence of punches, as her father had taught her. As she wrote later, “at eight years old I’d scored my first victory”.[106]
Malcolm MacCulloch, professor of forensic psychiatry at Cardiff University, has suggested that the fight, and the part that Hindley’s father played in it, may be “key pieces of evidence” in trying to understand Hindley’s role in the Moors murders:
The relationship with her father brutalised her […] She was not only used to violence in the home but rewarded for it outside. When this happens at a young age it can distort a person’s reaction to such situations for life.[107]
One of her closest friends was 13-year-old Michael Higgins, who lived in a nearby street. In June 1957 he invited her to go swimming with friends at a local disused reservoir. A good swimmer, Hindley chose not to go and instead went out with a friend, Pat Jepson. Higgins drowned in the reservoir, and upon learning of his fate Hindley was deeply upset, and blamed herself for his death. She collected for a funeral wreath, and his funeral at St Francis’s Monastery in Gorton Lane—the church where Hindley had been baptised a Catholic on 16 August 1942—had a lasting effect on her.[108] Hindley’s mother had only agreed to her father’s insistence that she be baptised a Catholic on the condition that she was not sent to a Catholic school, as her mother believed that “all the monks taught was thecatechism“.[109] Hindley was increasingly drawn to the Catholic Church after she started at Ryder Brow Secondary Modern, and began taking instruction for formal reception into the Church soon after Higgins’s funeral. She took the confirmation name of Veronica, and received her first communion in November 1958. She also became a godparent to Michael’s nephew, Anthony John.[110][111] It was also at about this time that Hindley first began bleaching her hair.[112]
Hindley’s first job was as a junior clerk at a local electrical engineering firm. She ran errands, made tea, and typed. She was well liked at the firm, enough so that when she lost her first week’s wage packet, the other girls had a collection to replace it.[113] She had a short relationship with Ronnie Sinclair from Christmas 1958, and became engaged aged 17. The engagement was called off several months later; Hindley apparently thought Sinclair immature, and unable to provide her with the life she envisaged for herself.[114]
Shortly after her 17th birthday she changed her hair colour, with a pink rinse. She took judo lessons once a week at a local school, but found partners reluctant to train with her, as she was often slow to release her grip. She took a job at Bratby and Hinchliffe, an engineering company in Gorton, but was dismissed for absenteeism after six months.[115]
As a couple
In 1961, the 18-year-old Myra Hindley joined Millwards as a typist. She soon became infatuated with Brady, despite learning that he had a criminal record.[116] She began a diary and, although she had dates with other men, some of the entries detail her fascination with Brady, whom she eventually spoke to for the first time on 27 July 1961.[117] Over the next few months she continued to make entries, and grew increasingly disillusioned with him, until 22 December when Brady asked her on a date to the cinema,[118] where they watched the biblical epic King of Kings.[119][nb 1] Their dates together followed a regular pattern; a trip to the cinema, usually to watch an X-rated film, and then back to Hindley’s house to drink German wine.[120] Brady then gave her reading material, and the pair spent their work lunch breaks reading aloud to one another from accounts of Nazi atrocities. Hindley began to emulate an ideal of Aryan perfection, bleaching her hair blonde and applying thick crimson lipstick.[43] She expressed concern at some aspects of Brady’s character; in a letter to a childhood friend, she mentioned an incident where she had been drugged by Brady, but also wrote of her obsession with him. A few months later she asked her friend to destroy the letter.[121] In her 30,000-word plea for parole, written in 1978 and 1979 and submitted to Home SecretaryMerlyn Rees, Hindley said:
Within months he [Brady] had convinced me that there was no God at all: he could have told me that the earth was flat, the moon was made of green cheese and the sun rose in the west, I would have believed him, such was his power of persuasion.[122]
Hindley began to change her appearance further, wearing clothing considered risqué such as high boots, short skirts, and leather jackets, and the two became less sociable to their work colleagues.[123] The couple were regulars at the library, borrowing books on philosophy, as well as crime and torture. They also read works by the Marquis de Sade, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky‘s Crime and Punishment.[43][124] Although she was not a qualified driver (she passed her test on the third attempt, late in 1963), Hindley often hired a van, in which the two planned bank robberies. Hindley befriended George Clitheroe, the President of the Cheadle Rifle Club, and on several occasions visited two local shooting ranges. Clitheroe, although puzzled by her interest, arranged for her to buy a .22 rifle from a gun merchant in Manchester. She also asked to join a pistol club, but she was a poor shot and allegedly often bad-tempered, so Clitheroe told her that she was unsuitable; she did, though, manage to purchase a Webley .45 and a Smith and Wesson .38 from other members of the club.[125] Brady and Hindley’s plans for robbery came to nothing, but they became interested in photography. Brady already owned a Box Brownie, which he used to take photographs of Hindley and her dog, Puppet, but he upgraded to a more sophisticated model, and also purchased lights anddarkroom equipment. The pair took photographs of each other that, for the time, would have been considered explicit. For Hindley, this demonstrated a marked change from her earlier, more shy and prudish nature.[126]
As murderers
Hindley claimed that Brady began to talk about “committing the perfect murder” in July 1963,[127] and often spoke to her about Meyer Levin‘s Compulsion, published as a novel in 1956 and adapted for the cinema in 1959. The story tells a fictionalised account of the Leopold and Loeb case, two young men from well-to-do families who attempt to commit the perfect murder of a 12-year-old boy, and escape the death penalty because of their age.[128]
By June 1963, Brady had moved in with Hindley at her grandmother’s house in Bannock Street, and on 12 July 1963 the two murdered their first victim, 16-year-old Pauline Reade. Reade had attended school with Hindley’s younger sister, Maureen, and had also been in a short relationship with David Smith, a local boy with three criminal convictions for minor crimes. Police could find nobody who had seen Reade before her disappearance, and although the 15-year-old Smith was questioned by police he was cleared of any involvement in her death.[129] Their next victim, John Kilbride, was killed on 23 November 1963. A huge search was undertaken, with over 700 statements taken, and 500 “missing” posters printed. Eight days after he failed to return home, 2,000 volunteers scoured waste ground and derelict buildings.[130]
Hindley hired a vehicle a week after Kilbride went missing, and again on 21 December 1963, apparently to make sure the burial sites had not been disturbed. In February 1964, she bought a second-hand Austin Traveller, but soon after traded it for a Mini van. On 16 June 1964, 12-year-old Keith Bennett disappeared. His stepfather, Jimmy Johnson, became a suspect; in the two years following Bennett’s disappearance, Johnson was taken for questioning on four occasions. Detectives searched under the floorboards of the Johnsons’ house, and on discovering that the houses in the row were connected, extended the search to the entire street.[131]
David and Maureen Smith, pictured around the time of the murders. David Smith’s statement to the police led to Brady’s arrest.
