UK > History > 2010 > Justice (I)

'Crossbow cannibal'

sentenced to life

for murdering three women

Criminology student admits killing,
dismembering and eating bodies of women
who worked as prostitutes in Bradford

Tuesday 21 December 2010
16.48 GMT
Guardian.co.uk
Share Helen Carter and agencies
This article was published on guardian.co.uk
at 16.48 GMT on Tuesday 21 December 2010.
It was last modified at 17.09 GMT
on Tuesday 21 December 2010.
It was first published at 11.28 GMT
on Tuesday 21 December 2010.

A man who admitted murdering and dismembering three women and who described himself as the "crossbow cannibal" was today told he would spend the rest of his life in prison.

Stephen Griffiths, 40, pleaded guilty at Leeds crown court to the murders of Susan Rushworth, 43, Shelley Armitage, 31, and 36-year-old Suzanne Blamires. All three women had been working as prostitutes.

Sentencing him to life in prison, Mr Justice Openshaw said: "The circumstances of these murders are so wicked and monstrous they leave me in no doubt the defendant should be kept in prison for the rest of his life."

He said Griffiths' guilty pleas were entered without any remorse at all. "He never said he regretted his actions or said in even the most perfunctory way he was sorry," the judge said.

Griffiths was studying for a PhD in criminology at Bradford University. His thesis was entitled Homicide in an Industrial City - Violence in Bradford 1847-1899.

Prosecutor Robert Smith QC, told the court that the case came to light this May when Peter Gee, the caretaker at the Holmfield Court flats in Bradford where Griffiths lived, examined CCTV footage from the previous weekend.

Gee had been warned not to approach Griffiths if he was alone in the flat as he was potentially violent and because of his unstable behaviour. A number of sex workers had been seen entering Griffiths' flat, number 33.

"He saw an image of someone on the third floor dragging a person into flat 33," Smith said. The caretaker went back through the footage and saw Griffiths enter his flat with a woman at 2.29am on 22 May. Shortly afterwards, she was seen running out of the flat with Griffiths following. She was thrown or fell to the floor. Griffiths had a crossbow in his hand, which he pointed at the woman's body.

"He fired it and pulled her into the flat by one of her legs." He later emerged and pointed the crossbow at the CCTV camera.

Two vice squad officers who were called to watch the CCTV recognised Griffiths: he had been brought to their attention at a briefing held in late 2009.

It emerged that the woman was his final victim, Blamires. A neighbour, who said the walls were paper-thin, said they heard the sound of banging and rising voices that continued for half an hour. The neighbour heard a woman scream in pain and shout: "Get off me, you ignorant bastard." There was a heavy thump and silence.

A pathologist discovered a bolt and part of a knife embedded in her skull. A member of the public found a heavy bag containing her head submerged in the river Aire at Shipley. In total, there were 81 body parts belonging to Blamires found in the river. Her nose and ears had been removed. A foot had been sawn off and found in a rucksack.

Within an hour of killing Blamires, Griffiths approached another woman who was working as a prostitute, known as R, and asked her for business. He offered her £80 for an hour and said he could pay for the whole night. The prosecution said that had R entered the flat she would have become his fourth victim.

When police arrested Griffiths in May, Griffiths replied: "I am Osama bin Laden."

During the interview, he told police: "I've killed a lot more than Suzanne Blamires."

Smith added: "He said he'd eaten part of her body. He told police he'd eaten Rushworth's thighs and disposed of her body."

The court heard that he told detectives that cuts to his hands were because of the "slicing and dicing". Part of his hair was singed.

"I or part of me was responsible for the murders of Susan Rushworth, Shelley Armitage and this Suzanne Blamires whose name I thought was Amber," Smith said Griffiths had told police.

Griffiths admitted the murders and that he butchered, dismembered, eating parts of all three of them, the prosecution said.

As horrific details of the murders were read out in court, Rushworth's daughter Kirsty stormed out, shouting at Griffiths: "You fucking cunt." He briefly glanced at her, before bowing his head. Rushworth's remains have never been found, causing considerable anguish to her family, the court heard.

Smith said Griffiths placed some of Rushworth's body on an old sofa outside his flat and set fire to it. The fire brigade were called.

The court heard of Griffiths' long history of psychiatric treatment. At 17, he was diagnosed with a personality disorder and was assessed in the high-security Rampton hospital in Nottinghamshire, where it was concluded that his condition would not respond to treatment.

In October 1991, he told a psychiatrist he was strongly attracted to the idea of killing someone. Later, he told a probation officer of his fantasies and preoccupation with multiple killings. "He had an idolisation involving Peter Sutcliffe," Smith told the court.

"Sometimes you kill someone to kill yourself," Griffiths reportedly also said. "It is like deep issues inside me." Griffiths had admitted being misanthropic and didn't have much time for the human race.

The judge read out a psychiatrist report and said it was quite clear that Griffiths lured these women to his flat and killed them.

"Quite why he did so is to some extent obscure," the judge said, adding that a psychiatrist, Prof Nigel Eastman, had concluded Griffiths had enjoyed exerting power over others. Griffiths had taken digital images of one of his victim's naked body and uploaded it on his computer.

Eastman had concluded that although little research has been carried out on criminal cannibalism, the consensus was that it represents "the ultimate power".

Referring to the professor's report, the judge added: "It is one thing to terrorise and kill but to dismember and eat parts of the victims takes it to another level of the exertion of power and sexual gratification."

Smith said that Griffiths admitted killing Blamires in his flat and dismembering her by hand. He had used power tools on the other victims. Detectives later found 30 knives in the flat. "It was just a slaughterhouse in the bathroom," Griffiths reportedly told detectives.

Police said his flat was full of books, journals and documents all related to homicide. Two bloodstained crossbows were on an armchair.

Detectives found a video on his camera showing Armitage lying dead in his bath. Another unidentified victim was lying on the living room floor bound with green twine.

The prosecution said Griffiths had convictions for violence that demonstrated his unstable personality. In 1989, he had slashed a store manager across the face after he was caught shoplifting.

The senior investigating officer in the case, Detective Superintendent Sukhbir Singh, said there was no direct evidence to link him to the disappearance of any other sex workers. Asked if he thought he killed anyone else, he said: "No I don't."

Singh added: "He is a heartless and controlling man who took advantage of vulnerable women. What he did can never be forgotten by the families of his victims."

'Crossbow cannibal' sentenced to life for murdering three women,
G,
21.12.2010,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/dec/21/
crossbow-killer-pleads-guilty-murdering-women

Killer of girlfriend

and baby daughter jailed for life

Anthony Marsh told
he will spend at least 26 years in prison
for stabbing to death his girlfriend
and their 10-month-old daughter

Wednesday 1 December 2010
15.26 GMT

Last modified
on Tuesday 20 May 2014 05.31 BST

The Guardian

 Steven Morris

A bar manager who claimed voices in his head ordered him to kill his girlfriend and their 10-month-old daughter was today told he will spend at least 26 years in prison for their murders.

Anthony Marsh stabbed Stephanie Bellinger, 24, more than 30 times as she slept in the bedroom of their home in Totton, Hampshire, in February. Their daughter, Lili Marsh, was stabbed once through the head as she lay on the same bed.

Marsh was found guilty of the two murders by a jury yesterday and the term set by Mr Justice Holroyde is the minimum he will serve before he can be eligible for parole.

The prosecution said the killing of Bellinger, a receptionist, had "powerful elements of sexual motivation and revenge".

During the two-week trial the jury heard that Marsh suffered from bipolar disorder and the family were in £13,000 debt, partly because he lost his job after he stole from a pub he worked in.

He often fled the family home and went to other cities, sleeping rough before handing himself in at hospitals.

Marsh told police he heard voices telling him to kill his girlfriend and daughter. He did not kill the couple's two-and-a-half-year-old son, whom he left locked in the house after the murders, because he was able to resist the voices, he claimed.

He said he had counted to 50 several times before he started the attack but continued as Bellinger screamed and tried to fend off the blade. He then killed Lili.

At the end of the attack, he left the knife embedded in Bellinger's mouth and fled the scene.

Bellinger's mother and sister discovered the "truly distressing scene" when they broke in and found the son unharmed but alone.

The judge called the murders "deliberate, dreadful and selfish". He said the surviving child had been left in a "scene of dreadful bloodshed" and faced a life as "an orphan of one parent by the crime of another".

"He probably took the cordless telephone to his dead mother as it rang as family tried to contact her," the judge told the court.

He said he had inferred that Marsh deliberately left the body of Bellinger in such a way, with the knife plunged into her mouth and half-naked, to leave "a most dreadful scene for whoever found the bodies".

"You must have known that it was likely that first to see the bodies would be a close family member – probably Stephanie's mother," Holroyde said.

"She and Stephanie's sister have to live with the loss of two loved ones but also with the memory of finding the bodies. For a mother and sister to find a loved one in such a position is truly appalling.

"As an intelligent man, I can only conclude you must have thought about that at some stage."

After Marsh's conviction, the family issued a statement in which they said: "We believe that Anthony Marsh is a dangerous and violent person, particularly towards women and female children, and he should be kept in a secure environment for the rest of his life.

"The impact on Stephanie's family and friends is huge. Like a huge boulder, crashing into a pond, those closest feel the biggest impact of this awful incident."

The statement said the surviving child was a special little boy with a wonderful sense of humour but the murders by his father would affect him throughout his life.

Killer of girlfriend and baby daughter jailed for life,
G, 1 December 2010,
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/dec/01/anthony-marsh-life-murder-girlfriend-baby

Mother admits killing autistic son

after making him drink bleach

Satpal Kaur Singh feared social services would take boy away and admits manslaughter on grounds of diminished responsibility

Monday 15 November 2010
13.18 GMT
Guardian.co.uk
Caroline Davies
This article was published on guardian.co.uk
at 13.18 GMT on Monday 15 November 2010.
It was last modified at 15.43 GMT
on Monday 15 November 2010.

A mother who forced her 12-year-old autistic son to drink a cup of bleach after social workers threatened to take him into care, pleaded guilty to manslaughter .

Satpal Kaur Singh, 44, said she had heard voices telling her, "It's time. It's the end. God's calling us" after refusing to co-operate with council staff who were concerned about her parenting skills.

The Old Bailey heard that just hours after a meeting with social workers at Barking and Dagenham council, she dialled 999 and told the operator: "I've just murdered my son and I've tried to kill myself."

She denied murder and prosecutors accepted her plea of guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility after psychiatrists assessed she was suffering a mental condition.

She was remanded in custody to be sentenced on 13 December.

Describing the case as a "great tragedy", Richard Whittam QC, prosecuting, said Manchester-born Singh feared her son, Ajit, who was "dependant on her for all his needs", would be taken into care after social services decided to apply for an interim care order and invited her to attend a meeting on 9 February this year.

