A Passion for Poison
Page 29
It was this, especially, that caused such consternation at C3, whose representative, Mr Law, spoke to Detective Chief Superintendent Harvey the following day. Discovering that Graham was suspected of two further murders and that an exhumation order had been sought in respect of Bob Egle to analyse his ashes for poison, Law drew attention to police interviews with the two probation officers responsible for supervising Graham after his release from Broadmoor (the underlining is his): ‘Both are emphatic that they were not given Young’s background or told the nature of his original offence (I find this a little difficult to believe, but the matter can be pursued through Dr McGrath).’ Law’s report ended: ‘Latest inquiries tend to show that Young embarked upon his infamous conduct almost as soon as he arrived at the Training Centre at Slough, one man [Trevor Sparkes] there having become seriously ill with symptoms of poisoning in March this year (Young went there in February).’624
With the matter now brought to his attention, the Home Secretary asked for complete disclosure regarding Graham’s discharge from Broadmoor and the supervision afforded to him since then. As internal memos flew back and forth and letters were fired off, with various progress reports demanded from the hospital and probation services, one person was most sought after for clarity regarding Graham’s early release from Broadmoor: Dr Edgar Udwin. He remained in sunny Barbados, blissfully unaware of the unstoppable storm waiting for him when he returned to work on 29 November. The outlook was grim, with the Home Secretary writing to his assistant private secretary that the case of Graham Young ‘will present major problems for our whole present system.’625
Graham’s defence team had already begun work, instructing a pathologist to obtain samples from the body of Fred Biggs. Detective Constable Grinsted and Detective Inspector Ratcliff dealt with the matter before liaising again with Nigel Fuller of the Metropolitan Police Forensic Science Laboratory on other samples. Jethro Batt was discharged from hospital, recovered but far from well; his blood and urine samples were sent to the same laboratory for analysis. Nigel Fuller had visited the Bovingdon factory, where he was shown round by an ashen-faced John Hadland. He paid special attention to the canteen and stores while Grinsted and Ratcliff headed an ‘exhaustive’ search of the entire plant.626 More witness statements were taken, including one from a distraught Win, who told detectives, ‘When Graham first went to Broadmoor, I saw a young Australian doctor there who advised me to go home and forget about Graham, to treat him as dead. I wish I had taken his advice. As far as I am concerned it was a grave mistake to ever let him out.’627
On the afternoon of Sunday, 27 November, police officers from Hertfordshire and Norfolk met at the grave of a young man in Gillingham. It was bitterly cold. A retired farm worker turned church verger began cutting into the earth at the foot of Donald Goldsmith’s grave in St Mary’s churchyard. After several minutes, an oak casket emerged. Inside were the ashes of Bob Egle, laid to rest in his nephew’s grave.
At 2:45pm, District Coroner Frederick Robinson Bell presided over a brief inquest at Norfolk’s Loddon police station. Bell released the ashes for analysis, adjourning the inquest until 7 January 1972. The ashes, along with control samples including ashes from another cremated body, were conveyed to Nigel Fuller.
Dr Udwin returned to his desk the following morning, appalled to discover that his first task since returning from holiday concerned murders committed by a recently released patient. He began a letter to the Home Office, robustly defending himself and the system within which he worked, insisting that the first probation officer had ample contact with Graham and background information on him, although admittedly, ‘I did not emphasise that Young was a poisoner, nor did I direct him to keep watch and ward lest Young poison anyone.’628 Udwin was shocked to learn Graham had purchased poison so soon after his release (‘I had no inkling that his condition had changed or deteriorated’) and based his professional view that ‘he was better’ on years of treatment and training.629 He conceded that ‘in the event my belief was wrong’ but ‘this is a clinical error and which of us are to be proof against this?’630 Reiterating that ‘if there had been any thought in my mind that there was a remote likelihood of a relapse on a poisoner’s part I would not have sent him out at all’, he had regarded supervision as necessary simply to help the patient adjust to life outside after years in the institution.631
‘The matter of what has to be told to a prospective employer is a difficult one,’ Udwin wrote. ‘In all cases we consultants pursue a fairly common policy in this matter. We explain clearly that the patient comes from Broadmoor and we explain in vague terms that he was there for “an act of violence” or some such. We give our assurance that we believe the man to be well.’632 Here the psychiatrist was mistaken: Hadlands were not informed that Graham’s treatment had been at Broadmoor; Udwin had told his former patient that it was up to him whether or not he wished to mention that fact.
