The Postcard
A postcard bearing no publisher's name that was posted in Weymouth using a 2d. stamp on Sunday the 15th. July 1951 to:
Miss P. Summerfield,
9, Western Road,
Wylde Green,
Nr. Sutton Coldfield.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"7, Bradford Road,
Weymouth.
Dear Phil,
Pleased to say we are
having a nice time.
Weather is lovely so
far, hope it will keep
fine.
We are just having a
lazy time - plenty of
rest which we all needed.
Hope all are well at home.
Love from Laura."
The back of the card has been hand-stamped with a red ellipse containing the following:
'11 Mar 1973
Warning - Avoid Dealers.
Send Details to:
Postcards & Postmarks
Library Skegness.
Extra Payment Before 1911.'
Weymouth
Weymouth is a seaside town in Dorset, England, situated on a sheltered bay at the mouth of the River Wey on the English Channel coast. The town is 11 kilometres (7 mi) south of Dorchester and 8 kilometres (5 mi) north of the Isle of Portland. The town's population in 2011 was 52,300.
Weymouth is a tourist resort, and its economy depends on its harbour and visitor attractions; the town is a gateway situated halfway along the Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site on the Dorset and east Devon coast, important for its geology and landforms.
Weymouth Harbour has provided a berth for cross-channel ferries, and is home to pleasure boats and private yachts, and nearby Portland Harbour is home to the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy, where the sailing events of the 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games were held.
The history of the borough stretches back to the 12th century; including involvement in the spread of the Black Death, the settlement of the Americas, the development of Georgian architecture, and a major departure point for the Normandy Landings.
The Weymouth Clock Tower
Weymouth's Jubilee Clock Tower was built to commemorate Queen Victoria's 50 years of reign in 1887. The tower was paid for by public subscription, with £100 having been collected during celebrations on Her Majesty's Jubilee day of the 21st. June 1887.
The Jubilee Committee then approached the Council with the idea for the clock tower, which was readily accepted. As fundraising did not amount to enough to provide the clock itself, Sir Henry Edwards donated one, while the gas company agreed to keep the clock illuminated for free in perpetuity. Weymouth Corporation provided the stone base.
The cast and wrought-iron clock tower was unveiled on the 31st. October 1888. Erected on Weymouth's esplanade, it was originally set in front of the Esplanade and jutted out onto the sands of Weymouth Beach.
In the 1920's, the clock was set back from the beach as the esplanade was extended around it to protect the beach from the encroachment of shingle from the eastern end. The clock tower was also painted in bright colours during the same decade. It is Grade II listed.
John Straffen
So what else happened on the day that Laura posted the card?
Well, on the 15th. July 1951, John Straffen murdered a child.
John Thomas Straffen, who was born on the 27th. February 1930, was a British serial killer who was the longest-serving prisoner in British history.
After killing two young girls in the summer of 1951, he was found unfit to plead at trial, and was committed to Broadmoor Hospital. During a brief escape in 1952, he killed again.
This time, Straffen was convicted of murder, and sentenced to death. Reprieved because of his mental state, he had his sentence commuted to life imprisonment. Straffen remained in prison until his death after 55 years, 3 months, and 26 days of incarceration.
John Straffen - The Early Years
John Straffen's father, John Straffen Senior, was a soldier in the British Army. The younger Straffen was the third child in the family; his older sister was a "high grade mental defective" who died in 1952.
Straffen was born at Bordon Camp in Hampshire, where his father was then based. When Straffen was two years old, his father was posted abroad, and the family spent six years in India. Returning to the United Kingdom in March 1938, Straffen's father took a discharge from the Army, and the family settled in Bath, Somerset.
In October 1938, Straffen was referred to a child guidance clinic for stealing and truancy. In June 1939, he first came before a juvenile court for stealing a purse from a girl, and was given two years probation.
Straffen's probation officer found that he did not understand the difference between right and wrong, or the meaning of probation. The family was living in crowded lodgings at the time, and Straffen's mother had no time to help, so the probation officer took the boy to a psychiatrist.
