The Waterloo Bag Mystery

Blog Category: Historical Murders, Unsolved Murders
Posted on May 13, 2012

Last month the whole country was baffled and enthralled by the inquest into the suspicious death of GCHQ ‘spy’ Gareth Williams, who was found inside a padlocked bag at his home in Pimlico, south London.

The case has chilling echoes of a murder that took place more than 150 years ago. Known as ‘The Waterloo Bridge Mystery’ or ‘The Thames Carpet Bag Mystery’, it too featured a male body inside a locked bag.

The bag in question was found on an ‘abutment’ of Waterloo Bridge by two young men in a rowing along the Thames early one morning in October 1857. Once opened, it revealed 23 bones and a few scraps of flesh. The head, hands, feet and internal organs were missing.

The Waterloo Bridge Mystery
Drawing of The Waterloo Bridge Mystery from the Illustrated Police News

For the next two weeks, as the story played out in the newspapers of the day, the public were both fascinated and appalled by the gruesome details until eventually the police ground to a halt. The only lead was a sighting of an elderly woman carrying the bag on to the bridge the previous night.

Some even suggested that the whole affair was a grisly hoax perpetrated by anatomical students.

The Waterloo Bridge Mystery was ruled a ‘wilful murder’ just over two weeks after the discovery of the body.

By contrast the Gareth Williams case the inquest took place 21 months after the discovery body and ended with the coroner ruling that there was not enough evidence to sustain a finding of ‘unlawful killing’ (the equivalent to the Victorian verdict of ‘wilful murder’).

Both cases became the talk of their day, the subject of gossip and speculation. But there are also many differences. Gareth Williams was an identifiable person. He had a name, a grieving family, friends and colleagues. He had hobbies and interests. Yet somehow the more we found out, the more mysterious his death became.

The victim of the Waterloo Bridge Mystery was never identified. Despite being described by the Times in 1857 as ‘one of the most horrible murders that has ever stained our criminal annals,’ the case is now all but forgotten.

Read the full details of The Waterloo Bridge Mystery

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Suspicious and Unexplained

Blog Category: The Justice System
Posted on May 1, 2012

The case of MI6 spy Gareth Williams is one of those rare mysteries that seems to defy all logic. It begins with a body, but it is a body within a locked bag within a locked room. Detectives and scientists have marshaled all their resources in an attempt to work out how it happened yet at the end of it we do not even know the cause of death.

Up until the inquest Gareth Williams’ death was not classed as a homicide for the reason that the police could not even be sure anyone else was involved. It was instead classed as ‘suspicious and unexplained’ (although the case was investigated by the ‘Homicide and Serious Crime Command’, often referred to as the ‘murder squad’).

So how many suspicious and unexplained deaths do the murder squad deal with each year? We put in a Freedom of Information request covering the last five years, and this is what came back:

Financial Year Total S/U Deaths Remains S/U Reclassified as Homicide
2011/12 16 16 0
2010/11 20 11 2
2009/10 28 22 3
2008/09 20 10 5
2007/08 31 16 6

The ‘total s/u deaths’ is the number of suspicious / unexplained deaths referred to the Homicide and Serious Crime Command during that year.

This shows that the Gareth Williams case was just one of 20 suspicious / unexplained deaths in the financial year 2010-2011. It is one of 11 such cases that remain classed as suspicious / unexplained.

Cases are more likely to reclassified as time goes by, which explains the increase in the final column. It is also reassuring to know that the decrease in the number of homicides over the last ten years isn’t explained by an increase in cases classed as suspicious / unexplained.

On the other hand, the families of those whose cases remain unexplained must find it incredibly frustrating not knowing exactly what happened. It is only in rare cases like that of Gareth Williams that they are brought under the media spotlight.

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Off the Map: The case of Jayden Wray

Blog Category: Off the Map
Posted on April 23, 2012

Jayden Wray, who died on July 25, 2009

This week it was reported that the parents of Jayden Wray had been cleared by the High Court of all responsibility for the death of their son.

As a result we have decided to remove the case from the map as it can no longer be said to be a homicide. Although experts disagreed about the cause of death, it is now thought that Rickets was responsible for the injuries.

This is how the case appeared before it was deleted:

Four month-old Jayden Wray died after suffering serious head injuries and fractures to his arm, leg and hands.

He was taken to hospital on July 22, 2009, after falling ill at the family home on the Barnsbury Estate in Islington, north London.

The boy died three days later at Great Ormond Street hospital.

His mother Chana Al-Alas, 18, and father Rohan Wray, 20, were initially charged with grievous bodily harm and released on police bail.

