by Beezy Marsh
When Dad wrote back to Mum, he poured out as much love as he could fit onto two sides of prison notepaper. But no matter how hard Mum tried to jog his memory, to find something to help his case, there was nothing.
A date had been set for the hearing at the Moot Hall in the city, which lay just a stone’s throw from the River Tyne and the whole of Newcastle was buzzing with anticipation, excitement even, about the train murder case coming to court.
Dad was held in Newcastle Gaol, which squatted like a huge, grim fortress at Carliol Square, just to the east of the city centre. It was surrounded by blackening walls of thick stone which stood twenty-five feet high. As it lay less than a mile from St Nicholas’s Cathedral, where Dad had walked Mum up the aisle on one of the happiest days of their lives, he could hear the peal of the bells from his cell, bringing him a stark reminder of everyday life going on in the world outside.
Once a week, Kitty, Mum and Harry took the tram into the city and walked up to the prison gates to visit Dad. Those visits brought little comfort because although they were allowed to see him, they could not touch him. They were separated by an iron grille and it was torture to watch him becoming more gaunt with every visit, as the bleakness of his situation sank in. The missing money bag had been found down a disused pit shaft while he was in custody with all but a few last farthings taken and there was nothing to link him to it, but still his name was cursed in the city as the killer.
They always left the gaol in tears, often running the gauntlet of a gaggle of hostile men and women, who would hiss or spit at them, but Kitty reminded herself that whatever she suffered, it was nothing compared to what her father was enduring in that dank prison cell, day after day.
It was unthinkable that he could have done anything to hurt anyone. Dad was a gentle and kind man. Yes, he was strict with Harry when he got too rough with his games but that was all. It was like stepping through the looking glass, into a world in which innocent people were blamed for terrible crimes and no matter how often they told the truth, the powers that be wouldn’t believe them.
Kitty couldn’t help but wonder how he could possibly get a fair hearing, and now she knew that her father would be on trial for his life.
The bugles glinted in the morning sun as heralds on horseback trumpeted the arrival of a gleaming black landau filled with judges, resplendent in wigs and flowing scarlet robes. The horse-drawn Black Maria carrying her father, with bars at the windows, followed on behind as the whole party arrived at the grand, colonnaded entrance to the Moot Hall.
It was a spectacle like no other and as Kitty and her mother stood resolutely on the steps of the courthouse, an old woman next to them remarked that the King himself wouldn’t have been disappointed with the ceremony or the turnout. Kitty silently thanked God that Harry wasn’t here to see the circus that this whole sorry affair had turned into. Sending him to school was a hard decision but she’d supported Mum in cajoling him to go.
Hundreds of people swarmed about in front of Moot Hall, elbowing each other out of the way and craning their necks to see. Half the kids in the city had played hooky to catch a glimpse of the notorious prisoner and Kitty thought factories must have been standing idle too, if the number of working men in flat caps was anything to go by.
The sight which upset Kitty most was the women, in headscarves and shawls, who’d queued up early to get tickets for the proceedings, guaranteeing themselves a seat in the court. Many had brought their knitting with them and the sound of their needles clicking away was a constant, sickening accompaniment to the spectacle, like the hands of a clock, counting down to the start of the case.
The crowd fell silent as Dad got out of the prison carriage, his hands cuffed in front of him, flanked by two prison warders. He made his way up the steps into the hall and Mum smiled at him. He seemed to grow taller in that moment and he caught Kitty’s eye. She had to fight the urge to run to him, as she turned to go inside, to take up her place in the gallery of the oak-panelled courtroom.
The courtroom was full to bursting and in the heat of a summer’s day, so stifling hot, it was almost unbearable. Barristers sweltered under wigs and gowns, flicking through sheaves of paper. Women fanned themselves as the morning dragged on, with the prosecution outlining the case against her father – witnesses who swore they’d seen him walking up the platform at Newcastle station beside the man who was later murdered and robbed. Sightings of a mysterious passenger in the same coach as the murdered man and suggestions – but no proof – that it was Dad.
There was a lot of discussion about his business affairs: gambling, speculating, working for businessmen who had an interest in the mines and placing bets for them on the side. The prosecution tried to suggest he had money problems because he had pawned some jewellery but both he and Mum had money in their bank accounts. Kitty knew the pawn tickets were just a ruse in case the Bigg Market lads asked for credit when they placed bets. Everything was being twisted to make him seem guilty but one ray of hope came when a weapons expert revealed that the bullets were of two distinct calibres, meaning that two guns had most likely been used. Why would a lone assailant have done this? And the gun which had been linked to her father was not capable of firing any of the bullets which killed John Nisbet. Another was that the victim’s missing money bag had been found down a disused pit shaft when Dad was already being held in Newcastle Gaol and there was no sign of the money anywhere in their house or bank accounts.
