Killing For Company
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Brian Masters’s excellent account of Dennis Nilsen’s crimes and trial demonstrates that the latter was largely a waste of time and public money. A very brief trial would have established whether or not he had committed the crimes of which he was accused, since he himself had furnished detailed accounts of them, accounts which, in some cases at least, could be confirmed by studying what remained of his victims. Then it would be up to the Court to decide what best to do with such a man, and, at this point, the Court might well feel that psychiatric advice would be helpful. Both lawyers and psychiatrists need to find a common language in order to understand each other and become able rationally to communicate. There is a long journey ahead of us. The sooner we embark upon it the better.
APPENDIX
Even before the trial of Dennis Nilsen had finished, there were suggestions in the national press that he might possibly have been caught earlier, and some of his victims spared, had the police been more efficient. The Sun carried a thick banner headline on Thursday, November 3 which announced NILSEN POLICE BLUNDERS, and on November 6 the Sunday People suggested in an editorial that ‘a cynic might say, on recent form, that the more people a man kills the longer the police will take to catch him.’ The basis for these accusations was three reports on police files.
1. Andrew Ho
In October 1979, Mr Ho made a complaint to police that he had been attacked by Nilsen. When invited, he declined to make a written statement or to attend court if required. The complaint therefore remained unsubstantiated, there being no other witnesses to corroborate. No police officer could have accused Nilsen of assault on unsubstantiated evidence, and if such a charge had been made, the National Council for Civil Liberties would have been justified in making an objection.
2. Douglas Stewart
Stewart was eventually a witness for the prosecution against Nilsen. At the time of his initial complaint, the situation had been quite different. Stewart said he had been attacked by Nilsen a year after the incident with Andrew Ho, during which time over 9,000 other allegations of major crime had been made at Kilburn Police Station. Stewart called the police to 195 Melrose Avenue in the early morning of 11 November 1980. A police constable and inspector went immediately, arriving at 4.10 a.m. They noticed that Stewart had been drinking. It is a matter of course that no police officer will take a written statement from a potential prosecution witness who has been drinking, so they determined that the statement should be taken the following day when Stewart would be sober. That night, they made out a crime report at Kilburn Police Station. On 12 August they contacted the station at Northwood to make arrangements with Mr Stewart for an interview. There was no reply from the address which Stewart had given as his residence. A second visit produced the same negative result. A detective sergeant found the address unoccupied, and inquiries with a neighbour revealed that nobody called ‘Douglas’ had ever lived there, only a ‘Tommy’ and his wife, who had moved two days before. In fact, that address had belonged to Stewart’s brother, while Douglas Stewart himself had been living in Holland Park. It was not possible to reach him for interview. Why Stewart should have given this address, and why he did not himself contact the police to pursue his complaint, are questions which remain unanswered.
3. Robert Wilson
It was stated in the press that Mr Wilson, a biology student, had found a bag containing what he knew to be human remains half a mile from Nilsen’s address. The truth is otherwise. Eighteen months before Nilsen’s arrest, Mr Wilson did find such a bag, which he handed to the police and which was taken to the station. He did not say that he was a biology student, nor did he say that he thought the remains were human. It happened that a similar bag had been found in the same area a few days before. That bag contained animal remains, and had been successfully traced to a local butcher. It had been destroyed as a health hazard. Wilson’s bag was likewise destroyed. In any event, there was no clue which could have traced it back to Nilsen, then a quiet civil servant giving no cause for suspicion. Furthermore, the police constable who received the bag had previously been an undertaker’s assistant and had had experience of mortuaries; he might have been expected to recognise human remains if that was what they were. And if they were, they might have been stolen from a mortuary, an event which occurs far more frequently than one might think.
There was no evidence to link these three incidents or point them to one source. Nor could police officers have properly behaved differently in each case on the evidence before them. Press allegations of ‘blunders’ are easy to make, and very tedious to substantiate.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A Manuscript
The prison journals of Dennis Andrew Nilsen, in fifty volumes (1983), in the possession of the author.
Letters from D.A. Nilsen to the author.
Private correspondence of D.A. Nilsen, in the possession of the author.
B Legal
Regina v. D.A. Nilsen, Statements Tendered in Evidence, Statements Not Tendered in Evidence, Further Statements, Exhibits 14–21.
‘Unscrambling Behaviour’, page prepared by D.A. Nilsen for police.
C Articles
Bartholomew, A., Milte, K. and Galbally, F., ‘Homosexual Necrophilia’, Medicine, Science and the Law, vol. 18, no. 1 (1978).