Maureen Hindley married David Smith on 15 August 1964. The marriage was hastily arranged and performed at a register office. None of Hindley’s relatives attended; Myra did not approve of the marriage, and her mother was too embarrassed—Maureen was seven months pregnant. The newlyweds moved into Smith’s father’s house. The next day, Brady suggested that the four take a day-trip to Windermere. This was the first time Brady and Smith had met properly, and Brady was apparently impressed by Smith’s demeanour. The two talked about society, the distribution of wealth, and the possibility of robbing a bank. The young Smith was similarly impressed by Brady, who throughout the day had paid for his food and wine. The trip to the Lake District was the first of many outings. Hindley was apparently jealous of their relationship, but became closer to her sister.[132]
In 1964 Hindley, her grandmother, and Brady were rehoused as part of the post-war slum clearances in Manchester, to 16 Wardle Brook Avenue in the new overspill estate of Hattersley. Brady and Hindley became friendly with Patricia Hodges, an 11-year-old girl who lived at 12 Wardle Brook Avenue. Hodges accompanied the two on their trips to Saddleworth Moor to collect peat, something that many householders on the new estate did to improve the soil in their gardens, which was full of clay and builder’s rubble.[133] She remained unharmed; living only a few doors away, her disappearance would have been easily solved.[134]
Early on Boxing Day 1964, Hindley left her grandmother at a relative’s house and refused to allow her back to Wardle Brook Avenue that night.[135] On the same day, 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey disappeared from a funfair in Ancoats.[136] Despite a huge search she was not found. The following day Hindley brought her grandmother back home.[137] By February 1965 Patricia Hodges had stopped visiting 16 Wardle Brook Avenue, but David Smith was still a regular visitor. Brady gave Smith books to read, and the two discussed robbery and murder.[138] On Hindley’s 23rd birthday, her sister and brother-in-law, who had until then been living with relatives, were rehoused in Underwood Court, a block of flats not far from Wardle Brook Avenue. The two couples began to see each other more regularly, but usually only on Brady’s terms.[139][140]
During the 1990s, Hindley claimed that she took part in the killings only because Brady had drugged her, was blackmailing her with pornographic pictures he had taken of her, and had threatened to kill her younger sister, Maureen.[116] In a 2008 television documentary series on female serial killers broadcast on ITV3, Hindley’s solicitor, Andrew McCooey, reported that she had said to him:
I ought to have been hanged. I deserved it. My crime was worse than Brady’s because I enticed the children and they would never have entered the car without my role … I have always regarded myself as worse than Brady.[141]
Following his conviction, Brady was moved to Durham prison, where he asked to live in solitary confinement.[142] He spent 19 years in mainstream prisons before he was declared criminally insane in November 1985 and sent to the high-security Ashworth Psychiatric Hospital;[143] he has since made it clear that he never wants to be released.[144] The trial judge had recommended that his life sentence should mean life, and successive Home Secretaries have agreed with that decision. In 1982, the Lord Chief JusticeLord Lane said of Brady: “this is the case if ever there is to be one when a man should stay in prison till he dies”.[145]
In contrast to the common belief that serial killers often continue with their crimes until they are caught, Brady claimed in 2005 that the Moors murders were “merely an existential exercise of just over a year, which was concluded in December 1964″. By then, he went on to claim, he and Hindley had turned their attention to armed robbery, for which they had begun to prepare by acquiring guns and vehicles.[146] In 2001 Brady wrote The Gates of Janus, which was published by Feral House, an underground US publisher. The book, Brady’s analysis of serial murder and specific serial killers, sparked outrage when announced in Britain.[147]
Winnie Johnson, the mother of undiscovered victim, 12-year-old Keith Bennett, received a letter from Brady at the end of 2005 in which, she said, he claimed that he could take police to within 20 yards (18 m) of her son’s body but the authorities would not allow it. Brady did not refer directly to Keith by name and did not claim he could take investigators directly to the grave, but spoke of the “clarity” of his recollections.[148] In early 2006, prison authorities intercepted a package addressed to Brady from a female friend, containing 50 paracetamol pills, a potentially lethal dose, hidden inside a hollowed-out crime novel.[149]
The death, in November 2007, of John Straffen, who had spent 55 years in prison for murdering three children meant that Brady became the longest serving prisoner in England and Wales.[150] As of 2012, he remains incarcerated in Ashworth. After Brady began a hunger strike in 1999 he was force-fed, fell ill, and was transferred to another hospital for tests.[151] He recovered, and in March 2000 asked for a judicial review of the decision to force-feed him, but was refused permission.[152]
Myra gets the potentially fatal brain condition, whilst I have to fight simply to die. I have had enough. I want nothing, my objective is to die and release myself from this once and for all. So you see my death strike is rational and pragmatic. I’m only sorry I didn’t do it decades ago, and I’m eager to leave this cesspit in a coffin.[152]
Immediately following the trial, Hindley lodged an unsuccessful appeal against her conviction.[153] Brady and Hindley corresponded by letter until 1971, when she ended their relationship. The two remained in sporadic contact for several months,[154] but Hindley had fallen in love with one of her prison officers, Patricia Cairns. A former assistant governor claimed that such relationships were not unusual in Holloway at that time, as “many of the officers were gay, and involved in relationships either with one another or with inmates”.[155] Hindley successfully petitioned to have her status as acategory A prisoner changed to category B, which enabled Governor Dorothy Wing to take her on a walk round Hampstead Heath, part of her unofficial policy of reintroducing her charges to the outside world when she felt they were ready. The excursion caused a furore in the national press and earned Wing an official rebuke from the then Home Secretary Robert Carr.[156] With Cairns’ assistance and the outside contacts of another prisoner, Maxine Croft, Hindley planned a prison escape, but it was thwarted when impressions of the prison keys were intercepted by an off-duty policeman. Cairns was sentenced to six years in jail for her part in the plot.[157] While in prison, Hindley wrote her autobiography, which remains unpublished.[158]
Hindley was told that she should spend 25 years in prison before being considered for parole. The Lord Chief Justice agreed with that recommendation in 1982, but in January 1985 Home SecretaryLeon Brittan increased her tariff to 30 years.[145] By that time, Hindley claimed to be a reformed Roman Catholic. Ann West, the mother of Lesley Ann Downey, was at the centre of a campaign to ensure that Hindley was never released from prison, and until West’s death in February 1999, she regularly gave television and newspaper interviews whenever Hindley’s release was rumoured.[159]
In 1990, then Home Secretary David Waddington imposed a whole life tariff on Hindley, after she confessed to having a greater involvement in the murders than she had previously admitted.[145] Hindley was not informed of the decision until 1994, when a Law Lords ruling obliged the Prison Service to inform all life sentence prisoners of the minimum period they must serve in prison before being considered for parole.[160] In 1997, the Parole Board ruled that Hindley was low risk and should be moved to an open prison.[145] She rejected the idea and was moved to a medium security prison; the House of Lords ruling left open the possibility of later freedom. Between December 1997 and March 2000, Hindley made three separate appeals against her life tariff, claiming she was a reformed woman and no longer a danger to society, but each was rejected by the courts.[161][162]
When in 2002 another life sentence prisoner challenged the Home Secretary’s power to set minimum terms, Hindley and hundreds of others, whose tariffs had been increased by politicians, looked likely to be released from prison.[163] Hindley’s release seemed imminent and plans were made by supporters for her to be given a new identity.[164] Lord Longford, a devout Roman Catholic, campaigned to secure the release of “celebrated” criminals, and Myra Hindley in particular, which earned him constant derision from the public and the press. He described Hindley as a “delightful” person and said “you could loathe what people did but should not loathe what they were because human personality was sacred even though human behaviour was very often appalling”.[165] Home Secretary David Blunkett ordered Greater Manchester Police to find new charges against her, to prevent her release from prison. The investigation was headed by Superintendent Tony Brett, and initially looked at charging Hindley with the murders of Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett, but the advice given by government lawyers was that because of the DPP’s decision taken 15 years earlier, a new trial would probably be considered an abuse of process.[166]
Part of Stalybridge Country Park, where Hindley’s ashes were scattered in 2003
David Smith became “reviled by the people of Manchester”, despite having been instrumental in bringing Brady and Hindley to justice.[167] While her sister was on trial, Maureen—eight months pregnant—was attacked in the lift of the building in which she and David lived. Their home was vandalised, and hate mail was regularly posted through their letterbox. Maureen feared for her children: “I couldn’t let my children out of my sight when they were little. They were too young to tell them why they had to stay in, to explain why they couldn’t go out to play like all the other children.”[168]
After knifing another man during a fight, in an attack he claimed was triggered by the abuse he had suffered since the trial, Smith was sentenced to three years in prison in 1969.[167] That same year his children were taken into the care of the local authority. His wife Maureen moved from Underwood Court to a single-bedroom property, and found work in a department store. Subjected to whispering campaigns and petitions to remove her from the estate where she lived, she received no support from her family—her mother had supported Myra during the trial. On his release from prison, David Smith moved in with the girl who became his second wife and won custody of his three sons. Maureen managed to repair the relationship with her mother, and moved into a council property in Gorton. She divorced Smith in 1973,[169] and married a lorry driver, Bill Scott, with whom she had a daughter.[170]
Maureen and her immediate family made regular visits to see Hindley, who reportedly adored her niece. In 1980 Maureen suffered a brain haemorrhage; Hindley was granted permission to visit her sister in hospital, but she arrived an hour after Maureen’s death.[171] Sheila and Patrick Kilbride, who were by then divorced,[172] were present at Maureen’s funeral, believing that Hindley might make an appearance. Patrick Kilbride mistook Bill Scott’s daughter from a previous relationship, Ann Wallace, for Hindley and tried to attack her before being knocked to the ground by another mourner; the police were called to restore order.[173] Shortly before her death at the age of 70 Sheila Kilbride said: “If she [Hindley] ever comes out of jail I’ll kill her.”[174] It was a threat repeated by her son Danny, and Ann West.[175][176]
In 1972, David Smith was acquitted of the murder of his father, who had been suffering from an incurable cancer. Smith pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to two days’ detention.[177] He remarried and moved to Lincolnshire with his three sons,[167][178] and was exonerated of any participation in the Moors murders by Hindley’s confession in 1987.
