Derbyshire Murders

by Martin Baggoley

  He and Ada had raised nine children, but their relationship was not without problems. Ada was a heavy drinker and whenever she came home late and drunk, George, who had a violent temper, would lock her out of the house. When later interviewed by the police, neighbours confirmed that in the six months prior to her death there had been frequent and noisy arguments.

  In his interview with the police, William said that he had woken early on the Tuesday morning, dressed, and when he put his hand in his pocket for a cigarette, felt the razor, but he did not know how it had got there. At six o’clock his father shouted upstairs to rouse Ivy and Ada. Ivy got out of bed, dressed and lit a candle. She shook her mother but she did not wake up, and it was then that she noticed the blood on her mother’s face and on the floor. She told the police that initially she thought this was the result of a burst blood vessel, and went downstairs where she told William and her father. William went upstairs to his mother’s bedroom and came down a few minutes later, telling his father and sister, ‘It seems hopeless’. George suggested that William take his mother a glass of brandy, which he did. It was as he stood at the side of the bed that he later claimed to have remembered the razor, which he took out of his pocket. Seeing that it was bloodstained, he dropped it with its case to the floor at the side of the bed. He returned to the living room and said that his mother was dead. George told William to fetch his married sister Lois Wake. William said he would do so after he had finished his cup of tea, and after he had done so, he went to his sister’s house a few minutes later, and on hearing the news Lois rushed to her parents’ home. William told Lois that he was going to see a friend, but instead he went to the police station where he made his confession.

  Ilkeston Town Hall, where William Knighton appeared before the local magistrates. (Author’s collection)

  Inspector Wheeldon had questioned Ivy once more on the day following the murder. On this occasion she told him that as she lay in bed on Saturday, 5 February, she had heard William on the stairs outside her bedroom. He had shouted to his mother that he needed some matches, but she had refused to get out of bed. William had then entered the bedroom on his hands and knees and came to Ivy’s side of the bed. Ada asked what he was doing, and having replied, ‘Nothing’, he left the room.

  At the time, Ivy’s statement seemed to be of no importance to the inspector, but she approached the inspector once again with a different version of events. She said, ‘I ought to have told you more yesterday. My brother Billy had connection with me on Saturday night’. She confirmed when questioned further that William had got into bed and had sexual intercourse with her. Their mother, who lay next to them, woke up and William left the bed and crawled quietly out of the room, apparently without Ada having realised what had taken place. Ivy told her mother that there was a man in the room, but did not tell her that it was William. Ada told her not to be silly as there was no one else in the room. Ivy insisted that this was the only occasion that sexual intercourse took place with her brother.

  William Knighton’s trial took place at the Derby Assizes on Saturday, 26 February 1927 before His Honour Judge Branson. Mr M.F. Healey conducted the prosecution, and the accused was represented by Sir Henry Maddocks KC, who was assisted by Mr T.F. Butler. The defendant pleaded not guilty.

  In opening the case for the Crown, Mr Healey advised the jury that suicide had been ruled out, together with the murder having been committed by an unknown intruder. Whoever had committed the crime was in 1 Bethel Street that night, but there was, he admitted, an absence of forensic evidence. The prosecution would be relying heavily on the confession made by the accused, which had been made shortly after the crime had been committed and before the police knew of his mother’s death. Furthermore, he had been sober and calm when he entered the police station. Mr Healey proceeded to call his witnesses.

  Inspector Wheeldon gave details of the confession, and Dr Sudbury described the results of his post-mortem examination and the cause of death. Lois Wake told the court of her brother calling at her home on the morning of the crime, and of his telling her he was going to see a friend, whereas he went directly to the police station. When asked about William’s relationship with his mother, she described it as close and loving.

  It was conceded by the prosecution that despite being in bed with her mother at the time of her death, Ivy, who was called as a prosecution witness, had not seen the crime occur. Mr Healey did not raise the issue of her claim to have had sexual intercourse with the accused, and the jury remained unaware of it throughout the trial. It remains unclear why the Crown decided not to raise the matter, as it would have suggested one possible motive for William killing his mother. That is that Ada may have become aware of the fact that her son and daughter were having an incestuous relationship, and possibly in a panic, he killed her to prevent her from revealing this. It may have been that the prosecution felt there was a strong enough case without using this information, given William’s unsolicited confession, and possibly felt some sympathy for this sixteen-year-old girl, who had only recently lost her mother in such distressing circumstances, and they wished to avoid embarrassing her publicly by revealing details of the nature of her relationship with her brother. The defence did not raise the matter, as the information would not have helped their client’s case. It was clearly to his benefit for the jury to remain unaware of the possibility of any such behaviour.

  The accused was an epileptic and Sir Henry called Dr E.W. Morris, a neurologist with the Ministry of Pensions, who testified that in his opinion it was possible for an epileptic when suffering a fit, to cut someone’s throat without realising he or she was doing so. Dr Morris stated that at the time of the killing, William’s mind could have been deranged so that he would have had no memory of the event. This formed the basis of the defence case and Sir Henry suggested to the jury that the confession by Knighton could be explained. He suggested that having found the bloodstained razor in his pocket, his client immediately presumed he must have committed the crime while he had been having a fit.