Blackman, N., Weiss, J.M.A. and Lamberti, J.W., ‘The Sudden Murderer: A Comparative Analysis’, Archives of General Psychiatry, vol. 8 (1963).
Blom-Cooper, L., ‘Preventible Homicide’, Howard Journal, vol. 11.
Bluglass, R., ‘The Psychiatric Assessment of Homicide’, British Journal of Hospital Medicine (October 1979).
Brittain, Robert P., ‘The Sadistic Murderer’, Medicine, Science and the Law, vol. 10, no. 4 (1970).
Friedman, P., ‘The Phobias’, American Handbook of Psychiatry, vol. 1 (1959).
Gibbens, T.C.N., ‘Sane and Insane Homicide’, Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology and Police Science, vol. 49 (1958).
Klaf, and Brown, Psychoanalytic Quarterly, vol. 31.
Menninger, K. and Mayman, M., ‘Episodic Dyscontrol: A Third Order of Stress Adaptation’, Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, vol. 20 (1956).
Reichard, S. and Tillman, C., ‘Murder and Suicide as Defences against Schizophrenic Psychosis’, Journal of Clinical Psychopathology, vol. 11 (1950).
Satten, J., Menninger, K., Rosen, I. and Mayman, M., ‘Murder without Apparent Motive: A Study in Personality Disorganisation’, American Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 117 (1960).
Wolfgang, M.E. and Strohm, R.B., ‘The Relationship between Alcohol and Criminal Homicide’, Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol, vol. 17 (1956).
D Books
A Psychiatric Glossary (American Psychiatric Association, Washington, 1975).
Berg, Karl, The Sadist (Acorn Press, London, 1938).
Eddy, C.M., Jnr, ‘The Loved Dead’, in Collected Ghost Stories, ed. August Derleth (1952).
Fromm, Erich, Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (Jonathan Cape, London, 1974).
Hart, H.L.A., Punishment and Responsibility (Oxford University Press, 1968), Chs 7 and 8.
Hogg, James, Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, ed. John Carey (Oxford University Press, 1981).
Jones, Ernest, On the Nightmare (International Psycho-Analytic Library, London, 1931), Chs 3 and 4.
Maslow, Abraham, Motivation and Personality (Harper & Row, New York, 1954).
Michaud, Stephen G. and Aynesworth, Hugh, The Only Living Witness (1983).
Morris, Terence and Blom-Cooper, Louis, A Calendar of Murder (Michael Joseph, London, 1964).
Pinkerton, M.W., Murder In All Ages (1898).
Reinhardt, J.M., Sex Perversions and Sex Crimes (Charles Thomas, Springfield, Illinois, 1957).
River, J. Paul de, The Sexual Criminal (Charles Thomas, Springfield, Illinois, 1950).
River, J. Paul de, Crime and the Sexual Psychopath (Charles Thomas, Springfield, Illinois, 1958).
Wertham, Frederic, Dark Legend: A Study in Murder (Victor
Gollancz, London, 1947).
Wertham, Frederic, The Show of Violence (Victor Gollancz, London, 1949).
Wilson, Colin, Order of Assassins: The Psychology of Murder (Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1972).
Wilson, Colin and Pitman, Patricia. Encyclopaedia of Murder (A. Barber, 1961).
Wilson, Colin and Seaman, Donald, Encyclopaedia of Murder 1962–1982 (Pan Books, London, 1983).
Wolfgang, M.E. and Ferracuti, Franco, The Subculture of Violence (Tavistock Publications, London, 1967).
Other books which have been consulted are listed in the notes.
NOTES
In the notes which follow, the abbreviation NP refers to the Nilsen Papers, notes and prison journals written by Dennis Nilsen between February and December 1983. Letters from Nilsen to the author are represented by DN to BM, with the date. All other references are given without abbreviation.