Joan Reade, Pauline Reade’s mother, was admitted to Springfield Mental Hospital in Manchester. She was present, under heavy sedation, at the funeral of her daughter on 7 August 1987.[179] Five years after their son was murdered, Sheila and Patrick Kilbride divorced.[172] Ann West, mother of Lesley Ann Downey, died in 1999 from cancer of the liver. Since her daughter’s death, she had campaigned to ensure that Hindley remained in prison and doctors said that the stress had contributed to the severity of her illness.[180] Winnie Johnson, mother of Keith Bennett, continues to visit Saddleworth Moor, where it is believed that the body of her son is buried.[181]
The house in which Brady and Hindley lived on Wardle Brook Avenue, and where Edward Evans was murdered, was demolished by the local council.[182]
Hindley died from bronchial pneumonia caused by heart disease, at the age of 60, on 15 November 2002.[183] Cameras “crowded the pavement” outside, but none of Hindley’s relatives were among the congregation of six who attended a short service at Cambridge crematorium, as they were living anonymously in Manchester under assumed names. Such was the strength of feeling more than 35 years after the murders that a reported 20 local undertakers refused to handle her cremation.[184] Four months later, Hindley’s ashes were scattered by a former lover, a woman she had met in prison,[185] less than 10 miles (16 km) from Saddleworth Moor in Stalybridge Country Park. Fears were expressed that the news might result in visitors choosing to avoid the park, a local beauty spot, or even in the park being vandalised.[186] Less than two weeks after Hindley’s death, on 25 November 2002, the Law Lords agreed that judges, not politicians, should decide how long a criminal spends behind bars, and thus stripped the Home Secretary of the power to set minimum sentences.[187]
A 1977 BBC television debate discussed arguments for and against Myra Hindley’s release, with contributions from the parents of some of the murdered children.[188] The case has been dramatised on television twice: in See No Evil: The Moors Murders and Longford (both 2006).
Hindley “shouldered the greater public outrage” because of her gender, and she was popularly assumed to be “the devil incarnate”. The photographs and tape recording of the torture of Lesley Ann Downey, demonstrated in court to a disbelieving audience, and the cool responses of Brady and Hindley, helped to ensure the lasting notoriety of their crimes. Brady, who says that he does not want to be released, is rarely mentioned in the news, but Hindley’s repeated insistence on her innocence, and attempts to secure her release from prison, resulted in her becoming a figure of hate in the national media.[189] Retribution was a common theme amongst those who sought to keep her locked away, and even Hindley’s mother insisted that she should die in prison—although out of fear for her daughter’s safety, and the desire to avoid the possibility that one of the victims’ relatives might kill her. Some commentators expressed the view that of the two, Hindley was the “more evil”.[190] In 1987 she admitted that the plea for parole she had submitted to the Home Secretary eight years earlier was “on the whole […] a pack of lies”,[191] and to some reporters her co-operation in the searches on Saddleworth Moor “appeared a cynical gesture aimed at ingratiating herself to the parole authorities”.[189]0
Original painting by Gloucestershire artist Paul Bridgman… on display at The Crime Through Time Collection , Littledean Jail , along with various other handwritten and signed memorabilia from Jeffery Dahmer .
TRUE CRIME, MURDERABILIA, MAIMERABILIA, THE TABOO AND BIZZARE ARE ALL HERE ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL, UK
HERE ARE SOME MORE HISTORICALLY INTERACTIVE DETAILS, PHOTO GALLERY (VERY GRAPHIC IN PARTS) …. AND VIDEO DOCUMENTARY FOOTAGE TOUCHING UPON ONE OF THE WORLDS MOST DEBAUCHED AND EVIL KILLERS – JEFFREY DAHMER .
FROM THE HANDS OF DEATH …
Jeffrey Dahmer handwritten return address on envelope officially stamped by Wisconsin Prison System
HERE ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL , FOREST OF DEAN , GLOUCESTERSHIRE, UK….. WE HAVE HANDWRITTEN AND SIGNED LETTERS FROM JEFFREY DAHMER AND OTHER NOTORIOUS AMERICAN AND BRITISH SERIAL KILLERS , PROVIDING AN INTRIGUING AND DISTURBING INSIGHT INTO THE MINDS OF THESE MONSTERS FROM HELL .
AS A POLITE WARNING TO ALL POTENTIAL VISITORS HERE, TO OUR FACEBOOK PAGE OR TO THE MUSEUM ….. PLEASE DO AVOID A VISIT TO LITTLEDEAN JAIL IS EASILY DISTURBED, EASILY OFFENDED OR OF A SENSITIVE NATURE .AS WE ALWAYS SAY … CRIME IN ITSELF IS AN UNPLEASANT SUBJECT MATTER TO COVER AND AS SUCH IS NOT PRESENTED HERE IN A PLEASANT WAY EITHER .
Handwritten and signed (Jeff) letter sent by Jeffrey Dalmer on the 26 May 1993
CERTAINLY NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN EITHER
Jeffrey Dahmer was one of the most notorious American serial killers. Between 1978 and 1991, Dahmer killed 17 boys and men, many of whom were of Asian or African descent. However it wasn’t the body count that made him such a notorious serial killer. It was the way he tortured and raped his victims before death found them. It was also about how he dismembered his victims and practiced necrophilia and cannibalism on them.
Jeffrey Dahmer Biography
Born as Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer on May 21, 1960 in West Allis, Wisconsin to Lionel Herbert Dahmer and Joyce Annette (née Flint), Jeffrey Dahmer grew up to be a normal child. However as the relationship between his parents grew cold, so did his feelings of neglect and withdrawal. His family moved to Bath, Ohio when he was 8 year old. Uninterested in social interactions with other children from the neighborhood he was new into, Jeffrey rode around on his bicycle, collecting dead animals for dissection. Some he brought back home (like a good household cat), some he played with in the woods. At one point, he impaled a dog’s head on a stake.
When he became a teenager, Jeffrey Dahmer started to abuse alcohol. Tension between his parents escalated resulting in bitter divorce which only strengthened the boy’s feeling of abandonment. His mother took Jeffrey’s younger brother and left without a trace, leaving vulnerable Dahmer to stay with his father who left the family long time ago. Having no means to contact his mother or brother, Jeffrey felt lost and rejected.
By the time of his high school graduation, Jeffrey Dahmer was an alcoholic. He dropped out of the Ohio State University after one quarter, having failed to attend most of his classes because he was constantly drunk. Since giving him education didn’t go over so well, Jeffrey’s father enlisted his son in the army. He was a decent soldier (army medic), but his excessive alcoholism resulted in a discharge after two years in service. He felt no emotional connection to his father, so after his discharge in 1981, Jeffrey Dahmer headed for Miami, Florida to avoid living in cold weather. He continued drinking and was arrested a few months later for drunk and disorderly conduct.
Jeffrey moved in with his grandmother Shari Dahmer in 1982. She said Jeffrey was a gentle person but when he got drunk (which was often), it took four policemen to hold him down. In 1982 and 1986, Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested for indecent exposure, the latter involving masturbation in front of two boys.
Jeffrey Dahmer’s Murders
Jeffrey Dahmer committed his first murder when he was 18 years old. It was shortly after his parent’s divorce – his mother and his brother moved out and his father was on a business trip. Having the house in Bath Township, Ohio all for himself and feeling alone, Jeffrey picked up a hitchhiker named Stephen Hicks, took him to the house and killed him with a barbell because the guest wanted to leave. Once Stephen Hicks was dead, Jeffrey Dahmer smashed his bones with a hammer and buried the body in the backyard. He wouldn’t kill again for 9 years.
His second victim was 24 year old Steven Toumi. Jeffrey met him in a gay bar in 1987. Gay bars offered great settings where he could approach young homosexual or bisexual males, ask them to come over to his place for beers or offer them money to pose for photos, drug them into a deep sleep with spiked drinks, strangle or stabbed them while they were out and unleash his sexual fantasies on the cadaver. When he was done having anal sex with fresh corpses, he would dismember them with a hacksaw, usually keeping their genitalia and heads as trophies. Lean muscles would be stored in a freezer to be eaten as food. Whatever was left was boiled with acids and/or other chemicals and flashed down the drain. Sometimes, if his victim did not die instantly, he would drill a hole in the victim’s skull and paralyze the brain with boiling water or hydrochloric acid. The victim would remain alive for several days, but in a zombie like state.