  William elected to give evidence and insisted that when he found the murder weapon, ‘I naturally thought that I must have cut her throat with a razor’. He was cross-examined by Mr Healey, who attempted to discredit this claim:

  Mr Healey: And when you saw your mother with the blood lying round her you did not see the wound in her neck?

  William: No.

  Mr Healey: Therefore there was no reason why you should think that she had not burst a blood vessel?

  William: Then I remembered the razor in my pocket. I pulled it out and saw the bloodstains on it and saw all the blood round it and I naturally jumped to the conclusion that I had cut her throat.

  Mr Healey: You say ‘naturally’ but forgive me if I say that was not a natural conclusion to which to come . . .

  William: It was because I had blood on my hand here [William indicated the junction of his first finger and thumb on his right hand].

  Mr Healey: When you came to the conclusion that you had cut your mother’s throat, did you even then go over to look and see whether her throat was cut?

  William: No.

  Mr Healey: So that, for all you knew when you left the house that morning, you were wrong and her throat had not been cut at all. Is that not so?

  William: No. Well, I thought when I found I had got the razor in my pocket and could see I had got blood on my hands, I naturally thought that I had cut her throat.

  Mr Healey: And you felt bound to tell the inspector what you knew about the case?

  William: Yes.

  Mr Healey: Why did you not tell the inspector, ‘I have cut my mother’s throat. You will find the razor near the bed. I have no recollection about anything.’ Why did you not tell the inspector that?

  William: I did not think that it had anything to do with the inspector.

  Mr Healey: Why did you not say, ‘I have no knowledge of doing this at all; I must have done it when I was asleep or unconscious’, or something of th
at sort?

  William: I do not know.

  In his scrupulously fair summing up, the judge left it open to the jury to return a verdict of guilty but insane, if they felt that the accused had not been fully responsible for his actions, and had cut his mother’s throat when in an epileptic state. However, the jury did not agree with this theory and found Knighton guilty of murder, as a consequence of which he was sentenced to death.

  On 21 March, Knighton’s appeal against his conviction was heard by the Court of Criminal Appeal, before Justices Avory, Shearman and Sankey. It was not admitted by his defence team that he had definitely killed his mother, but they repeated their theory that Knighton might have killed his mother while suffering an epileptic fit, and therefore he could say nothing about the circumstances surrounding her death as he had no recollection of it. They also repeated their claim that his confession to Inspector Wheeldon was understandable given these circumstances.

  The appeal was dismissed, and it was pointed out that the defence had called an expert witness to raise this theory, and the judge had specifically left it open to the jury to reach a verdict on the basis of accepting the defence arguments, but this had been rejected by the jury.

  One week later, members of the Knighton family approached William’s solicitor, Mr Flint. They revealed that since the trial had ended, Ivy had told them of previously unknown details concerning the murder itself, and of her life behind the doors of 1 Bethel Street. She claimed not to have spoken of these matters to anyone before as she was afraid of what her father might do to her in retribution, but she realised that now she must be honest to save her brother from the gallows.

  Mr Flint had already been advised by one of the prosecution lawyers at the trial that a medical examination of Ivy had revealed that she was sexually experienced, but this had not been revealed in open court during the trial. Now, Ivy was claiming that she and her father had been engaging in sexual activity since she was twelve years old. Intercourse had never taken place when her mother was in the house, so Ada had remained unaware of what was happening. Ivy told Mr Flint that she now believed that it had been her father who had come into the bedroom on the Saturday night before the murder, and that it was he who had been in the room when her mother was killed. She had not seen his face in the darkness, but claimed to have recognised his cough and the distinctive shuffling sound of his ill-fitting slippers as he climbed the stairs. Ivy further stated that despite her earlier statement she had never been intimate with William.

  It was also reported to the police by the family that since the conclusion of William’s trial, his father’s health seemed much improved, and he had helped paint a room in the family home. The inference was clear, her father was not as disabled as he claimed, and he would have been able to climb the stairs and murder his wife. George Knighton was questioned and agreed that he had tried to help a relative paint a room, but he had soon become extremely tired and had to stop after a matter of minutes. As for the alleged sexual relationship with his daughter, he told the police, ‘I am no good to any woman from a sexual point of view’.

  Nevertheless, William’s execution, which had been set for Thursday, 7 April, was dramatically cancelled by the Home Secretary when Ivy’s claims became known to the Crown. For the first time ever, the secretary of state referred a case back to the Court of Appeal for it to be heard again, after it had been dismissed on an earlier occasion. The second appeal was heard before the same judges on Tuesday, 12 April.