Following further medical reports, on August 3, 2010, they were charged with murder and causing or allowing the death of a child.

They went on trial at the Old Bailey on November 1, 2011. The prosecution claimed that Jayden died of brain damage after being shaken by his parents. The boy also suffered from Rickets, a softening of bones caused by vitamin D deficiency.

On December 9, 2011, both parents were cleared of all charges on the direction of the judge Stephen Kramer QC. He said he had made his decision because the expert evidence about the cause of death was contradictory.

Judge Kramer added: ‘The evidence is that the parents were acting properly and gave no cause at all for concern over their care for Jayden.’

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The London Homicide Manual

Blog Category: The Justice System
Posted on April 18, 2012

How do detectives investigate a murder? Books, TV programmes and documentaries give us some idea – even if their focus is on a single grizzled cop who solves a homicide single-handed. But what exactly is the ‘procedure’ when that call first comes in about a dead body?

As it happens the Metropolitan Police have what is called the ‘London Homicide Manual Specific Operating Procedure’, described as ‘the premier instruction document on the investigation of homicide and unexplained death.’

What does it contain? The answer is we don’t know. Last month the Met agreed to release the document following a request under the Freedom of Information Act – but only after the majority of it was redacted under Section 31(1)(a)(b) on the grounds it was not in the public interest.

In their response, the Met admitted there was an argument for full disclosure:

Better awareness of the MPS and its procedures may reduce crime or lead to more information from the public.

This information could be a useful deterrent to those with criminal intent, as the abilities and capabilities of the MPS who are charged with enforcing the law by preventing and detecting crime and protecting the communities we serve will be apparent.  There is also a public interest in the transparency of policing operations.

Disclosure could provide the public with an understanding that public funds are being used appropriately.

But the Met also saw powerful reasons for withholding information about how they investigate homicide:

Release would have the serious effect of compromising law enforcement tactics and would also hinder the prevention and detection of crime.
 
In addition the release of any information that is directly concerned with the investigation of crime would prejudice investigations and any possible future proceedings.
 
Disclosure would technically be releasing very sensitive operational information into the public domain, which would enable those with the time, capacity and inclination to use the information contained in this document to map strategies to counter the techniques used by the MPS to investigate homicides.
 
Additionally MPS resources and its ability to operate effectively and efficiently would be directly affected as this information can be manipulated by those with criminal intent to operate without fear of prejudice in those areas.

The Met do have a point – it isn’t a good idea to give criminals information that helps them to get away with murder. To make an analogy (perhaps inappropriately), no football manager would publish his tactics ahead of a match.

Whether or not entire chapters had to be redacted is hard to tell. All we have is the titles – Responsibility for Investigation, Initial Response, Specialist Crime Directorate Response, Policy Guidance and Good Practice, Record Keeping, Murder Review, Use of HOLMES [Home Office Large Major Enquiry System] within the Major Incident Room.

What remains is the introduction and the first chapter dealing with the relevant homicide legislation.

This level of redaction appears to contrast with the ‘Territorial Policing SOP: Minimum Standards for the Primary Investigation of Crime’, which has already been released under the Freedom of Information Act. (pdf available via What Do They Know)

Should the manual have been released in full or is that taking ‘Open Justice’ too far?

London Homicide Manual – Introduction

Links:

MPS policy for the Investigation of Homicide and unexplained death (pdf)

MPA Overview of the allocation of resources for homicide investigations (2006)

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Playing Politics with Murder

Blog Category: Statistics
Posted on April 10, 2012

The London ‘murder rate’ has become something of a political football as the Mayoral election draws near.

Last year the Evening Standard reported that the number of murders in the capital had fallen to a level not seen since 1978. On Saturday the Times reported that it had continued to fall to a level not seen since 1969.

Boris Johnson is naturally happy to claim that the number of murders has fallen by 25 per cent since he took office in 2008.

Yet Ken Livingstone was also able to point to statistics showing that the number of murders had recently increased by 7.6 per cent. How is this possible?

The answer is that it depends on the period you look at, as there can be wild variations from month to month.

As the Full Fact organisation has pointed out in its analysis of the claims by both Boris and Ken, small variations can lead to large percentage swings.

The Evening Standard article in January 2011 was based on the calendar year – which highlighted a drop to 125 homicides in 2010 from 133 in 2009.

Whereas the Times article was using the Met statistics for the financial year [April to March], giving a total of 103 in 2011/12 compared to 120 in 2010/11. Interestingly, the 2010/11 figure was an increase from 113 in 2009/10.