While staying with his grandmother, Jeffrey Dahmer continued collecting dead animals and dissecting them in her basement which caused foul smell throughout the house. Coupled with his strange behavior and late nights, the grandmother asked him to move out. On September 25, 1988, while employed as a worker at the Ambrosia Chocolate Factory, Jeffrey moved into an apartment in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. One day later, he was arrested for drugging and sexually exploiting a 13 year old Laotian boy named Somsack Sinthasomphone. That made him a registered sex offender and landed him with one year in a work release camp and five years probation. He was released on a parole two months early, moved into a new apartment and began his most prolific string of murders. The apartment’s address is now infamous (though the building has been torn down):
Oxford Apartments
924 North 25th Street
Apartment 213
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
After his scuffle with the above mentioned 13 year old boy Somsack Sinthasomphone which landed Jeffrey Dahmer with 10 months long incarceration and a registration as a sex offender, Jeffrey took a hold of Somsack’s younger brother, now 14 year old Konerak Sinthasomphone and brought him home for another one of his fantasy butt sex sessions from hell. Heavily drugged and bleeding profusely out of his ass after a little rectal massage from Jeffrey Dahmer’s stiffy, Konerak Sinthasomphone escaped and was discovered wandering down the street naked in the early morning hours of May 27, 1991 by 18 year old Sandra Smith and her cousin of the same age – Nicole Childress. The teens called 911, as even though the Asian boy could not speak any English, the state he was in sent strong signals that something was not right.
Dahmer, who was 31 at the time, chased the boy down the street and got to him before the police arrived. The girls who alerted the police got in the way and halted the escort until the police arrived. Dahmer told them that the boy was his 19 year old boyfriend, that they were drinking and got in an argument so he walked out of his apartment naked and under influence. The police failed to verify the boy’s age and run a background check on Dahmer which would have revealed that he was a registered child molester still under probation. Instead, they swallowed Dahmer’s story and took both men back to Dahmer’s apartment – despite protests from the girls who called 911. The police noted strange smell when they walked inside Dahmer’s apartment, but did nothing to investigate it. As became clear later, the smell was caused by the corpse of Tony Hughes – Dahmer’s previous victim whose decomposing body he still kept in the bedroom. Had the police done their due diligence, Konerak Sinthasomphone as well as four subsequent victims would not have been murdered.
Jeffrey Dahmer’s Arrest
Encouraged by the success with Konerak Sinthasomphone whom he strangled to death, dismembered and beheaded to keep his skull as a trophy, Jeffrey Dahmer went on a killing spree almost averaging one victim per week. He killed Matt Turner on June 30, 1991, then Jeremiah Weinberger on July 5, 1991, then Oliver Lacy on July 12, 1991 and finally Joseph Brandehoft on July 19, 1991. His next victim was to be 32 year old Tracy Edwards, whom he lured into his apartment on July 22, 1991. With this bad boy things didn’t go quite the way Jeffrey would have liked, though.
When Robert Rauth and Rolf Mueller, the cops from the Milwaukee police department drove through the neighborhood where Dahmer lived, they noticed a dazed black male wandering around with one handcuff on his hand, they knew something wasn’t right. They asked Tracy Edwards what happened to him and were told that he was invited into an apartment of some weird dude with whom he watched movies, but was then drugged and the weird dude tried to handcuff him. He resisted and slipped away, so the dude threatened him with a knife. Tracy Edwards retracted to the bedroom where he saw the wall covered with Polaroid pictures of mangled bodies. There was a large blue barrel by the wall from which a horrible smell was coming out. Wielding a large butcher knife, the weird dude tried to attack him, but Tracy Edwards fought back, punched him in the face and kicked him in the stomach, affording himself a way to escape from there, though still wearing a handcuff on one wrist.
Tracy Edwards lead the police to the apartment where they were greeted by friendly acting Jeffrey Dahmer. He told them that he just lost the job at the chocolate factory (which was true) and the stress it caused made him lose temper and overreact. The police asked him to get the key from the handcuffs so they could be removed from Tracy Edwards’ hand. Jeffrey went to his bedroom, but was followed by one of the cops who noticed all the Polaroid photos of dismembered bodies all over the wall and was overwhelmed by the stench of rotting flesh coming out of the room. He proceeded to further inspect the apartment and had his attention caught by a fridge covered with more gruesome Polaroid photos. The shock came when he opened said fridge. There was a severed human head on the shelf. The officer screamed at his partner to which Jeffrey Dahmer responded by fighting his way out of there. He was restrained and apprehended.
Thorough inspection revealed three more heads and human flesh in the freezer. Several hands and a penis were found in a stockpot in a closet. Two gray-painted boiled skulls were found on a shelf in a bedroom closet. More penises were found preserved in formaldehyde. But most of all – there were hundreds of gory photos of his victims which Jeffrey Dahmer photographed while they were alive, while they were being murdered, and after they were dead. In his closet, the police also discovered an altar of human skulls and candles. Jeffrey Dahmer allegedly planned to use the skulls to build a shrine.
Jeffrey Dahmer’s Trial
Dahmer admitted to every crime he had committed. He made no excuses and blamed nobody but himself. He was indicted on 17 murder charges, but found guilty on 15. He entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity but the court rejected his plea on February 17, 1992 and sentenced him to 15 life terms in jail, which would add up to 957 years behind bars. The state of Wisconsin does not have capital punishment.
Jeffrey Dahmer’s Murder
Jeffrey Dahmer served his long sentence at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin. He was murdered on November 28, 1994 while serving his time by inmate Christopher Scarver who attacked him and another inmate named Jesse Anderson with a broom stick, killing both. Christopher Scarver said he was acting on God’s command to kill Dahmer.
Christopher Scarver Handwritten envelope sent to Kenneth G Karnig , with his return address in top left corner
ABOVE: A VERY EARLY POSTCARD IMAGE OF LITTLEDEAN GAOL,SPELT HERE IN THE OLD FASHION WAY .
IT WAS ALSO FORMERLY USED AS A “HOUSE OF CORRECTION “, LATER TO BECOME A POLICE STATION,COURTHOUSE AND NOW IS THE HOME OF THE INFAMOUS CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION .
ABOVE: Original Victorian 3-handcuffed leather body belt and original leather bound handcuffs
ABOVE : EARLY VICTORIAN LITTLE DEAN PRISON WARDEN/GUARD TUNIC BUTTON ( A VERY RARE FIND FOR SURE )
Possibly of little significance to visitors …. however I love this item which has been recently discovered and acquired for display here . Intriguingly this early Victorian Prison Warden/Guard tunic button is worded LITTLE DEAN (AS TWO WORDS) WITH PRISON BENEATH (INSTEAD OF GAOL ) … as opposed to it’s early title as having been “Littledean Gaol”.
BELOW: ORIGINAL VICTIORAN STRAIGHT JACKET THAT WAS FOUND IN LITTLEDEAN JAIL’S ATTIC SPACE BY BUILDERS DURING RENOVATION WORK BACK IN 1986 AND SUBSEQUENTLY DONATED TO THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION FOR PERMANENT DISPLAY HERE AT THE JAIL
CORPORAL PUNISHMENT THROUGH THE AGES AS WELL AS AN INSIGHT INTO PRESENT DAY CORPORAL PUNISHMENTS TOO, AS FEATURED AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION HERE AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL
ABOVE :AN ARRAY OF VARIOUS 19TH CENTURY HANDCUFFS, RESTRAINTS AND LEG IRONS HERE ON DISPLAY AT THE JAIL .
CORPORAL PUNISHMENT IN MALAYSIA FOR RAPE, ARMED ROBBERY , DRUGS ETC
ORIGINAL EARLY 16TH- 17TH CENTURY HANDMADE OAK “VILLAGE PUNISHMENT STOCKS” RESTORED IN THE 19TH CENTURY WITH ADDITIONAL SUPPORTING IRONWORK AND PRESERVED FOR POSTERITY ….. AS CAN NOW BE SEEN AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL,LITTLEDEAN, FOREST OF DEAN, GLOUCESTERSHIRE, UK
VILLAGE STOCKS
Stocks are devices used in the internationally, in medieval, Renaissance and colonial American times as a form of physical punishment involving public humiliation. The stocks partially immobilized its victims and they were often exposed in a public place such as the site of a market to the scorn of those who passed by. Since the purpose of putting offenders in the stocks was to expose them to ridicule and mockery, passers-by were encouraged to throw mud, rotten eggs, moldy fruit and vegetables, smelly fish, offal, and excrement (both animal and human) at those being punished.