The boy could not speak and had difficulty getting around outdoors. "He could not tolerate crowded places or noisy environments," Whittam said. "He would cover his ears and scream." Because of his severe disability, he was known to social workers, and he was the subject of many child protection conferences.

The court heard that after her arrest Singh told police she thought of killing herself because she could not cope with her son being taken away and a voice in her head said: "You have to do it. Go for it, it's come to an end now." The voices became louder as she got two cups of bleach from the bathroom, the court was told.

Singh, of Barking, east London, had made complaints against a number of people, including her neighbours, various members of the social services and taxi drivers.

"A neighbour who has known Satpal for over 10 years describes her as blowing everything out of proportion and not being capable of talking reasonably with anybody," Whitam said. "It was as if everyone was persecuing her."

She had also made allegations against her husband, which were unfounded.

Singh aparently refused to co-operate at the February meeting, saying she had "no difficulties with her parenting ability" and only she understood her son.

She was calm throughout and no one at the meeting had any concerns about her immediate behaviour, the court heard. However, she was "upset and crying" when she rang her sister later, saying there was "bad news" and social services were going to take her son away.

Moments before 10.30 that night, she made the 999 call saying she had murdered her son, and she had herself drunk some bleach "but nothing is happening".

Police who arrived at the house found the smell of bleach "overpowering".

His mother was lying on the floor, holding a mobile telephone to her ear with a cup of bleach and a knife next to her. She told the officers: "I've given him bleach to drink. I couldn't cope any more".

Singh told paramedics that she had been thinking about "doing this" for four years. She later told a doctor: "It's been going on for the last 12 years. Then adding: "I gave bleach to my child, he just drank it, he is 12, he is autistic. Today I just couldn 't take it any more. This shouldn't have happened to him.".

In a suicide note found at the home, she said she had killed herself and Ajit because they had been "scrutinised and hounded by social services". Another note requested the bodies of herself and her son be burned together.

A spokesman for Barking and Dagenham council said there would be a serious case review, due for completion early next year.

    Mother admits killing autistic son after making him drink bleach, G, 15.11.2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/nov/15/mother-autistic-son-killed-bleach

Stephen Timms attacker faces sentencing for attempted murder

Roshonara Choudhry stabbed MP Stephen Timms for supporting Iraq war after becoming radicalised watching sermons online

Wednesday 3 November 2010
The Guardian
Vikram Dodd, crime correspondent
This article appeared on p2 of the Main section section of the Guardian on Wednesday 3 November 2010.
It was published on guardian.co.uk at 07.00 GMT on Wednesday 3 November 2010.

Police believe a gifted student convicted of attempting to stab to death a former government minister for supporting the Iraq war is the first Briton to have been inspired by al-Qaida to try to assassinate a politician on British soil.

A senior police source and those close to Roshonara Choudhry have both told the Guardian she was radicalised after watching internet sermons given by Anwar al-Awlaki, an Islamist cleric, now in Yemen, who the US suspects was the mastermind of several terrorist plots. Top of those is the attempt uncovered on Friday to send bombs on cargo travelling in planes, which sparked a worldwide terrorist alert.

Choudhry, 21, was convicted on three charges after a short trial in which she ordered her defence team not to challenge the prosecution's case because she does not recognise the right of the British court to try her. The Old Bailey jury took just 14 minutes to return unanimous verdicts on the attempted murder charge and two counts of having an offensive weapon.

On 14 May 2010 she stabbed her local MP Stephen Timms twice in the stomach at his constituency surgery in east London. She confessed to the attack to police later that day. The investigation into the attack, initially thought to have resulted from mental illness, was taken over by Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism command after the link to Awlaki was discovered on Choudhry's computer and after she told detectives in interviews that she had watched the extremist's sermons.

Awlaki is the "spiritual leader" of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, whom the US suspect inspired the Muslim soldier who shot dead 13 of his colleagues in 2009 at Fort Hood, Texas.

The court heard Choudhry wanted to stab Timms to death as "punishment" for voting for the Iraq war. Interviewed by detectives hours after the attack Choudhry said she was going to keep stabbing Timms until either he was dead or she was stopped: "I was hoping to get revenge for the people of Iraq." A list of other politicians was found in her possession and she had researched voting records on Iraq.

Sir David Omand, the government's former security intelligence co-ordinator, has said the government was warned before the 2003 war that radicalisation among Muslims in the UK would increase if Britain joined the invasion.

Speaking after the verdict, the Metropolitan police's deputy assistant commissioner, Stuart Osborne, said: "Stephen Timms … was extremely fortunate not to have been killed. MPs are entitled to fulfil their role without fear of violence. There can never be any justification for anyone carrying out such an attack."

Choudhry had dropped out of her studies in English and communications at King's College London early in 2010. She had won academic prizes and was tipped for a first class degree. It is understood that examination of her computer shows Choudhry downloaded the Islamist material late in 2009.

Despite Awaki being suspected of being a terrorist mastermind and on a CIA list to be killed, videos of his sermons remain freely available on the internet.

Today Choudhry will be sentenced and will appear via videolink from prison. The maximum sentence for attempted murder is life.

Simon Clements, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: "She admitted without hesitation that her intention was to end her victim's life, but has succeeded only in ruining her own."

Timms, Labour MP for East Ham, made a full recovery after the attack.

    Stephen Timms attacker faces sentencing for attempted murder, G, 3.11.2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/nov/03/stephen-timms-attack-sentencing

Saudi prince guilty of servant's murder

Saud Abdulaziz bin Nasser al Saud convicted by Old Bailey jury of killing Bandar Abdulaziz at five-star London hotel

Tuesday 19 October 2010
17.10 BST
Guardian.co.uk
Sam Jones and agencies
This article was published on guardian.co.uk at 17.10 BST
on Tuesday 19 October 2010.
A version appeared on p8 of the Main section section of the Guardian on Wednesday 20 October 2010.
It was last modified at 17.10 BST
on Tuesday 19 October 2010.

Bandar Abdulaziz death Bandar Abdulaziz was the victim of a 'sadistic' campaign of abuse by the prince. Photograph: Metropolitan police/PA

A Saudi prince who beat and strangled his servant to death at the culmination of a campaign of "sadistic" abuse is facing a life sentence after being convicted of murder.

Saud Abdulaziz bin Nasser al Saud, a grandson of the billionaire king of Saudi Arabia, was found guilty at the Old Bailey of killing Bandar Abdulaziz at their five-star hotel suite in central London.

Saud had been drinking champagne and cocktails when he bit the 32-year-old hard on both cheeks during the attack in February. The pair had just returned from a Valentine's night out.

The 34-year-old prince was found guilty of murder today after the jury had deliberated for an hour and 35 minutes. He showed no reaction as the verdict was returned.

The court had heard that the murder of Abdulaziz was the final act in a "deeply abusive" master-servant relationship in which the prince carried out frequent attacks on his aide "for his own personal gratification".

Jurors were told that by the early hours of 15 February, Abdulaziz was so worn down and injured – having suffered a "cauliflower" ear and swollen eye from previous assaults – that he let Saud kill him without a fight.

The prince then spent hours on the phone to a mysterious contact in Saudi Arabia trying to decide how to cover up what he had done.

He ordered two glasses of milk and bottled water on room service as he set about dragging the body into the bed and trying to clean up the blood.

It was only about 12 hours later, after a chauffeur had received a call from Saudi Arabia telling him to go to the £259-a-night Landmark hotel, that the body was discovered in room 312.

The prince claimed he had woken in the afternoon to find he could not revive his friend – by then stiff with rigor mortis – and explained his injuries by saying he had been attacked and robbed of €3,000 in London's Edgware Road a few weeks before.

Detectives took him to the area to try to retrace the route, but as they did so, other officers who were reviewing CCTV at the hotel found footage of Saud mercilessly attacking his aide in a lift on 22 January.

When he was then taken to Paddington Green police station and arrested, Saudi officials tried to claim he had diplomatic immunity, but this was scotched by a check of Foreign Office records.

Saud tried to cover up the true nature of his relationship with his servant, claiming they were "friends and equals", but a porter at the Marylebone hotel where they had stayed said Abdulaziz was treated "like a slave".

The prince also claimed he was heterosexual and had a girlfriend in Saudi Arabia, but he had booked appointments with at least two male escorts and one gay masseur, and looked at hundreds of images of men on gay websites.

Photographs of Abdulaziz in "compromising" positions were found on his phone.

Saud had denied killing his servant until shortly before the trial, before finally admitting that he had caused his death. Jurors rejected a claim by his barrister, John Kelsey-Fry QC, that Saud was guilty only of manslaughter.

The prince was convicted of murder and a second count of grievous bodily harm with intent relating to the attack in the lift.

Sources said detectives in the case had received little help after requests for information were sent through Interpol to their Saudi colleagues.

Saud's lawyers also failed in a last-ditch attempt to stop details of his encounters with male escorts being revealed during the trial. In a sign of the anxiety about his sexuality becoming public, the prince's lawyers had initially argued that the legal argument about the escorts should be held behind closed doors.

Kelsey-Fry said Saud had already faced abuse from Islamic fundamentalists being held alongside him at Belmarsh prison. The court heard that homosexuality remains a capital offence in Saudi Arabia, and the country in which the acts take place has little relevance to prosecution under the country's sharia law.

Outside court, Detective Chief Inspector John McFarlane said: "The defendant used his position of power, money and authority over his victim Bandar to abuse him over an extended period of time.

"CCTV recovered clearly shows Bandar was subjected to assaults in the hotel. The injuries which were noted by the pathologist clearly show Bandar was the victim of many more assaults over an extended period of time. This verdict clearly shows no-one, regardless of their position, is above the law."

Saud was remanded in custody to be sentenced tomorrow.

    Saudi prince guilty of servant's murder, G, 19.10.2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/oct/19/saudi-prince-servant-murder-guilty

Lord Bingham of Cornhill obituary

The greatest English judge of the modern era,

he saw judicial independence as essential to the protection of human rights

Guardian.co.uk
Saturday 11 September 2010
23.57 BST
This article was published on guardian.co.uk at 23.57 BST on Saturday 11 September 2010.
A version appeared in the Guardian on Sunday 12 September 2010.
It was last modified at 01.27 BST on Sunday 12 September 2010.

Tom Bingham, who has died aged 76 of cancer, was widely recognised as the greatest English judge since the second world war. Serving at the apex of the judiciary for an unusually long span, he was the first individual in the modern era to act both as master of the rolls, with the supreme remit for the civil courts for four years from 1992, and then as lord chief justice, running the criminal courts as Britain's highest-ranking judge. From 2000 till his retirement in 2008 he was senior law lord.

In that role, he wrote a number of leading judgments, defining the place of individual rights in the landscape of a changing British constitution, melding the relationship between long-established principles of common law with the more recent obligations of European and international laws. His lectures and writings, and in particular his last book, The Rule of Law, published at the start of this year, are treated as seminal texts.