1 Arrest
1 DN to Hornsey police, 11 February 1983, Exhibit 15.
2 Ibid.
3 Untendered statements, p. 109.
4 DN to Leon Roberts, 8 February 1983.
5 NP, vol. V, pp. 4–5.
6 Ibid.
7 Statements tendered, p. 16.
8 NP, vol. V, pp. 6–7.
9 Ibid.
10 NP, vol. XIX, p. 19.
11 NP, vol. V, p. ll.
12 DN to Hornsey police, 15 February 1983, Exhibit 18.
13 NP, vol. V, p. 10.
14 NP, vol. V, p. 32.
15 DN to Hornsey police, 11 February 1983, Exhibit 15.
16 NP, vol. II, p. 16.
17 NP, vol. XIII, p. 14.
18 NP, vol. II, p. 37.
19 DN to BM, 11 May 1983.
20 DN to BM, 6 June 1983.
21 Ibid.
2 Origins
1 NP, vol. II, p. 27.
2 The Christian Watt Papers, ed. David Fraser (P. Harris, 1983), pp. 23, 45.
3 Ibid., p. 27.
4 Ibid., p. 53.
5 Ibid., p. 22.
6 Ibid., p. 108.
7 NP, vol. II.
8 NP, vol. VII, p. 1.
9 NP, vol. XXVII, pp. 1–5.
10 NP, vol. I.
11 NP, vol. XXVII, p. 9.
12 NP, vol. VII, p. l.
3 Childhood
1 NP, vol. I, pp. 1–7.
2 NP, vol. VII, p. 1.
3 NP, vol. XI, p. 39.
4 NP, vol. I, pp. 8–9.
5 NP, vol. II, p. 35; vol. III, p. 26.
6 NP, vol. XIV, p. 1.
7 NP. vol. XIV, p. 2.
8 NP, vol. II, p. 80.
9 NP, vol. II, p. 43.
10 NP, vol. XII, p. 12.
11 NP, vol. II, pp. 41–7 passim.
12 NP, vol. XXIV, pp. 29–33.
13 NP, vol. II, pp. 41–7.
14 Ibid.
4 Army
1 NP, vol. XIII, p. 7.
2 NP, vol. XIII, p. 8.
3 Ibid.
4 NP, vol. II, p. 30.
5 NP, vol. II, p. 26.
6 NP, vol. I, p. 12.
7 NP, vol. II, pp. 55–7.
8 NP, vol. II, p. 62.
9 NP, vol. I, p. 12.
10 NP, vol. II, p. 4.
11 NP, vol. II, p. 5.
12 NP, vol. I, p. 13.
13 NP, vol. III, pp. 1–2.
14 NP, vol. II, p. 17.
15 DN to BM, 25 April 1983.
16 NP, vol. IXB, p. 24.
17 NP, vol. IXB, pp. 25–6.
18 NP, vol. II, pp. 1–3; vol. I, pp. 14–15.
5 Police and Civil Service
1 DN to BM, 3 May 1983.
2 NP, vol. XIV.
3 NP, vol. II, p. 25.
4 NP, vol. II, p. 34.
5 NP, vol. IXB, p. 10.
6 NP, vol. IXB, p. 11.
7 NP, vol. I, p. 17.
8 NP, vol. XXXV.
9 DN to BM, 8 June 1983.
10 NP, vol. IXB, pp. 2–3.
11 NP, vol. I, p. 19; vol. IXB, p. 14; vol. XIV, pp. 11–18.
12 NP, vol. II, p. 18.
13 NP, vol. II, p. 19.
14 NP, vol. VII, p. 10.
15 D.A. Nilsen’s file of correspondence with his employers.
16 NP vol. XIV, p. 8.
17 NP, vol. II, p. 78.
18 Untendered statements, p. 122.
19 NP, vol. II, p. 5.
20 NP, vol. II, p. 53.
21 NP, vol. II, p. 13.
22 NP, vol. I, p. 19.
6 Victims
1 NP, vol. II, p. 13.
2 NP, vol. VIII, pp. 1–7. I have removed from this account some words describing the youth which might cause unnecessary anxiety to the families of missing persons. Police found the description insufficient to identify him conclusively from files.
