A Passion for Poison

by Carol Ann Lee

  The very first patient was 35-year-old Mary Ann Parr, a young woman with learning difficulties who had grown up in abject poverty. Ten years earlier she had suffocated her illegitimate child when she was unable to care for it alone. Public reaction to her death sentence resulted in Mary Ann being sent to Bethlem instead, where she lived for 20 years before being transferred to Broadmoor. Towards the end of the Victorian era, 75 per cent of women in Broadmoor had been convicted of infanticide.228

  Another early patient was a man whose case had a significant impact on the legal understanding of the correlation between insanity and criminality. Glaswegian Daniel McNaughton travelled briefly from Scotland to France in 1843 to escape imaginary persecution. Unable to shake off the sense of being followed, he returned to Glasgow, where he bought pistols, before heading to London intending to kill Sir Robert Peel, the Prime Minister, but instead shot dead his private secretary, Edward Drummond, by mistake. As a result of the medical evidence presented at his trial, McNaughton was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed first to the criminal section of Bethlem and then to Broadmoor.

  Questions had been raised in Parliament as soon as the verdict was returned. The public and press were in uproar, querying whether justice had been done, since McNaughton had known his actions were wrong, but had told the court that he had been driven to desperation by persecution. The Lord Chancellor asked judges for clarification on the relationship between criminal responsibility and insanity. Their response included the rationale that to establish a defence on the ground of insanity it must be clearly proven that, at the time of committing the act, the party accused was labouring under such a defect of reason from disease of the mind as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was performing, or if he did know it, that he was not aware that what he was doing was wrong. This came to be known as the McNaughton Rules, which thus defined what was meant legally by criminal responsibility in Britain. McNaughton himself died in Broadmoor in 1865, aged 52.

  During Broadmoor’s earliest years, every one of its residents had committed a crime; this included 30 admissions for attempted suicide, which remained a criminal offence until 1961. Approximately 25 per cent of patients had committed murder. The law, as it then stood, meant that a person found not guilty by reason of insanity would automatically be sent to Broadmoor, regardless of the severity or otherwise of the offence. Residents under the age of 16 were rare, but not unknown. The age of criminal responsibility had been set at seven since the 14th century and unless a child could demonstrate that they did not know right from wrong, then they were deemed criminally responsible. Seventeen boys and six girls are recorded as having been admitted to Broadmoor between its inception and the turn of the 21st century.229

  Initial treatments were crude by modern standards, consisting of bleeding, blistering and purging, along with sedatives. There were never straitjackets or padded cells in Broadmoor. One remedy seems particularly unusual: patients were fed 50 pounds of local rhubarb per annum because it was thought that a healthy – and regular – body led to a sound mind. The primitive nature of the treatments contrasted with the social side of life in Broadmoor, which became renowned for pantomimes and dramas, dances and educational classes. Religion was important, with all patients encouraged to attend services, and visits from the outside were actively welcomed.

  But public attitudes towards the mentally ill, and especially the criminally insane, began to shift during the late Victorian era. Many writers and artists, led by the influential clinician Henry Maudsley, developed a darker vision of insanity, viewing it as hereditary and incurable. Some of the greatest novels of the era, from Jane Eyre to Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, brought the issue to the forefront; the latter in particular fused the concept of madman with murderer, and was adapted for the stage at a time – in 1888 – when the most infamous killer of all, Jack the Ripper, stalked London’s poorest streets. This fed into other concerns about discharging patients too soon from asylums, fears that escalated when the 1890 Lunacy Act was ushered in, with its safeguards aimed at preventing civil patients from being held in lunatic asylums. The issue was debated in the British press and other publications, with the editors of the Journal of Mental Science fearing the new law created unnecessary difficulties in certifying insanity, leaving the public more at risk to falling victim of crimes committed by the mentally ill. To help allay these fears and ease some pressure on Broadmoor, Rampton hospital opened in 1912 to serve the north of England. More than half a century would pass before a third hospital opened along the same lines; this was Park Lane in Liverpool, later renamed Ashworth hospital.

