With that in mind, it's difficult to imagine the 'ghetto' that Highdown was in the 1960s. Trapped between the borders of Poole and Bournemouth, it was a dumping ground for difficult families where two, and sometimes three, generations were dependent on the dole. Most lived in council accommodation, while the 35% who owned their homes were widows or retired couples surviving on small pensions. The crime rate was disproportionately high compared with more affluent wards, although it tended to be opportunist thieving from property and gratuitous vandalism rather than the mugging and stealing of cars which is prevalent in other cities today.
This may go some way to explaining the shock that local people experienced when Grace was murdered. There was always concern among homeowners about the 'deadbeat' families on their doorsteps, but they had learned to lock their doors and protect their possessions. A 'California-style' killing was a different matter altogether, particularly when the victim was a shy widow with few friends. You make some reference to that in the book, but by no means enough. The local panic engendered by press headlines on the Saturday after the body was found was enormous.
The police in all parts of Bournemouth were besieged by terrified women convinced they were going to be next. There was a mass exodus from Highdown as widowed ladies went to live with their sons or daughters rather than face a madman. Most remembered the murder of Doreen Marshall by Neville Heath, who was an early 'serial killer.' The convictions of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley for the Moors murders in April 1966 were still fresh in the mind. Charles Manson and his family were about to go on trial in America. It seemed as if the world was turning to multiple murder.
You mention the 'collective sigh of relief' when Howard Stamp was arrested and charged, but it wasn't until the evidence was heard at trial that local people felt able to relax. My neighbor said they all thought the police had arrested the wrong person. She described Stamp as 'someone who wouldn't say boo to a goose let alone murder anyone.' In fact it was widely believed that the police had frightened him into making his confession, especially as none of the witnesses who saw him running away remembered seeing any blood on his clothes. There was a continuing fear that the real murderer was still at large.
As you make clear in your book, it was the forensic evidence that not only swung the jury against Stamp but also persuaded local people that he must be guilty. One detail you omitted was that Dr. James Studeley for the prosecution had trained under Sir Bernard Spilsbury-the 'father' of forensic medicine-in the 1930s. Much was made of this by the prosecution during their cross-examination of Dr. Foyle, whose qualifications were 'pedestrian by comparison,' since he had trained in Australia under an 'unknown.' At one point, Robert Tring, Queen's Counsel, asked him to name a pathologist with whom he'd worked that a member of the jury might have heard of. He was unable to do so, and could only claim to have read their work. As this came after a similar question to Studeley, who cited not just Spilsbury but also Sir Sydney Smith, Professor Keith Simpson, Dr. Francis Camps and Dr. Donald Teare, who between them had founded the 'Association of Forensic Medicine' in the late 1940s, Foyle appeared to be a lightweight.
In particular, his quoting of Keith Simpson's comments on 'identical hairs' lost credibility when Studeley was able to counter with remarks made by Simpson at another trial. 'The supporting evidence of identical hair is useful when everything else is pointing in the same direction.' In Stamp's case, of course, the 'everything else' was his confession.
I applaud your efforts to bring Stamp's case to public attention, although I gather from your Radio 4 interview that you've had little success to date. From my own research I support your view that he was convicted on a coerced confession and unreliable evidence. However, in the absence of another suspect, it will be hard to prove. Sadly, my only neighbor who was here in 1970 died five years ago and, while I believe Wynne Stamp is still alive, I have never been able to find out where she went. Rumor had it she changed her name to escape publicity, but I have no firm evidence of that.
If I can be of any further assistance, please feel free to write.
Yours sincerely,
George Gardener
Replied 1/5/03. During subsequent correspondence arranged a meeting for 2/13/03 at the Crown and Feathers pub in Highdown.
*2*
HEATHROW AIRPORT, LONDON
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2003, 11:00 P.M.
The news that evening was bleak. The government had ordered a ring of steel around Heathrow Airport. Scimitar lightweight reconnaissance tanks were parked menacingly along the perimeter walls, soldiers and armed policemen patrolled the terminals. London felt ominous. Even leaderless. The threat of looming war with Iraq-an unstoppable war if the BBC and the broadsheets were to be believed-depressed and worried its inhabitants. For many, the argument for a preemptive strike against a crippled country and a broken-backed dictator hadn't been made, and few understood why it was necessary to rattle sabers at Saddam Hussein when for fifteen months the enemy had been Al Qaeda.
There were rumors of splits in the Cabinet, and the Prime Minister's popularity had reached an all-time low. The Government had looked weak since a negotiating shambles had persuaded the firefighters to go on national strike, sucking soldiers away from the front line in order to man the pumps at home. People talked gloomily of a return to the 'British disease' of the 1970s, when strikes had been commonplace. Patriotism was quoted as a reason why firefighters should remain at their stations. The air was thick with recrimination as the country took sides...
It was felt by every returning traveler to Heathrow that evening. They were warned to expect tanks and troops, but the reality of hard-faced soldiers and armed policemen in and around the terminals was shocking. It smacked of the military dictatorships they were being urged to mobilize against, and the more skeptical among them questioned the political convenience of unspecified terrorist threats so close to war. It was clever propaganda if it meant a reluctant population was frightened into accepting the necessity of preemptive strikes.
This was certainly Dr. Jonathan Hughes's position as he emerged, tired and angry, from Terminal 4 at eleven o'clock that night and lit a much-needed cigarette outside the exit doors. He was a tall, good-looking man with close-cropped dark hair and gold-rimmed spectacles, but that night he looked ill and drawn. He'd had trouble at both ends of the journey: four hours of checking in at JFK airport and a tailback of queues at Heathrow's passport control. Depression swamped him as he looked at the tanks and thought how easy it was for demagogues to whip up religious and racist hatred.
New York had been bad, but this was worse. He watched a woman wearing hijab cross the pavement toward