When it was time for Dad to give evidence, he entered the witness box and glanced over to the jury for a moment. A ripple of shock swept over the room as he revealed that one of the men who had picked him out of the identity parade at the police station had been intimidated into doing so by a policeman, who’d pushed him back into the room and forced him to pick someone.
The prosecution summed up the case, saying that although the evidence against her father was circumstantial, the jury would have to make up their own minds as to whether he was telling the truth or not. The barrister argued that if all the pieces of evidence created a chain which proved, beyond reasonable doubt, that he was the killer, then they should find him guilty.
The defence barrister then argued that many of the circumstantial facts of the case had been provided to the police willingly by Dad, which would be a strange thing for him to have done if he were guilty. The identification evidence against him was at best circumstantial and in the case of Hall and Spink, very shaky. And it was agreed that the likely scenario was that two weapons had been used to kill the victim. Looking around the courtroom with a growing sense of trepidation, Kitty didn’t think that argument had persuaded anyone that her father was innocent.
On the third day of the trial, the judge spent several hours summing up, before sending the jury away. They were gone for more than two hours and most folks left the courthouse to stroll about outside in the sunshine and get some fresh air. A court clerk took pity on Kitty and Mum, who couldn’t face the stares and catcalls of those awful women from the Quayside, and he ushered them into a side room and gave them a cup of tea, which they sipped at. Kitty felt the hot liquid gnawing away at her insides; they hadn’t eaten since breakfast, but she had no appetite. Mum seemed to be fortified by the drink and, balancing the empty cup and saucer on her lap, turned to Kitty, and said, ‘We’ll have to get the house tidy for him when he comes home, won’t we? I’ve barely been around with the duster in months.’
It was such an unexpected comment, with all the odds stacked so heavily against them, that Kitty didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Mum went on, with a faraway look in her eye: ‘I’ll try to get down to the butcher’s so I can make him a steak pie. I think he will like that, won’t he? He’s missed my cooking so much . . .’
Kitty felt her words sticking in her throat and looked at her mother, whose hair was greying. All the softness of her features had been worn away by sleepless nights of worry.
‘Well, what do you think, Kitty? Will you help me get the house
ready for your father when he comes home?’ Mum was more agitated now and the court clerk looked up from the pile of papers he was quietly reading at his desk.
‘Yes, of course,’ said Kitty, fighting back tears. ‘We’ll make it a day to remember when Dad comes back home to us all.’
When they returned to the stifling courtroom, they watched as Dad was brought up from the cells to stand in the dock, and the usher said, ‘All rise!’ as the judge, Lord Coleridge, swept in wearing his scarlet robes and wig. He was a haughty-looking man, with a fine, long nose and a high forehead, and Kitty had long since decided she didn’t like him at all.
You could have heard a pin drop as the judge, speaking in clipped tones, asked the jury foreman, ‘Do you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty?’
The foreman stood up, with almost indecent haste, and addressed the court: ‘Guilty!’
Dad was asked if he had anything to say and he clasped the edge of the dock, his knuckles white, as he spoke: ‘I can only repeat that I am entirely innocent of this cruel deed. I have no complicity in this crime. I have spoken the truth in my evidence and in everything I have said.’
Kitty watched aghast as the judge put on his black cap. ‘Prisoner at the bar. The irrevocable decision has now been given and the jury have found you guilty of the crime of murder. In your hungry lust for gold you had no pity upon the victim whom you slew. It is only just that the nemesis of the law should overtake the author of the crime. The scales of justice are now balanced by the verdict which your fellows have pronounced. The punishment is death.’
There were gasps from the gallery and Mum covered her face with her hands.
But Dad hadn’t finished yet. He looked around the courtroom and shouted out, ‘I declare to all men that I am innocent!’
As he was taken down to the cells, the incessant chatter of the women of the Quayside started up again. It felt as if the eyes of the entire city were on Kitty and Mum as they stumbled out of the courthouse clinging to each other, with the catcalls of ‘Murder!’ and ‘Hang him!’ ringing in their ears. A kindly solicitor hailed a horse-drawn taxi and they clambered aboard, shutting the door behind them as people peered through the window.
They knew Harry would be waiting for them at home at Lily Avenue, hoping against hope that Dad might be set free.
‘Don’t worry, Kitty,’ said Mum, drying her eyes as the taxi set off for Heaton. ‘This isn’t over yet. We will fight on.’
Over the coming days, Mum wrote letters to the newspapers, protesting Dad’s innocence and pointing out that all the evidence against him was circumstantial. She was tireless in her arguments, insisting that despite being on trial for his life, he had been kept in solitary confinement and had not even been allowed a book or a newspaper to read. He was starved, left without food or water during lunch when he was locked away, so that when he gave evidence, he was hungry and thirsty.
Dad’s solicitors had launched an appeal and a fortnight after that dreadful day, the case was up before three justices of appeal.
They had some startling new evidence, from the two men who had travelled on the same train as Dad and later picked him out of an identity parade. An investigation by the Chief Constable of Northumberland had revealed that officers had pointed Dad out to Hall and Spink, the colliery clerks who were witnesses, as he sat in a room at the police station, on the night he came in for questioning but before the identity parade.
