by Robin Odell
Simpson gave his evidence, supported by sketches he had made at the scene and by photographs. Next came Professor McKenny-Hughes, who had seen the maggots which the pathologist had taken as specimens from the body in the woods and confirmed that they were indeed larvae of the bluebottle. Asked how his views on the habits and life cycle differed from Simpson’s, the professor declined to criticise his colleague, so, moving swiftly on, the prosecutor, Quinton Hogg QC, posed a theoretical question as to what might result when, ‘… the bluebottle lays its eggs on the dead body at midnight … ’. The professor recoiled in horror at the thought and replied, ‘No self-respecting bluebottle lays eggs at midnight.’ The sniggers around the court heralded a triumph for Keith Simpson whose evidence regarding time of death was accepted by the jury in preference to the evidence of the witness who claimed to have seen Peter Thomas after he was presumed to be dead. The pathologist had won the day and expressed pleasure that his reputation for calculating time of death had been vindicated. The trial jury found William Brittle guilty and he was sentenced to life imprisonment.
To his busy lecturing and writing schedules, Simpson also added an international dimension. His reputation as a painstaking and reliable forensic examiner resulted in invitations to visit other countries to train crime scene investigators and also to assist in murder enquiries. His visit to Canada in 1967 to give evidence at the re-trial of Steven Truscott gave him satisfaction over Francis Camps at the time when the judgement given confirmed the original verdict of Truscott’s guilt. The full story is told in Chapter Four and serves as an example of the precept held by forensic pathologists that things are not always as they seem. Whereas, in 1967, Simpson’s opinion was at odds with that of Camps, the passage of forty years would reverse the earlier affirmation of Truscott’s guilt and confirm his innocence. He was paroled in 1969 having been sentenced to death ten years earlier. Fearful of its image as a fair-minded country, the Canadian Government had commuted the death sentence passed on the fourteen-year-old boy. In 2008, Truscott was cleared of all allegations and offered substantial compensation. By then, both Camps and Simpson, arch rivals on the forensic scene, had buried their differences to the extent that both had passed on.
Keith Simpson joined the international forensic circuit in the early 1970s and made numerous trips in the role of lecturer and adviser. He undertook several visits to the West Indies and, notably, to Trinidad in 1972, at the request of the British Foreign Office. There was great excitement, not to say, anxiety, in Port of Spain when he arrived poste haste from London. On 19 February the fire brigade had been called out to attend a blaze at La Chance, the home of Abdul Malik, also known as Michael X, a controversial figure in the Black Power movement. The house was completely destroyed in the fire and when the police arrived at the scene and searched the grounds, an observant officer noticed that a bed of lettuce in the garden was unusually luxuriant with tall, yellow plants sprouting out of it. The lettuce was probed and found to be masking a grave which contained a man’s body. Further digging in the garden two days later revealed the discovery of a second grave containing a female corpse.
The background to these grim discoveries was the influence which Abdul Malik exerted over a band of devoted followers based at La Chance and living as a commune. Born in Trinidad as Michael de Freitas, he adopted the Muslim faith in 1963 and changed his name. He was active in London’s immigrant communities in the mid-1960s and founded the Racial Advancement Action Society. Firmly under the influence of Malcolm X, the American Black Power leader, he returned to Trinidad in 1969 where he fomented strife, preaching a brand of extreme racialism which brought him into conflict with the law. He threatened to deal with the ‘white monkeys’ and talked of killing with a clear conscience. His ambition to influence religious and political groups did not succeed, despite his claims, although he continued to exert control over his close band of followers.
In the aftermath of the fire at La Chance, Malik disappeared, leaving the police and pathologists to find explanations for what had happened there. The dead woman was identified as Gail Benson, a twenty-year-old English girl, one of Malik’s followers, who, it was estimated, had been dead for about two months. She had been attacked with a knife and sustained several wounds including a deep thrust through her neck which penetrated into her chest. Disturbingly, Keith Simpson discovered evidence suggesting that the victim had not been dead when her body was put into the ground and covered with soil. He found particles of earth in her throat and air passages, indicating that she was still breathing when interred. There was also evidence that she had put up a struggle, although there was no indication of any sexual assault.