Then we have the latest stats provided by the MPA for the year November 2010 to October 2011 with an increase of 9 homicides (or 7.6 per cent).

The reason for this disparity seems to lie a cluster of homicides at the end of 2010 and the start of 2011. There were 12 in December 2010, 13 in January 2011 and 15 in February 2011.

By contrast the numbers for the end of 2011 and the start of 2012 remained low – the Met’s rolling tables show eight in December 2011, three in January 2012 and seven in February.

This also explains why there is a massive 24 per cent decrease in the homicides for the 12 months to February 2012 (104) compared to the 12 months up to 2011 (137).

Politics aside, the good news is that there is no denying that the official statistics show the number of homicides has steadily decreased since 2003.

Note: Official statistics are based on the number of homicides, which include manslaughter and infanticide as well as murder. When politicians talk of murders they are really talking about homicides. Likewise, murdermap is really a homicide map.

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The Terry Gregory Case

Blog Category: Unsolved Murders
Posted on April 4, 2012

The list of Freedom of Information requests dealt with by the Metropolitan Police can make fascinating reading. The most recent from the beginning of March concern questions about ‘road spike apparatus accidents’, statistics on pickpocketing and the number of victims of knife crime in 2010 and 2011.

We have previously featured the Met’s five-year list of homicides in London and the list of unsolved murders going back to 1999.

In February there was specific request concerning Terry Gregory, who was stabbed to death in Woolwich in 2003.

Please advise us how many officers are investigating the murder of Terry Gregory… as to date nobody has been convicted of his crime.

Terry Gregory

The Met responded:

Currently no officers are dedicated solely to this investigation. However should any new and relevant information be forthcoming, then it would be investigated as a matter of course.

It is also important to note that The MPS’ Murder Review Group reviews each unsolved murder every two years, on a rolling basis, to identify and develop investigative opportunities.

At around the same time there was also a question put to the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, in the context of the recent convictions of two men for the murder of Stephen Lawrence.

Hate Crime Double Standards
Question No: 361 / 2012
Richard Barnbrook

Please explain why 23 officers are still investigating the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence in 1993 and no officers are investigating the murder of white teenagers Richard Everitt murdered in 1994 and Terry Gregory murdered in 2003?

Written response from the Mayor
Neither of the murders of Richard Everitt nor Terry Gregory are the subject of re-investigation as both were solved. Neither murder was determined as a racist killing. The facts and circumstances did not suggest that.

[Richard Barnbrook, now an independent member of the London Assembly, was elected as a candidate for the BNP in 2008.]

So we decided to look back in the archives and work out what exactly happened in the Terry Gregory case – is it solved or unsolved? The answer may actually be: Neither.

Terry Gregory was 19 when he was stabbed to death outside a pub in Woolwich, southeast London, on December 28, 2003. A suspect, George Edwin, 65, was charged with his murder and went on trial at Inner London Crown Court the following year.

Edwin claimed he pulled out a knife to frighten Mr Gregory and his friend and stop them from attacking him, but said he did not believe the knife ever made contact with the teenager.

The jury failed to reach a verdict and at a retrial in November 2004 a second jury was again deadlocked. As a result the prosecution dropped the case and it appears to have been left on file.

It is possible that further information could result in another trial but it seems highly unlikely. The Met do not include Terry Gregory in its list of undetected homicides, because the man they believe was responsible was charged and put on trial. In this sense it counts as a ‘detected’ homicide. There was also no evidence that it was a racist killing – in fact it seems to have started as an argument over an umbrella.

We have listed the case of Terry Gregory on murdermap as unsolved rather than solved, although it does not easily fit into either category.

Tragically, Terry’s older brother Billy Gregory was murdered at the Earl of Chatham pub in Woolwich almost exactly two years later. In that case a man was convicted and jailed for life.

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Old Bailey Farewell to Stenographers

Blog Category: The Justice System
Posted on March 23, 2012

Think of the major criminal trials that have taken place in the Old Bailey since the beginning of the 20th Century: Dr Crippen, John Christie, Ruth Ellis, The Yorkshire Ripper, the Soham Murders…

In each and every case the cast list has included, along with judges, journalists, clerks, barristers, and curious members of the public, a man or woman sitting in the corner recording every word spoken.

Since 1907 they have noted the proceedings down by hand – either in shorthand or on a stenography machine – that is until 4.15pm on Friday, March 23, 2012.

For from Monday cases will be recorded digitally by machines in an attempt to cut costs.