Udwin was of the opinion that the probation officers had carried out their functions ‘perfectly well’.633 He reminded the Home Office that in the last decade 468 patients, all homicides, had been discharged or transferred from Broadmoor:
in each and every case anxious thought and care is exercised before a decision is made. As far as is humanly possible all factors are weighed and no chances are taken. To date, one homicide has repeated the offence, the initial charge in Young’s case being, as I recall, inflicting grievous bodily harm by poisoning. If all error is to be eliminated, we should discharge no cases and we would require a new Broadmoor every three or four years considering our turnover is something in the order of 150 cases a year.634
Together with this spirited defence of his position, Dr Udwin compiled a report for the Home Office as requested, explaining Graham’s background, treatment and discharge, emphasising that Graham had seemed in no danger of relapse.
But detectives were gathering compelling evidence to show that Graham had not merely relapsed; in layman’s terms, he had never been ‘cured’. One of the items listed as an exhibit in his case was particularly telling: the poison register seized from John Bell & Croyden, whose staff spoke at length to Sergeant Livingstone and Inspector Ratcliff about the young man who gave the same false name that he had used prior to his years in Broadmoor in order to purchase the poison with which he would kill and torture.
Graham was charged with the murder of Robert Egle in a watershed event in British forensic and criminal history. For the first time, a murder charge was brought against a subject after their victim’s ashes were exhumed and successfully scientifically analysed. Tests had also been carried out on one of Bob Egle’s kidneys; due to the unusual nature of his illness and death, St Albans city hospital had preserved and mounted the organ. Nigel Fuller examined it and discovered the equivalent of 2.5 micrograms per gram of thallium present and this would have been higher but for the reduction in quantity caused by the mounting process.
Fuller had also tested hair samples from David Tilson and Jethro Batt; hair from the latter had turned coal black at the root. Analysing blood and urine samples from Trevor Sparkes, Peter Buck and Diana Smart revealed no traces of thallium and nor was anything detectable in the soil samples and garden tools taken as a precautionary measure from the home of Fred Biggs. But when Fuller examined Biggs’ internal organs, he concluded that the former Hadlands worker must have absorbed or consumed hundreds of grams of thallium.
Finally, Fuller analysed the contents of the bottles and powders found in Graham’s room. He made a number of interesting discoveries, not least that the poisoner’s ‘exit dose’ phial contained twice the fatal dose of thallium acetate, while a single bottle bearing a John Bell & Croyden label contained the equivalent of over 200 times the fatal dose. Graham had used that particular bottle to dose some of his victims, though not Bob Egle.
After charging Graham with Egle’s murder, Chief Superintendent Harvey asked if there was anything he wished to say. ‘No,’ Graham replied flatly, ‘I have nothing to say.’635
‘I’ve read it,’ said Harvey.
Graham took a breath, then recited: ‘Yet each man kills the thing he loves/By each let this be heard/Some do it with a bitter look/Some with a flattering word/The coward does it with a kiss/The brave man with a sword.’
He took another drag on his cigarette. ‘I suppose I could be said to kiss.’
Harvey merely looked at him. Graham then gave him a nod of acknowledgement, admitting, ‘You’ve treated me very well, far better than I deserve.’636 The door opened and he went out, following a constable who led him back to his cell where he would remain until a date was set for his committal hearing.
Dr Udwin received a somewhat critical response from another member of C3, a Mr Prior, who was sceptical of the psychiatrist’s claim that neither he nor Graham’s probation officer had felt it necessary to make home visits, given that ‘in Young’s room at his lodgings were a number of bottles and containers which, had they been seen by an informed eye, might have conveyed a good idea of his activities.’637 Prior further asserted that Graham’s nefarious activities ‘might have been detected earlier’ had the management of Hadlands known that their new storeman came to them directly from Broadmoor.638 He added that some sort of review would be necessary to revise general procedures following conditionally discharged psychiatric patients.
