On the second day of the trial Mr Justice Pilcher ruled that there was not sufficient evidence that could be given to a jury. In addition to the doubts already mentioned, no blood had been found on any items of Jeffrey’s clothing. It was simply not safe to continue and consequently, the jury was instructed to return a not guilty verdict. Jeffrey was free to return to his family and the case remained on file as an unsolved murder. The years passed and no more was heard about the tragic death of Iris Dawkins until one day in November 1968.
Constable Dennis Arthur Luty was a member of the Southampton Vice Squad but on Monday, 18 November, he was off duty and taking Sophie, his Doberman Pinscher dog, for a walk in Mayfield woods. At one stage the dog froze and began growling and barking at a particular part of the bushes. Luty could see that there was something or someone in the bushes but before he could investigate, a man emerged and walked away.
Curious, Luty followed the man and saw him walk into Archery Road where he began stopping at various houses, apparently taking a very keen interest in them. Constable Luty now noticed that the man was wearing rubber gloves and felt that he might be considering breaking in to one of the homes. Luty moved forward, identified himself as a police officer and searched the man. He was carrying a large sheath knife and on the strength of that, and his previous rather strange behaviour, Luty arrested the man on suspicion and took him in for questioning.
At the police station the man, who identified himself as twenty-two-year-old Keith Ridley, was asked about being in the Mayfield park area. He admitted that he was waiting for someone in the hope of stealing their wallet but then immediately changed his story. With the comment: ‘No, I had better tell you the truth.’ Ridley then went on to admit his part in the murder of Iris Dawkins eight years before.
Ridley continued: ‘I get the urge to kill every so often. I had bought the knife and came out with the intention of killing someone.’
‘I’ll tell you now, I killed someone in Mayfield Park about ten years ago. Her name was Iris Dawkins.’
‘I stabbed a girl a long time ago, a little way in the bushes. Every so often I get the urge to kill somebody. Now you have got me. I thought it best to tell you about it and then I can’t kill anyone else.’
In his written statement, Ridley went on to say that he had seen the children playing by the stream. He watched them for a while and then saw a girl leave the others and walk towards him, in the direction of the football pitches. As she drew near to him, Ridley grabbed her and forced her into the bushes at the point of a knife. Then he stabbed her in the back. He wasn’t sure how many times he had actually stabbed her but stopped when he thought she was dead. Then she moved, and started screaming so he stabbed her some more times.
At the time of the attack upon Iris, Ridley himself had only been thirteen years old. He had then lived at 18 Laburnam Grove, Weston and explained to the police that after the murder, he had buried the knife near the back door of that address. A search of both that garden and of Mayfield woods was then organised, in which the Royal Engineers assisted, equipped with metal detectors but no knife was ever found.
Ridley also told officers about his own history. After leaving school he had found employment as a clerk in Southampton and had worked there until October 1968. He had then decided that he wanted a change and quit his job, moving to Northampton where he hoped to get a new job. He had no luck there and returned to his family in Peartree Avenue, on Friday 15 November.
Once again a report was sent to the Chief Constable and, once again it was forwarded on to the Director of Public Prosecutions. Finally, on 12 December, the newspapers carried reports that a man was to be charged with Iris’ murder.
A number of remands followed with the last one taking place on 3 January 1969. It was after that hearing that Mr William Ackroyd, appearing for Ridley, made a public appeal for the widest possible publicity in this case. According to Mr Ackroyd, many of Ridley’s old friends had since moved away from the Southampton area and he wanted anyone who had known his client at the time of the murder to get in touch with the defence.
Ridley’s trial opened at Winchester on Monday, 17 March 1969 before Mister Justice Browne. Ridley was defended by Mr George Polson whilst the case for the prosecution was outlined by Sir Joseph Molony.
It was obvious that the defence would draw parallels with the earlier trial of Jeffrey. In both Jeffrey’s case and Ridley’s, the main strut of the prosecution was a confession. In neither case was a murder weapon found and the defence claimed that, just as Jeffrey’s case was dismissed, so too should Ridley’s. There was, though, more substantial circumstantial evidence on this occasion.
Ridley had given a very accurate description of the wounds inflicted upon Iris’ body. Whilst the number of wounds had been detailed in past press reports, and descriptions of some wounds given, no article had ever mentioned that Iris had been stabbed twice in the throat. Ridley’s statement did contain just such an admission.
The murder scene itself had also never been accurately described in the newspapers but Ridley’s description was precise. On the day after his arrest he had been taken back to the woods and asked to show officers where the attack took place. Though the woods were very large, Ridley picked a spot just a few yards from the actual location.
There had also been many reports in the press that when she had fallen into the stream, Iris had slipped off a small bridge. Only Ridley’s statement correctly identified this ‘bridge’ as a small tree which had fallen across the stream.
Witnesses were called from Ridley’s family to try to show that he had not behaved strangely in any way after the attack upon Iris. His father, William said that Ridley had always been a truthful boy. His family had formed part of the door to door interviews in 1960 and Keith had told officers that he had not been near the woods on the day of the attack.