3 DN to Hornsey police, pp. 53–4, Exhibit 17.
4 NP, vol. VIII, pp. 8–10.
5 NP, vol. VIII, pp. 10–11.
6 NP, vol. XII, p. 1.
7 DN to Hornsey police, pp. 108–9, Exhibit 19.
8 NP, vol. II, pp. 31–3.
9 DN to Hornsey police, pp. 120–3, Exhibit 20.
10 DN to Hornsey police, pp. 129–31, Exhibit 20.
11 DN to Hornsey police, p. 17, Exhibit 15.
12 NP, vol. I, pp. 19–20.
13 NP, vol. VIII, p. 8.
7 Disposal
1 NP, vol. XIII, p. 14.
2 DN to Hornsey police, p. 38, Exhibit 16.
3 NP, vol. XIII, p. 4.
4 NP, vol. IXB, p. 18.
5 NP, vol. IXA, p. 5.
6 NP, vol. VI, pp. 28–9.
7 NP, vol. IX, pp. 8–9.
8 DN to Hornsey police, pp. 17–18, Exhibit 15.
9 NP, vol. III, p. 19.
10 NP, vol. V, p. 35.
11 NP, vol. IXB, p. 33.
12 NP, vol. V, pp. 33–5.
13 NP, vol. VII, p. 5.
14 Ibid.
15 NP, vol. IXA, pp. 8–9.
16 NP, vol. XV, p. 12.
17 NP, vol. VII, p. 3.
18 NP, vol. II, p. 72.
19 NP, vol. II, p. 81.
20 NP, vol. VI, p. 27.
21 NP, vol. V.
22 NP, vol. II, p. 15.
23 DN, private correspondence files.
24 DN to Hornsey police, pp. 103–4, Exhibit 19.
25 Ibid., p. 110.
26 Ibid., pp. 111–12.
27 NP, vol. IXA, p. 5.
28 NP, vol. II, p. 75.
29 DN, document written for police entitled ‘Unscrambling Behaviour’.
30 DN to Hornsey police, p. 142, Exhibit 21; Statements tendered, pp. 108–30; NP, vol. XV, p. 5.
31 Statements tendered, pp. 39–40; DN to Hornsey police, p. 146, Exhibit 21.
32 Further statements, pp. 1–30; NP, vol. II, p. 52.
33 NP, vol. IXA, p. 6.
34 NP, vol. VII, p. 9.
35 NP, vol. XI, p. 7.
36 NP, vol. XXVII, p. 23.
8 Remand
1 NP, vol. XIX, pp. 2–3.
2 NP, vol. XVI, p. 9; vol. XVIII, p. 24.
3 NP, vol. II, pp. 51–2.
4 NP, vol. XVI, p. 5.
5 NP, vol. V.
6 NP, vol. IXB, p. 20.
7 DN to BM, 30 March 1983.
8 DN to BM, 16 April 1983.
9 DN to BM, 14 April 1983.
10 NP, vol. XVI, pp. 13–14.
11 NP, vol. II, p. 63.
12 NP, vol. XI, p. 13.
13 DN to BM, 3 June 1983.
14 NP, vol. XIII, p. 1.
15 NP, vol. XV, pp. 1–4.
16 NP, vol. II, p. 72.
17 NP, vol. XVIII, p. 17.
18 DN to Hornsey police, 25 May 1983.
19 NP, vol. V, pp. 10–11.
20 NP, vol. II, p. 76.
21 NP, vol. V, p. l.
22 NP, vol. II, p. 52.
23 NP, vol. IXB, p. 4.
24 NP, vol. VII, pp. 2–3.
25 NP, vol. VI, p. 26; vol. IXB, p. 16.
26 NP,
vol. VII, p. 7.
27 NP, vol. IXB, p. 32.
28 NP, vol. V, p. 41.
29 NP, vol. XIII, p. 3.
30 NP, vol. XIII, p. 1.
31 NP, vol. I, pp. 19–20.
32 NP, vol. V, p. 39.
33 NP, vol. IXB, ‘Sad Sketches’.
34 NP, vol. IXB, p. 3.
35 NP, vol. XV, p. 7.
36 NP, vol. IXB, p. 4.
37 NP, vol. IXB, p. 3.
38 NP, vol. VI, p. 36.
39 Times Literary Supplement, 11 March 1983.
40 DN to BM, 3 May 1983.
41 NP, vol. XVIII, p. 18.
42 DN to BM, 22 May 1983.
43 DN to BM, 19 June 1983.
44 NP, vol. XXXVIII, p. 6; vol. XLIII, p. 1.
45 DN to BM, 9 May 1983.
46 NP, vol. XIII, p. 14.
9 Trial
1 DN to BM, 29 October 1983.
2 NP, vol. XLII, pp. 3–5; vol. XLIII, p. 5.
3 NP, vol. III, p. 15.
4 NP, vol. VII, p. 4.
5 NP, vol. XLVIII, p. 20.
6 NP, vol. XLVIII, p. 19.
10 Answers
1 NP, vol. XLII, p. 6.
2 NP, vol. XXVII, p. 11.
3 Colin Wilson, Order of Assassins (Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1972), p. 21.
4 NP, vol. XLIX, p. 49.
5 NP, vol. XXVII, p. 31.
6 NP, vol. XXVIII, p. 16.