Neither of them could remember which officer was responsible, but the door was deliberately pushed ajar, and they saw Dad. One of them remarked that from the back, he didn’t look like the suspicious man who had been in the carriage with the murder victim, but he noticed that Dad was wearing his light overcoat and that was the same coat he was wearing when he was picked out of the identity parade later on – so the whole procedure was a sham.
Mum felt certain this crucial flaw in the handling of the case – pointing Dad out before an identity parade – would be enough to spare his life.
‘I knew that there was something amiss with the whole thing, the way he was picked out of that line-up,’ she confided over her nightly cup of cocoa, which was one of the small pleasures she still afforded herself. ‘Surely they will see sense and set him free?’
But when the case came to court again, this new evidence was ruled inadmissible and Mum sank back into despair as the justices ruled there were no grounds for an appeal.
One afternoon, when Kitty had just got back from work, a visitor knocked at the front door and she nervously opened it, half expecting to find herself facing a barrage of hatred from a total stranger. But as she peered through the crack in the door, she saw a cleric standing there, holding a small bundle of papers.
‘I’ve been collecting signatures around the city, from people who believe your father is innocent and should be reprieved,’ he said. ‘They’ve read your mother’s words in the newspapers and we want to send the petition to the Home Secretary himself.’
Little by little, the petition grew until there were several hundred names on it, and then – almost unbelievably – this number increased until it included more than a thousand people. They may not have been willing to offer the family friendship in their darkest hour, but there were enough kind souls in the city to plead for a reprieve and that offered a tiny glimmer of hope. The document was sent off to Winston Churchill, the Home Secretary, who reviewed the case and went through all the evidence. He had the power to commute the sentence, to spare Dad’s life.
As they waited for his decision, Mum renewed her letter-writing campaign, revealing to the newspapers how they were forbidden to have any physical contact with Dad because the police thought that they might use ‘daring and cunning’ to slip him poison, so that he could take his own life. The thought was a ridiculous one but that is how the police saw it.
In one letter to the papers, pointing out the flimsy nature of the evidence against Dad, she wrote:
Only a few days ago, I got off the car at the foot of Northumberland Street at the same time as a gentleman, whom I had never seen before and probably never will see again. We walked together, side by side so far as a casual observer could tell, until we reached Worswick Street, because neither of us could get out of the road of the other. If shortly afterwards I had been found murdered, would the fact of us having apparently walked down Pilgrim Street together have been proof that the man was my assailant?
Dad also wrote a personal appeal to the Home Secretary, telling Mum in a letter from prison:
I am still hoping and trusting that something or other will be disclosed, which will prove my innocence.
For your own great and untiring efforts under all these heart-rending and benumbing blows, I cannot say all I wish, but to your own self and to Kitty and Harry, my feelings are more and more deeply sunk in my heart, forever and ever.
But when a letter arrived in a thick, white envelope bearing a London postmark, Kitty brought it to Mum and she opened it, with trembling hands. She knew that Dad’s life depended on what was inside.
I am directed by the Home Secretary to inform you that he has given careful consideration to the petition submitted by you and I have to express to you his regret that after considering all the circumstances of the case, he has failed to discover any grounds which will justify him in advising his Majesty to interfere with the due course of the law.
With all avenues for appeal exhausted, the date for the execution was set for just two days’ time. The hangman was due to arrive at Newcastle Gaol and nothing could save him now.
That evening, Harry came home from school and rushed into the kitchen before Kitty could even greet him. She found him at the sink, scrubbing at his face with soap and water.
When he turned to her, she saw that his face had been daubed with black paint.
‘Who did this to you?’ said Kitty, rushing to get a cloth to help clean him up before Mum saw him.
‘Just some lads,’ said Harry. ‘They pinned me to the floor while they did it
.’
‘What on earth for?’
‘They said it was like the hood the hangman will put over Dad’s head,’ he said, his shoulders drooping in defeat.
24
Kitty
Newcastle upon Tyne, Monday, 8th August 1910
It was the cruellest goodbye.
Standing in the airless prison visiting room, with Harry sobbing at her side, Kitty ached to feel her father’s embrace one last time.
But he was separated from them by iron bars, with warders at his side. There would be no farewell hugs or kisses, the authorities insisted on that, no matter how hard Mum begged for a final farewell together.
‘Don’t be afraid for me because I love you so much,’ he said, smiling weakly at them all through the grille. ‘I will face what comes with dignity, I won’t let you down.’
At that, Mum let out a sob.
He went on: ‘I feel certain that one day, someone will clear my name. Live your lives with your heads held high in the knowledge that I am innocent, but what’s done is done and we cannot change it.
‘You are a brave young woman, Kitty. Now it’s time to be strong and always speak your truth. If you ever doubt yourself in this life, I will be walking beside you.’