He was also to the fore in promoting a strong, independent judiciary. At a time of growing executive power and a diminishing influence for parliament, and in particular following the terror attacks of 9/11 in New York and 7 and 21 July 2005 in London, the Labour government adopted an increasingly authoritarian approach. This included the power to detain certain foreign nationals indefinitely without charge, and the right to use evidence that may have been obtained by torture in certain legal proceedings. The government also argued for a strong role for the executive, with which the judiciary should not interfere. In two seminal decisions, in 2004 and 2005 in the two cases of A & Others v Secretary of State for the Home Department, Tom wrote leading judgments rejecting the government's arguments. In so doing, he struck a blow for the rights of all individuals, while recognising the reality of threat faced by certain forms of terrorism. In so doing he rejected – with characteristic firmness, clarity and authority – the government's approach to the judiciary. "The function of independent judges charged to interpret and apply the law is universally recognised as a cardinal feature of the modern democratic state, a cornerstone of the rule of law itself," he wrote in 2004. While the attorney general, on behalf of the government, was entitled to insist on the proper limits of judicial authority, he was "wrong to stigmatise judicial decision-making as in some way undemocratic".

The following year, he concluded that the "principles of the common law … compel the exclusion of third-party torture evidence as unreliable, unfair, offensive to ordinary standards of humanity and decency and incompatible with the principles which should animate a tribunal seeking to administer justice". These principles did not stand alone, and effect also had to be given to the European Convention on Human Rights, which took account of the consensus embodied in the 1984 Convention against Torture Convention. "The answer to the central question posed at the outset," he wrote, referring to the admissibility of evidence that may have been obtained by torture, "is to be found not in a governmental policy, which may change, but in law." This judgment resonated around the world, a considerable influence against the will of certain governments to unshackle themselves from the constraints of human rights norms put in place after the second world war.

Born in London, Tom was brought up in Reigate, Surrey, the son of two doctors. His father was an Ulster Presbyterian, an influence that may have accounted for a streak of austerity in the son, though he was later, as he said, a "middle-of-the-road Anglican". He went to Sedbergh, a Cumbrian boarding school with a spartan regime, where he was said to be the brightest boy in a hundred years. He did his national service as a second lieutenant in the Royal Ulster Rifles (1952-54), which he found a "liberating experience", warming to a code of discipline and loyalty. He stayed in touch with that world for a further five years through Territorial Army service in the London Irish Rifles. These early influences could be felt throughout his career.

Attracted by Christopher Hill, the Marxist historian of 17th-century England, he went to Balliol College, Oxford, to read history, where he won a first in 1957 and took part in college debating. Friends included two historians, the late Robert Rhodes James – eventually a knighted Tory MP – from Sedbergh, and the military writer John Keegan, another eventual knight, from Balliol. A passion for historical context suffused Tom's judgments and persisted in a lifelong interest in history, alongside his love of Dr Johnson.

He opted for the bar and quickly belied his mother's opposition by coming top of bar finals in 1959, having won law prizes from both Oxford and Gray's Inn. He joined a commercial chambers headed by Leslie Scarman and quickly earned the Medical Defence Union, the doctors' insurance firm, and the Ministry of Labour as clients. Lord Denning singled him and his frequent sparring partner, Patrick Neill, out as the two foremost advocates of their time. Sir Louis Blom-Cooper QC reckoned that he had an "alpha-plus mind". He gained a reputation for dexterity in cross-examination and for calmly and meticulously building up an argument that was original, but immovable. From the earliest days, logic and clarity were characteristic features of his arguments, and these would later inform his judicial pronouncements.

In 1972, Tom took silk at the early age of 38. He had already been standing junior counsel to the Department of Employment for four years from 1968, and was also a standing counsel at the Bank of England.

In 1975, he was made a recorder of the supreme court, and in 1980 he became a high court judge in the Queen's bench division and a judge of the commercial court. He was still only in his early 40s when, in 1977, he was asked to look at sanctions-busting in Rhodesia by oil companies. His report brought his name to a wider public, and found that oil companies had knowingly flouted the sanctions regime with the complicity of civil servants. No prosecutions followed.

In 1986 he was elevated to the court of appeal, and soon became the first judge to welcome Lord Mackay's plan in 1989 for a right of audience for solicitors in the high court. In 1991-92 he investigated the controversial collapse of BCCI, the Gulf bank, but focussed strongly on the supervisory role of Bank of England, which he criticised for not intervening earlier, though exonerating the Treasury. Some of his findings were left out by the government in the published version. As a result of the report, auditors were obliged to hand over evidence of malpractice found in their scrutiny.

In 1992, Tom succeeded Lord Donaldson as master of the rolls. At the time he was thought to be a moderately conservative, if modern-minded choice, as compared with the more reform-inclined Harry Woolf. He said on being appointed that "the scope for radical innovation is probably limited". Yet he initiated numerous significant reforms, including a move towards the replacement of certain oral hearings by more paperwork in major civil cases. He was the first senior judge to back incorporation into English law of the European Convention on Human Rights, and he favoured the legalisation of cannabis: "It's stupid," he said in an interview in The Spectator, "having a law which isn't doing what it's there for." Later he became a powerful advocate for the removal of the judicial branch of the House of Lords from parliament with the creation of a supreme court of the United Kingdom, achieved with the Constitutional Reform Act 2005. The supreme court began to function only in October 2009, after his retirement, and while he slightly regretted not becoming its first president, Tom was delighted by its arrival.

As a judge he was ferociously independent, ruling against the government in several high-profile judicial review cases, including the Malaysian Pergau Dam case in 1994, when he found against the arms-for-aid deal put together by the former foreign secretary, Douglas Hurd. In doing so he recognised the standing of an NGO, the World Development Movement, to bring the challenge. In 1996, despite Tom's limited experience of the criminal law, Mackay selected him to be lord chief justice, and he became a peer, Baron Bingham of Cornhill, of Boughrood in the county of Powys, where he and his wife Elizabeth spent many happy times at their cottage, with children, grandchildren and friends. More than one serving judge has told me that they considered him to be "the greatest lord chief ever".

In his new post, his reforming streak was unrestrained. He pressed Jack Straw, home secretary in the new Labour government of 1997, to abolish the mandatory life term for murder and the key role for the home secretary in deciding release. With Harry Woolf, now Lord Woolf, as master of the rolls, he argued for safe accommodation for released paedophiles to make re-offending less likely and to protect them from being hounded.

Presiding over the country's highest court, he oversaw a string of ground-breaking judgments in various fields of law. Appearing before a court headed by Tom was always a formidable experience, notwithstanding his consistent good humour: he combined a unique intellectual agility with a deep commitment to due process and fairness, as well as flashes of dry humour and wit, but never hesitated to let a barrister know that it was time to move on.

It was the seminal judgments on individual rights and the rule of law, among others, that established Tom's reputation as the greatest judge of his time, defining the rule of law in challenging circumstances. In 2006 he delivered a lecture, The Rule of Law, at Cambridge University, explaining his conception of its eight core principles, and breaking new ground by situating the concept in an international framework. The lecture was expanded into the book of the same title, giving him a global audience, beyond the lawyers. It received widespread attention and many positive reviews, including one from Lord (Chris) Patten, who pipped him in his efforts to be elected chancellor of Oxford University in 2003. Reviewing the book in the Financial Times, Patten noted the "clarity of the arguments, the sometimes caustic precision of the observations, and the pellucid quality of the prose", and praised Tom for the "effortlessly magisterial" way of the book.

Following his retirement, Tom did not take the easy road. He gave a series of high-profile lectures on issues of the day, addressing early on the 2003 Iraq war, an action that he considered to be "a serious violation of international law". This was, he later told me, one of the very few matters on which he was "entirely free from legal doubt", and it formed the subject of a number of particularly authoritative and trenchant pages in his final book.

Appointed a Knight of the Garter in 2005, he was an active president of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law in London, and was delighted by the foundation this year of its Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law. He served as chairman of the UK charity Reprieve, using the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, and continued to take an active role every spring at the Hay literary festival, of which he was president, often to be seen, after some great luminary had delivered a pulsating lecture, standing in the rain and mud outside a marquee, bucket in hand, raising funds for the charity SOS Sahel, supporting herders and farmers in the African drylands south of the Sahara, in which his wife Elizabeth was keenly involved.

Although politics were always a subject of lively debate in the Bingham household, he was always careful to avoid public comment. Elizabeth stood for the SDP in council elections and campaigned for the Liberal Democrats, but he said that she was further to the Anglican right than he was. Rhodes James once said that he would be surprised to discover that Tom was a Tory voter, although Tom was personally delighted by the success of his son-in-law, Jesse Norman, in being elected Conservative MP for Herefordshire South in this year's general election. His family was a source of the greatest happiness and pride, and he was invariably surrounded by a posse of friends. Debate, laughter, singing, warmth and irreverence, up to a point, were the characteristics of his household. He is survived by Elizabeth, whom he married in 1963, by his daughter Kate and sons Harry and Kit, and six grandchildren.



• Thomas Henry Bingham, Baron Bingham of Cornhill, jurist and lawyer, born 13 October 1933; died 11 September 2010

    Lord Bingham of Cornhill obituary, G, 11.9.2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2010/sep/11/lord-bingham-of-cornhill-obituary

Bradford murder accused appears in court

PhD student Stephen Griffiths, accused of murdering three sex workers, identifies himself in court as 'Crossbow Cannibal'

Helen Carter
Guardian.co.uk
Friday 28 May 2010
18.35 BST
This article was published on guardian.co.uk at 18.35 BST on Friday 28 May 2010.
It was last modified at 18.35 BST on Friday 28 May 2010.

A man accused of murdering three sex workers in Bradford identified himself in court today as "Crossbow Cannibal".

Stephen Griffiths, 40, is accused of killing Suzanne Blamires, Shelley Armitage and Susan Rushworth, who all went missing in Bradford over the last 10 months.

When asked for his name in a five-minute appearance before magistrates, he replied clearly: "Crossbow Cannibal."

The clerk at Bradford magistrates court, Amarjit Soor, asked Griffiths for his address. "Here, I guess," he replied.

Asked to confirm his date of birth, 24 December 1969, he said: "Yeah."

Griffiths, who was unshaven with short dark hair, was handcuffed in the glass-fronted dock and accompanied by three security guards.

Wearing a black shirt over a white T-shirt and dark blue jeans, he kept his head bowed throughout the hearing and fidgeted and picked at his hands. No pleas were entered.

The charges are that he murdered Blamires, 36, between May 20 and 25 this year; Rushworth, 43, who has been missing since June 2009; and Armitage, 31, who disappeared in April.

Several of the victims' family members were in court, accompanied by police family liaison officers, and some of them stared intently at Griffiths throughout the hearing. The Blamires family chose not to attend.

The case is being fast-tracked and Griffiths was remanded in custody to appear before Bradford crown court at 2.15pm today.