As a result, Straffen was certified as a mental defective under the Mental Deficiency Act 1927. A report was compiled on Straffen in 1940 which assessed his I.Q. as 58, and placed his mental age at six.
From June 1940, the local council sent Straffen to a residential school for mentally defective children, St Joseph's School in Sambourne, Warwickshire. Two years later, he was moved to Besford Court, a senior school.
Straffen was observed as a solitary boy who took correction very badly. At the age of 14, he was suspected of strangling two geese. At the age of 16, the school authorities undertook a review which found his I.Q. was 64, and his mental age was nine years six months, recommending his discharge.
John Straffen's Criminal Career
Straffen returned home to Bath in March 1946, where the Medical Officer of Health examined him and found he still warranted certification under the Mental Deficiency Act. After several short-term jobs, he found a place as a machinist in a clothing factory.
Early in 1947, Straffen began to enter unoccupied homes and steal small items to hide them; he never took them home or gave the items to others. Straffen had no friends, and had begun stealing without being enticed by others.
On the 27th. July 1947, a 13-year-old girl reported to police that a boy called John had assaulted her by putting his hand over her mouth and saying:
"What would you do if I killed
you? I have done it before."
This incident was not connected to Straffen at the time. Six weeks later, Straffen was found to have strangled five chickens belonging to the father of a girl with whom he had a row.
When arrested, he was also under suspicion for burglary and, in his police interview, cheerfully confessed to it and to many other incidents to which he had not been connected. Straffen was remanded in custody, and the Medical Officer of HM Prison Horfield examined him, certifying that he was mentally retarded.
On the 10th. October 1947, Straffen was committed to Hortham Colony in Bristol under the Mental Deficiency Act 1913. Hortham was an "open" colony which specialised in training mentally disabled offenders for resettlement in the community. As Straffen had been under investigation for burglary, his certificate stated that:
"He is not of violent or
dangerous propensities."
Straffen was well-behaved at Hortham and isolated from other inmates. As a result, in July 1949 he was transferred to a lower-security agricultural hostel in Winchester. There he did well initially, but fell back into old ways when he stole a bag of walnuts and was sent back to Hortham in February 1950.
In August 1950, Straffen was in trouble with Hortham authorities when he went home without leave and resisted the police when they went to recapture him.
John Straffen's Mental Health
In 1951, Straffen was examined at a Bristol hospital, where electroencephalograph readings showed that:
"He has suffered wide and severe damage to
the cerebral cortex, probably from an attack of
encephalitis in India before the age of six."
By now, however, Straffen was considered sufficiently rehabilitated to be allowed a period of unescorted home leave. He used the time to gain a job at a market garden, which he was allowed to keep. Hortham licensed Straffen to the care of his mother, as the family home was less overcrowded.
When Straffen's 21st. birthday came, under the Mental Deficiency Act, he had to be reassessed by Hortham, which continued his certificate for a further five years. However the family disputed the assessment and appealed.
As a result, the Medical Officer of Health for Bath examined Straffen again on the 10th. July 1951, and found improvement in mental age to ten; he recommended that Straffen's certificate be renewed only for six months, with a view to discharge at the end.
Child Killings
According to Letitia Fairfield in the introduction to the Notable British Trials series volume about Straffen, he had a "smouldering hatred" and an "intense resentment" of the police, and blamed them for all his troubles from the age of 8.
On the morning of Straffen's assessment, a young girl named Christine Butcher was murdered. Fairfield speculates that Straffen saw the press coverage that followed and made the connection that strangling young girls gave the maximum amount of trouble to the police.
On 15 July 1951, Straffen visited the cinema unaccompanied. His route took him past 1 Camden Crescent in Bath, where 5-year-old Brenda Goddard lived with her foster parents. To see Camden Crescent, please search for the tag 36BCC32
According to Straffen's later statement to the police, he saw Brenda gathering flowers, and offered to show her a better place.
He lifted Brenda over a fence into a copse, after which she supposedly fell and hit her head on a stone. She was unconscious, and he strangled her. Straffen did not make any attempt to hide the body. Instead he simply continued to the cinema to watch the 1949 film 'Shockproof' starring Cornel Wilde before returning home.