The Old Bailey's famous Courtroom No. 1 - the stenographers sat at the far left of this photo, on the same row as the judge. The jury sits on the left, the defendant in the dock on the near right and the barristers in the rows on the right. Below and in front of the judge sits the court clerk.

Judge John Bevan QC, sitting in the Old Bailey’s famous Court No. 1, marked the occasion with a short speech marking his regret at the change.

“This is the last day in which this court, which has been well served by stenographers and shorthand writers, is going to have their assistance.

“There is going to be a machine in future which, having been organised by the Ministry of Justice, will no doubt work perfectly.

“We deeply regret the stenographers will not be with us. They will be behind the scenes trying to make the system work. They will not be in court, which some of us might regard as a pity.”

The stenographers are being kept on one more week just in case the new digital system breaks down. After that they will be called on only if a transcription of the audio file is required by any of the legal teams involved.

Another victory for the machines. But that doesn’t mean anybody can capture proceedings using a digital recorder – their use is banned under the Contempt of Court Act.

Links:

Stenography and Charles Dickens – our blog piece when the news was announced.

For the record, stenographers put down their pens at the Old Bailey – Evening Standard

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A Sister’s Plea for Help

Blog Category: Current Affairs, Unsolved Murders
Posted on March 7, 2012

The sister of a father-of-five who was murdered three years ago blames The Sun newspaper for the failure to catch his killers.

In December 2011, Sarah-Jane Cunningham spent the third anniversary of her brother’s death handing out police appeal notices.

She was prepared for indifference. But she was genuinely shocked when some members of the public not only refused to take the flyers but also made comments like ”No, I am glad.”

What was it about this murder that aroused so little sympathy?

Andrew Cunningham was 52 when he was found dead in his caravan in Tooting, southwest London, at 7.40am on Wednesday, December 10, 2008. He had suffered multiple stab wounds, including what police describe as ‘unusual injuries’ to his genitals.

His home had been ransacked and his wallet containing between £4,000 and £6,000 was missing. The killer or killers had also opened boxes containing Christmas presents for Andrew’s friends.

Detectives now believe robbery is the most likely motive but early reports suggested the reason lay in the victim’s history as a registered sex offender.

The Sun led with a front page headline ‘MOB KILL PAEDO – vigilantes mutilate sex offender’. It also reported that Mr Cunningham had spent four months in prison in 2001 for raping a girl under 13 and had recently been accused of fondling a barmaid’s two year-old daughter. Other newspapers repeated the allegations and the following day the Sun ran an interview with the victim’s ex-wife in which she described him as ‘pure, cold evil.’

Mr Cunningham had in fact been jailed for having sex with a 15 year-old girl. He spent seven years on the Sex Offenders’ Register but his name was taken off in 2008, a few months before his death. And detectives have described the reports of a mob as ‘nonsense.’

Detective Chief Inspector Nick Scola told the Independent in July 2009: “There is no two-year-old girl. This was a rumour that we do not believe was true. As for the mob theory, we have looked at various CCTV images and there is no evidence of a mob being in the area. Certainly, if there was they all left individually. There were no burning torches or anything like that.”

But for Tracy-Jane Cunningham the damage has already been done.

“Why is my brother case not receiving public support with information to catch his killers?” she writes in a letter to murdermap.

“Well the answer to this is negative media reporting mainly by the Sun and News International Group who in order to sell their story decided to profile him to the world as a Evil Sexual monster out for sex with children.”

Sarah-Jane was also upset by comments left online by members of the public under the stories which effectively approved of the murder.

It was this same attitude that she experienced personally while out on the streets of Tooting on December 10, 2011.

“On the Anniversary of this murder I was present with Police at the location of this crime as I needed to be there and doing something to help solve this horrific case,” she said.

“For the last three years my life been on hold waiting for that knock on the door from officers to say ‘Yes we have them.’”

“It will only be when I hear those words will I be able to lay in my bed and sleep the whole night without waking up crying for a beloved caring man who was my big protective brother I loved with all my heart.

“Some members of the public refused to accept to take one of the Appeal Notices from me making comments like “No I am glad”.

“Had they of known that I was in fact Andrew’s sister I really do not believe they would have had the bottle to make such careless comment and what was more shocking that some negative remarks and actions were from women.”

Detectives have offered a £20,000 reward for information and continue to appeal for help solving the murder.

Sarah-Jane said: “All I can say now is if you have any humanity in you and you have information about this case, be that the offenders or any material evidence such as the whereabouts of the weapon or things stolen from my brother, or know where the clothing is of any suspect or suspects, call the police with that information.