Last night, Blamires' mother, Nicky, 55, described her daughter as bright and articulate. She had attended college and wanted to be a nurse. Unfortunately her daughter "went down the wrong path and did not have the life she was meant to have", she said.

Griffiths lived in a third-floor flat in Thornton Road, in the heart of Bradford's red-light district. He attended the private Queen Elizabeth Grammar school in Wakefield and had recently been studying for a PhD in criminology at Bradford University.

Officers believe the body parts found earlier this week in the River Aire, at Shipley, all belong to Blamires.

They are continuing to search for the bodies of Rushworth and Armitage.

Dozens of police teams were at work today at a range of locations across Bradford. Much of the activity is focused on the city's red-light district.

Many alleyways and streets in the Sunbridge Road area remained sealed off as officers conducted fingertip searches.

Sniffer dogs were being used in a number of locations, and officers have been seen taking away a large number of objects in plastic bags.

David Cameron described the Bradford murders as a "terrible shock", adding that problems of street prostitution and drug abuse needed to be dealt with.

The prime minister said the issue of decriminalising prostitution should be looked at again but it would not be wise to jump to conclusions.

"I just hope that the police do everything they can to make sure this case goes to court as fast as possible so people feel they can start to rebuild their lives all over again but I recognise what a terrible shock it is for everyone," he said.

    Bradford murder accused appears in court, G, 28.5.2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/may/28/ukcrime

Mother 'absolutely stunned' by rape allegation of girl, eight

The mother of an eight-year-old girl said she was 'absolutely stunned' by her allegation of rape by 10-year-old boys

Friday 14 May 2010
15.44 BST
Guardian.co.uk
Sam Jones and agencies
 

An eight-year-old girl who is alleged to have been raped by two 10-year-old playmates was "squirming" with embarrassment as she told her mother what had happened, the Old Bailey heard today.

The boys, who are now aged 10 and 11 and cannot be named for legal reasons, deny raping and attempting to rape the girl in London last October.

And yesterday, , as she gave evidence to the court via videolink, the girl said she had lied about the attacks because she had been "naughty" and thought her mother would not buy her sweets.

But she later maintained that some touching had taken place, before the judge brought her ordeal to an end after saying she was exhausted.

Today mother told the jury of six men and six women that she had been angry with her daughter after she discovered she had wandered off from near her home.

After driving to a petrol station on the way to shops, she asked the girl what had happened.

"She was very quiet and I asked her what's been happening," said the woman.

"She said [the boys] have been doing sex with me."

Her daughter then told her the boys had penetrated her.

"She told me she wanted to go home but they made her do it. They told her not to tell anyone," said the woman.

"I was still sitting in the car because I was absolutely stunned by what she had told me. She was very, very embarrassed. She was squirming."

The mother said she drove back straightaway and confronted the boys.

When she asked the younger boy what he had done to her daughter, he replied: "Nothing. It was [the other boy].

The older boy then appeared and, when she asked him the same question, he told her: "I didn't touch her."

Under cross-examination from Chetna Patel, counsel for the younger boy, the woman insisted her daughter was a "very good girl".

She added: "She hasn't got a sweet tooth. She eats a few sweets but she likes savoury things."

Patel said: "I am suggesting she likes sweets and wanted sweets that day."

The mother replied: "I disagree with that."

The case continues.

    Mother 'absolutely stunned' by rape allegation of girl, eight, G, 14.5.2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/may/14/girl-eight-rape-allegation-mother

Acid attacker jailed for 30 years

Tuesday, 11 May 2010
The Independent
By Jerome Taylor

The brother of a married woman who poured concentrated acid over his sister’s lover in an attempted “honour killing” has been jailed for 30 years.

Mohammed Vakas, 26, left Awais Akram horrifically disfigured and in need of constant medical treatment following the attack last year in Leytonstone, east London.

Mr Akram was having an affair with Vakas’ sister Sadia Khatoon after the couple met on Facebook. The court heard how Mrs Khatoon’s husband, Shakeel Abassi, decided that the family’s reputation “could only be salvaged in one irreversible way” once he found out about the affair. He then conspired with Vakas to kill Mr Akram and flee to Pakistan.

In a horrific attack Vakas used his sister to lure Mr Akram out of his flat and then attacked him with two other conspirators, Mohammed Adeel, 20, and17-year-old Fabion Kuci. After they had beaten and stabbed Mr Akram, Vakas poured drain cleaner over him. Adeel and Kuci have been sentenced to 14 years and 8 years respectively for conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm.

The Danish-born Muslim had come to the UK to study and suffered 47 per cent burns in the attack. He has since needed four skin grafts and blood transfusions to survive, and was left, according to one witness, looking “like a cross between a zombie from a horror movie and the incredible hulk”.

Shakeel Abassi and his wife fled to Pakistan on the same day of the attack. Mrs Khatoon returned to the UK voluntarily but fled once more overseas. She was initially treated as a witness but has since come to be regarded by police as a possible suspect.

Police have also indicated that they fear Mrs Khatoon may have been killed in Pakistan. Her family claim to no longer be in contact with her or know her whereabouts. Extraditing suspects from Pakistan is extremely difficult, despite the fact that so-called “honour killers” have regularly fled there to escape justice.

Judge Brian Barker, the Common Serjeant of London, said there was nothing honourable about Vakas’ and his co-conspirators’ actions. "This was a terrible crime and all right-thinking citizens reject the premise on which it was done,” he said. “There is no honour, and plots and actions such as this have no place in our society."

    Acid attacker jailed for 30 years, I, 11.5.2010, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/acid-attacker-jailed-for-30-years-1970878.html

Teenagers face trial over death of woman in firework blaze

Two in gang deny manslaughter after fire at home of Mary Fox and her bullied son Raum in Bodmin, Cornwall

Steven Morris
Guardian.co.uk
Tuesday 11 May 2010
16.00 BST
This article was published on guardian.co.uk at 16.00 BST on Tuesday 11 May 2010.
A version appeared in the Guardian on Wednesday 12 May 2010.
It was last modified at 16.20 BST on Tuesday 11 May 2010.

A group of teenagers killed a mother when they started a fire by pushing a lit firework through her letterbox during a bullying campaign against her and her son, a jury heard today.

Mary Fox, 59, died in a fierce blaze at her home in Bodmin, Cornwall, after helping her 17-year-old son, Raum, to escape through an upstairs window.

The attack, which happened on bonfire night last year, had been intended to frighten Fox and Raum, who was teased because of his acne and dress sense. After the attack the three teenagers "laughed and joked" about the blaze, Truro crown court heard.

Owen Hewitt, 18, of Bodmin, and a 17-year-old boy who cannot be named, deny manslaughter, and arson being reckless as to whether life is endangered.

The jury was told another 18-year-old, Ryan Croft, had admitted both charges.

Opening the case, the prosecutor, Paul Dunkels QC, said: "On 5 November last year, three young men were wandering around Bodmin with a large quantity of fireworks. They took a rocket, lit it and put it through the letterbox of the home of Mary Fox and her son, Raum."

The trio had snapped the balancing stick off the Silver Dart rocket so it would "skip around" when it hit the floor and let off a shower of sparks to cause maximum damage, the court was told.

Fox had sealed both of her garden gates and the front door because she was frightened of attacks. The letterbox into which the rocket was posted had also been blocked from the inside, but only with cardboard.

The jury was also told Fox's hallway contained old clothes, books and toys, which caught fire as the firework showered sparks around.

Dunkels said: "Raum was able to escape by jumping out of the first floor window. Mary Fox could not get out. She was overcome by fumes and smoke from the fire, and died."

"Raum Fox used to be bullied at school. He had bad acne on his face, and used to dress differently to other children.

"Because of the bullying, Mrs Fox used to follow him to and from school. Unfortunately, the protection served to mark him out for more bullying. At times he would be pushed, struck and verbally abused."

Dunkels said Fox, a mother of nine, was sometimes considered eccentric and was the target of verbal abuse by young people around the Berryfields estate. He said the group did not intend to kill but had wanted to give the occupants a "fright".

He said the three knew where the Fox family lived and targeted the house "knowing that Mrs Fox and/or her son would be inside, intending to frighten them". He added: "The prosecution say it was chosen because of who lived there."

Unaware of the extent of the blaze, described by fire crews as the "most intense" they had experienced, the three teenagers went on to a firework display, Dunkels said.

Later, news of the blaze spread around the town. Dunkels said: "The three of them were laughing and joking about the fact that it was the house of the woman whose son they used to bully."

Dunkels said all three had played a role, with Hewitt supplying the firework, the 17-year-old lighting it, and Croft and the boy pushing it through the letterbox.

He said it was a joint enterprise, and they were all equally responsible for Fox's death.

The trial continues.

    Teenagers face trial over death of woman in firework blaze, G, 11.5.2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/may/11/bodmin-teenagers-trial-mother-fireworks

Man who fatally stabbed pregnant woman ‘heard voices in his head’, court told

May 10, 2010
The Times
Andrew Norfolk

A man who claimed to hear voices telling him to harm people approached a pregnant young woman as she walked to work, stabbed her fatally in the back with a knife then strolled calmly away as she lay screaming, a court heard today.

Claire Wilson, 21, died with her unborn baby after the street attack last June. When Alan McMullan, 54, was arrested he is said to have told police: “I’ve got voices in my head telling me to do it. I left the knife stuck in her.”

A jury at Hull Crown Court was told that Miss Wilson, who was six months pregnant, had not wanted to go to work on the day of the fatal attack because she had been woken early by her baby’s kicking.

She eventually set off alone to walk the short distance to a Pizza Hut restaurant in Grimsby where she worked as a waitress.

Lynn Tayton, QC, for the prosecution, said that witnesses watched as Mr McMullan walked up behind her and forcefully stabbed her once in the back.

“The defendant did not say anything as he did this and had no expression on his face. Afterwards, he walked casually away.”

Members of Miss Wilson’s family left the court in tears as the jury heard that a passer-by saw the handle of the knife sticking out of the young woman’s back. She took two steps forward and started to scream.

Doctors fought unsuccessfully in hospital to save Miss Wilson and the unborn child. A post-mortem examination found that the knife had penetrated more than three inches into her body, entering the chest and lung.

Miss Tayton said that Mr McMullan had gone to a police station three times in June and July 2008, armed with a knife, to tell officers that he was hearing voices urging him to kill or harm people.

He was admitted to hospital each time and released after receiving treatment from mental health services.

Miss Tayton said that doctors observed no psychotic symptoms during his first admission, found no abnormality in his perceptions on the second occasion and finally concluded that he was exaggerating his symptoms to gain hospital admission.

When he was arrested after the fatal stabbing, he told a psychiatrist that he had been hearing voices for about a year.

“He was angry he had not been offered appropriate treatment but uninterested in what had happened to the victim of his attack.”

The court heard that Mr McMullan, who denies murder, does not deny killing Miss Wilson. At issue is his state of mind at the time of the attack.

The trial continues.