The second body, buried in the lettuce patch, was that of Joe Skerrit, Malik’s cousin, who functioned as handyman at La Chance. He had been decapitated with a cutlass and buried in the garden. It emerged later that both killings had been carried out on Malik’s instructions; Gail Benson because she was not sufficiently compliant with his wishes, and Skerrit, who simply refused to obey the orders he was given. By these means, Malik sought to maintain control over his followers. Meanwhile, he had absconded to Guyana, ostensibly on a lecture tour. He was located by the authorities and deported to Trinidad where he faced murder charges.
The full extent of his evil influence came out during his trial at Port of Spain’s Assize Court in January 1972. Simpson attended to give evidence amid tight security, for there were fears that Malik might stage some kind of demonstration. The pathologist was chaperoned by plain-clothes officers as he prepared to go into court. His testimony was not contested and was amply supported by witnesses who described the circumstances under which Benson and Skerrit met violent deaths under a tropical sun. The proceedings did provide him with at least one humorous interlude when a local expert professed to be able to distinguish human from animal blood just by looking at it. Counsel said, ‘If you can do that, you must be a genius. Are you a genius?’ to which the witness replied simply, ‘Yes.’ This was a perfect example of the legal precept that lawyers should not ask questions to which they do not already know the answer.
Malik was convicted of murder and one of his accomplices was found guilty of manslaughter. The following year, two more members of Malik’s malign group were convicted of murdering Gail Benson. His appeal against sentence of death was turned down by the Privy Council in London and he was executed on 16 May 1975. Of Malik’s unhappy band of followers, two were murdered, one died accidentally and two were hanged.
As his international reputation grew, so Keith Simpson found that he had a fuller than ever in-tray. Letters came to him from all corners of the globe seeking information and asking for opinions. Occasionally they bore exotic forms of address such as Professor of Scenic Medicine or, more suggestively, Professor of Foreskinic Medicine.
Closer to home, Keith Simpson was drawn in to one of the twentieth century’s great mysteries – the Lord Lucan affair. Late in the evening of 7 November 1974, a distraught woman, bleeding from a head wound, burst into The Plumber’s Arms public house in lower Belgrave Street in London’s West End. She called for help between sobs and screamed, ‘I have just escaped from a murder!’ She feared for her children and shouted, ‘He’s in the house … He’s murdered the nanny … Help me!’ This dramatic outburst was the overture to what would become known as ‘The Lord Lucan Affair’, which, nearly forty years later, still retains its essential mystery – the whereabouts of Lord Lucan, dead or alive.
The injured woman who had so startled the customers at The Plumber’s Arms was Lady Lucan. While the pub landlady sought to calm her, calls were made to the ambulance service and the police. Lady Lucan was taken to hospital and, soon afterwards, two police officers arrived at the pub before going on to the Lucan family home at 46 Lower Belgrave Street. The door of the house was locked and the officers had to force an entry to the premises which were in complete darkness. They found bloodstains on the wall in the hallway and a pool of blood at the bottom of the stairs leading down t
o the basement. They checked the rooms in other parts of the house and found three children, two asleep and one watching television.
Returning to the basement where there was a breakfast room, they saw a canvas mailbag with an arm protruding from it. Inside the bag was the still warm, doubled-up body of Sandra Rivett, the Lucan’s nanny. She was dead from head injuries assumed to have been inflicted with a length of bloodstained lead pipe found later in the hallway. The police surgeon pronounced life extinct and the body was taken to the mortuary where, next morning, Keith Simpson carried out a post-mortem examination. The pathologist determined that death had been caused by several blunt force injuries to the head. While the skull was not fractured, he found bruising and haemorrhaging in the brain. Both of the dead woman’s shoulders were heavily bruised and there was what Simpson described as ‘protective’ bruising on the back of her right hand. He judged that bruising evident on the upper arm had resulted from being forcefully gripped and believed she was dead before being bundled up and put into the mailbag.