“I know of no place where there is an offence of murder for a likeable person ‘A’ but no offence of murder of ‘B’ if we do not like the person past history. Murder is Murder regardless of who we are and or what we have done in our lives.

“Like everyone who has had a loved one murdered my reaction at first is bring back the death penalty but I am not religious and in my heart I know that even the death penalty for such an offence is in itself murder by that by the State. There’s just no justification for any act of taking another persons life.

“So Please help and do the right thing and help the police because one day you may need the public and police’s help too.”

Any witnesses or anyone with any information should contact the incident room at Sutton on 020 8721 4005. Information can be passed anonymously to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

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A Brief History of Cameras in Court

Blog Category: Current Affairs, Film, Photography, The Justice System
Posted on February 26, 2012

Earlier this month Sky, ITN and the BBC lobbied the government to allow cameras in court. The hope is that criminal trials could be televised as early as early as 2015.

The ban on taking photographs goes back to 1925 but even before then cameras had to be smuggled into courtrooms in hats or bags.

Probably the most famous ‘snatched’ courtroom image is that of ‘Body in the Cellar’ murderer Dr Crippen and his mistress Ethel Le Neve, in 1910.

Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen in the dock of Bow Street Magistrates Court. Source: Library of Congress

Two years later a photographer decided to go one better by taking a picture of the poisoner Frederick Seddon as he was being sentenced to death at the Old Bailey. You can just make out the black cap on the head of the judge, Mr Justice Burchill.

Frederick Seddon (left, in the dock) being sentenced to death. Source: Wikipedia

This photo’s publication in an illustrated paper in March 1912 led to questions in the House of Commons. The MP Alexander MacCallum Scott suggested the government should ‘introduce legislation either to prohibit altogether the taking of such photographs or to provide that cinematograph proprietors will have equal facilities of photographing such proceedings and making a public spectacle of them.’ (Hansard 18/3/12)

Sadly the idea of allowing proceedings to be filmed with a ‘cinematograph’ (an early motion picture camera) was not pursued.

The Home Secretary Reginald McKenna gave his reply a few days later (Hansard 21/3/12): ‘I find that no permission was given for the taking of the photograph in question or of any photograph in the Court. It must have been taken without authority and surreptitiously. The Lord Mayor, the Sheriffs, and the officers of the Court strongly disapprove of such photographs being taken, and share my hon. Friend’s indignation that anyone should have been guilty of such an outrage.’

However McKenna wasn’t sufficiently outraged to bring in any legislation and in 1915 a photographer managed to grab this shot of the ‘Brides in the Bath’ murderer.

George Joseph Smith: bigamist, conman, murderer

The ban only appeared ten years later as a small section (no. 41) in the Criminal Justice Act 1925, which mainly dealt with the system of probation.

No person shall (a) take or attempt to take in any court any photograph, or with a view to publication make or attempt to make in any court any portrait or sketch, of any person, being a judge of the court or a juror or a witness in or a party to any proceedings before the court, whether civil or criminal; or (b) publish any photograph, portrait or sketch taken or made in contravention of the foregoing provisions of this section or any reproduction thereof;

The act stated that the maximum punishment for breaking the law was a fine of £50.

Since then newspapers and TV companies have used sketches by court artists, made outside court from memory.

More recently, the taking of photographs in court has been dealt with as a contempt of court rather than under the 1925 Act. A 19 year-old man who took pictures inside Luton Crown Court on his mobile phone was jailed for two months while a Frenchman was kept sweating in the cells for two hours after taking a picture during Julian Assange’s appearance at the High Court.

This restriction on the use of mobile phone cameras in court is likely to remain even if the 1925 law is relaxed. Similarly, the ban on sound recording equipment under the Contempt of Court Act 1981 will probably only be partially lifted.

All that will be shown and heard, according to the Justice Secretary Ken Clarke, is the judge delivering his sentencing remarks. No defendant in the dock, no witnesses, no prosecutor or defence barrister. Still, it’s a start.

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The London Murder Map App

Blog Category: Murdermap
Posted on February 19, 2012

If you didn’t know already, iPhone and iPad users can download the London murder map app. It’s free and has a few technical advantages over the website version.

Firstly, it centres on your GPS location  so you can see which cases happened near your position. You can also select cases by London borough, gender and nationality as well as by weapon.

At the moment there are more than 630 cases on the map, including the notorious murders of Jack the Ripper, Dr Crippen, Lord Lucan and John Reginald Christie.

We welcome any comments, good or bad.

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