    Man who fatally stabbed pregnant woman ‘heard voices in his head’, court told, Ts, 10.5.2010, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article7122008.ece

Killer who used dog as murder weapon jailed for life

DNA technology proved blood on killer Chrisdian Johnson came from pet Tyson in park attack on Seyi Ogunyemi

Press Association
Guardian.co.uk
Friday 19 March 2010
16.13 GMT
This article was published on guardian.co.uk at 16.13 GMT on Friday 19 March 2010.

The first killer to be convicted using pioneering dog DNA technology was given a life sentence today for the murder of a teenage boy and told he must serve at least 24 years.

Chrisdian Johnson was jailed after using his powerful pitbull-cross dog, Tyson, as a weapon to savage 16-year-old Seyi Ogunyemi.

As his slightly built victim lay helpless on the ground, Johnson stabbed him six times before fleeing the scene covered in blood.

Johnson, 22, was convicted after analysis proved to a billion-to-one likelihood that blood found on him and at the scene came from the animal.

Seyi and his friend Hurui Hiyabu, 17, were set upon by a large group of youths and two dogs in Larkhall Park, Stockwell, south London, last April, the Old Bailey heard.

Brian Altman QC, prosecuting, told jurors the case was unique because pets had been used as weapons.

One witness described the attackers as "vicious" and said they were acting like a "pack of wild animals".

Johnson, of Lambeth, south London, was found guilty by a jury of Seyi's murder and the attempted murder of his friend – said to have been lucky to survive after he was stabbed nine times.

Judge Christopher Moss told him: "You used two fearsome weapons. The first was your pitbull-cross dog, which I have no doubt you had trained to attack and bring down your prey.

"The second was the knife with which you stabbed Seyi Ogunyemi to death."

Relatives of the victim hugged each other after the sentence while friends and family of the killer cried "innocent" from the public gallery.

The judge ordered Tyson to be forfeited to the police. It faces being put down.

The judge told Johnson: "This court has not heard any evidence to explain the enmity which obviously existed between you and your victims, save that you were plainly members of rival gangs which each claimed dominion of the south London streets in which you lived. This is a social problem that blights many urban neighbourhoods in our cities.

"The courts cannot cure the problem. All they can do is react firmly and decisively and impose severe punishment when murderous young men such as you are brought to justice before them."

Seyi, who suffered from Crohn's disease, was brought to the ground and mauled by Tyson – an adult male Staffordshire bull terrier/bull mastiff cross – as he tried to escape over a fence.Johnson was arrested as he fled the scene, bare-chested and covered in blood, some of it human and some of it canine.

He had complied with a court order in late 2007 to have Tyson chipped, tattooed and insured but was also supposed to keep him muzzled and on a lead at all times in public.

New technology proved that the dog blood came from Tyson, who had been knifed during the melee. The rest came from the murder victim.

Police hailed the DNA technique, which had just been developed at the time of the murder, as a "hugely powerful investigative tool".

They said they hoped it would deter others from using dogs as weapons.

Detective Inspector Mick Norman said: "This horrific attack was committed on a very slight teenage boy who stood no chance of defending himself.

"The fact that Chrisdian Johnson also ordered dogs to take part in the attack illustrates his sickening attitude to violence.

"The advances in dog DNA and forensic work now means that anyone who owns a dog and uses it to attack people can be identified and prosecuted."

    Killer who used dog as murder weapon jailed for life, G, 19.3.2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/mar/19/dog-killer-chrisdian-johnson-sentence

Sisters raped by father will 'suffer for many years'

Sheffield man groomed his daughters for sex from age of eight and 'took pleasure' in assaulting them

Karen McVeigh
Guardian.co.uk
Wednesday 10 March 2010
This article was published on guardian.co.uk at 15.58 GMT on Wednesday 10 March 2010.
It was last modified at 17.42 GMT on Wednesday 10 March 2010.

When their father was finally imprisoned, after 30 years of systematic rape and abuse, which resulted in 19 pregnancies between them, his two daughters said it brought them only the knowledge that he could not physically touch them again. Their suffering, they said, would continue for many years.

The disturbing case, which drew comparisons with that of the Austrian man Josef Fritzl, who imprisoned his daughter underground for 24 years and fathered her seven children, saw the 56-year-old from Sheffield groom his daughters for sex from the age of eight, beating them to make them comply. The repeated rapes, which continued until 2008, when the women finally broke their silence and sought help, resulted in him fathering their nine children, two of whom died the day they were born. The sisters also suffered five miscarriages and five terminations between them.

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was given 25 life sentences in November 2008, after pleading guilty to 25 counts of rape committed from the 1980s up to the present day.

Sheffield crown court heard how the British man, who is divorced, began sexually abusing the sisters when they were between eight and 10. But medical records show evidence of physical abuse from very early childhood. The eldest of the sisters was found to have bruises on her back, buttocks and arms when she was just five.

He "took pleasure" in assaulting the girls, the court heard, and the violent attacks would stop only while the children were pregnant.

"His younger daughter told of the frightening habit her father had of putting her head next to the flames of their gas fire and that when she struggled to get away on certain occasions she burnt her eyes," the prosecutor, Nicholas Campbell QC, told the court.

The court was told of his efforts to keep the abuse hidden. The girls were kept out of school when their injuries were visible and the family, including a brother who lived with them until his teens, moved repeatedly to avoid suspicion. His wife left in the early 1990s.

There were several contacts with authorities, however, who could have brought the attention to the police. In 1988 suspicions were raised at the victims' school due to their injuries, but these were blamed on bullying. One of the girls was asked by a doctor if her father was the father of her children, but she denied it. Her sister called Childline and asked for a guarantee that their children would not be taken away, but hung up when this assurance could not be given.

In sentencing, the judge, Alan Goldsack QC, said: "The phrase 'it is difficult to imagine a worse case' is much overused and rarely, if ever, true. But I can say that in nearly 40 years of dealing with criminal cases and 14 as a family judge, the combination of aggravating circumstances here is the worst I have come across."

    Sisters raped by father will 'suffer for many years', G, 10.3.2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/mar/10/british-sisters-raped-years-suffering

Facebook killer sentenced to life for teenager's murder

Peter Chapman, who used fake Facebook profile to lure student Ashleigh Hall, told he must serve a minimum of 35 years

Monday 8 March 2010
15.27 GMT
Guardian.co.uk
Helen Carter
This article was published on guardian.co.uk at 15.27 GMT on Monday 8 March 2010.
It was last modified at 15.41 GMT on Monday 8 March 2010.

Sex offender Peter Chapman was today sentenced to life imprisonment after he admitted kidnapping, raping and murdering a teenage student he had ensnared using a fake Facebook profile. Chapman, 33, of no fixed address, changed his plea as he was due to face trial at Teesside crown court for the killing of Ashleigh Hall, a 17-year-old student.

He was told by Judge Peter Fox QC that he must serve a minimum of 35 years before he could be considered for release.

Ashleigh's body was found dumped in a field near Sedgefield, County Durham, in October. The teenager, from Darlington, had been strangled.

Chapman also pleaded guilty to failing to notify police of a change of address, as required by the sex offenders register.

Graham Reeds QC, prosecuting, said Chapman had used the fake identity of a teenage boy to entice Ashleigh into meeting him.

He created the fake profile on Facebook and used pictures of a boy in his late teens, the court heard.

"The photograph is not of him. It is of a bare-chested and good-looking boy who is apparently in his late teens," Reeds said. "The defendant is a somewhat plainer looking man who could pass for being rather older than his 33 years.

"The prosecution case is that the defendant used this handsome alter ego to entice 17-year-old Ashleigh Hall into meeting him. When she met him, on 25 October last year, he kidnapped, raped and murdered her."

The prosecutor said the teenager suffered from low-esteem and boys were uninterested in her.

"According to her friends, Ashleigh was interested in boys but they, generally, were not interested in her," he said, adding that her friends thought that, if a male did show her attention, "she would likely be flattered by it".

The night before her body was found, she told her mother she was going to stay with a friend but had instead made the decision to meet Chapman.

Chapman, who was brought up by his grandparents in Stockton-on-Tees, has a history of sexual offending, it has since emerged. He was the subject of several sexual assault investigations, beginning when he was 15. In 1996, then 19, he was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for raping two prostitutes at knifepoint. He was released in 2001.

The unemployed defendant, who used to live in Kirkby, Liverpool, and has links to Teesside, was arrested by traffic police on suspicion of minor motoring offences soon after he had dumped Ashleigh's fully-clothed body.

He was held for questioning in Middlesbrough, where he asked to speak to detectives and what had been a routine inquiry took a more sinister turn. He led police to the spot, near a lovers' lane, where Ashleigh's body was found almost 24 hours after she had left the family home.

In the days after the killing, Ashleigh's 39-year-old mother, Andrea, called for the return of the death penalty for killers. Before Chapman's conviction, she said: "Whoever did this is going to go prison and sleep in a comfortable bed, but one day they will be out. They will be living and breathing as normal. But my daughter's life had been ended at 17 – and my life has ended because she is not here."

Ashleigh studied childcare at college in Darlington and helped her mother bring up the family's other children.

"I could understand it if Ashleigh had died because of illness," the victim's mother said. "But to actually have someone take someone's life is just unbearable. Ashleigh was my rock."

Her daughter loved chatting to friends online and spent much of her spare cash on her mobile phone so she could also text them. Her mother said: "Ashleigh wasn't a bad kid. She wasn't naughty. She made one mistake and has paid for it with her life."

Durham police led the inquiry, which involved contacting 2,500 people who knew Chapman through internet sites.

    Facebook killer sentenced to life for teenager's murder, G, 8.3.2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/mar/08/peter-chapman-facebook-killer

Yorkshire Ripper launches bid for prison release

Peter Sutcliffe, convicted in 1981 of murder of 13 women, asks high court to set tariff which could lead to parole

Monday 1 March 2010
14.10 GMT
Guardian.co.uk
Matthew Taylor
This article was published on guardian.co.uk at 14.10 GMT on Monday 1 March 2010.
It was last modified at 18.34 GMT on Monday 1 March 2010.

The serial killer Peter Sutcliffe is seeking a high court ruling to determine how much longer he must serve in jail. Sutcliffe, known as the Yorkshire Ripper, got 20 life terms in 1981 for murdering 13 women and attacking seven others.

The 63-year-old is now asking the court to grant him a finite sentence.

Sutcliffe, who is held in Broadmoor high security psychiatric hospital, will have to persuade the mental health review tribunal that he no longer poises a risk before he can be eligible to apply for parole.

He first lodged his request in 2008 and reporting restrictions on the case ensured he was only referred to as P. However Mr Justice Mitting, sitting in the high court in London, ruled that Sutcliffe, now known as Peter Coonan, could be identified. "It is now common ground this is part of the criminal process and must therefore proceed in the defendant's own name. The press are at liberty to report the fact that these proceedings concern Peter Sutcliffe/Peter Coonan."