Mrs Daphne Woods, Keith Ridley’s married sister said that her brother had always been a quiet boy and she did not notice the slightest change in his behaviour after Iris had been killed.
More telling, perhaps, was the testimony of Keith’s brother, Terrence. He explained that in late 1959 he had found a sheath knife, which he often played with. One day, as he was leaving the house through the back garden he had stuck the knife into the door of their garden shed, intending to retrieve it later. When he did get home, the knife was missing so Terence had thrown the sheath away. Later, after Iris had been murdered, the police called at their house as part of their routine investigation and the officer had with him a sheath that they had found in the woods. Terence told them that this was the one he had thrown away. At the time, this was not seen as significant but it now appeared clear that Keith had been the one who took that knife and later used it upon Iris Dawkins.
Mister Justice Browne summed up the evidence on Wednesday, 26 March and the jury of ten men and two women retired to consider their verdict. In the event, they took just two and a half hours to determine that Keith Ridley was guilty as charged. Since he had only been thirteen at the time of the murder, Ridley was sentenced to be detained during Her Majesty’s pleasure. As he was taken from the dock to begin that sentence, Ridley broke down in tears. Finally, after eight long years, the motiveless murder of Iris Dawkins had been solved.
Chapter 10
Jekyll and Hyde Dorothy Bray 1967
It was an all too familiar story to Edward Richard John Hockless and his wife, Edith Joyce, who preferred to use her second name. They had heard it all so many times before. Edward and Joyce lived at Flat 24, Robere House, Radstock Road, Southampton and opposite to them, at Flat 23, lived the Brays and they argued almost non-stop.
On Saturday, 3 June 1967, Edward and Joyce had been out for a few hours, only returning to their home at around 6.00pm. Even as they turned their key in the lock, they could hear the sounds of yet another argument coming from the Bray’s house. Still, it was nothing to do with them so they closed the door of their flat and tried to ignore what was going on.
More difficult to ignore was the very loud bang that was heard at 6.40pm. At first, Edward Hockless believed that it might have been a car backfiring in the street outside but five minutes later, at 6.45pm, his front-door bell rang. In fact, the bell continued to ring for the caller left his or her finger on the bell-push so that it rang without a break.
The door was opened by Joyce and Dorothy Bray from number 23, ran in and blurted out that she had just shot her husband. Edward Hockless wasted no time in calling for the police and medical assistance. Soon afterwards, Dorothy Bray was escorted to the Bitterne police station.
It was at the station that Dorothy explained that her husband, George Malcom Bray, had threatened to kill her and kept her prisoner in her own home. Early that evening he had grabbed her around the throat with both hands but she managed to get away from him and went to her bedroom, hoping that he might calm down. Meanwhile, she could hear him, in the lounge, talking to himself and threatening to hit her when she returned. When she did go back into the lounge, some minutes later, George did indeed grab hold of her again but once more she managed to escape. She went back to her bedroom, took a shotgun she had purchased some months before, and shot George at close range. On her own statement, forty-six-year old Dorothy was then charged with murder.
Dorothy Bray had actually been born in Sydney, Australia, and had first met her future husband when he was in the merchant navy during the war. They started seeing each other and after romance had blossomed, they married, in October 1942. One son was born to the union but by the time Dorothy had been charged with killing her husband, he was grown up and married himself.
After the war had ended, George had started work in the building trade, first in Australia and then in the United Kingdom. After some time in England, the family returned to Australia but in 1965 they had come back to Britain again and settled in Southampton where George had become a partner in a firm of carpenters. At the end of that same year, the couple had moved into 23 Robere House.
The problem was that George was, in effect, two people, very much a Jekyll and Hyde character. When he was sober he was somewhat morose but had an even enough temper. However, when he was drunk he became violent, argumentative and threatening and, unfortunately, George was extremely fond of a certain brand of cider. When he was in drink, George often struck out at Dorothy and she had left him on more than one occasion, always returning when he told her he would change his ways. Things did not improve, though, and in September 1966, Dorothy gave a false name and address when she purchased a second-hand 12-bore shotgun and two boxes of cartridges from a second-hand shop in Southampton.
On the day of George’s death, he had started drinking his cider in the early afternoon. One bottle after another was con sumed and as he drank, his temper grew worse and worse. So bad did things become that, fearful for her own life, Dorothy had taken the only course of action she felt as left open to her. Nevertheless, she had still taken a life and the law had to run its course.
After various remands by the magistrates, including one on 16 June, one on 23 June and another on 28 June, Dorothy was sent for trial on a charge of murder. She duly appeared before Mister Justice Milmo on 20 July, where she was defended by Mr George Polson. The case for the prosecution was outlined by Mr John Hall. Dorothy pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter. That plea was accepted by the prosecution and further details of the crime were then heard.
Joyce Hockless told the court of Dorothy rushing into her flat on the day of the shooting. She seemed to be very upset and was shaking with fear. Dorothy had blurted out: ‘Joyce, I have killed George. I have killed him with a shotgun.’ She was distressed and immediately expressed regret for what she had done.
