William Ruby's Blog

Unsolved crimes have featured in several recent TV documentaries, not least yet more investigation into the disappearance of London estate agent Suzy Lamplugh in 1986, plus the murder of French resident Sophie Toscan du Plantier in West Cork Ireland in 1997.

These sorts of notorious unsolved crimes continue to fascinate us long after the events, usually combining police failures, wild theories and an array of suspects—or a chief suspect who the authorities just couldn’t convict. Not least in all of these cases is the continued suffering of families and loved ones, with justice denied and lives ruined.

Here is a list of Britain’s most compelling unsolved crimes to investigate:

The Thames Torso case, 1889

The Brighton Trunk murders, 1934

The Jack the Ripper murders, 1888, of course

The disappearance of Suzy Lamplugh, 1986

The murder of Jill Dando, 1999

The Green Bicycle case, 1919

The Blazing Car murder, 1930

The Spy in the Holdall, 2010

Jack the Stripper murders, 1964/5

The killing of Kelso Cochrane, 1959

The murder of Rikki Neave, 1994

The Plymouth Brethren Widow, 1976

The Seal Chart Murder, 1908

The killing of Daniel Morgan has become news again following fresh criticism of London’s Metropolitan police in an independent report.

The report talks of ‘incompetence’, ‘‘venal behaviour’ (read: corruption) and ‘managerial and organisational failure’ in relation to the 1987 investigation.

Morgan was operating as a private detective in an agency that would go on to be heavily involved with national tabloid newspapers in a subsequent phone-tapping scandal when he was murdered in an axe attack in a South East London pub car park. It is believed that he was investigating police corruption indirectly linked to proceeds from the Brinks-Mat gold heist of 1983 (featured in ‘The American Compendium of British Crimes’) and the criminal underworld in South London. His close associate, Alan ‘Taffy’ Holmes—a former police officer who was believed to have been working with Morgan in uncovering corruption in the Met police—committed suicide later in the same year.

The conclusion reached by the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel has obvious echoes of the 1999 Stephen Lawrence Inquiry’s findings that the force’s response to the black teenager’s murder had been characterised by ‘institutional racism’ , a case also described in detail in the ‘Compendium’.

The Met has said that there is still a chance Daniel Morgan’s case would be solved. We will see.

I'm now working on the research for the next book in my British true crime series. This time the focus is infamous miscarriages of justice.

Some of the cases that will be included:

-Murder in the Graveyard (Stephen Downing)
-The Killing of a Copper (the Tottenham Three)
-The Birmingham Six
-The Guildford Four
-The Carl Bridgewater Case
-The Cardiff Three
-The Merseyside Murder Mystery (William Wallace)
-The Curious Case of Oscar Slater
-The Tiger Bay Outrage (Mahmood Mattan)
-Fitted Up (Thatcher)
-Breaking Point (Sally Challen)
-The Lost Babies (Cannings, Anthony, Clark)
-Murder on the Motorway (Judith Ward)
-A Joint Enterprise (Derek Bentley)
-The Easy Target (Stefan Kiszko)

The two-part documentary series currently showing on Channel 5 here in UK ‘Fred and Rose West-The Search for the Victims’ is a not bad at all, and typical of 5’s new higher quality output in this area.
And let’s face it, there has been a lot of TV dross in the true crime arena over the years. So, it would seem the perfect juncture to list British True Crime’s greatest hits, the documentaries that did the best job in telling us the stories, staying the right side of salaciousness and sensationalism, and making us think.

The Ruth Ellis File
Secret History: the Great Train Robbery
Lord Lucan-My Husband, the Truth
The Yorkshire Ripper Files: A Very British Crime Story
The Real Des: the Denis Nielson Story
Bamber-The New Evidence
Lessons from a School Shooting
Lost Boy: The Killing of James Bulger
Stephen
The Shipman Files
Savile

So, which of the criminals featured in 'The American Compendium of British Crimes' were psychopaths?

If in doubt about what a psychopath actually is, please see the blog entry for 31st March (below).

John Williams (Ratcliffe Highway murderer—if indeed guilty!): PSYCHOPATH

Burke and Hare: NOT PSYCHOPATHS…..certainly SOCIOPATHIC elements

Jack the Ripper: PSYCHOPATH

Amelia Dyer (the Baby Farmer): NOT A PSYCHOPATH…..more likely a SOCIOPATH

Doctor Crippen: NOT A PSYCHOPATH

George Joseph Smith (Brides in the Bath killer): NOT A PSYCHOPATH….more likely a SOCIOPATH

John George Haigh: PSYCHOPATH

Reg Christie: PSYCHOPATH

Ruth Ellis: NOT A PSYCHOPATH

Ian Brady (Moors Murderer): PSYCHOPATH

Myra Hindley (Moors Murderer): SOCIOPATH

Ronnie and Reggie Kray: SOCIOPATHS (Ronnie also schizophrenic and psychotic)

Mary Bell: PSYCHOPATHIC tendencies

Lord Lucan: NOT A PSYCHOPATH

Donald Nielson (the Black Panther): SOCIOPATH

Peter Sutcliffe (the Yorkshire Ripper): PSYCHOPATH

Jeremy Bamber (if indeed guilty): SOCIOPATH

Michael Ryan and Thomas Hamilton: SOCIOPATHS

Fred West: PSYCHOPATH

Rose West: SOCIOPATH

Robert Thompson: PSYCHOPATHIC tendencies

Jon Venables: NOT A PSYCHOPATH but clearly disturbed

The killers of Stephen Lawrence: SOCIOPATHIC

Harold Shipman: PSYCHOPATH

Ian Huntley: SOCIOPATH

Jimmy Savile: SOCIOPATH

Many of the criminals we encounter in 'The American Compendium of British Crimes' are either psychopaths or sociopaths, or both. These terms are so commonly over-used today—to describe the bosses of multinational corporations as much as the local dead-beat alcoholic who regularly gets into fights—that they have lost some of their precision in meaning.