A judge recommended, at the time of the 1981 trial, that Sutcliffe serve a minimum of 30 years behind bars, which expires next year. However Sutcliffe's name was not on a Home Office list, published in 2006, of 35 murderers serving "whole life" sentences, and he was given no formal minimum sentence. Today's preliminary hearing at the high court in London set out what form the tariff-setting hearing should take, and what evidence should be admitted.

Mitting was told there was new expert evidence on Sutcliffe's state of mind, which could help his case for release on licence. However the judge refused an application on Sutcliffe's behalf for fresh psychiatric evidence to be admitted as part of the tariff-setting exercise, although, he said, it would be considered in relation to his conduct post-sentence.

When Sutcliffe is reviewed later this year, the gravity of his crimes, whether or not he has made "exceptional" progress in custody, the state of his mental health and any representations from him, his victims or their families, will be taken into account.

The judge will have the power to impose a definite number of years that Sutcliffe must serve, and could rule that he spends the rest of his life in jail. Sutcliffe was convicted at the Old Bailey in London for the murder of 13 women, and on seven counts of attempted murder, in Yorkshire, Greater Manchester and Lancashire. The former lorry driver said he was on a "mission from God" to kill prostitutes – although not all of his victims were sex workers – and was dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper because he mutilated their bodies using a hammer, a sharpened screw driver and a knife. In 1984 he was transferred to Broadmoor from prison.

His life sentence means that, whatever the outcome of the tariff decision, he will only be freed if the authorities consider he no longer poses a serious danger to the public.

    Yorkshire Ripper launches bid for prison release, G, 1.3.2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/mar/01/yorkshire-ripper-bid-prison-release

Jail for woman who had sex with boy, 12, almost 200 times

• Mother-of-one Angela Sullivan, 36, rewarded boy with trainers after 100th tryst
• Detective says she preyed on and took complete advantage of vulnerable child

Friday 26 February 2010
14.03 GMT
Guardian.co.uk
Helen Carter
This article was published on guardian.co.uk at 14.03 GMT on Friday 26 February 2010.
A version appeared in the Guardian on Saturday 27 February 2010.

A woman who had sex with a 12-year-old boy on almost 200 occasions has been jailed for nine years.

Angela Sullivan, 36, gave the boy a pair of trainers as a reward after he slept with her for the 100th time.

When police arrested her in October last year they found her diary marked with childish entries and 191 stars against dates when they had sex.

Sullivan of Middlesbrough, Teesside today admitted 10 charges of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity. Prosecutor Richard Bennett told Teesside crown court that the abuse started on the night of a party she threw at her home in January 2009.

"On the 3rd to the 4th January the defendant threw a belated new year party," he said.

"Alcohol, including spirits, was available and it seems the young children at the party were freely able to consume it."

The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, later told police he had consumed 10 bottles of the vodka-based drink WKD and was very drunk.

The defendant, who has a son of her own, "took the intoxicated boy up to bed", said Bennett.

The next day the boy, a young-looking 12-year-old, had a heavy hangover and she told him: "I had sex with you and if anyone finds out it's classed as rape and everything."

Jailing Sullivan for nine years, judge John Walford described the case as "shocking". He also condemned her for the psychological effect her conduct would have on the victim and her own son.

Sullivan, who had no previous convictions, was also placed on the sex offenders register for life.

Acting detective inspector John Wrintmore of Cleveland police said the force was pleased with the outcome.

"Angela Sullivan has clearly preyed on and taken complete advantage of a vulnerable young boy."

He said sexual offences, particularly where children were victims, were treated extremely seriously by the police and courts.

He also commended "the courage and strength of character shown by the young victim".

    Jail for woman who had sex with boy, 12, almost 200 times, G, 26.2.2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/feb/26/woman-jailed-for-sex-with-boy

Matalan killer was on police bail over earlier death

Anthony Maina found guilty of manslaughter of Matalan store manager Jamie Simpson in east London two years ago

Guardian.co.uk
Tuesday 23 February 2010
17.07 GMT
Sam Jones
This article was published on guardian.co.uk at 17.07 GMT on Tuesday 23 February 2010.
It was last modified at 17.28 GMT on Tuesday 23 February 2010.

A member of the gang convicted of killing a Matalan store manager in a botched robbery was on police bail for an earlier murder at the time of the attack, it emerged today.

Anthony Maina, 20, was found guilty yesterday of the manslaughter of 33-year-old Jamie Simpson, who was stabbed in the neck by Kobina Essel – known as Aggro – at the store in Dalston, east London, in March 2008.

Essel, 19, was convicted of murder by an Old Bailey jury, while Maina, of Canning Town, east London, Simeon Jumah, 25, of Manor Park, east London, and Randy Osei-Owusu, 17, of Poplar, east London, were found guilty of manslaughter.

Jurors were unable to agree on a charge of murder against Maina, Jumah, and Osei-Owusu, and were discharged from returning verdicts on that allegation.

It was only , after prosecutors decided not to press for a retrial on that count, that the full extent of Maina's violent past could be revealed.

Judge Martin Stephens also lifted reporting restrictions which prevented Osei-Owusu being named because of his age.

The jury was not told that Maina had a violent criminal history which began when he was 14 – nor that he had been arrested in connection with the murder of 17-year-old Rizwan Darbar, who was stabbed as he tried to stop a gang stealing his friend's mobile phone.

Although Maina was arrested shortly after Darbar's murder in October 2007, he was released on police bail because of lack of evidence.

He was at large for 15 months, during which time he took part in the killing of Simpson as well as being caught with a knife, cannabis, crack cocaine and heroin, before finally being charged in January last year over the killing of Darbar.

Seven months later he was jailed for life with a minimum term of 14 years after being convicted of Darbar's murder by an Old Bailey jury.

His name, however, could not be reported as by then he was facing a second trial over the death of Simpson.

A Metropolitan police spokesman described the investigation into Darbar's murder as "both long and complex", with 10 arrests made and three people charged.

He added: "Maina was charged at the earliest opportunity on 30 January 2009. Evidence which secured his charge was not available to us at the early stage of the inquiry."


Yesterday, Darbar's family said they had no complaints "whatsoever" about the police investigation.

"The case was extremely difficult from the onset, there was very little forensic evidence, there was very little CCTV evidence," said Rizwan Darbar's brother Tausif. "The police did not leave a stone unturned in terms of the investigation."

If anything was to blame for subsequent events, he added, it was the "culture of no comment" that had stymied police inquiries. He said it was only after a witness agreed to give evidence "at the last minute" that the police were able to charge Maina.

"Maybe if he had [agreed earlier] then maybe Jamie Simpson would still be alive," he said.


The Old Bailey jury in the Simpson trial heard that the gang had planned to steal between £20,000 and £30,000 from the Matalan store in Dalston, but had eventually fled empty-handed.

Jurors were told that Maina, Essel and Osei-Owusu entered the store during the robbery, while Jumah was said to have been the ringleader.

The three hid in the store as they waited for Simpson to cash up after the shop closed on Easter Saturday.

Essel then pounced, stabbing Simpson three times with a 10in kitchen knife; once in the shoulder, once in the back and once, fatally, in the neck, severing his carotid artery and jugular vein.

Simpson's colleagues tried to stem the flow of blood with clothes and towels grabbed from the display, but he was declared dead by ambulance staff.

Security guard Roy Williams, 31, of Edmonton, north London, who was alleged to have been the gang's "inside man", was found not guilty of murder and manslaughter. Jammal Chambers, 18, of Poplar, east London, and Duane Owusu, 20, of Manor Park, east London, were also cleared of the killing.

But Williams, Chambers, and Owusu were convicted of conspiracy to rob – a charge the other four defendants had already admitted.

Chambers was said to have recruited members of the raid gang while Owusu, the court heard, was the getaway driver.

Simpson's parents, Lorna and Lambert Simpson, were at the Old Bailey as the verdicts were returned.

In a statement, Mrs Simpson said: "There is no sentence that can bring Jamie back into our lives. No sentence can provide justice for the sickening betrayal we've encountered at the hands of his killers.

"We are all living a life sentence ourselves for having such a genuine, caring soul ripped from our world."

One of her three daughters, Clare, also provided a statement, in which she said: "What's the point in living when there are people like this in this world that just don't care what consequences their actions have, and behave in such a way that makes you question what kind of society this is? Is there even a thread of common decency any more?"

Maina, Essel, Jumah and Osei-Owusu will be sentenced on 22 March – the second anniversary of Simpson's death.

    Matalan killer was on police bail over earlier death, G, 23.2.2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/feb/23/anthony-maina-guilty-matalan-killing

Jeremy Bamber did not murder his family, insists court expert

The crime was horrific: an elderly couple, with their daughter and her six-year-old twins, were gunned down in an Essex farmhouse 25 years ago.
Their adopted son, Jeremy Bamber, has always protested his innocence. But as this film shows, new evidence casts doubt on his conviction

Sunday 21 February 2010
The Observer
Mark Townsend and Eric Allison

Inconsistencies in the key photographic evidence that convicted Jeremy Bamber, one of Britain's most notorious multiple murderers, are being examined by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, the authority that investigates miscarriages of justice.

Analysis of police negatives by one of Britain's most eminent photographic experts has found them incompatible with the principal prosecution case used to imprison Bamber for the White House Farm murders 25 years ago. The conclusions reached by Peter Sutherst, a photographic expert with 50 years' experience who provides ­technical advice to scenes of crime officers and is on the UK register of expert witnesses, were sent last week to the CCRC.

Sutherst had found that scratch marks said to have been caused by ­Bamber on the night of the killings might have been made more than a month after the murders.

Bamber, who was described by the trial judge as "warped and evil beyond belief", was found guilty in October 1986 of shooting his adopted parents, June and Neville, his sister Sheila Caffell and her six-year-old twins, Daniel and Nicholas, at their Essex farmhouse. When he was home secretary, Michael Howard ruled that he should never be released from jail. Bamber, who is now 49, has served more than 23 years behind bars, but has always maintained his innocence.

During the trial, the jury was shown photographs of scratch marks allegedly made by a silencer fitted on the murder weapon, a .22 Anschütz semi-automatic rifle. According to the prosecution, the marks were made during a violent struggle between Neville, 61, and Bamber in the kitchen at White House Farm, ­Tolleshunt D'Arcy, during the early morning of 7 August 1985.

The jury was shown a close-up image of the scratches on the underside of a mantel shelf above the kitchen's Aga cooker, close to where Neville's body was found. He had been shot eight times in the head and neck at close range.

However, Sutherst's analysis of crime-scene photographs taken on the day of the murders found no trace of the scratch marks. Sutherst subsequently discovered that the photograph of the scratches used in Bamber's trial was taken on 10 September, 34 days after the murders.He also examined the carpet below the scratches.

Normally, the expert would expect to find a significant amount of chipped paint. Sutherst failed to locate a single speck of paint on the carpet. The scratch marks made by the silencer simply did not exist in the aftermath of the massacre, the expert concluded.