He found that there had been copious bleeding from the head injuries into the throat and air passages and, due to the fact that she was only semi-conscious, would have been unable to clear her airways with the result that she died within minutes. Shown the piece of bloodstained lead piping by detectives, Simpson believed it could have been used to inflict the injuries he had described. Lady Lucan had also been attacked and injured by an assailant, probably using the same bludgeoning instrument. The piece of pipe weighed 2¼lb and had surgical tape wrapped around it.
Having being patched up in hospital and re-assured that her children were safe, Lady Lucan gave the police an account of what had taken place at 46 Lower Belgrave Street. She said that she and her ten-year-old daughter were watching television in the bedroom and Sandra Rivett went down to the basement kitchen to make tea just before 9 p.m. When the nanny had not re-emerged by 9.15 and while the television news was being broadcast, Lady Lucan went downstairs to find out the reason for the delay.
The basement was in darkness and there was no response when she called out Sandra’s name. Then she heard a noise and someone attacked her with a heavy object, striking her on the head. She was told to ‘shut up’ and recognised the voice as her husband’s. She struggled with him and he handled her roughly before seeming to calm down and then they both moved upstairs to the bedroom. While Lucan went into the bathroom to fetch a towel to mop up the blood on her face, Lady Lucan fled from the house, out into the street and headed for The Plumber’s Arms. At this point, Lord Lucan disappeared, thereby creating an enduring crime mystery.
The inquest into Sandra Rivett’s death opened in June 1975 at Westminster coroner’s court under the direction of Dr Gavin Thurston. A great deal of the proceedings was taken up by testimony relating to Lord and Lady Lucan’s relationship and family background. Richard John Bingham attended Eton and became an officer in the Coldstream Guards. He married Veronica in 1963 and, in the following year, succeeded to the title of Seventh Earl of Lucan. He moved in elite social circles and acquired a reputation as a gambler for which he was nicknamed ‘Lucky Lucan’. He was accustomed to winning or losing as much as £5,000 a day. The Lucans’ marriage broke up in 1974 and Veronica took custody of the three children. She continued to live in the house in Lower Belgrave Street.
In the immediate aftermath of the violent incident which took place on 7 November, Lucan fled the scene and later telephoned his mother to tell her he had found an intruder attacking his wife. Late on the night of Sandra Rivett’s death, he visited a friend in East Sussex to whom he explained that his wife had accused him of hiring someone to kill her. Two days later, Lucan wrote to another friend saying that he intended to lie low. His car was found the next day near Newhaven, its interior stained with blood and a piece of lead piping found in the boot. The blood traces tested positive for both A and B groups and also AB. The dead woman was Group B (8.5 per cent of the population) and Lady Lucan Group A (42 per cent of the population).
The lead pipe found in the abandoned car was from the same length of piping found at the scene of the attack and had been similarly wrapped with surgical tape. Fingerprints found at the house were all accounted for, implying that the attacker, if he were a stranger, left no prints. The inquest jury’s verdict was that Sandra Rivett had been murdered by Lord Lucan. The law whereby a coroner’s court could name a murderer in this way was abolished following this case and the introduction of The Criminal Law Act in 1977. But, in 1975, Lord Lucan was named in his absence as a murderer and effectively judged as guilty.
Immense speculation ensued as to the whereabouts of Lord Lucan and sightings of him were reported all round the world. In 1987, two separate accounts of the killing of Sandra Rivett were published and both exonerated Lucan as the murderer. One theory was that he had hired a contract killer to eliminate his wife and the other suggested that the nanny had surprised a thief and paid for it with her life. While speculation continued, the central mystery remains – what happened to Lord Lucan? Keith Simpson concluded that the murderer had evidently gained entry using a house key and killed Rivett when she went down to the basement kitchen. As the police had not reported any indications of robbery, the pathologist believed that Rivett had been killed by mistake and that Lady Lucan was the real target. With the inquest verdict of ‘Murder by Lord Lucan’, Simpson quoted the Earl’s words spoken to a friend on the night he disappeared; ‘I don’t want my children to see me standing in the dock.’ As the pathologist put it rather drily in his memoirs, ‘… and they haven’t’. That was written in 1978 and, thirty years later, they still haven’t.
