A Passion for Poison

by Carol Ann Lee

  The educational psychologist delivered his report to Hertfordshire police the following morning, describing Graham’s ‘abnormal interest and knowledge of poisons and [that he] was known to possess poison’.179

  At 3pm, during a break in lessons, two men strolled through the gates of John Kelly secondary school. Detective Inspector Edward Crabb and Detective Sergeant Alan Burwood were both stationed at Harlesden. Harry Merkel led them into Graham’s classroom, eerily silent without its children. Crabb and Burwood conducted a quick search of the place before lifting the lid of Graham’s desk. They took possession of seven school-issue exercise books and one titled Handbook of Poisoning, Diagnosis and Treatment.180 Returning to their vehicle, they drove to 768 North Circular Road. Neither mentioned in their statements how entry was gained – Fred was in hospital, Winifred at work and Graham was with his schoolmates – but they collected two more books from Graham’s bedroom: Sixty Famous Trials and Poisoner in the Dock. Depositing these in their car, they then drove the short distance to Links Road.

  Win opened the door to the two detectives. After a moment’s hesitation, she poured out all her suspicions. She then telephoned her niece to say that the police were waiting to arrest Graham. Winifred was lost for words.

  Graham arrived at Links Road just after 4:30pm. He breezed past the police car and called out hello as he entered the hall. Both detectives could smell him before he appeared. Calmly taking in the scene, Graham apologised for the smell of ether, claiming he had been sucking ‘Victory V’ lozenges since leaving school. DI Crabb and DS Burwood were perplexed by his confidence. Neither man had ever experienced anything quite like it.

  Crabb got to his feet. ‘I’m a police officer, Graham, and I’m investigating your use of poisons. I understand you carry them with you and have some at school?’181

  Graham met his gaze. ‘I am interested in poisons but I haven’t got any at the moment.’

  Crabb pointed to the books they had collected: the flimsy, lined notebooks, the thick red hardback boards of Sixty Famous Trials with its black lettering and the smaller Poisoner in the Dock with the lurid blue-and-green cover. ‘Are those your books?’

  ‘Yes, they are.’

  ‘Have you any poisons in your pocket?’

  ‘I don’t carry them about.’

  Crabb stepped forward, telling Graham he intended to search him. He did so, finding two bottles containing white powder. ‘What are these?’ he asked.

  Graham remained unflustered. ‘One is thallium. I don’t know about the other.’

  Crabb set the bottles down on the table next to the books, then turned back to Graham: ‘Last November your sister was ill and went to Middlesex hospital. She had taken belladonna – do you remember?’

  Graham nodded. ‘I remember her going to hospital, but I had nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Have you ever had belladonna?’

  ‘No, I haven’t.’

  ‘Have you ever bought antimony from a chemist in Neasden?’

  Graham nodded again. ‘Last November, from Edgar’s. I got atropine as well.’

  Realising that Graham was likely to answer most if not all of their questions truthfully, DI Crabb formally cautioned him, asking, ‘Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Graham.

  ‘Atropine and belladonna are the same thing, aren’t they?’

  Graham repeated, ‘I had nothing to do with my sister’s illness, that was caused by shampoo she used in her cup the night before.’

  Crabb glanced at his colleague. Apologising for the intrusion to Win, they told Graham that they were taking him in for further questioning at Harlesden police station. His aunt watched in horror as he was escorted from the house to the car and guided into the back seat. Graham kept his face turned away.

  It was a two-and-a-half mile drive to the police station, a red-brick monolith that dominated the Craven Road junction. After parking at the rear, the two officers led Graham through the building to an interview room. They had no sooner sat down when he offered, ‘The other bottle – it’s antimony. I suppose you would have found out anyway.’

  Burwood began taking notes while Crabb asked questions. ‘Have you ever given any of it to your family? They have all been ill at various times and your father is ill with poisoning of some sort now.’

  ‘No,’ Graham replied. ‘I have experimented with plants and that is all.’182

  During the course of the interview, he revealed that he kept most of his poisons in the hut near the Welsh Harp reservoir, some beneath a hedge and more squirrelled about his room. However, Graham initially denied all the allegations put to him, despite seeming completely stoic.