  Changes in attitudes and medical thinking evolved even more rapidly during the turn of the 20th century. The revolutionary findings of Charles Darwin were shaped into a new concept of eugenics in which people with mental and physical disabilities were viewed as less worthy of life than the able-bodied and those of sound mind. The idea that these groups were a threat to social progress took hold in the highest levels of society, with Winston Churchill, then home secretary, addressing Parliament in 1911 to suggest compulsory labour camps for those with learning difficulties. By the time Churchill was prime minister, millions of disabled and mentally ill people were being put to death in such camps by Hitler’s Nazi followers.

  After the war, Broadmoor continued to operate under some of the new psychiatric techniques that had come into practice years before. The greatest change in its history occurred after the founding of the National Health Service: since opening its doors in 1863, Broadmoor had come under the jurisdiction of the Home Office. Under the new National Health Service regulations, the legal distinction between ‘mental deficiency’ and mental illness was abandoned, resulting in non-offenders being admitted to Broadmoor and over 100 other asylums for the first time in 1949. Thus, newer treatments were introduced as psychiatry developed, including electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), which had been used for the first time in Britain in 1939. Eleven years later, when the administration changed again, Broadmoor was placed directly under Ministry of Health management as ‘a special hospital for mentally disordered persons who in the opinion of the Minister require treatment under conditions of special security on account of their dangerous, violent or criminal propensities’.230

  By then, two escapes had given Broadmoor a bad name, with the first especially causing untold anger and horror. John Straffen had been institutionalised for much for his young life, regarded as ‘feeble-minded’ in the parlance of the day. In 1951, however, he killed six-year-old Brenda Goddard and nine-year-old Cecily Batstone in separate incidents. At his trial, he was found unfit to plead, with the judge remarking that it was like trying a babe in arms. He was admitted to Broadmoor but, six months later, in April 1952, he managed to scale the walls and divest himself of his hospital clothing in favour of something less distinctive. Just four hours later he had killed five-year-old Linda Bowyer. He was captured and this time at his trial was deemed fit to plead. Found guilty, Straffen was sentenced to hang but was reprieved by the Home Secretary on grounds of insanity. Straffen was imprisoned for life, having been regarded legally as insane, then sane, and finally insane again within the space of a year. An inquiry into the circumstances of Straffen’s escape commented that there remained a very real possibility that patients might display stable behaviour but without any permanent psychological improvement.

  The Straffen case had a huge impact on the public image of Broadmoor. It was now regarded as a place of enormous danger, filled with those who presented the worst threat imaginable to society, and solidified the idea of mental illness being something to fear and hate. New safety measures were implemented, which included a siren in case someone else escaped and which wailed every Monday morning at 10am when tested. However, it failed to sound six years later when criminal Frank Mitchell, known as the ‘Mad Axeman’ from his association with the Kray twins, cut through Broadmoor’s iron bars with a hacksaw; by the time his escape was discovered, hospital staff saw no p
oint in pressing the alarm, as Mitchell would have been some distance away. He was swiftly recaptured and, as a result of his absconding, an inquiry was set up into all three special hospitals. The Emery Report, submitted to Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Enoch Powell in April 1961, recommended that a patient should be admitted to one of the three hospitals ‘only after all other possibilities have been examined and found unsuitable’.231 It was regarded as preferable for patients to be treated locally: ‘For patients who present special difficulty, because of aggressive, anti-social, or criminal tendencies, diagnostic and treatment centres should be set up . . . Close liaison should be maintained between these and the remand and observation centres being set up under the penal system.’232

  Powell accepted the report’s main recommendations but disquiet remained in the nearby village of Crowthorne concerning security at Broadmoor. During the 1960s and early 1970s, staff members anonymously related stories to the press about violence, attacks on nurses, overcrowding, drug abuse, escape attempts and rooftop protests. During this period around 65 per cent of patients had been sent to Broadmoor after being convicted of a crime, but that left 25 per cent who had been charged but deemed unfit to plead and another 10 per cent who had no criminal charge or conviction. Many of the problems were due to the Mental Health Act of 1959, which relaxed the criteria for admission to Broadmoor; a legal finding of insanity was no longer the main prerequisite, instead the doors were opened to include mentally disordered offenders or simply those who posed a significant risk to others. This included psychopaths, whether after being convicted of an offence by a court or by severely disturbed and violent behaviour during a prison sentence. Among those who came into the former category in 1962 was 14-year-old Graham Young.

