Criminal Wirral II E-Book

Daniel K Longman

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 166

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009

Beschreibung

This fascinating new volume is a follow-up to Daniel K. Longman's first book Criminal Wirral; an intriguing and entertaining collection of some of the strangest, most despicable and comical crimes that took place on the Wirral peninsula throughout the Victorian era and the early twentieth century. The tales featured here uncover many fascinating cases that have been long forgotten, and are supported by illustrations which help to bring these events and the people featured in them to life. Read on and uncover the grisly facts of what once lay floating in Birkenhead Park pond, a gruesome suicide on board a Woodside-bound locomotive and the farcical actions of a drunken butler one night at the stately Thurstaston Hall Criminal Wirral II will appeal to anyone who has an interest in the darker side of Wirral's history.

Leseprobe

CRIMINAL

WIRRAL II

DANIEL K. LONGMAN

For Ryan Leeke

With special thanks to

Roger Phillips

Mark Minshall

Peter Almond

Tom Belmar

First published 2009

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2013

All rights reserved

© Daniel K. Longman, 2009, 2013

The right of Daniel K. Longman to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUBISBN 978 0 7509 5345 0

Original typesetting by The History Press

CONTENTS

Foreword

Introduction

Loose Lips Sink Ships

Give up the Goat

Captain Prowse of Whetstone Lane

A Bullet in the Brain

The Manic Tailor

An Express Suicide

The Wrong Window

Taught a Lesson

The Fashion Thief

An Unsporting Drinker

A Sensitive Woman

The Case of Henry Coddington

Swine Cruelty

The Trouser Thief

The Rivals

The Lady of the Lake

Beaten Bobbies

Madness at Hoylake

Musical Indecency

What the Butler Did

Treasure in the Sand Hills

The Prenton Lane Maniac

A Noisy Neighbour

A Wife’s Tale

The Badger Baiters

Regular Jolification

Christmas Cheer

Havoc on the Hill

‘A Bruised Reed Shall He Not Break’

FOREWORD

As a phone-in presenter on BBC Radio Merseyside it always amazes me that so many people ring in after suffering at the hands of some criminal or other and conclude by saying that such things never happened ‘in their day.’ There were no cases of child abuse, no cries of rape, no murders, no criminal gangs (apart from the Krays), never an incident of burglary or theft and everybody could leave their house unlocked without a second thought. And on the Wirral? Well, the Vikings might have been here centuries before committing their wild acts of rape and pillaging, but in the more recent past it was quite a genteel and refined sort of place; nothing like it is now with all sorts of anti-social behaviour and the like.

Yet this book puts paid to all those myths. Dan Longman has collected together a wide range of newspaper cuttings from the past and retold them so that they really do come alive. And he’s created some great chapter titles, with ‘What the Butler Did’ and ‘The Prenton Lane Maniac’ as two of my personal favourites, but what really makes this collection so fascinating is the way Dan has literally taken the bare bones of each story and then used his skills of research, his thorough knowledge of the period and his imaginative abilities to allow the reader to ‘live’ through each tale. These true stories of crime on the Wirral help to create a genuine picture of the peninsula in days gone by and it’s the sheer variety of the stories that is so interesting. From the retired seaman robbed and imprisoned in his home by masked intruders (just the sort of crime you’d expect to watch recreated nowadays on the BBC’s Crimewatch) to the newly married couple whose row led to a potential murder charge against the groom. Then there are those stories which are just plain weird, such as the RSPCA investigation into the cruel slaughter of pigs, or the way a father personally investigated alleged impropriety by his daughter’s piano teacher.

All in all, this book makes you realise that nothing changes. Virtually all of the events could have taken place in this century, in this day and age. Human beings are still equally cruel, stupid, jealous, vindictive and criminal, but thank goodness such people are, and were, a minority.

Truly all of human life is in here and Dan relates it all with such wonderfully graphic detail. It’s definitely the kind of book to put by your bedside and treat yourself to each evening before drifting off to sleep (but to dreams or nightmares I dare not say!).