In her postcard of the 15th. July 1951, Laura noted that the weather in Weymouth was very good; Bath is only 53 miles (85 kilometres) from Weymouth, and was probably also experiencing good weather. If the weather had been bad on that day, Brenda would not have been out gathering flowers, and would have survived.
Although Bath police had not previously suspected that Straffen was violent, he was considered a suspect in the murder, and was interviewed by police on the 3rd. August 1951. Meanwhile, the police had visited his employer to check on his movements; this resulted in Straffen being dismissed on the 31st. July.
In a later interview with a prison psychiatrist, Straffen said that he knew he was under suspicion, and wanted to annoy the police, because he hated them for shadowing him.
On the 8th. August 1951, Straffen was again at the cinema when he met 9-year-old Cicely Batstone. He first took Cicely to a different cinema to see another film, and then went on the bus to a meadow known as "Tumps" on the outskirts of Bath. There he murdered her by strangulation.
The circumstances of the crime produced many witnesses who had seen Straffen with the girl. The bus conductor recognised him as a former workmate, a courting couple in the meadow had seen him very closely, and a policeman's wife had also seen the two together.
She mentioned it to her husband; when the alarm was raised the next morning, she guided police to where she had seen the two, and Cicely's body was discovered. Her description of the man was enough to identify Straffen immediately as the suspect.
Arrest and Conviction
The police drove to Straffen's home and arrested him for the murder of Cicely on the morning of the 9th. August 1951. Straffen made a statement admitting he had killed Cicely, and also confessed to the murder of Brenda:
"The other girl, I did her the same."
He was charged with murder and remanded in custody. On the 31st. August, after a two-day hearing at Bath Magistrates' Court, a date was set for Straffen's trial for the murder of Brenda.
At Taunton Assize Court, on the 17th. October 1951, Straffen stood trial for murder before Mr Justice Oliver. However, the only witness to be heard was Peter Parkes, medical officer at Horfield Prison, who testified to Straffen's medical history, and stated his conclusion that Straffen was unfit to plead.
Oliver commented:
"In this country we do not try people who
are insane. You might as well try a baby in
arms. If a man cannot understand what is
going on, he cannot be tried."
The jury formally returned a verdict that Straffen was insane, and unfit to plead.
Straffen was transferred to Broadmoor Hospital in Berkshire. Broadmoor had originally been termed a criminal lunatic asylum, but responsibility for it had been transferred to the Ministry of Health, and those committed to it had been renamed patients. In Broadmoor, Straffen was given a job as a cleaner.
Escape From Broadmoor and the Murder of Linda Bowyer
On the 29th. April 1952, Straffen managed to surmount Broadmoor's ten-foot wall by climbing onto the roof of a shed during a work detail. He was wearing civilian clothes under his work clothes.
Some hours later he killed 5-year-old Linda Bowyer, who was riding her bicycle in Farley Hill. He was captured not long after.
Bowyer's body was found the next morning. Police questioned Straffen before news reached the hospital, asking him whether he had committed a crime while free; he replied:
"I did not kill her."
Before police had mentioned anything about a bicycle, he further said:
"I did not kill the little
girl on the bicycle."
He was charged with the murder of Linda, and sent to HM Prison Brixton while awaiting trial, since Broadmoor had failed to hold him. A system of sirens to warn of any escape from Broadmoor was set up later in 1952.
When Straffen's murder trial opened on the 21st. July 1952, he pleaded not guilty, and the defence opted to leave the question of his sanity as an issue to be determined by the jury. At the request of the prosecution (led by the Solicitor-General, Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller) the judge ruled that evidence about the prior murders in Bath would be admissible.
That evening, one of the jurors attended a club and declared that one of the prosecution witnesses had murdered Bowyer. The next morning the judge announced that the jury would be discharged and the trial re-begun with a new jury.
The judge required the errant juror to remain in court throughout the trial, before calling him to apologise for:
"Your wicked discharge of
your duties as a citizen".
Straffen's defence called several of those who had seen him in earlier years to give evidence about his mental condition. The prosecution then called prison medical officers and psychiatrists to give evidence in rebuttal.