  The sun vanished from view as the vehicle carrying Graham approached the red-brick Victorian gatehouse with its twin towers and central green clock. Beyond the arched entryway was a quadrangle and all the various hospital buildings, the playing fields, recreation ground and gardens stood enclosed within the high perimeter walls like an entirely self-sufficient town. Graham was escorted into the building proper, where he was met by male staff wearing long black tunics with tall collars. This was standard wear at the time, and the staff themselves were then referred to as attendants, not nurses – as those in their care were known as inmates, not patients. As members of the Prison Officers’ Association, many of them had been recruited from the armed forces.

  Graham’s school shoes clicked on the parquet flooring as his details were taken and the duty medical officer examined him and asked a few questions. Once processed, he was led through cool corridors and past barred windows to the bathroom upstairs. Attendants stood nearby as Graham gingerly obeyed their instructions to undress and bathe. He then put on the nightclothes provided and was led through the corridors again to a private room, No.5, in Block 1, Admissions. His room was smaller than the average prison cell, approximately 12 feet by 6 feet, with a solid oak bed screwed to the coconut-matting on the floor. Sunlight filtered weakly through a small barred window with thick teak shutters. The one concession to Graham’s unusual status as a very young inmate was the rug on the floor – a luxury that few others were permitted.

  On Graham’s first evening in Broadmoor, a hot beverage and food were brought to his room. The studded green door was left open deliberately to make the transition from schoolboy to Broadmoor inmate a little less overwhelming. After that, special allowances would be few, but not unheard of, and he would forever be regarded as someone with a special status and in whom the most senior staff members took a particular interest. His routine was the same as almost every other inmate, all of whom spent their first three months on the admission block, regardless of the seriousness of their crime. During that time, each individual was required to complete an IQ test, where the average result was significantly higher than in the outside world. Graham, like everyone else, was placed under observation while his case history was studied and the nature of his illness was considered. Treatment began in admissions but was a prelude to the full process. Privileges such as using the sports field or being allowed a radio in one’s room would be granted only after that first period had been completed.

  Forty-two inmates occupied Graham’s ward. The day began at 7am, followed by breakfast in the dining hall before everyone headed to work, which was not compulsory but encouraged. Offering both structure and variety, work covered everything from art to jewellery classes, wood-working and metal-working. Other jobs were also available: Graham was naturally fairly lazy and did nothing at first, but when he learned he could earn a small wage polishing all the brass doorknobs on the ward, he agreed to that. Midday saw an exodus from the handicraft section back to the dining hall, then from 1:45pm until 4pm, inmates were once more occupied with work. After 4pm everyone was allowed to choose their own activity until bedtime, which was set at 9pm during Graham’s first summer in Broadmoor. During those hours he could join fellow inmates in the ward’s day room with its television, radio and daily newspapers, play billiards, bridge, table tennis, dominoes, draughts or chess in the nearby common room, and visit the sports field near Block 4 under supervision to either participate in or watch cricket, bowls and football.

  By far the biggest problem at Broadmoor – and the one from which virtually all other issues stemmed – was overcrowding. At the time of Graham’s arrival, the hospital population was over 700, almost double the maximum recommended for male and female patients, many of whom were long-term. Numbers had soared, despite an increase in discharged inmates. This was a particularly unhappy period in Broadmoor’s history. A 1967 report on conditions at the hospital heard evidence from 168 attendant staff, only 12 of whom felt that security on site was satisfactory. Morale was severely depleted, primarily because of the intense amount of overtime needed to maintain discipline. The report made a point that was potentially significant with regards to Graham, who had spent five years in Broadmoor at that juncture: ‘Gross indiscipline and violence have produced rapid discharges from Broadmoor, a premature move to better conditions in Broadmoor, or a return to prison . . . Broadmoor is guilty of callous disregard for public safety when it discharges patients for the same reasons.’233 Conditions were said to be ‘frightful’.234 One attendant admitted: ‘We really do not do much more than a farmer would do for his animals. We are attending to their basic bodily needs, we are maintaining observation and discipline, but we are certainly not doing the job that the hospital should be doing.’235 Staff did their best but trained mental health nurses were few and some were barely in their 20s – far younger than most of the patients.