Sutherst – who says he came to the case with an open mind – said: "My conclusion, drawn from examination of photographs taken from the time of the case, was that the marks had occurred something like a month later.

"The prosecution case regarding the scratch marks was crucial to the ­conviction of Jeremy Bamber and therefore it was significant when I realised they had been made something like a month later. Here was evidence that Jeremy Bamber in all probability had not done the deed.

"It is quite clear from the reconstruction I made that the marks don't appear in the original crime scene evidence. Having done that, you draw your own conclusions as to where and when that happened. It starts to become an entirely different case altogether."

Sutherst, whose report is dated 17 January 2010, was asked in 2008 by Bamber's legal team to study negatives of the CCRC case, including some never presented at the trial. Sutherst, who has supplied expert testimony in numerous police and ­Ministry of Defence inquiries, has conducted more than 100,000 investigations for Kodak into photographic defects and is on the technical committee of ­photographic processing for the British Standards Institution.

Barry Woods, of Chivers Solicitors, Bingley, West Yorkshire, who is representing Bamber, said: "Now it appears the scratches were not, in fact, made on the night of the murders. The significance of this development cannot be underestimated. The scratch marks were pivotal to the prosecution's case."

When addressing the jury, the trial judge instructed them that "the evidence of the sound moderator [silencer] could, on its own, lead them to believe that Bamber was guilty".

When the police were first called to the scene, they thought the killings were consistent with murder-suicide. ­Detectives believed Bamber's sister, Sheila – a model nicknamed Bambi, who had a history of mental illness and had referred to her sons as "Devil's children" – had shot her parents and two children before turning the gun on herself.

Three days after the shootings, the case turned on its head. A cousin of Bamber found a silencer in the gun cupboard and took it to the police. Officers deduced that it was impossible for Sheila to have shot herself and then return the silencer to the cupboard. A scientist found a speck of blood on the silencer and concluded it had come from Sheila after she had been shot.

Subsequent forensic analysis shed doubt on whether the blood was ­Sheila's. The focus of the murder investigation turned to Bamber and the following year he was convicted on a 10-2 majority verdict by a jury at Chelmsford Crown Court. Two previous appeals by Bamber against his life sentence have been rejected. Close observers of the case believe the latest evidence is by far the most compelling to emerge.

Scott Lomax, author of Jeremy Bamber: Evil, Almost Beyond Belief?, said: "I would expect Bamber to walk free by the end of the year."

Speaking from Full Sutton Prison, near York, Bamber said: "This is what I have been waiting nearly 25 years for. It's 100% solid proof. They cannot look at this new evidence and say it doesn't cast doubt on my conviction."

In 2008, Bamber was told by Mr ­Justice Tugenhadt that he would spend the rest of his life behind bars because the crime was so "exceptionally serious".

Sutherst's report is one of several grounds that lawyers have forwarded to the Criminal Cases Review Commission contesting the safety of Bamber's conviction; newly obtained police documents reveal an unexplained "movement" of Sheila's body after she was killed.

Bamber's lawyers have also studied x-rays and ballistic reports they believe indicate that at least one round of ammunition was significantly different to the others, raising the possibility that it was changed to show it was fired through a silencer.

"Without the sound moderator [the silencer], it is unlikely the prosecution would have been able to build a strong enough case against Bamber," said Woods.

BAMBER'S TRIALS

August 1985 White House Farm shootings take place. September 1985 Jeremy Bamber arrested and charged with five counts of murder. October 1986 Bamber found guilty at Chelmsford crown court. June 1987 First appeal to overturn conviction fails. December 2002 Bamber loses second appeal to secure freedom. May 2004 Bamber taken to hospital after attack by another inmate while making a telephone call from Full Sutton prison, near York. April 2007 Bamber passes lie detector test. May 2008 Loses High Court appeal against his whole life tariff. May 2009 Bamber loses legal challenge against an order that he must die behind bars. February 2010 Lodges new evidence to Criminal Case Review Commission to try to win fresh appeal.

    Jeremy Bamber did not murder his family, insists court expert, O, 21.2.2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/feb/21/jeremy-bamber-murder-conviction-doubt

Stepfather and mother admit killing girl who 'starved to death'

Khyra Ishaq murder trial continues against mother Angela Gordon, while Junaid Abuhamza pleads guilty to manslaughter

Friday 12 February 2010
18.24 GMT
Guardian.co.uk
Helen Carter
This article was published on guardian.co.uk at 18.24 GMT on Friday 12 February 2010.
It was last modified at 18.26 GMT on Friday 12 February 2010.

A mother and stepfather accused of murdering her seven-year-old daughter by starving her to death have admitted manslaughter.

A charge of murder against Junaid Abuhamza, 31, was dropped after new evidence about his mental health was revealed at Birmingham crown court.

However, the prosecution did not accept a plea of manslaughter by Angela Gordon, 35, and her trial for murder continues. The pair were accused of starving Khyra Ishaq to death in May 2008.

She was so emaciated at the time of death, her condition was outside the experience of medical professionals, Timothy Raggatt QC, for the prosecution, told the jury.

Khyra and five other children under the couple's care and control had been denied food, the court heard.

Abuhamza's guilty plea to Khyra's manslaughter was accepted and he was found guilty by the jury after direction from the judge, Mr Justice Roderick Evans.

Abuhamza told the court he was brutally abused as a child and witnessed his father beating his younger sister to death when he was five years old.

He also told jurors last week he had beaten Khyra with a cane, made her stand outside in the cold and threw cold water over her. When asked by the prosecution if he blamed himself for her death, he said: "Yes, I do."

The court has heard he suffered from bouts of schizophrenia and thought Khyra had a "weird face" because she was possessed by evil spirits.

Khyra died after being discovered at the family home in Handsworth, Birmingham, in a state of starvation.

Abuhamza, who pleaded guilty to five cruelty charges at an earlier hearing, will be sentenced at the end of the trial.

Raggatt told the court: "The infection that brought about Khyra's death was one that was caused, and wholly caused, as a result of one thing – for months, quite literally months, she had been starved."

Last week, Abuhamza told the court that he blamed himself for her death and felt "like a failure".

He said he hadn't noticed how thin she had become, adding: "With all that was going on in the house, I couldn't see what was going on in front of me." Asked if he loved Khyra, he answered: "I did, yes. I feel like a failure."

Five other children, who were also in the defendants' care, were also starved, the prosecution alleges.

Gordon, of Handsworth, Birmingham, denies five counts of child cruelty.

The case was adjourned until next Wednesday.

    Stepfather and mother admit killing girl who 'starved to death', G, 12.2.2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/feb/12/khyra-ishaq-starved-girl-murder

Curry poisoner Lakhvir Singh found guilty of murder

Spurned woman who laced Lakhvinder Cheema and his fiancee's food with aconite faces life in jail

Wednesday 10 February 2010
14.18 GMT
Guardian.co.uk
Press Association
This article was published on guardian.co.uk at 14.18 GMT on Wednesday 10 February 2010.

A jealous woman who killed her lover by poisoning his curry was facing a life sentence today after being convicted of his murder.

Lakhvir Singh, 45, was said to have killed Lakhvinder "Lucky" Cheema, 39, because she could not bear the thought of his marriage to another woman. He had been due to marry Gurjeet Choongh, 21, on Valentine's Day last year.

But on 27 January, they both became violently ill after eating leftover curry which had been in the fridge of their home in Feltham, west London.

Within hours, Cheema was dead and Choongh fighting for her life after being poisoned with Indian aconite. Aconite, known as the Queen of Poisons, is one of the most deadly, but this was the first case in England since 1882.

Singh, of Southall, west London, was found guilty at the Old Bailey of murdering Cheema and causing grievous bodily harm with intent to Choongh. She was found not guilty of attempting to murder Choongh.

The judge gave the jury, which had been considering its verdicts for four days, a majority direction in respect of a fourth charge, that Singh administered poison to Cheema the month before.

After her arrest, Singh, a mother of three, tried to blame her brother-in-law Varinder for the death. But a lodger saw her take a container with the curry out of the fridge earlier, the court heard.

Singh and Cheema had been having an affair for 16 years but he decided to settle down and have children. Singh's husband was being treated for cancer abroad and she told police that Cheema had talked her out of divorcing him.

She continued to text Cheema with love messages and tried to talk him out of marrying Choongh, whom he had known for only a few months. After the engagement became final in November 2008, Singh went to India and returned three weeks later.

A week after that, Cheema was taken to hospital. Singh went with him and stayed by his bedside each day. It was there that Choongh realised there had been a relationship and warned her off. Cheema was discharged after a week but doctors were unable to say what had caused his illness.

Things got worse over Christmas when Singh discovered that Cheema was determined to go ahead with the marriage to the younger woman. Choongh said: "I knew she was jealous of my relationship with Lakhvinder. I told her not to interfere in our lives any longer. I told her to forget everything that had gone on in the past. She said: 'I cannot forget the feelings that I have.' "

As the wedding approached, there were tearful showdowns, with Singh being told to forget Lucky. But Singh turned up one morning expecting the couple to be at work – and headed straight for the fridge.

That evening, the couple were discussing their wedding plans over dinner. Choongh said: "Lucky ate more than I. After that, he had second helpings. Lucky said to me: 'I am not feeling very well. My face has become numb and when I touch it, I cannot feel it.'"

Choongh said she began feeling similar symptoms. "He said that everything seemed to be going dark. He could not see anything and was losing feelings in his body," she said.

"He was touching his tongue and could not feel anything. He was having to support himself. He said: 'I think this problem is because of the food we have eaten.' I was feeling the same. Everything was going dark. I began to feel dizzy. It was difficult to stand up. My tummy was hurting."

Cheema rang for an ambulance and told the operator: "Someone put poison in our food ... she is my ex-girlfriend."

Before the ambulance arrived, Cheema summoned his sister and nephews who took them to casualty in a car. He died within an hour of arriving at West Middlesex hospital.

Choongh was placed into a coma for two days while doctors traced the poison and gave her an antidote.

Police found traces of the poison among herbs in Singh's coat pocket and in her handbag.

Edward Brown QC, prosecuting, said the couple had been looking forward to a long and happy life together. He added: "That future happiness was cut short in a most terrible and cruel way … Perhaps jealousy, anger and revenge all playing their part, Lakhvir Singh decided to poison them using an extremely toxic and deadly poison."

    Curry poisoner Lakhvir Singh found guilty of murder, NYT, 10.2.2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/feb/10/curry-poisoner-guilty-murder

Mother cleared of bedridden daughter's attempted murder

Kay Gilderdale had already confessed to assisting suicide of 31-year-old daughter, who was determined to die

Monday 25 January 2010
16.59 GMT
James Meikle and agencies
Guardian.co.uk
This article was published on guardian.co.uk at 16.59 GMT on Monday 25 January 2010.
It was last modified at 17.00 GMT on Monday 25 January 2010.