Roger Phillips

BBC Radio Merseyside

INTRODUCTION

The Wirral is becoming somewhat notorious for a shocking spate of murders, killings and general criminality. In the past few years our little peninsula has been host to a fair few examples of such acts which have managed to achieve local and national infamy.

On 29 March 2007 at approximately 2 a.m. David Currie, a transvestite, arrived at Steven Boyd’s home in Stanley Avenue, Wallasey. He had made the hour-long trip from Manchester to engage in some ‘private business’ with Mr Boyd, who had been drinking and taking drugs. Just before 3.30 a.m., Mr Boyd texted a mutual friend on his mobile phone to say Mr Currie, known as Angela, had fallen unconscious, but it was a further thirty minutes before he called for an ambulance. It was soon discovered that Mr Currie had sustained serious internal injuries during the rampant sex session and had suffered a heart attack. Paramedics managed to resuscitate the man, but he died later in hospital. Before Judge Gerald Clifton, Steven Boyd denied unlawful killing but confessed to drinking and taking cannabis and cocaine. His defence was that his dog, Tosh, a great dane-bull mastiff cross was somehow to blame for the death. The story didn’t wash and Boyd was sentenced to five years for manslaughter.

On 9 August 2007, elderly market stall holder Bashir Ahmed was attacked at his flat in The Woodlands by thirty-one-year-old Gerard Murphy. He had heard a rumour that the trader was in the habit of keeping his takings at home. Murphy and a fifteen-year-old accomplice broke into his property but were spotted by Mr Ahmed and a struggle broke out. Bashir was afterwards found lying in a pool of his own blood by concerned work colleagues. A subsequent medical report showed severe bruising, six loosened teeth and a complete fracture and dislocation of the spine. The sixty-three-year-old was left paralysed from the neck down, his life ruined and with injuries compared to those of a high-velocity traffic accident. Judge Clifton at Liverpool Crown Court sentenced Murphy to a minimum of eleven years in prison. The sidekick youth was given only a six-month detention and training order.

Bonfire night saw a further atrocity take place on our borough’s streets as care home runaway Jamie Smith (son of the aforementioned Gerard Murphy) committed a despicable murder. The child who was only thirteen years of age had been boozing on cider and vodka on grassland near to the YMCA on Whetstone Lane. It was the misfortune of local man Stephen Croft to fall into the hands of the youth and suffer a succession of unprovoked kickings and beatings until dead. Mr Croft had turned to alcohol after an industrial accident some years previously and on the night of his death was five times over the legal limit, totally senseless. That night his battered body was thrown onto the very bonfire he had been drunkenly watching and left to burn.

On later examination a pathologist found, as well as substantial charring, severe bruising over the right eyelid, the nose to be very swollen with the nasal septum and the right side of the nasal bone both fractured. Blood gushed out from the nose and mouth during the course of the procedure. For this display of total disregard for human life, Jamie Smith was sentenced to serve thirteen years in prison.

These cases are just a small selection of the recent unsavoury goings on in our part of the world. But despite my subtle pessimism, I believe the claim that the Wirral has ‘become notorious’ to be slightly inaccurate. It is in fact no different to any other region. The whole country seems to be on the decline as the front pages have turned into nothing more than carousels of criminal newsprint. It horrifies me – and I’m sure you – to read reports that prisoners have been released mid-sentence due to overcrowding. As a Special Constable, I believe the most obvious answer is surely to build more prisons. Releasing the nation’s prisoners early is not the answer.