  The new information was provided partly in person, but largely by written statements. These detailed Ivy’s claims to have had an incestuous relationship with her father, and were thus not publicly aired. The implications of this revised testimony were clear, namely that it was her father and not William who was the murderer. Implicit in the defence’s claims was that George had conducted an incestuous relationship with his daughter for a number of years, murdered his wife when she allegedly discovered this, had allowed his son to take the blame for his crime, and was prepared to see him hang knowing that he was innocent. This scenario was rejected out of hand by the appeal judges, who declared that they did not consider it necessary for George to be called to defend himself against these allegations. The judges were unequivocal in dismissing the appeal and, referring to Ivy’s claims, stated:

  William Knighton’s execution. (The Illustrated Police News)

  We are unanimous that this witness has deliberately given false evidence in her amended statements here, differing from her evidence before the coroner, the Justices, and at the trial. Otherwise we should give the person she has accused an opportunity of denying her charges on oath. The confession made by the appellant on the morning of the murder, when he was calm, sober and explicit stands uncontradicted.

  Thomas Pierrepoint officiated at Knighton’s execution, which had been rescheduled for 27 April at Nottingham’s Bagthorpe Gaol, and which took place without incident. This was despite a petition for a reprieve, which had been well supported in the Ilkeston area.

  The inquest into the executed man’s death was largely a formality, but Nottingham’s coroner, Mr C.L. Botham, took the opportunity of adding his support to the growing movement for an end to capital punishment. He said at the hearing:

  I do not know whether this kind of thing will be likely to continue much longer. The death sentence does not seem to have any deterrent effect. If you notice the newspapers day by day you will see there is a multitude of murders taking place up and down the country. I fancy there is a strong feeling growing for abolishing the death sentence as a policy. I don’t know whether we shall have it in our lifetimes, but think the feeling is growing.

  Knighton was later buried in the gaol’s grounds, and normally that would have been the end of the matter. However, that was not to be the case, as controversy surrounding his conviction and execution would last far beyond even the ending of capital punishment four decades later.

  In July 2001, the Knighton case was referred to the Court of Appeal yet again by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which had been established to investigate possible miscarriages of justice. All of the individuals who had played a significant role in the case, be they family members, police officers or lawyers, were dead. However, at the time of Knighton’s execution he had a five-year-old niece, who was now in her eighties. She was deemed to be a person with sufficient interest to want her uncle’s memory vindicated, and the CCRC now provided an opportunity for her to attempt to achieve her aim.

  Thomas Pierrepoint, who hanged Knighton. (Author’s collection)

  On 27 October 2002, Lord Justice Judge, Mr Justice Butterfield, and Mr Justice McCombs sat to hear the appeal, but emphasised that they would not be deciding whether William Knighton had been innocent of the murder, but whether his conviction was safe. They had read the transcripts of the trial and earlier appeals, police files, details of the post-mortem, together with information relating to members of the Knighton family who had been directly concerned in the relevant events.

  The judges were quick to raise one issue that puzzled them, and this was the decision of the Crown not to call Ivy to give evidence at the original trial regarding her claim to have had sex with William, which meant that the murder was presented as being essentially motiveless. If Ivy had given such evidence it was, they suggested, reasonable to suppose that the original jury might have considered the possibility that Ada had discovered them together, and in a panic her son had killed her. Nevertheless, they also stated that the decision not to raise this issue was not prejudicial to Knighton’s case. Indeed, had it been raised, it may well have made it more difficult for him, and this would explain why the defence did not consider it to be in their client’s interests to mention it.

  The Old Bailey, where the Knighton case was eventually resolved. (Author’s collection)

  The judges asked themselves what was new, and they concluded that there was very little. Nevertheless, they agreed to listen to what the CCRC claimed was new evidence. T
his related to five small spots of blood, which had been found on the stairs leading from the first floor to the attic. This information, it was claimed was suppressed by Inspector Wheeldon, which cast a shadow over the integrity of the whole of his investigation of the crime.

  The CCRC had discovered notes made by the inspector at the time, in which he described the stains, which he believed had dripped from a raincoat that had been acting as a cover on the deceased’s bed. Lois Wake had told him that she had removed it and taken it to William’s room. Unable to prove categorically how the stains came to be on the stairs, it had been decided by the Crown at the time, not to make this a part of their case. Nevertheless, it was clear that the CCRC was wrong in suggesting it was undisclosed evidence, because the stains were raised at the original trial in 1927.

  Indeed, the defence attempted to use their existence to help their client as it added weight to his claim to have taken the bloodstained razor out of his mother’s room after her death, take it downstairs and return with it later, while in an epileptic daze. The judges drew attention to the following cross-examination of the inspector by Sir Henry on this very point:

  Sir Henry: Were there five spots, which you found on the stairs, such as might fall from a dripping razor?

  Inspector Wheeldon: Yes, possibly.

  Sir Henry: When you found the razor it was upstairs between the shoes?

  Inspector Wheeldon: Yes.

  Sir Henry: If the razor had been the instrument from which these spots had been dropped by anybody going down it would follow that the razor must have been brought up again.