A mother who helped her daughter end her own life by handing her morphine and administering other drugs has been cleared of attempted murder.

Bridget Kathleen Gilderdale, 55, known as Kay, was found not guilty by jurors at Lewes crown court. The judge said the verdict showed "common sense, decency and humanity" but it is certain to spark a new debate about assisted dying.

Lynn, Kay's 31-year-old daughter, had injected herself with two syringes containing large doses of pain-relieving medicine in an attempt to take her own life following a 17-year battle with illness.

When the drugs were not enough to kill her, her mother searched the house for more tablets, which she crushed with a pestle and mortar and gave her daughter through a feeding tube in her nose.

In the hours that followed, Gilderdale gave her daughter three syringes of air through an intravenous catheter with the intention of causing fatal air bubbles in her bloodstream.

Lynn died later that morning, 4 December 2008, at the family bungalow in Stonegate, near Heathfield, East Sussex.

A postmortem examination found she died from morphine toxicity.

Gilderdale admitted assisting suicide and was given a a 12-month conditional discharge. She denied attempted murder.

The judge, Mr Justice Bean, said: "I do not normally comment on the verdicts of juries but in this case their decision, if I may say so, shows that common sense, decency and humanity which makes jury trials so important in a case of this kind.

"There is no dispute that you were a caring and loving mother and that you considered that you were acting in the best interests of your daughter."

Gilderdale's son Steve, flanked by his mother and father, read a statement outside court. "This not guilty verdict properly reflects the selfless actions my mother took on finding that Lynn had decided to take her own life, to make her daughter's final moments as peaceful and painless as possible.

"These actions exhibit the same qualities of dedication, love and care that mum demonstrated throughout the 17 years of Lynn's illness.

"I'm very proud of her and I hope she will be afforded the peace that she deserves to rebuild her life and finally grieve for the death of her daughter."

Detective Superintendent Andy Griffiths, of Sussex police's major crime squad, said: "The moral issues surrounding the tragic circumstances of Lynn's death are not for us to comment on. Sussex police has a duty to uphold the law and investigate offences reported to us.

"There is no sense of success or failure in this case, but we are satisfied that our role in the justice process has been fulfilled."

The case has drawn parallels with that of Frances Inglis, the mother jailed at the Old Bailey last week for injecting her brain-damaged son with a lethal dose of heroin.

Bean asked prosecutor Sally Howes QC "why it was considered to be in the public interest" to pursue Gilderdale on the attempted murder charge when she had admitted aiding and abetting her daughter's suicide.

Howes said the prosecution decided at "the highest level" to press on with a jury trial after Gilderdale had told her GP and the police that she had administered an air embolism with the intent to end her daughter's life.

John Price QC, for the defence, asked the judge to consider an absolute discharge based on interim guidelines by the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC. Starmer last year outlined 16 "public interest factors" in favour of a prosecution and 13 factors against taking legal action to bring clarity to existing assisted suicide legislation after law lords backed Debbie Purdy's call for clarification on whether people who help someone take their life would be prosecuted.

Price said that if the DPP had handled the case in light of the law lords verdict it would not have been considered in the public interest to prosecute.

The case has sparked calls for a review of assisted suicide law by Dignity in Dying, an organisation that says it campaigns to alleviate unnecessary suffering at the end of life.

Sarah Wootton, the chief executive of Dignity in Dying, said: "There is a clear ethical difference between assisted dying, assisted suicide, euthanasia and murder, yet the law makes little distinction between these acts."

The court had heard that until the age of 14 Lynn was a bright and healthy schoolgirl. But after a BCG vaccination at school she was struck down with ME and within four months was unable to move from the waist down.

As the illness progressed she became bedridden, lost her ability to swallow or speak and was fed through a tube. She required round-the-clock care from her mother and carers.

The court was told Lynn suffered from an "unimaginably wretched" life through illness and had expressed a clear desire to end her own life.

She had also drafted a "living will", placed a "do not resuscitate" note on her medical records and considered ending her life at Dignitas, the Swiss-based assisted suicide clinic.

Communication with her parents, who were divorced but remained supportive of her, was through a form of sign language they devised themselves.

She was bed-bound, socially isolated, unable to sit up and developed suicidal thoughts, which she had aired on a web forum for people with debilitating illnesses.

    Mother cleared of bedridden daughter's attempted murder, G, 25.1.2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/25/gilderdale-cleared-attempted-murder-daughter

Edlington brothers jailed for torture of two boys

Young pair who subjected boys to 90-minute attack involving torture and sexual humiliation to serve at least five years

Peter Walker and Martin Wainwright
Guardian.co.uk
Friday 22 January 2010
14.03 GMT
This article was published on guardian.co.uk at 14.03 GMT on Friday 22 January 2010.
A version appeared on p4 of the UK news section of the Guardian on Saturday 23 January 2010.
It was last modified at 01.24 GMT on Saturday 23 January 2010.

A judge sentenced two young brothers who beat and tortured another pair of boys to indefinite detention today, as the head of child protection services in their home town apologised for the way staff had failed the public in the case.

The brothers, now 11 and 12, carried out "appalling and terrible" assaults on their younger victims after leading them from a playground to waste land in Edlington, South Yorkshire, in April last year, Mr ­Justice Keith told Sheffield crown court.

He told the boys that while he was setting a minimum detention period of five years, the risk they posed to the public and their lack of apparent remorse meant that they were likely to be locked away for considerably longer.

"The fact is this was prolonged, sadistic violence for no reason other than that you got a real kick out of hurting and humiliating [the victims]," he said, directly addressing the brothers. "The bottom line for the two of you is that you both pose a serious risk of harm to others. Your crimes are truly exceptional."

Neither boy reacted to the sentence, but relatives of the victims shook their heads. One of the mothers yelled abuse as the brothers were led out of court, banging a glass partition with her fist and sobbing.

Immediately afterwards, the acting head of children's services in Doncaster admitted that the department he took over last year had been "totally broken".

Nick Jarman promised a thorough investigation into why no stronger action was taken against the boys despite a long record of violent attacks by both of them against other children and adults.

Giving an unqualified apology for the "admitted failings which led to this terrible incident", Jarman said action would be taken against staff deemed to have mishandled the affair. Only one member of staff had been disciplined so far, he said.

Outside court, Temporary Superintendent Ian Bint, of South Yorkshire police, was asked whether the brothers' parents should face a criminal investigation. He said: "It's something we will be looking at … in the light of what has come out in court."

In the most notorious crime committed by British children since James Bulger was murdered in 1993, the brothers targeted their victims apparently at random as they rode their BMX bikes in Edlington on a Saturday morning.

They led the victims, then nine and 11, to waste ground and subjected them to a 90-minute ordeal during which they were robbed, beaten, stamped on, struck with bricks and other objects, choked and burned. They also endured a series of humiliations, many of them sexual. The older boy almost died from his injuries.

Sheffield crown court heard how the brothers had been placed with foster parents in Edlington less than three weeks before the attacks. They had grown up in nearby Doncaster with a violent, chaotic family life described by one defence barrister as "toxic".

The judge acknowledged the impact of such an upbringing but told the boys they appeared obsessed with controlling others "by domination, degradation and inflicting pain for the purpose of [your] own emotional pleasure". They also showed a "chilling detachment" and lack of remorse, he said. "You will only be released when the authorities are satisfied that the risks which you pose are such that you can safely be released."

A serious case review found that various agencies missed 31 opportunities to intervene with the boys' family.

Jarman agreed that children's services staff should have made quicker and more effective use of statutory powers. He said: "Things were not working effectively in Doncaster, multi-service agency work was not effective and neither were children's services." While he defended the decision to place the boys with foster parents in their 60s, he admitted that children's services had not known that the boys' violent and drunken father lived nearby in Edlington.

Jarman was appointed to lead the already much-criticised department three days before the attack, after it was taken over by central government as an emergency measure. "Frankly, valuable though it is, we did not need a serious case review to tell us what was broken, and more importantly what needed to be done," he said, adding that much had been rectified in the following nine months.

The children's secretary, Ed Balls, said that while the brothers had been "deeply damaged by years of abuse" he found the nature of their crime hard to comprehend. He said: "What we've now got to do is make sure that in custody they get the support to try and turn things round for them and we also learn lessons in Doncaster so that in future we don't have a repeat of such a terrible, unusual and horrific case."

The Tory leader, David Cameron, has called on Doncaster council to make public the full case review, not just a summary.

    Edlington brothers jailed for torture of two boys, G, 22.1.2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/22/edlington-brothers-jailed-torture-boys

Father killed three in blaze after drunken row, court told

Eight-year-old son and two teenage stepchildren died after Kevin Hargreaves ignited petrol from lawnmower

Helen Carter
Guardian.co.uk
Tuesday 19 January 2010
16.16 GMT
This article was published on guardian.co.uk at 16.16 GMT on Tuesday 19 January 2010.

A father killed his eight-year-old son and two teenage stepchildren in a house fire after he drunkenly accused his wife of flirting with a taxi driver, a court heard today.

Manchester crown court was told that Kevin Hargreaves, 37, flew into a rage at the children's mother when they returned home from a night out and tried to set himself alight using petrol. The fire spread from the bedroom and engulfed the property in Beswick, Manchester, last July.

The dead children's mother, Susan Owen, managed to escape the fire. But John Hargreaves, eight, and his stepbrother Jordan Swift, 14, died after they became trapped in a third-floor bedroom while Jordan's 19-year-old sister, Carly, also died after she ran back into the house in the hope of saving the boys. Seven other children who were in the house at the time survived the fire.

The court heard Hargreaves walked down the stairs and was later spotted leaning on the garden gate as the fire raged.

Richard Marks QC, prosecuting, said Hargreaves had returned to Owen's home a few hours before the incident in a "very bad mood" following a taxi ride home after a night out.

He said the trouble between them seemed to have started during the course of the taxi drive where Owen bought a kebab for the taxi driver.

"The defendant took exception to this and later accused Susan Owen of trying to 'cop off' with the taxi driver," Marks said.

The couple had been married since February 2003 but did not live together as they had a "volatile relationship" in which Hargreaves often became violent after drinking, and Owen had not taken his name.

A forensic examination of the house showed that the petrol had been emptied from a lawnmower found near the front window of the bedroom.

Hargreaves fully knew what he was doing despite being in drink and it was only good fortune that his wife escaped speedily from the bedroom, Marks concluded.

The prosecutor said: "Witnesses described seeing Jordan at the window of the bedroom and they had shouted at him to jump but he did not do so, evidently being frightened, and then he disappeared from sight." The three victims all suffered severe burns and died later that day in hospital on July 16.

Hargreaves told police: "I only wanted to kill myself, I only wanted to kill myself."

The trial continues. Hargreaves denies three charges of murder.

    Father killed three in blaze after drunken row, court told, G, 19.12010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/19/father-accused-murder-three-children