ABOVE AND BELOW : WITCHES DUCKING STOOL AND LIFTING PULLY ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL
VARIOUS EARLY VICTORIAN LEATHER BOUND WHIPS AND CAT O’NINE TAILS USED WITHIN UK PRISONS ….. HERE ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL
VARIOUS WHIPS, CAT O’NINE TAILS , BLUDGEON AND LEATHER BOUND HANDCUFFS USED WITHIN UK PRISONS HERE ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL
CLOSE-UP IMAGE OF ROUND HANDLED LEATHER BOUND EARLY VICTORIAN WHIP USED WITHIN UK PRISONS
AS ABOVE
EARLY VICTORIAN BLACK CLOTH BOUND, ROUND HANDLED CAT O’NINE TAILS USED IN UK PRISONS
AS ABOVE
EARLY VICTORIAN FLAT HANDLED CAT O’NINE TAILS USED IN UK PRISONS
AS ABOVE
CLOSE UP IMAGE OF VICTORIAN LEATHER BOUND HAND RESTRIANTS AS USED HERE AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL
AS ABOVE
EARLY VICTORIAN LEATHER BOUND BODY RESTRAINT WITH ATTACHED HAND CUFFS USED IN UK PRISONS AND NOW ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL
CLOSE UP OF ABOVE
CLOSE UP OF ABOVE
AS ABOVE
AS ABOVE
AS ABOVE
AS ABOVE
AS ABOVE
BELOW : ORIGINAL 1930’s LEATHER BODY BELT RESTRAINT COMPLETE WITH WRIST RESTRAINTS ACQUIRED FROM THE MONICA BRITTON MUSEUM COLLECTION AT FRENCHAY HOSPITAL , BRISTOL AND NOW ON DISPLAY HERE AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL , GLOUCESTERSHIRE, UK
BELOW: ORIGINAL 1930’s LEATHER RESTRAINT STRAPS ACQUIRED FROM THE MONICA BRITTON MUSEUM COLLECTION AT FRENCHAY HOSPITAL , BRISTOL AND NOW ON DISPLAY HERE AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL , GLOUCESTERSHIRE, UK
PRISON WARDEN INSCRIBED 18TH CENTURY TRUNCHEON AND EARLY VICTORIAN BODY RESTRAINT BELT HERE ON DISPLAY
INSCRIBED GEORGE 1ST PRISON WARDEN TRUNCHEON HERE ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL
EARLY VICTORIAN BLUDGEON USED IN UK PRISONS …. HERE ON DISPLAY AT THE JAIL WITH PRISON WARDEN TRUNCHEON AND HIATT STEEL HANDCUFFS
EARLY VICTORIAN BLUDGEON USED IN UK PRISONS
CLOSE-UP OF HIATT STEEL HANDCUFFS
corporal punishment is a form of physical punishment that involves the deliberate infliction of pain as retribution for an offence, or for the purpose of disciplining or reforming a wrongdoer, or to deter attitudes or behaviour deemed unacceptable. The term usually refers to methodically striking the offender with an implement, whether in judicial, domestic, or educational settings.
Corporal punishment may be divided into three main types:
Parental or domestic corporal punishment: within the family—typically, children punished by parents or guardians;
School corporal punishment: within schools, when students are punished by teachers or school administrators, or, in the past, apprentices by master craftsmen;
Judicial corporal punishment: as part of a criminal sentence ordered by a court of law. Closely related is prison corporal punishment, ordered either directly by the prison authorities or by a visiting court.
Corporal punishment of minors within domestic settings is lawful in all 50 of the United States and, according to a 2000 survey, is widely approved by parents.[1]It has been officially outlawed in 29 countries.[2]
Corporal punishment in school is still legal in some parts of the world, including 20 of the States of the USA, but has been outlawed in other places, including Canada, Kenya, Japan, South Africa, New Zealand, and nearly all of Europe except the Czech Republic[3] and France.[4]
Judicial corporal punishment has virtually disappeared from the western world but remains in force in many parts of Africa and Asia.
The practice was recorded as early as c. 10th Century BC in Book of Proverbs attributed to Solomon:
He that spareth the rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him correcteth him betimes.[5]
Withhold not correction from a child: for if thou strike him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and deliver his soul from hell.[6]
It was certainly present in classical civilisations, being used in Greece, Rome, and Egypt for both judicial and educational discipline.[7] Some states gained a reputation for using such punishments cruelly; Sparta, in particular, used them as part of a disciplinary regime designed to build willpower and physical strength.[8] Although the Spartan example was extreme, corporal punishment was possibly the most frequent type of punishment. In the Roman Empire, the maximum penalty that a Roman citizen could receive under the law was 40 “lashes” or “strokes” with a whip applied to the back and shoulders, or with the “fasces” (similar to a birch rod, but consisting of 8–10 lengths of willow rather than birch) applied to the buttocks. Such punishments could draw blood, and were frequently inflicted in public.
In Medieval Europe, corporal punishment was encouraged by the attitudes of the medieval church towards the human body, flagellation being a common means of self-discipline. This had an influence on the use of corporal punishment in schools, as educational establishments were closely attached to the church during this period. Nevertheless, corporal punishment was not used uncritically; as early as the eleventh century Saint Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury was speaking out against what he saw as the excessive use of corporal punishment in the treatment of children.[9]
From the 16th century onwards, new trends were seen in corporal punishment. Judicial punishments were increasingly turned into public spectacles, with public beatings of criminals intended as a deterrent to other would-be offenders. Meanwhile, early writers on education, such as Roger Ascham, complained of the arbitrary manner in which children were punished.[10] Perhaps the most influential writer on the subject was the English philosopher John Locke, whose Some Thoughts Concerning Education explicitly criticised the central role of corporal punishment in education. Locke’s work was highly influential, and may have helped influence Polish legislators to ban corporal punishment from Poland’s schools in 1783.[11]
During the 18th century, the concept of corporal punishment was attacked by some philosophers and legal reformers. Merely inflicting pain on miscreants was seen as inefficient, influencing the subject only for a short period of time and effecting no permanent change in their behaviour. Some believed that the purpose of punishment should be reformation, not retribution. This is perhaps best expressed in Jeremy Bentham’s idea of a panoptic prison, in which prisoners were controlled and surveyed at all times, perceived to be advantageous in that this system supposedly reduced the need of measures such as corporal punishment.[12]
A consequence of this mode of thinking was a reduction in the use of corporal punishment in the 19th century in Europe and North America. In some countries this was encouraged by scandals involving individuals seriously hurt during acts of corporal punishment. For instance, in Britain, popular opposition to punishment was encouraged by two significant cases, the death of Private Frederick John White, who died after a military flogging in 1846,[13] and the death of Reginald Cancellor, who was killed by his schoolmaster in 1860.[14] Events such as these mobilised public opinion, and in response, many countries introduced thorough regulation of the infliction of corporal punishment in state institutions such as schools, prisons and reformatories.
In the 1870s, courts in the United States overruled the common-law principle that a husband had the right to “physically chastise an errant wife”.[15] In the UK the traditional right of a husband to inflict moderate corporal punishment on his wife in order to keep her “within the bounds of duty” was similarly removed in 1891.[16][17] See Domestic violence for more information.
In the United Kingdom, the use of judicial corporal punishment declined during the first half of the 20th century and it was abolished altogether in 1948, while most other European countries had abolished it earlier. Meanwhile in many schools, the use of the cane, paddle or tawse remained commonplace in the UK and the United States until the 1980s. In several other countries, it still is: seeSchool corporal punishment.
Domestic corporal punishment, i.e. of children and teenagers by their parents, is usually referred to colloquially as “spanking“, “whipping“, “smacking,” or “slapping.” One possible method of spanking is to have the child or teenager lying, stomach down, across the parent’s lap, with the parent bringing their open hand down upon the child’s buttocks. Alternatively, the youngster might be told to bend over, or lie face down across a bed.[18] Spankings may be delivered over the trousers, over the undergarments, or upon the bare buttocks.[19]
In an increasing number of countries it has been outlawed, starting with Sweden in 1979.[2] In some other countries, corporal punishment is legal, but restricted (e.g. blows to the head are outlawed and implements may not be used, and/or only children within a certain age range may be spanked).
In the United States and all African and most Asian nations, “spanking,” “whipping,” “smacking,” or “slapping” by parents is currently legal; it is also legal to use certain implements such as a belt or paddle.
In Canada, spanking by parents or legal guardians (but nobody else) is legal, as long as the child is not under 2 years or over 12 years of age, and no implement other than an open, bare hand is used (belts, paddles, etc. are strictly prohibited). Provinces can legally impose tighter restrictions than the aforementioned national restrictions, but none currently does so.
In the UK, spanking or smacking is legal, but it may not leave a mark on the body and in Scotland since October 2003 it has been illegal to use any implements when disciplining a child.