  Early that evening, Win and Winifred arrived at the station. Both were tense and upset. Graham had already been charged with poisoning Winifred but was allowed out of his cell to see them. Win’s face crumpled when she saw him, ‘Oh Graham, why did you do it? Why?’183

  Her pale-faced nephew said nothing, not a word. Instead, he indicated to the constable at his side that he wanted to go back to his cell and was led away, pinch-nosed and silent.

  Chapter Five

  A MEDICINE IN A LARGE DOSE IS A POISON

  A

  T 9AM ON THURSDAY, 24 May 1962, DI Crabb entered the detention room at Harlesden police station where Graham was sitting perfectly composed. The detective returned a few inconsequential items taken from him the night before. As he did so, Graham said, ‘I think I will tell you all about it. It’s been an obsession with me, like taking drugs –.’

  Crabb raised a hand to stop him. He cautioned Graham again, then asked, ‘Would you like to make a written statement? And would you like somebody with you – your aunt or sister perhaps?’184

  Graham shook his head. ‘I’d rather tell you on your own. You can write it down.’185

  Crabb settled into a chair with pen and paper. He told Graham to go ahead. His statement, prompted by questions and interjections by the detective, reads starkly:

  I have been very interested in poisons, their properties and effects since I was about 11 years old. In May last year 1961, I bought 25gm antimony potassium tartrate from Rees [sic] Ltd, chemists, Neasden Lane. Within a couple of weeks I tried out this poison on my friend, John Williams. I gave him two or three grains at school. I can’t remember how I caused him to take it, I think it was probably on a cream biscuit or a cake. He was sick after taking it. I gave him a second dose in May in the same way and in the following month I gave him another two doses, always two or three grains and always on food at school. After this I started experimenting at home, putting sometimes one, sometimes three grains on prepared foods, which my mother, father and sister ate. I must have eaten some of this poisoned food occasionally because I became sick as well. I know that after eating these prepared foods my family were all sick. My mother went to our doctor about her sickness. By September of last year this had become an obsession with me and I continued giving members of my family small doses of antimony tartrate on prepared foods. In November 1961 I bought two ounces, in separate ounces, of antimony tartrate and 1½ grams of belladonna from Edgar Davies, chemists, Neasden Lane.

  One morning at the end of November, it was on a Wednesday, I was getting ready to go to school. I had breakfast in the kitchen and my sister’s cup was on the dresser containing a small quantity of milk. I put 1/16 grain of belladonna in the milk and then I left for school. That night when I got home from school, my mother told me that my sister had been ill during the day. When my sister came home from work, she told us all the symptoms of her illness and I knew that it was the effects of the belladonna. I was asked by my mother if I knew anything about it but I denied it. After this I gave the remaining belladonna to my friend John [Chris] Williams; he lives at 52 Layfield Road, Hendon. I think he still has it in his room at home.

  When I first bought the antimony from Rees, I also bought digitalis, but I didn’t use this. I gave it to a friend, Richard Hands; he is at my school and I think I gave him six
ounces. I think he gave some of it to John Williams. Since the beginning of this year, I have on occasions put antimony tartrate solution and powder on foods at home, which both my mother and father have taken. They have become ill as the result of it. My mother lost weight all the time through it and I stopped giving it to her about February of this year. I stopped using it altogether then.

  After my mother died on 21 April 1962, I started putting antimony tartrate on foods at home and in milk and water that my father was drinking. As the result of this, he became ill and was taken to hospital. He had only one attack of vomiting when he was at home, but this came on when he was in hospital and I then realised how ill he was.