Detective Inspector Arthur Offer had visited the scene of the shooting and searched the premises. He had found five empty quart bottles of cider in the flat. A sixth bottle was partly empty.
Dr Richard Anthony Goodbody had conducted the post mortem and he described a gunshot wound to George’s chest. Only one shot had been fired and the cause of death had been haemorrhage due to that gunshot wound.
The weapon used had been tested, by Dr George Price of the Home Office Laboratory in Nottingham. It had a normal pull and, after testing various distances, Dr Price concluded that the gun had been fired at George Bray from a distance of between three and four feet.
Details of the history of the couple were given to the court. In 1949, whilst they had been living in Australia, George had once tried to throw Dorothy over the verandah of their house on to some rocks twenty feet below, during an argument. He had seriously assaulted her in September 1966 and it was this event which had led to Dorothy purchasing the shotgun for protection and to frighten her violent husband into leaving her alone. She had told her son of the purchase and whilst it might have led to a suggestion of premeditation, the defence pointed out that the gun had been in the flat for some nine months before Dorothy had felt she had no choice but to use it.
One of the final witnesses was Dr Norman Mullen, the medical officer at Holloway prison where Dorothy had been kept on remand. Dr Mullen had spoken to Dorothy at length and he believed that at the time of the shooting, she had been suffering from an abnormality of the mind, caused by the constant mistreatment at the hands of her husband.
It was perhaps, all of this testimony which led the court to accept that Dorothy Bray had lived in genuine fear of her husband, when he was drunk. As a result, Dorothy was given a sentence of three years imprisonment.
Chapter 11
Easy Money Kenneth Frank Vincent, William Warren and Peter John Daley 1967
Eighty-four-year-old Elizabeth Harriett Dymott, a retired teacher, had lived alone in a rather dilapidated bungalow at 37 Onibury Road, Southampton, ever since the death of her sister on Christmas Day 1966. She did have another sister, still alive, but that lady was blind and lived in a residential care home. Something of a recluse, Elizabeth’s only regular caller was a nephew, Thomas William Dymott. Thomas would call on his aunt on a fairly regular basis to make sure she was well. Her only other visitor was a jobbing gardener, Leonard King, who called occasionally to trim trees or do other odd-jobs about the gardens.
The house at 37 Onibury Road where Elizabeth Dymott was killed.
Thomas Dymott had last visited his aunt on Tuesday, 21 November when she appeared to be in good health and showed no signs of being worried or concerned about anything. He next called at Onibury Road two weeks later, on Wednesday, 6 December 1967, at 10.30am. There was no reply to his knocking at the front door so Thomas walked around to the back, only to find that the door was partly open. Going inside he switched on a light to find obvious signs that the place had been ransacked; drawers were open, and items were strewn around the floor. In addition, the gas-meter had been broken open. Thomas began walking from room to room until finally, in the bedroom, he found Elizabeth tied to her own bed. She was clearly dead and Thomas dashed next door to use the telephone to call for the police.
The rear of the house, in Onibury Road, showing the window which had been forced open.
Inside Elizabeth Dymott’s bedroom showing the signs of disarray after the attackers had searched the premises looking for cash. Note the wrought iron bedstead to which Elizabeth had been tied.
The first police officer on the scene was Constable Geoffrey Draper who timed his arrival at 10.40am. He made a quick examination of the premises, including the bedroom where Elizabeth lay, but touched nothing, and waited for other officers to arrive. Detective Inspector Arthur Offer arrived just five minutes later, at 10.45am. He noted that Elizabeth’s hands were tied together and then tied to the head of the bed itself. The poor woman had also been gagged, no doubt so that she could not shout for help.
In fact, the body could have been found much earlier than it actually was. Elizabeth was well known for never leaving her front gate open. If a delivery man or the postman ever left it open, she would immediately rush out and close it. On the morning of 28 November, the
gate had been left open by the postman and remained that way until Elizabeth’s body was found. The neighbours, it seemed, had shown little interest in Elizabeth’s welfare.
The living room at 37 Onibury Road, again showing signs that someone had searched the premises.
Later that same day, 6 December, Detective Constable Francis Perry and Detective Sergeant Crossland both arrived at Onibury Road. They made a careful search of the house and noted that someone had forced an entry through the living room window at the back of the premises. There were marks, made by some kind of instrument, on the window and, when this area was examined, by Mr Allen Hill of the fingerprint department, a diamond shaped pattern was seen. Similar marks were later found on one of the bedroom doors inside the house. Other, unidentified prints were found inside the house and this led officers to consider a mass fingerprinting of the area, as a last resort. In the event, some 1,500 sets were taken, but they did not move the investigation forward in any way.
Amongst the property found inside the house, was an old silver threepenny piece, dated 1889, which had a hole in it as if it might once have been fastened onto a charm bracelet. There was also a good deal of money hidden in various locations and in all, officers eventually found thirty-three £10 notes, three £5 notes, six hundred and sixteen £1 notes and twenty ten-shilling notes. There was also a small quantity of silver and copper. Whoever had broken into the house had missed over £1,000 in cash.
Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in Southampton Page 10