In Pakistan, Section 89 of Pakistan Penal Code allows corporal punishment. The Government of Pakistan has yet to repeal this law.[20]
Legal corporal punishment of school students for misbehaviour involves striking the student on the buttocks or the palm of the hand in a premeditated ceremony with an implement specially kept for the purpose such as a rattan cane or spanking paddle, or with the open hand.
Some countries retain judicial corporal punishment, including a number of former British territories such as Botswana, Malaysia, Singapore and Tanzania. In Malaysia and Singapore, for certain specified offences, males are routinely sentenced to caning in addition to a prison term. The Singaporean practice of caning became much discussed around the world in 1994 when American teenager Michael P. Fay was caned for vandalism.
A number of countries with an Islamic legal system, such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan and northern Nigeria, employ judicial whipping for a range of offences. As of 2009, some regions of Pakistan are experiencing a breakdown of law and government, leading to a reintroduction of corporal punishment by ad hocIslamicist courts.[21] As well as corporal punishment, some Islamic countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran use other kinds of physical penalties such asamputation or mutilation.[22][23][24] However, the term “corporal punishment” has since the 19th century usually meant caning, flogging or whipping rather than those other types of physical penalty.[25][26][27][28][29][30][31]
According to its proponents, corporal punishment offers several advantages over other kinds of punishment, such as that it is quicker to implement, costs nothing, and deters unruliness.[32][33]
The American Psychological Association opposes the use of corporal punishment in schools, juvenile facilities, child care nurseries, and all other institutions, public or private, where children are cared for or educated. It claims that corporal punishment is violent and unnecessary, may lower self-esteem, and is liable to instil hostility and rage without reducing the undesired behaviour. The APA also states that corporal punishment is likely to train children to use physical violence.[34]
The professor of philosophy, David Benatar, points out that using this last argument, fining people also teaches that forcing others to give up some of their property is an acceptable response to unwanted behaviour in others. “Why don’t detentions, imprisonments, fines, and a multitude of other punishments convey equally undesirable messages?” According to Benatar, the key difference lies in the legitimacy of the authority administering the punishment: “[T]here is all the difference in the world between legitimate authorities—the judiciary, parents, or teachers—using punitive powers responsibly to punish wrongdoing, and children or private citizens going around beating each other, locking each other up, and extracting financial tributes (such as lunch money). There is a vast moral difference here and there is no reason why children should not learn about it. Punishing children when they do wrong seems to be one important way of doing this.”[35]
Kay Hymowitz in her book, Who Killed Discipline in School? states, “Ask Americans what worries them most about public schools and the answer might surprise you; discipline. For several decades now, poll after poll shows it topping the list of parents’ concerns. Hymowitz says that, “the public’s sense that something has gone drastically wrong with school discipline isn’t mistaken. Over the past thirty years or so, the courts and federal government have hacked away at the power of educators to maintain a safe and civil school environment.”[36]
Anatomical target
Different parts of the anatomy may be targeted:
The buttocks, whether clothed or bare, have often been targeted for punishment, particularly in Europe and the English-speaking world.[28] Indeed, some languages have a specific word for their chastisement: spanking in English, fessée in French, nalgada in Spanish (both Romanesque words directly derived from the word for buttock). The advantage is that these fleshy body parts are robust and can be chastised accurately, without endangering any bodily functions; they heal well and relatively quickly; in some cultures punishment applied to the buttocks entails a degree of humiliation, which may or may not be intended as part of the punishment.
Chastising the back of the thighs and calves, as sometimes in South Korean schools, is at least as painful if not more so, but this can cause more damage in terms of scars and bruising.
The upper back and the shoulders have historically been a target for whipping, e.g. in the UK with the cat-o’-nine-tails in the Royal Navy and in some pre-1948 judicial punishments, and also today generally in the Middle East and the Islamic world.
The head is a very dangerous place to hit, especially “boxing the ears“.
The hand is very sensitive and delicate, and use of an implement could cause excessive damage.[37]
The soles of the feet are extremely sensitive, and flogging them (falaka), as has been sometimes done in the Middle East, is excruciating.
Corporal punishment in official settings, such as schools and prisons, has typically been carried out as a formal ceremony, with a standard procedure, emphasising the solemnity of the occasion. It may even be staged in a ritual manner in front of other students/inmates, in order to act as a deterrent to others.
In the case of prison or judicial punishments, formal punishment might begin with the offender stripped of some or all of their clothing and secured to a piece of furniture, such as a trestle or frame,[38][39](X-cross), punishment horse or falaka. In some cases the nature of the offence is read out and the sentence (consisting of a predetermined number of strokes) is formally imposed. A variety of implements may be used to inflict blows on the offender. The terms used to describe these are not fixed, varying by country and by context. There are, however, a number of common types that are encountered when reading about corporal punishment. These include:
The rod. A thin, flexible rod is often called a switch.
The birch, a number of strong, flexible branches of birch or similar wood, bound together with twine into a single implement.
The rattan cane (not bamboo as it is often wrongly described). Much favoured in the British Commonwealth for both school and judicial use.
The paddle, a flat wooden board with a handle, with or without holes. Used in US schools.
The strap. A leather strap with a number of tails at one end, called a tawse, was used in schools in Scotland and some parts of northern England.
The whip, typically of leather. Varieties include the Russian knout and South African sjambok, in addition to the scourge and the French martinet.
The cat o’ nine tails was used in British naval discipline and as a judicial and prison punishment.
The hairbrush and belt were traditionally used in the United States and Britain as an implement for domestic spanking.
The plimsoll or gym shoe, used in British and Commonwealth schools, often called “the slipper”. See Slippering (punishment).
In some instances the offender is required to prepare the implement himself. For instance, sailors were employed in preparing the cat o’ nine tails that would be used upon their own back, while school students were sometimes sent out to cut a switch or rod.
In contrast, informal punishments, particularly in domestic settings, tend to lack this ritual nature and are often administered with whatever object comes to hand. It is common, for instance, for belts, wooden spoons, slippers, hairbrushes or coathangers to be used in domestic punishment, while rulers and other classroom equipment have been used in schools.
In parts of England, boys were once beaten under the old tradition of “Beating the Bounds” whereby a boy was paraded around the edge of a city or parish and would be spanked with a switch or cane to mark the boundary.[40] One famous “Beating the Bounds” took place around the boundary of St Giles and the area where Tottenham Court Road now stands in central London. The actual stone that separated the boundary is now underneath the Centre Point office tower.[41]
Corporal punishment, paraphilia and fetishism
The German psychologist Richard von Krafft-Ebing suggested that a tendency to sadism and masochism may develop out of the experience of children receiving corporal punishment at school.[42] But this was disputed by Sigmund Freud, who found that, where there was a sexual interest in beating or being beaten, it developed in early childhood, and rarely related to actual experiences of punishment.[43]
Capital punishment in the United Kingdom was used from the creation of the state in 1707 until the practice was abolished in the twentieth century. The last executions in the United Kingdom, by hanging, took place in 1964, prior to capital punishment being abolished for murder (in 1969 in Great Britain and in 1973 in Northern Ireland). Although not applied since, the death penalty remained on the statute book for certain other offences until 1998.[1]
Sir Samuel Romilly, speaking to the House of Commons on capital punishment in 1810, declared that “…(there is) no country on the face of the earth in which there [have] been so many different offences according to law to be punished with death as in England.”[citation needed] Known as the “Bloody Code“, at its height the criminal law included some 220 crimes punishable by death, including “being in the company of Gypsies for one month”, “strong evidence of malice in a child aged 7–14 years of age” and “blacking the face or using a disguise whilst committing a crime”. Many of these offences had been introduced to protect the property of the wealthy classes that emerged during the first half of the 18th century, a notable example being the Black Act of 1723, which created 50 capital offences for various acts of theft and poaching.Background
Whilst executions for murder, burglary and robbery were common, the death sentences for minor offenders were often not carried out. However, children were commonly executed for such minor crimes as stealing. A sentence of death could be commuted or respited (permanently postponed) for reasons such as benefit of clergy, official pardons, pregnancy of the offender or performance of military or naval duty.[2] Between 1770 and 1830, 35,000 death sentences were handed down in England and Wales, but only 7,000 executions were carried out.[3]
There were prisons, but they were mostly small, old and badly-run. Common punishments included transportation — sending the offender to America, Australia or Van Diemens Land (Tasmania), or execution — hundreds of offences carried the death penalty. By the 1830s people were having doubts about both these punishments. The answer was prison: lots of new prisons were built and old ones extended. The Victorians also had clear ideas about what these prisons should be like. They should be unpleasant places, so as to deter people from committing crimes. Once inside, prisoners had to be made to face up to their own faults, by keeping them in silence and making them do hard, boring work. Walking a treadwheel or picking oakum (separating strands of rope) were the most common forms of hard labour.