Writing within the department, Prior confided that the possibility of a review was something that troubled Dr Patrick McGrath, with whom he had spoken about the matter. McGrath was ‘especially anxious at the possibility that, as a result of this most unfortunate case, a more restrictive approach might be adopted in future consideration of the discharge of patients from the hospital [Broadmoor]. This clearly would have serious effects both on hospital administration and for the patients themselves.’639 Both men agreed that establishing the full facts of the case was a priority and that a meeting in due course would be beneficial.
Prior then had a telephone conversation with Dr Udwin, who reiterated that the probation service had been fully informed about Graham’s history, that their supervision was ‘entirely satisfactory’ and that he had seen no reason to ‘keep watch and ward’ against the risk of Graham Young ‘reverting to playing with poisons’. As far as home visits were concerned, Dr Udwin insisted that these were not part of general practice if – as in Graham’s case – the patient was reporting regularly at the probation officer’s office. Nor were prospective employers given full details of a former patient’s offence, except in the broadest terms.
Mr Prior recorded one last, telling remark: ‘Dr Udwin then volunteered quite spontaneously the observation that what has occurred in this case was due to one thing and one thing only, and that was a clinical error. Before Young’s discharge was recommended, he had been the subject of a good deal of clinical discussion within Broadmoor, but it was now evident that all those concerned with his care in the hospital had been deceived by his behaviour.’640
Chapter Twenty-three
THIS COLD, DELIBERATE, VINDICTIVE POISONING
T
WO DAYS BEFORE Christmas Eve 1971, Chief Inspector Kirkpatrick and Chief Superintendent Harvey completed their report for the Director of Public Prosecutions to show there was sufficient evidence to bring Graham, then aged 24, to trial for ‘two cases of murder, two attempted murders and numerous offences of administering poison’.641 These were the murders by deliberate poisoning of Robert Edward Egle, 60, and Frederick Ernest William Biggs, 56; the attempted murders by the same means of Jethro Walter Batt, 39, David John Price Tilson, 25, and the administering of poison to Ronald Hewitt, 41, Peter Buck, 26, Mrs Diana Smart, 38, and Trevor John Sparkes, aged 35.
At that stage, the final results of the forensic examinations were not known, but initial tests had shown traces of thallium in the pathological samples of Biggs, Batt and Tilson, and in Bob Egle’s cremated remains. Inquiries were being conducted to find an expert with knowledge of thallium and antimony, but that was proving far from easy, ‘and it would seem that there is nobody in this country qualified by experience to speak authoritatively on thallium and antimony poisoning.’642 The report included a succinct description of the effects of such poisons on the human body.
The greater part of the report outlined the circumstances in which Graham had committed his crimes, ‘a coldly calculated series of deliberate acts by the accused, designed to lead to the death and injury of those named. In carrying out his plans, Young seems to have acted without any understandable motive, and with an utter disregard for human life and a complete indifference to the pain and suffering of others.’643 The conclusions make for enlightening reading, providing a vivid picture of the culprit:
The murders of Egle and Biggs were apparently without motive. Both were reasonably healthy men with settled and happy lives, it can be said of each that they had been helpful to Young and given no cause for animosity. Much the same can be said in respect of all the victims and the answer undoubtedly lies in Young himself. He is of unimposing appearance, 5’7” in height with a slight frame, pale face and dark hair. He speaks with a cultured voice and at no time since his arrest has he shown any sign of emotion. His callous attitude towards the suffering of others is depicted in many ways, particularly by the seeking of information on those he had poisoned, as exhibited by his telephone enquiry to Mrs Biggs when her husband was so very seriously ill. There can be no doubt of his intelligence; the writing in his diary is grammatically almost without fault and at one stage he treated the reporting officers to a long and accurate exposition on the economic growth of Nazi Germany. When speaking he is precise and dogmatic, but as witnessed by his answers to questions, he becomes carried away by his knowledge and arrogance. There is every likelihood that he will plead not guilty at his trial, enjoying the opportunity of displaying in public his cleverness and conceit.644
The report ended:
The full extent of Young’s activities may never become known. The laboratory tests are complex and time-consuming but early results show traces of thallium in the blood of some of those whom he emphatically denies having administered poison to. Many results are waited, of inquiries being made concerning (in excess of 150) persons with whom he came into contact at the Government Training Centre, but some results received show that previously healthy men became sick at this time with symptoms all now too familiar. However, as the excretion rate of the poison is such that it is thought unlikely that traces can be found more than three months after ingestion, there is little chance of proving these forensically.645
The report was soon updated to include the results of the inquiries in respect of those people who had attended the government training centre at the same time as Graham. Five men and a woman were sick during that period, with symptoms that might suggest poisoning. Although it could not be proven whether Graham had been responsible for these other illnesses, the witness statements were included to demonstrate further that, within a very short time of his release from Broadmoor, Graham had been ‘active in poisoning people’.646
Nigel Fuller was, however, able to provide conclusive evidence of thallium poisoning from analysing the remains of Fred Biggs and Bob Egle. Regarding the former, Fuller discovered 120 micrograms of thallium in the gut, 20 micrograms per gram in the left kidney, 10 micrograms in brain matter, 6 micrograms in his urine, and 5 micrograms in muscle samples and also in bone matter. The roots of the victim’s hair and his pubic hair had turned black. Fuller was confident that the amounts would have been far greater when first consumed and certainly sufficient to cause death. In analysing Bob Egle’s ashes, Fuller discovered 9 milligrams of thallium, which would have been equivalent to approximately 5 micrograms per gram before cremation destroyed most of the poison. Because a person might ingest harmless amounts of thallium from the atmosphere over the course of their lifetime, Fuller th
en analysed the ashes of a man who had nothing to do with the case to see if any traces of thallium could be found. There were none.
The Home Office continued to be vexed by the prospective criticism that would follow Graham’s trial. In a letter dated February 1972, C3 optimistically suggested that when the time came ‘we shall be able to make something – but not too much – of the special hospitals’ generally good record in assessing fitness for release. But I fear that we may not be able to avoid awkward comparisons between the elaborate safeguards in life-sentence cases and hospital cases in Mental Health Act cases. When the “line” between hospital and prison cases is as blurred as it is, it is not a wholly convincing answer to such criticism to say that Broadmoor releases are basically a matter for medical judgement.’647 C3 had decided boldly that there should be no need for any inquiry to establish the facts of the case or where the decisions taken had gone so catastrophically wrong, since that could be attributed to a clinical judgement which, ‘though now known to have been wrong, was reasonable when made. Everything followed from that. Its results could not have been foreseen.’ Nor did the department feel there were any lessons to be learned from the case, since procedures were already being examined to pinpoint where improvements could be made. A note of caution was sounded: ‘We must obviously be prepared for the possibility – indeed the likelihood – that public opinion will not be satisfied by departmental assurances and that there will be strong pressure upon Ministers to have some form of independent – and public – inquiry.’648 It was still a matter of conjecture what form such an inquiry might take.
Buckinghamshire Probation and After-Care Service had contacted C3 to support Robert Mynett, who had been Graham’s probation officer immediately after his release from Broadmoor. The principal probation officer confirmed that Mynett was of the opinion that Dr Udwin had failed to discuss Graham’s background, offences and needs fully with him and that the further information he had requested from Broadmoor was insufficient and provided only with ‘reluctance’.649 Mynett had several suggestions for going forward, chief of which was that ‘the maximum written information to which referral can be made during supervision is essential. Mr Mynett feels strongly that a person who has been in a mental institution for a very serious and dangerous offence and separated from the outside world for many years presents very real potential difficulties when he is released with very limited preparation and under the supervision of an officer who has not had the benefit of the considerable knowledge gained about him in a treatment situation.’650 The principal probation officer was nonetheless keen to confirm that they had ‘valued the services of Dr Udwin in other matters and found him extremely helpful and cooperative’.651