In 1901 the average prison population was 15,900. At the time of writing, inmate figures stand at approximately 83,000. From this you would be forgiven for believing that the good old days were relatively crime-free, but I can assure you things were not sans souci. Even now, after a good few years of researching, I am still surprised by some of the stories that pop up in the pages of the Liverpool Mercury and Birkenhead Advertiser. Britain has a fantastically varied and fascinating history of crime and Merseyside in particular has witnessed some of the most shocking, cruel and perplexing examples of such. I predict crime writers of the future shall have rich pickings in researching our little county and dissecting the long-forgotten reports of the Wirral Globe, scouring hours of footage of Gordon Burns at Northwest Tonight and searching through vast numbers of intriguing internet sites to discover the hard facts about our modern-day contemporary atrocities. This book, the third in the series, hopes to entertain and inform. It has been impossible for me to paint a picturesque view of the past, as it never existed, despite what the elder generation may claim. Again I have attempted to include a varied selection of criminality, ranging from the horribly horrific to the candidly amusing, but above all I hope you find the choice of tales interesting.

Read on and uncover the grisly facts of what once lay floating in Birkenhead Park pond, a gruesome suicide on board a Woodside-bound locomotive and the farcical actions of a drunken butler one night at the stately Thurstaston Hall.

Daniel K. Longman, 2009

LOOSE LIPS SINK SHIPS

One night in the year 1890 the then popular seaside resort of New Brighton was malformed into a lurid stage for a murder that stunned the nation. The town was renowned far and wide for its bright and breezy atmosphere, but it was thrust into the public spotlight when a grisly crime created a more macabre mood.

Felix Spicer was a retired mariner. At sixty years of age he should have been happily settling down and enjoying his later years, but this was not to his character. On the contrary he felt as young as ever and even had a two-year-old son. Little Tom Spicer was an adorable wee lad who idolised his older siblings: Felix, William, Gertrude, Annie, Ethel and Harry. Their mother, Mary, was originally from Wales and a youthful thirty-one years of age. She ran a small café at 3 Birkley Parade in Victoria Road, catering for the thousands of tourists and amusement-seekers the town was famous for. To the outside world the Spicers seemed a perfectly happy family; adorable children, a comfortable home and a loving marriage. But things were not as rosy as they seemed.

The Monday after Easter week saw Mary take the day off to ride the ferry to Liverpool, leaving her husband in charge of the café. He was quite competent in managing it and had done so on numerous occasions without any problems. On closing up at the end of the day, Felix put the day’s takings safe upon a shelf in the kitchen, happy with a hard days work. Mary returned to the café later that evening and put the money deep into her dress pocket.

‘Leave that money there!’ Spicer snapped.

‘It does not take two to take the money,’ she snapped back. A clash of raised voices saw Mary prevail as she asserted her rightful authority. ‘You have no business here. I am mistress.’

There had been frequent bouts of bickering regarding her husband’s place in the business ever since his return from sea the previous September. Felix wished to include his name above the door and be manager but Mary objected. The quarrel persisted until Mary’s patience finally snapped and she refused to go back with Felix to their home at 18 Richmond Street, saying that she had had enough of him and was going to sleep instead at the café.

New Brighton, as shown on a map from the early 1900s.

‘Fine!’ Felix shouted, and stormed off home in a huff. He was a terribly stubborn man, much to his own occasional detriment. The argument played on the old man’s mind all night and he just couldn’t let the issue lie.

The following morning Felix made his way round to the café to have some more stern words with his wife. How dare she speak to him like that? He had a sly card up his sleeve. The old mariner strolled into the shop with a proud swagger and beckoned Mary over with a wrinkled hand.

‘You told me last night I had no business here. I will show you who is master!’ The seaman cleared his throat. ‘My name is Felix Spicer, but there is no such name as Mary Spicer!’

Mary was mortified. The landlord, Mr Wright, was in full earshot and was more than a little surprised to hear Felix’s claim. It became startlingly clear to all present that after all their years together the Spicer’s had never actually married. Mary’s cheeks burned bright red with a dangerous mix of embarrassment and pure hatred. It wasn’t long before a policeman had to be called to the scene and separate the feuding pair as Mary went berserk. On the sergeant’s advice Felix left the café to calm down and give Mary some space to compose herself. The old mariner expected his wife to return home and make up in a matter of hours, but he couldn’t have been more wrong. She was adamant in her refusal to go home and quite content to stay at the café, well out of the way of the man whom she had now come to detest. Her own customers were gossiping in hushed tones, but anything was better than living with the horrible man who had caused her so much embarrassment.