Reform
In 1808 Romilly had the death penalty removed for pickpockets and lesser offenders, starting a process of reform that continued over the next 50 years. The death penalty was mandatory (although it was frequently commuted by the government) until the Judgement of Death Act 1823 gave judges the power to commute the death penalty except for treason and murder. The Punishment of Death, etc. Act 1832 reduced the number of capital crimes by two-thirds. Gibbeting was abolished in 1832 and hanging in chains was abolished in 1834. In 1861, several acts of Parliament (24 & 25 Vict; c. 94 to c. 100) further reduced the number of civilian capital crimes to five: murder, treason, espionage, arson in royal dockyards, and piracy with violence; there were other offences under military law. The death penalty remained mandatory for treason and murder unless commuted.
The Royal Commission on Capital Punishment 1864-1866[4] concluded (with dissenting Commissioners) that there was not a case for abolition but recommended an end to public executions. This proposal was included in the Capital Punishment Amendment Act 1868. From then executions in Great Britain were carried out in prison. The practice of beheading and quartering executed traitors stopped in 1870.[5]
Juveniles under 16 could no longer be executed from 1908 under the Children Act 1908. In 1922 a new offence of Infanticide was introduced to replace the charge of murder for mothers killing their children in the first year of life. In 1930 a parliamentary Select Committee recommended that capital punishment be suspended for a trial period of five years, but no action was taken. From 1931 pregnant women could no longer be hanged (following the birth of their child) although in practice since the 18th century their sentences had always been commuted, and in 1933 the minimum age for capital punishment was raised to 18 under the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. The last known execution by the civilian courts of a person under 18 was that of Charles Dobel, 17, hanged atMaidstone together with his accomplice William Gower, 18, in January 1889.
In 1938 the issue of the abolition of capital punishment was brought before parliament. A clause within the Criminal Justice Bill called for an experimental five-year suspension of the death penalty. When war broke out in 1939 the bill was postponed. It was revived after the war and to everyone’s surprise was adopted by a majority in the House of Commons (245 to 222). In the House of Lords the abolition clause was defeated but the remainder of the bill was passed. Popular support for abolition was absent and the government decided that it would be inappropriate for it to assert its supremacy by invoking the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 over such an unpopular issue.
Instead, then Home Secretary, James Chuter Ede, set up a new Royal Commission (the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment, 1949–1953) with instructions to determine “whether the liability to suffer capital punishment should be limited or modified”. The Commission’s report discussed a number of alternatives to execution by hanging (including the US methods of electrocution and gassing, and the then-theoretical lethal injection), but rejected them. It had more difficulty with the principle of capital punishment. Popular opinion believed that the death penalty acted as a deterrent to criminals, but the statistics within the report were inconclusive. Whilst the report recommended abolition from an ethical standpoint, it made no mention of possible miscarriages of justice. The public had by then expressed great dissatisfaction with the verdict in the case of Timothy Evans, who was tried and hanged for murdering his baby daughter in 1949. It later transpired in 1953 that John Christie had strangled at least six women in the same house; if the jury in Evans’s trial had known this, Evans would probably not have been found guilty. There were other cases in the same period where doubts arose over convictions and subsequent hangings, such as the notorious case of Derek Bentley.
The Commission concluded that unless there was overwhelming public support in favour of abolition, the death penalty should be retained.
By 1957 a number of controversial cases highlighted the issue of capital punishment again. Campaigners for abolition were partially rewarded with the Homicide Act 1957. The Act brought in a distinction between capital and non-capital homicide. Only six categories of murder were now punishable by execution:
in the course or furtherance of theft
by shooting or causing an explosion
while resisting arrest or during an escape
of a police officer
of a prison officer by a prisoner
the second of two murders committed on different occasions (if both done in Great Britain).
The police and the government were of the opinion that the death penalty deterred offenders from carrying firearms and it was for this reason that such offences remained punishable by death.
Abolition
The only known photograph of the death sentence being pronounced in England and Wales, for the poisoner Frederick Seddon in 1912[8]
Murder
In 1965 the Labour MP Sydney Silverman, who had committed himself to the cause of abolition for more than 20 years, introduced a private member’s bill to suspend the death penalty, which was passed on a free vote in the House of Commons by 200 votes to 98. The bill was subsequently passed by the House of Lords by 204 votes to 104.
The Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965 suspended the death penalty in England, Wales and Scotland (but not in Northern Ireland) for murder for a period of five years, and substituted a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment; it further provided that if, before the expiry of the five-year suspension, each House of Parliament passed a resolution to make the effect of the Act permanent, then it would become permanent. In 1969 the Home Secretary, James Callaghan, proposed a motion to make the Act permanent, which was carried in the Commons on 16 December 1969,[9] and a similar motion was carried in the Lords on 18 December.[10] The death penalty for murder was abolished in Northern Ireland on 25 July 1973 under the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1973.
Following the abolition of the death penalty for murder, the House of Commons held a vote during each subsequent parliament until 1997 to restore the death penalty. This motion was always defeated, but the death penalty still survived for other crimes:
certain purely military offences under the jurisdiction of the armed forces, such as mutiny[12] (until 1998). Prior to its complete abolition in 1998, it was available for six offences:
failure to suppress a mutiny with intent to assist the enemy.
However no executions were carried out in the United Kingdom for any of these offences, after the abolition of the death penalty for murder.
Nevertheless, there remained a working gallows at HMP Wandsworth, London, until 1994, which was tested every six months until 1992. This gallows is now housed in the Galleries of Justice inNottingham.[13]
Wales: Vivian Teed, 24, in Swansea on 6 May 1958, for the murder of William Williams, sub-postmaster of Fforestfach Post Office.[15]
Last death sentences
Northern Ireland and in the United Kingdom: William Holden in 1973 in Northern Ireland, for the capital murder of a British soldier during the Troubles. Holden was removed from the death cell in May 1973.[16]
England: David Chapman, who was sentenced to hang in November 1965 for the murder of a swimming pool nightwatchman in Scarborough. He was released from prison in 1979 and later died in a car accident.
Scotland: Patrick McCarron in 1964 for shooting his wife. He hanged himself in prison in 1970.
Wales: Edgar Black, who was reprieved on 6 November 1963. He had shot his wife’s lover in Cardiff.
The Naval Discipline Act 1957 reduced the scope of capital espionage from “all spies for the enemy” to spies on naval ships or bases.[17] Later, the Armed Forces Act 1981 abolished the death penalty for espionage.[18] (The Official Secrets Act 1911 had created another offence of espionage which carried a maximum sentence of fourteen years.)
Beheading was abolished as a method of execution for treason in 1973.[19] However hanging remained available until 1998 when, under a House of Lords amendment to the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, proposed by Lord Archer of Sandwell, the death penalty was abolished for treason and piracy with violence, replacing it with a discretionary maximum sentence of life imprisonment. These were the last civilian offences punishable by death.
On 20 May 1998 the House of Commons voted to ratify the 6th Protocol of the European Convention on Human Rights prohibiting capital punishment except “in time of war or imminent threat of war.” The last remaining provisions for the death penalty under military jurisdiction (including in wartime) were removed when section 21(5) of the Human Rights Act 1998 came into force on 9 November 1998. On 10 October 2003, effective from 1 February 2004,[20] the UK acceded to the 13th Protocol, which prohibits the death penalty under all circumstances,[21] so that the UK may no longer legislate to restore the death penalty while it is subject to the Convention. It can only now restore it if it withdraws from the Council of Europe.
As a legacy from colonial times, several islands in the West Indies still had the British Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as the court of final appeal; although the death penalty has been retained in these islands, the Privy Council would sometimes delay or deny executions. Some of these islands severed links with the British court system in 2001 in order to speed up executions.[22]
In the Channel Islands, the last death sentence was passed in 1984; the last execution in the Channel Islands was in Jersey on 9 October 1959, when Francis Joseph Huchet was hanged for murder.[23] The Human Rights (Amendment) (Jersey) Order 2006[24] amends the Human Rights (Jersey) Law 2000[25] to give effect to the 13th Protocol of the European Convention on Human Rightsproviding for the total abolition of the death penalty. Both of these laws came into effect on 10 December 2006. The 13th Protocol was extended to Guernsey in April 2004.[26]
The last execution on the Isle of Man took place in 1872, when John Kewish was hanged for patricide. Capital punishment was not formally abolished by Tynwald (the island’s parliament) until 1993.[27]Five persons were sentenced to death (for murder) on the Isle of Man between 1973 and 1992, although all sentences were commuted to life imprisonment. The last person to be sentenced to death in the UK or its dependencies was Anthony Teare, who was convicted at the Manx Court of General Gaol Delivery in Douglas in 1992; he was subsequently retried and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1994.[28] In 2004 the 13th Protocol was adopted,[29] with an effective date of 1 November 2006.[30]
Overseas territories
Like the Crown dependencies, the British overseas territories are constitutionally not part of the United Kingdom. However, the British government’s ultimate responsibility for good governance of the territories has led it over recent years to pursue a policy of revoking all statutory provision for the death penalty in those territories where it had up until recently been legal.