  Among those who were in Broadmoor at the same time as Graham was Peter Thompson. Born into poverty, he helped lead an influential public inquiry into the rehabilitation of offenders, which led to major changes in treatment. But after a series of personal setbacks, his mental health suffered and he attacked three girls with a knife, injuring two. He pleaded guilty and in 1965 was sentenced to four years in Broadmoor. After his release, Thompson set up a mental-health charity called the Matthew Trust, which continues to help people today. In his memoir, Thompson outlined some of the problems caused by over-crowding and shortage of staff in Broadmoor:

  At nights, 20 patients share one commode to a dormitory. On the two or three occasions a year when ‘Berkshire Belly’ strikes – an outbreak of diarrhoea and vomiting – the situation can be degrading. I remember a night when 13 men were queuing to use the commode. By the time the last one used it, the thing was overflowing and the stench was appalling, and it was not even possible to open a window, for security reasons, nor wash one’s hands. This kind of situation strips away one’s last vestige of human dignity.236

  He also recalled how patients could be violent and provoked violent reactions from the staff, with frequent ‘fights and rumpuses in the day room’.237 For Thompson, the heaviest burden in Broadmoor was the total lack of privacy: ‘Except for the hours of sleep, all of one’s life was op
en to inspection. Baths were supervised by the staff and all day long they kept an eye on us throughout the long months of the so-called “admission” period.’238

  Graham was the object of intense observation during his first few months in Broadmoor. The medical superintendent, Dr Patrick McGrath, took a personal interest in him. McGrath had been in charge of the day-to-day running of Broadmoor since 1957 and would be the institution’s last superintendent, retiring in 1981. He lived together with his family in a large Victorian villa near the main gate. He was regarded with respect and deference by the staff; his word was final. He had a wry sense of humour, telling one reporter that half of Broadmoor’s patients were probably no longer dangerous, but the problem was that they didn’t know which half. His aim was to make the hospital less custodial and more therapeutic. Peter Thompson recalled McGrath in positive terms, that he told his patients to regard Broadmoor as a crutch to help them cope with a disability and once they no longer needed it, they should throw it away for someone else to use.

  Graham had regular meetings with McGrath. The older man was heavily built, with rounded shoulders and a grey tinge to his black hair, and described Graham’s mood on admission as ‘flattened, indifferent’.239 He found ‘no evidence of disorder of thought process or content’ and recorded that Graham ‘gave an account of himself which tallies in fact with the story drawn from other sources’.240 The only material treatment Graham received was sedatives, which changed his appearance considerably, making him pallid and prone to weight gain.

  His family noticed a difference in him when they first visited at the end of July 1962. Graham was permitted seven visits per month, but for various reasons, he never received that amount. His father had been most affected by Graham’s obsession with poison and was unable to face visiting for some time, but Winifred and the Jouvenats – Win, Jack and Sandra – made the then one-and-a-half-hour journey south-west to Broadmoor approximately a fortnight after Graham arrived there. As their car neared the institution, Winifred was aware that ‘my feminine emotions were constantly intruding on my more rational judgements. After all, I was his sister and I tended to recall him so clearly as my little brother [who] hadn’t had such a wonderful life.’241 It was hard to reconcile the figure now known in the press as ‘Poison Boy’ with the quiet and introspective child she had known, ‘alone most of the time, reading books and occasionally listening to something like pop music’.242 She was neither bitter nor angry with her brother, but instead felt ready to forgive him, as did the rest of the family, apart from Fred. In Winifred’s eyes, Graham was ‘just a child after all’, who was ‘sick, terribly, dreadfully sick’.243 She found it impossible to hate him and had never been frightened of him: ‘I just felt sorry for him.’244