Dr. Thomas Munro, who was a specialist in mental deficiency and had seen Straffen, testified that Straffen had said:
"Murder is wrong because it is
breaking the law, and because
it is one of the commandments".
When Munro asked Straffen to name the other commandments, Straffen could only remember four.
After retiring for just under an hour, the jury returned with a verdict of guilty, which implicitly declared Straffen sane. Mr Justice Cassels sentenced Straffen to death.
Straffen appealed on the grounds that the evidence relating to the Bath murders was wrongly admitted, and that his statements on the morning after Linda's murder were wrongly admitted because they had been made before he was cautioned.
Both grounds of the appeal were dismissed, and Straffen was refused leave to appeal to the House of Lords. The date for his execution was fixed for the 4th. September 1952.
Reprieve and Prison
However, on the 29th. August, it was announced that Home Secretary David Maxwell Fyfe had recommended to the Queen that Straffen be reprieved, and this was granted.
After his reprieve, Straffen was moved to HM Prison Wandsworth. In November 1952, the Home Office denied a rumour that he was about to be moved to the Rampton mental institution.
In 1956, Straffen was moved to Horfield Prison after officers discovered an escape attempt by Wandsworth prisoners. They had intended to take Straffen with them as a diversion. The news caused extreme concern in Bristol, and a petition demanding his removal was organised by a local councillor and signed by 12,000 people within weeks.
While in Horfield, Straffen was described by former politician Peter Baker, briefly a fellow prisoner, as always being conspicuous when he was exercising, being much taller than anyone else, and wearing distinctive clothing for a special watch prisoner.
Baker recalled that:
"The long, emaciated, miserable figure
looked like a dying butterfly or a caged
animal."
Baker reported rumours that Straffen had made application to the governor each month on the chance a date had been set for his release.
A new 28-cell high-security wing at HM Prison Parkhurst was built and ready for opening in early 1966. The Home Office pointedly did not deny rumours that Straffen had been secretly transferred there on the 31st. January 1966.
In May 1968, Straffen was moved to HM Prison Durham. Placed in the top security E wing, he was joined by another child killer, Ian Brady.
Crime author Jonathan Goodman wrote that:
"The shambling lunatic [Straffen] ... is in
prison only because no mental institution
is secure enough to guarantee his
confinement."
Many years later, a prison officer recalled seeing Straffen:
"Circling, banging the fence
every couple of minutes."
One fellow officer described him as aloof and hostile:
"Never talks unless he has to ask
for something. Always on his own".
Sentencing Terms
For most of the time that Straffen was in prison, the Home Secretary was required to agree to the release of any life sentence prisoner.
No occupant of the office was ever willing to let Straffen out. In 1994, Michael Howard decided to compile a select list of about twenty prisoners serving life sentences who must never be released, and Straffen's name was said to be on it. The whole list was published by the News of the World in December 1997; this report confirmed that Straffen would spend the rest of his life in prison.
In 2001, with the fiftieth anniversary of Straffen's imprisonment approaching, his solicitors called for his case to be reopened on the grounds that he had not been fit to stand trial.
In May 2002, the European Court of Human Rights decided a case brought by a life sentence prisoner which challenged the authority of the Home Secretary to refuse to release him after the Parole Board recommended he be freed.
The court decided that politicians should not interfere in life sentences, and that therefore the current practice was unlawful. It was immediately observed that this meant an opportunity for release for Straffen, who had been in HM Prison Long Lartin since 2000.
Investigative journalist Bob Woffinden, who examined previously confidential records, uncovered that Straffen had been reprieved after a majority of doctors who examined him found that he was insane.
Woffinden also doubted Straffen's guilt in the murder of Linda, because he had no fingernails with which to cause injuries seen on her body and because some local witnesses placed the time of the murder after his recapture. However, Straffen's application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission was turned down in December 2002.
The Death of John Straffen
Straffen died at HM Prison Frankland in County Durham on the 19th. November 2007 at the age of 77. He had been in prison for a British record of 55 years, 3 months, and 26 days.