  I can’t think of anyone else that I have given poison to and I know that the doses I was giving were not fatal, but I knew I was doing wrong. It grew on me like a drug habit, except that it wasn’t me who was taking the drug. The two small jars you found on me yesterday contained thallium sulphate and antimony and potassium tartrate. This antimony is the one I have been using at home and I bought it from Edgar Davies in November of last year. I bought the thallium from a chemist’s in Willesden, just as one enters Willesden High Road, from Dudden Hill Lane. I have not given anyone doses of thallium. I realise how stupid I have been with these poisons. I knew this all along but I couldn’t stop.186

  Graham then signed the statement, which was witnessed by DI Crabb. Ostensibly, it read as an honest confession, but there were untruths and a cavernous omission. Graham’s passion for poison had begun much earlier than he had claimed, and he had started collecting toxic substances and sniffing ether around the age of eight or nine. He said nothing about the incident at Regent’s Park with Chris Williams and played down many other instances of adding poison to food and drink. Most significant of all, he lied about never having administered thallium. This, of course, was the substance he had given in a large, final dose to his stepmother, bringing about her death. As far as his defence was concerned, the statement contained a crucial line: ‘I knew I was doing wrong . . . It grew on me like a drug habit, except that it wasn’t me who was taking the drug.’187 In that, at least, he was truthful.

  Thereafter Graham was charged with having ‘unlawfully and maliciously’ administered ‘a noxious thing so as to thereby inflict bodily harm’ on his sister Winifred.188 Formerly cautioned, he made no reply.189

  At 10:30am that same morning, he appeared at Willesden Magistrates’ Court, where he was remanded in custody to appear again on 30 May.

  Fred Young only learned of his son’s arrest two days later:

  Winifred and [Win] had been keeping some things from me. They suspected that Graham had been responsible for Molly’s death. They knew about his interest in poisons and poisoners, his books on the subject, his weird drawings and so on. They put two and two together again – and this time they came up with the right answer. They didn’t tell me but reported their suspicions instead to a doctor, and finally the police were called in. The game was up for Graham. All I knew, lying there – and I really was near to death – was that a nursing sister came to my bedside and told me, as gently as she could, that Graham had been taken away by the police. Then a detective came in and was allowed to talk to me for a short while. He asked me a few questions and suddenly it all fell into place. I knew for the first time what Graham had been doing. He was a deadly poisoner. It was the most shattering blow of my life. I can’t describe how I felt.190

  Asked if he wished to say anything further, Fred told the detective: ‘I hope you put him away and lock him up where he can never do harm to anyone again.’191

  The police began making inquiries at every pharmacy in the district, with a view to establishing how Graham had been able to amass such a collection of toxic chemicals. They were unable to make much progress; selling poisons to a boy of Graham’s age and younger, without having taken the necessary precautions, was a criminal offence. Geoffrey Reis and Edgar Davies were cooperative, but other pharmacists were either unwilling or unable to provide any information. One pharmacist on Willesden Lane admitted selling antimony ‘to a schoolboy about a year ago’.192 However, no signature was obtained for the poisons register and the pharmacist refused to make a written statement about the sale, despite there being ‘little doubt’ that Graham was ‘the person who bought the poison’.193 Harlesden police continued with other aspects of their investigation, gathering witness statements and submitting samples from Fred Young, along with Graham’s vials and bottles of poison, to the Metropolitan Police Forensic Science Laboratory for analysis. These revealed the presence of antimony in the blood and urine samples, and a long list of toxic substances in the containers confiscated from Graham’s bedroom.

  On the morning of 30 May 1962, having applied for legal aid, Graham appeared at Willesden Juvenile Court, represented by Miss Jean Southworth, of Lincoln & Lincoln solicitors. Evidence from the police laboratory was not yet complete and the witness who had examined them was away at Bournemouth sessions. But the brief for the prosecution, compiled the following day, sheds interesting light on the court proceedings, including the defendant himself:

  From observing him at the lower court, the youth does not seem to be in the least sorry for what has occurred; however, perhaps it is rather hard to judge him on his appearance. Things were not helped in the lower court by his solicitor treating him as an adult and giving him an opportunity to cross-examine people like chemists on the effects of poisons, which highly delighted the young gentleman. At the lower court the defence made no representation for the case to be tried summarily. The Clerk to the Justices also said that even had such submission been made, his Justices would not have tried the case.194