Victoria Road, the location of Mary’s café, as seen in 1902.

Felix was equally keen not to lose face. That was, however, until the following Saturday, when his stubbornness finally subdued. He popped a letter into the refreshment rooms asking Miss Palin, as Mary was now known, whether he would be allowed to work at the café again for Whit week. It was really just a ploy to get back into her good books in a far-fetched hope to rekindle their sham marriage. The reply stated in no uncertain terms that Mary did not want him working there, not on Whit week or any other week. She never wanted to see him again. As far as she was concerned he was out of her life for good and his warm-hearted plan had failed. However, this was just a minor setback and Spicer supposed that a personal visit would make the woman see sense. At half-past nine that night Felix put on his coat and knocked on the door to the café. He was met with the unloving sound of a bolt fastening and a softly spoken yet strict reply of, ‘I can’t. I’m undressing.’

‘Open the door Mary, please.’

‘Go home Felix, just leave me alone. Good night!’

Felix begged her to let him in so that they could talk but she wouldn’t budge. The old man was forced to return home alone to Richmond Street, feeling miserably rejected and alone. He chatted with his son, William, and a lodger by the name of Alfred Short, whilst trying his best to appear cheerful, but his mind was preoccupied. It was getting late and Spicer put the children to bed. ‘Good night,’ he said lovingly, before giving each one a kiss on the forehead. He gently closed the bedroom doors and left the youngsters to drift peacefully off to sleep.

At about midnight, a lodger and waitress at the café, Ann Fraser, arrived home from work. She had witnessed first-hand the terrible effects the breakdown of the relationship had been having upon the couple and it was she who often had to tolerate both party’s stressful mood swings. Mrs Fraser noticed Felix and nursemaid Maria Fearon having heated words in the kitchen and thought it best to keep out of the way. ‘Good night,’ Ann waved coyly as she began heading up to her room. ‘Night,’ replied Mr Spicer gruffly. ‘I’m going to sit up for a lodger and sleep on the sofa.’ Ann thought he seemed irritable, but that was the norm nowadays and she paid no real attention to it. The argument between the bad-tempered householder and his staff steadily escalated and the noise of the confrontation woke up Mr Short, who had been trying to sleep upstairs. Maria was sent to bed as Felix’s nerves could no longer cope with the aggravation. He was an old man who was already suffering from some serious stress and he genuinely feared a heart attack or some sort of breakdown to be just around the corner.

As the night drew on the house began to settle down and its varied members fell into deep sleeps. The lodgers, children and nursemaid were all out like a light. Felix Spicer, however, was not. The hours ticked by and with every minute Mr Spicer’s mind became more and more disjointed. Who would want a retired sixty-year-old with the burden of young children? How could Mary be so callous? If he couldn’t win her back then there was nothing worth living for.

These thoughts danced about forebodingly in his brain. By three o’clock in the morning Felix had worked himself into such a state that he had lost all sense of normality and rational thought. He acquired a knife, six inches long and razor sharp, and headed up the stairs. With a gentle turn of the handle he pushed open the door into William and Harry’s bedroom and edged in. Snug in their beds their father saw them sleeping softly, top to tail on the single mattress. The fourteen-year-old’s neck was soon in contact with the wooden-handled blade as it sliced through William’s windpipe. The shock caused the lad to bolt upright from his peaceful slumber. Blood splattered out in a semicircle across the bed sheets, surging forth from a stalk of severed veins. As he struggled, his gargled cries awoke his younger brother. Within a minute the toddler too was dead; blood dripping from similar wounds across his tender throat. In another room eight-year-old Gertrude had been disturbed by the commotion. ‘What’s the matter?’ she called out with a yawn.

‘Nothing. Go to sleep and shut up,’ Spicer hissed, and he made his way downstairs and out of the house.