The last executions in an overseas territory, and indeed the last on British soil, took place in Bermuda in 1977, when two men, Larry Tacklyn and Erskine Burrows, were hanged for the 1973 murder of the then territory’s Governor Sir Richard Sharples.[31]
The British government was unable to extend the abolition via Order in Council to Bermuda, the UK’s most autonomous overseas territory with powers of almost total self-governance — but warned that if voluntary abolition was not forthcoming it would be forced to consider the unprecedented step of ‘whether to impose abolition by means of an Act of Parliament’.[33] As a result the Bermudian government introduced its own domestic legislation in 1999 to rectify the problem.[34]
Further measures have subsequently been adopted to revoke technicalities in British overseas territories’ domestic legislation as regards use of the death penalty for crimes of treason and piracy. Since 2002, the death penalty has been outlawed under all circumstances in all the UK’s overseas territories.[35]
Public support for reintroduction of capital punishment
A November 2009 television survey showed that 70% favoured reinstating the death penalty for at least one of the following crimes: armed robbery, rape, crimes related to paedophilia, terrorism, adult murder, child murder, child rape, treason, child abuse, or kidnapping. However, respondents only favoured capital punishment for adult murder, the polling question asked by other organisations such asGallup, by small majorities or pluralities: overall, 51% favoured the death penalty for adult murder, while 56% in Wales did, 55% in Scotland, and only 49% in England.[36]
In August 2011, the Internet blogger Paul Staines – who writes a political blog as Guido Fawkes and heads the Restore Justice Camptign – launched an e-petition on the Downing Street website calling for the restoration of the death penalty for those convicted of the murder of children and police officers.[37] The petition was one of several in support or opposition of capital punishment to be published by the government with the launch of its e-petitions website. As of August 12, an e-petition calling to retain the ban on capital punishment has received 20,000 votes[38], 17000 more than the e-petition calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty.[39] Petitions attracting 100,000 signatures would prompt a parliamentary debate on a particular topic, but not necessarily lead to any Parliamentary Bills being put forward.[40]
Also in August 2011, a representative survey conducted by Angus Reid Public Opinion showed that 65 per cent of Britons support reinstating the death penalty for murder in Great Britain, while 28 per cent oppose this course of action. Men, respondents aged 35-to-54 and those over the age of 55 are more likely to endorse the change.[41]
Notable executions in the United Kingdom
Note: This list does not include the beheadings of nobility.
1724, 16 November: Jack Sheppard, housebreaker, was hanged at Tyburn for burglary after four successful escape attempts from jail. His partner-in-crime, highwayman Joseph “Blueskin” Blake, was executed for the same burglary five days earlier.
1725, 24 May: Jonathan Wild, criminal overlord and fraudulent “Thief Taker General”, was hanged at Tyburn (over six months after Jack Sheppard’s and Blueskin’s executions) for receiving stolen goods and thus aiding criminals.
1746, 30 July: nine Catholic members of the Manchester Regiment, Jacobites, were hanged, drawn and quartered for treason at Kennington Common (now Kennington Park).
1899, 19 July: Mary Ansell was hanged at St Albans, for poisoning her sister. At 22 she was the youngest woman to be hanged in the post-1868 ‘modern era’ (non-public, and by the ‘long drop’ method).
1915, 13 August: George Joseph Smith was hanged in Maidstone Prison for the pattern of serial killings known as the “Brides in the Bath Murders”.
1916, 3 August: Roger Casement was hanged at Pentonville for treason as one of the seven leaders of the failed Irish Easter Rising.
1920, 2 November: Private James Daly of the Connaught Rangers was shot for mutiny in India, the last member of the British Armed Forces to be executed for mutiny.
1931, 3 January: Victor Betts for murder committed during the course of a robbery. The case had established that a person need not be present when a crime is committed to be regarded as an accessory after the fact.[42]
1946, 3 January: William Joyce, better known as “Lord Haw-Haw“, for treason in London’s Wandsworth Prison. He was an American citizen, but was convicted of treason because, as the holder of aBritish passport (albeit fraudulently obtained), he was held to have owed allegiance to the British sovereign. Theodore Schurch, hanged for treachery the next day, was the last person to be executed for an offence other than murder; he was executed at Pentonville. As a member of the armed forces he had been tried by court-martial.
1947, 27 February: Walter Rowland in Manchester for the murder of Olive Balchin despite maintaining his innocence. While he had been awaiting execution, another man confessed to the crime.[citation needed] A Home Office report dismissed the latter’s confession as a fake, but in 1951 he attacked another woman and was found guilty but insane.[citation needed]
1949, 12 January: Margaret Allen, aged 43, for killing a 70-year-old woman in the course of a robbery, the first woman to be hanged in Britain for 12 years.
1950, 9 March: Timothy Evans at Pentonville for the murder of his baby daughter Geraldine at 10 Rillington Place, North West London. He initially claimed to have killed his wife, but later withdrew the claim. A fellow inhabitant at the same address, John Christie, later found to be a sexual serial killer, gave key evidence against Evans. Christie was executed in 1953 for the murder of his own wife. Evans received a posthumous pardon in 1966. In 2004 the Court of Appeal refused to consider overturning the conviction due to the costs and resources that would be involved. See John Christie (murderer).
1950, 28 March: George Kelly at Liverpool for murder, but had his conviction quashed posthumously by the Court of Appeal in June 2003.
1952, 25 April: Edward Devlin and Alfred Burns, for killing a woman during a robbery in Liverpool. They claimed that they had been doing a different burglary in Manchester, and others involved in the crime supported this. A Home Office report rejected this evidence. Huge crowds gathered outside Liverpool’s Walton Prison as they were executed.
1952, 3 September: Mahmood Hussein Mattan, a Somali seaman, in Cardiff for murder. The Court of Appeal quashed his conviction posthumously in 1998[43] after hearing that crucial evidence implicating another Somali was withheld at his trial.
1953, 28 January: Derek Bentley at Wandsworth Prison as an accomplice to the murder of a police officer by his 16-year-old friend Christopher Craig. Craig, a minor, was not executed and instead served 10 years. Bentley was granted a posthumous pardon on 29 July 1993, and the Court of Appeal overturned his conviction on 30 July 1998.
1955, 12 July: Ruth Ellis, aged 28, the last woman to be hanged in Britain. She was the 15th and youngest woman hanged in the 20th century. (See also Mary Ansell, above).
1958, 6 May: Vivian Teed, 24, in Swansea, the last person to be executed in Wales.
1962, 4 April: James Hanratty at Bedford after a controversial rape-murder trial. In 2002 Hanratty’s body was exhumed and the Court of Appeal upheld his conviction after Hanratty’s DNA was linked to crime scene samples.
R.I.P. CAROLINE …. SADLY PASSED AWAY AFTER BEING DIAGNOSED WITH CANCER ONLY A FEW WEEKS AGO AT THE AGE OF 61
HAVING PERSONALLY KNOWN CAROLINE FOR A GREAT MANY YEARS … SHE WAS ALWAYS A VERY BRAVE, CARING, MUCH LOVED LADY AND MOTHER WHO HAD SURVIVED APPALLING TORTURE AND ABUSE AT THE HANDS OF EVIL SERIAL KILLERS FRED AND ROSE WEST .
CAROLINE WOULD NEVER SHY AWAY FROM TELLING HER TRAUMATIC LIFE STORY AND ALWAYS FELT A STRONG SENSE OF GUILT THAT SHE SURVIVED WHILST MANY OTHERS DID NOT.
OUR SINCERE CONDOLENCES TO HER DAUGHTER KELLY , FAMILY AND CLOSE FRIENDS .
ABOVE AND BELOW : A BRIEF INSIGHT INTO AN ARRAY OF LOCAL AND NATIONAL NEWSPAPER COVERAGE RELATING TO THE SAD DEATH OF CAROLINE , AGED ONLY 61 .