To put the matter simplistically, psychopaths are generally born, and sociopaths are made.

The term psychopathy refers to a personality disorder that includes a cluster of interpersonal, lifestyle and antisocial traits and behaviours. These involve deception; manipulation; irresponsibility; impulsivity; stimulation seeking; poor behavioural controls; shallow affect; lack of empathy, guilt, or remorse; sexual promiscuity; callous disregard for the rights of others; and unethical and antisocial behaviours.

There is increasing evidence to suggest that if the brain abnormalities that predispose towards psychopathy are not in place at birth, then the absence of a bond with a mother figure in the early months of life may lead to the development of an extreme coping psychology in which fear, loss and rejection are no longer registered. Psychopaths tend to exhibit this trait.

Psychopaths are not always violent, but—given the characteristics listed above—their tendency towards criminality and callous disregard for others will often manifest in extreme violence if the circumstances precipitate it or allow it. Psychopaths understand right from wrong. They know they are subject to society’s rules, but willingly disregard them to pursue their own interests. They are bad, not mad.

And so, in attempting to persuade the jury at his trial that he was insane rather than cold and calculating, Peter Sutcliffe—the Yorkshire Ripper (see Chapter 16)—was essentially denying the very essence of himself: that he is a stone-cold psychopath, classic and fully-formed. The ‘voices in the head’ approach to legal defence (essentially a claim of schizophrenia) is a tried and tested escape route for dangerous individuals. Sometimes it works, often it does not.

A sociopath is someone who has an antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) that develops over time and is an adult condition. The sociopath becomes disconnected from the feelings and needs of others. He will often break rules and make impulsive decisions in the partial or total absence of the usual social and cultural restraints. Sociopaths can be highly controlling of others and are often considered charismatic and charming. Here is your megalomaniac CEO! Gangland leaders often fall into this category. Sometimes—in extreme cases—they can also be psychopathic, making them especially feared in the criminal underworld they inhabit

There are many other British crimes that could have been part of 'The American Compendium of British Crimes'. That they are not included essentially stems from the unavoidable and lasting impact of the 27 that have been detailed: these others may be as horrible or dramatic in many regards—as sad or regrettable—as those included, but they fall short in regarding the criteria utilised in the final selection: notoriety, impact, a lasting impression made on society and on our shared cultural memory.

There are the many serial killings of men like Robert Black, Archibald Hall, Neville Heath, Peter Manuel, Bruce Lee, Kenneth Erskine, Steve Wright, Gordon Cummings, Levi Belfield and Stephen Port, and miscarriages of justice typified by the Carl Bridgewater, Stephen Downing and Rachel Nickell cases. Also given consideration were other huge robberies to set alongside the Great Train Robbery and the Brinks-Mat cases, like the Millennium Dome and Hatton Garden heists.

Crimes in which children are the victims of abuse, neglect or murder have been far too common on this island: Damilola Taylor, Victoria Climbié, Rhys Jones, the Thames torso case, Baby P, April Jones, Sarah Payne, and the Philpott children, for example. We have currently unsolved crimes that gripped the nation’s attention, too, including the shooting of TV personality Jill Dando and the disappearance of estate agent Suzy Lamplugh.

James Hanratty was the last man executed in the UK in 1966, but his story falls just short of the list. Crimes from the Victorian era, like the murder of Lord William Russell, the Pimlico Mystery, and the case of serial poisoner Mary Ann Cotton, find themselves somewhat in the shadow of the four famous cases included from the 19th century.

The Stephen Lawrence case brought change (Chapter 23), but the killing of policeman Keith Blakelock during the Tottenham riots of 1985 did not match this for impact, so the former makes the book while the latter does not. Early in the 20th century the Brighton Trunk Murders gripped a nation, but not in quite the same way as the crimes of Doctor Crippen (Chapter 5) and George Joseph Smith (The Brides in the Bath killer featured in Chapter 6). The rampage of gangland enforcer Raoul Moat through the north east of England in the summer of 2010 was rendered spectacular because of rolling 24-hour TV news coverage more than it was by the nature of his crimes. The itinerant outrages of the Black Panther, Donald Nielson, in the 1970’s on the other hand (Chapter 15), electrified a nation in the absence of such media coverage.

And then there are those crimes that don’t quite fit neatly into set categories: the politically-motivated poisonings of Georgi Markov and Alexander Litvinenko, and the recent similar atrocity in Salisbury, plus the Siege of Sidney Street in 1911, the death outside the Libyan Embassy of PC Yvonne Fletcher and the London nail bombings of David Copeland—in this final incidence not quite terrorism but rather the deranged reaction of one warped individual to the changes in society that he hated.

Indeed, terrorist acts are not included in this compendium. The many atrocities of the IRA in Britain, and, more recently, of fundamentalist Jihadi groups affiliated to al-Qaeda and Isis, are left for re-telling by others more qualified to deal with a category of crime against humanity that is complex and stands alone.