Perhaps, second only to the ‘The Lucan Affair’ in Keith Simpson’s impressive collection of mysteries was the death of ‘God’s Banker’. Early on a summer’s morning, 18 June 1982, a postman on his way to work walked under Blackfriars’ Bridge in the City of London and saw a man’s body dangling from a rope attached to a building maintenance scaffold. He had been suspended by his neck with a metre length of rope and his pockets were filled with stones and bricks weighing about five kilos. There was a passport bearing the name, Robert Calvini, in his pocket along with a wallet containing £7,000 in different currencies. The death of Robert Calvini, real name, Roberto Calvi, soon to be dubbed ‘God’s Banker’ because of his connections with the Vatican, made big headlines in the media and the legal consequences of his dramatic death rumbled on for more than twenty years. It was far from being an open-and-shut case, although, from the outset, the police thought they were dealing with a straightforward hanging.
The body was taken to the City of London Mortuary where Keith Simpson carried out a post-mortem examination. He noted that the lower part of the trousers worn by the dead man were wet, whereas the upper clothing was merely damp. A Patek Philippe watch on his wrist had stopped at 1.52 a.m. The man’s age was estimated at around sixty-two and he weighed thirteen stone. The rope around his neck was loosely tied with a slip knot. The pathologist particularly noted a double groove on the skin marking a line on both sides of the neck and rising to a position at the back which he judged to be the point of suspension. The double indentation in the skin was probably due to the body being partially supported in water and the rope moving in response to changes in the level of the river. The view that this was a suicidal hanging tended to be confirmed by the presence of petechial haemorrhages in the eyelids, although there were no fractures in the larynx. Simpson thought the man had probably dropped about two feet before he hit the water, which accounted for the wet trousers. There were no indications of drowning.
The watch on the dead man’s wrist was an obvious possible indicator of time of death insofar as it was not a waterproof model and might, therefore, have stopped when its owner’s hands became submerged. The watery environment ruled out the usefulness of body temperature readings and rigor mortis was evident, although not complete. Taking all these factors into account, Keith Simpson thought that between eight and twelve hours had elapsed sinc
e death. Tide tables were another guide and showed that if hanging had occurred at around 2 a.m., the lower half of the body would have been immersed in the river during the night, before the tide receded to its lowest level, leaving the body clear of the water. This, combined with the other data, seemed to suggest that death occurred between 1 and 2.30 a.m.
Simpson gave evidence at the inquest held on 23 July and presided over by the City of London coroner, Dr David Paul, in what proved to be controversial proceedings. He testified that Calvi was, in all respects, a healthy individual in life. There was no disease of the brain and no evidence of any physical ailment that might have caused him any distress. He had found characteristic indications of asphyxia due to constriction of the neck, leading him to conclude that death was due to hanging. There were no marks on the body to suggest that any force had been applied and tests for alcohol and drugs were negative. ‘There was,’ the pathologist said, ‘no evidence to suggest that the hanging was other than self-suspension … ’.
The Calvi family was represented by Sir David Napley and the jury heard both written and oral testimony from forty witnesses. These included the foreman of the firm responsible for erecting the maintenance scaffold under Blackfriars’ Bridge who said it would have been difficult for someone to carry a heavy weight down the access ladder to reach the scaffolding. The coroner summed up, listing the ways in which Calvi might have met his end. If he hanged himself, he either clambered down onto the scaffolding from the riverside or scrambled up onto it from a boat in the river. If he had been murdered, there was the question to be considered of his weight and the problems of negotiating a ladder and slippery scaffold planks if he had been lowered from above. Similar difficulties would have been encountered if his inert body had been delivered to the point of suspension by boat. Having considered the evidence, the jury returned a majority verdict of death by suicide. The response of the grieving widow was that her husband had been murdered and she said she would not rest until his killers were brought to justice. Sir David Napley made it known that an appeal would be lodged.