  Miss Southworth submitted that Graham should be committed for an offence against Section 24 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861, that is, maliciously administering poison or a noxious thing with intent to injure, aggrieve or annoy any other person. The prosecution disagreed but left the indictment to counsel, stating: ‘Assuming that a 14-year-old boy, like an adult, can be deemed to intend the natural consequences of the act, this is clearly a case for Section 23.’195 This was the more serious charge of maliciously administering poison or a noxious thing so as to endanger life or inflict grievous bodily harm. Facing the lesser charges on three counts, Graham was bound over to appear again on 6 June 1962 for a special sitting. At that juncture, it was expected that all witnesses, including Graham himself, would be available to give evidence, and that the results of further laboratory tests would be presented.

  The brief for the prosecution further noted: ‘To state the obvious, this is truly a remarkable case. The only difficulties that it presents are what to do with this boy; presumably the principal person to be worried about this is the judge . . . ’196 DI Crabb’s summary of the evidence of the case against Graham was included, preceded by a covering letter, which made the point that ‘It is only fair to say that although Young has admitted administering poison in the form of antimony and potassium tartrate to his stepmother, there is no evidence to suggest that he was in any way responsible for her death. This has been confirmed by Dr Teare.’197 Crabb declared there to be ‘ample evidence’ in support of the existing charge in regard to Graham’s poisoning of his sister, but also ‘evidence to support further charges against Young of administering poison – antimony and potassium tartrate – to Christopher John Williams and to his father, Frederick Charles Young. It is proposed to further charge him with these additional offences when he next appears before the court.’198 Reference was made to a number of witness statements and the interview with Fred Young in Willesden general hospital, after which Crabb reiterated: ‘It will be seen that there is ample evidence to support further charges against Young of administering a noxious thing to Christopher John Williams and Mr Frederick Charles Young.’199

  Crabb referred again to the circumstances surrounding the death of Molly Young, explaining that Graham ‘has admitted administering poison to her on a number of occasions, which undo
ubtedly resulted in her admission to Willesden general hospital on 5 August 1961 and her stay there until 16 August 1961. However, Dr Teare is quite certain that his post-mortem findings are correct and as the body has been cremated no useful purpose would be served in delving deeper into that matter.’200

  Crabb then turned his attention to Graham, describing him as ‘a very intelligent young man, who, it will be gathered, has developed an absorbing interest in poisons. His knowledge of them is extraordinary and, as he explains in his statement, the use of poisons on members of his family became an obsession. Young has not previously come to the notice of police and as far as it is known he has no history of mental instability. His home conditions are good and there seems no apparent reason why he should feel disposed to poison members of his family.’201 It remained the most pressing question of all: why a 14-year-old boy who was of above average intelligence and clearly had an attachment, if not genuine love, for his family had repeatedly felt the urge to inflict such suffering on them, along with his closest friend.

  Over the course of the following month, psychiatrists would do their utmost to understand the conundrum of Graham Young. The person tasked with observing him on a daily basis was Dr Christopher Fysh, senior medical officer at Ashford Remand Centre in the Middlesex town of the same name. Graham arrived there on 3 June 1962. Three days later, he made the journey back to Harlesden police station, where he was charged with two further offences concerning his father and Chris Williams. He made no reply. At 2pm, proceedings began at the court house in Willesden. Graham was among 14 witnesses who gave evidence under cross-examination. He seemed no more perturbed than he had during the other court appearances, which brought him face to face with his family, friends, doctors, pharmacists and police in one small space.

  Fred Young described his hellish experiences at the hands of his son yet was able to state that ‘My son, over the last few years, has behaved reasonably well at home. Since the age of eleven there has been no difficulty between us. There is no ill-feeling between us.’202 Winifred echoed her father’s sentiments: ‘I got on pretty well with my brother as far as I am concerned.’203 Clive Creager, Richard Hands and even Chris Williams described themselves as ‘still good friends’ with the accused.204 Nonetheless, when Chris was later approached by a Daily Mirror reporter, he declared, ‘A detective told my mum that I was lucky to be alive. I reckon I am.’205