by Gitta Sereny
Norma is the third of eleven children. Her father, Thomas Bell, a good and honest man, has for the last fifteen years been unable to work because of his bad health. Her mother, now careworn, must have been very pretty not so long ago. She has an endearing quality of warmth and gaiety which she has somehow managed to impart to her family—a tribe of healthy and good-looking children, with a strong sense of family identity and loyalty. Several of them appeared every afternoon and—not actually allowed into court—waved to Norma from the doors after the end of each session. She was equally strongly supported by her parents, and various relations who attended every day of the trial. They made an excellent impression on the Court, and gained the sympathy of all those present.
Mary was a very different child from Norma. Also dark-haired, she was smaller, with brilliant blue eyes and a heart-shaped face. Exceptionally pretty, with a pert Northumberland voice, she had an agile body and a remarkably organized brain which could store up information like a sponge. Her face, intellectually very alive, had a perpetual listening quality, but, except in anger, looked emotionally blank.
During the trial she only listened and very rarely looked at anyone outside those giving evidence. If she did, then only furtively, for a mere second: she averted her glance the moment her eyes met the eyes of another person. She was only to cry, briefly, three times. She certainly never smiled during the actual proceedings. “A woman up in the gallery smiles at me,” she said one day to one of her police escorts, “but I don’t smile back. It isn’t a smiling matter. The Jury wouldn’t like it if I smiled, would they?”
In contrast to her generally small-boned frame, she had a wide, short neck and broad hands and fingers which, even when she was very quiet, were rarely still. She stroked her dress, her hair, herself, or, with a backward motion, wiped her mouth. Mary’s nerves were in her hands. She flexed her fingers, spreading them wide, and constantly had a finger in her mouth, though never her thumb. One of the things noticed by many of the observers—psychiatrists, child care workers, and journalists—was that, while throughout the trial Norma was often held and petted by her various escorts and handed handkerchiefs to dry her tears, Mary’s escorts’ main contact with her was their instinctively corrective gesture of pulling her finger out of her mouth—as if it mattered. I only saw one single policewoman, on one single occasion—when Mary broke down on the witness stand—put an arm around her shoulders. Partly it was because her straight back and grim attention did not admit fatigue, or compassion. Partly, however, it seemed that she provoked an unwilling and perplexed sense of distaste, not only in many of those who attended her but in many of those who watched.
Mary’s parents also attended every day, but they seemed to arouse little sympathy. Her mother, Elizabeth Bell, known as Betty, wore a long straggly blond wig. The papers were to describe her as a blond: no one ever saw her long luxuriant black hair. Her face, white with strain, showed the traces of heavy make-up. She was emotional, showing frequent indignation at the accusations leveled at her child and many times during the trial went out, her wild sobs temporarily stopping the proceedings. The only visible contacts between mother and child were on the rare occasions when Mary moved and her mother, with no noticeable gentleness in the gesture, tapped her on the head.
William (Billy) Bell, Mary’s father, a tall, handsome man with springy black hair and red-blond sideburns, was very quiet throughout the trial. He mostly sat hunched over, his chin cupped in his hands, showing no expression whatever was said or done. Nor did he move or turn his head at any of his wife’s demonstrative exits or reappearances.
There was sympathy for Mary’s maternal grandmother from Glasgow, who, always in hat and coat, sat between her daughter and son-in-law throughout the trial. A small, fine-boned, painfully thin woman with a deeply lined face, she was straight-backed and silent. Hardly moving at all she seemed to grow smaller day by day as she listened to every word that was said. One was aware of her all the time; her mute pain and shame were haunting to see.
These mixed reactions among the onlookers grew stronger day by day, but they began in those first minutes of the morning of 5 December, when one child clung and was hugged by her parents in quiet despair, while the other one, despite the quiet and decorous conduct of her other relatives, was immediately identified with the conspicuous conduct of her mother.
The three dull knocks behind the scenes, followed by the traditional call from the Usher, “Be upstanding in Court,” brought silence to the room.
Neither Mary or Norma had been prepared for the formality of the scene. As the Judge entered in slow and measured steps, the bewigged barristers and Court officials bowing deeply and slowly while the many police officers stood stiffly to attention, Mary watched with lively interest but Norma turned around bewildered, looking from her mother to her father, her face reflecting that mixture between a nervous smile and incipient tears that was to become so familiar to us. Her mother shook her head and gently pushed her back to face the Court—another gesture we were to see a hundred times.
Mr. Justice (Sir Ralph) Cusack was appointed a High Court Judge on the Queen’s Bench in 1966 and is one of the most respected judges in Britain. He is known to be meticulously fair, but at the time of the trial—which was later to be described as one of the most difficult in the annals of legal history—it was rumored that he had little experience with children, perhaps because he is a bachelor. While he was occasionally testy with counsel he never once lost patience with the children and seemed to know exactly and instinctively when to apply gentleness or discipline to help them over many difficult moments. His skill was especially apparent with Norma, who lacked Mary’s astonishing poise and seeming self-containment and control during the trial.
Before the beginning of the trial proper he asked the defense lawyers whether they wished him to prohibit the girls’ names from being published—in view of their ages this was within his power.
But both defense counsels said they had no objection. It was explained later that, although everybody in Scotswood already knew who was involved, unless the names were used a slur could eventually remain on other children. In view of those circumstances the Judge allowed publication.
Mr. Justice Cusack warned the Jury that the case might take several days and draw considerable attention. During adjournments—which he would permit in view of the children’s ages—none of the Jury were to discuss the case with anyone or allow anyone to discuss it with them.
Mr. Rudolph Lyons, Queen’s Counsel, a leading “silk” (a term derived from the silk gowns worn by Q.C.’s) and now Circuit Judge at Liverpool,1 opened the case for the prosecution at 11:30 A.M. He was to speak for six hours.
The Jury faced an unhappy and distressing task, he said, because the girls were so young. They were charged with two murders, within the space of little more than two months. . . . He told the jury that in the course of the evidence they might find certain points of similarity between the two charges. For example, the choice of victim and perhaps also the method of killing. The prosecution contended that such similarities tended to indicate that both boys were killed by the same person or persons. But, although they might find these and other links between the two cases, that did not absolve them from considering each of the two charges separately, but not of course in artificial isolation.
During this first hour of Mr. Lyons’ presentation both girls listened intently to every word he said. But it became apparent very quickly, even on that first morning, that, while both of them understood some words and phrases he used, there were others Mary could understand but Norma could not—and some neither could understand at all. Mary’s capacity for concentration, or possibly simulation of concentration, was so exceptional that it was only in the course of time that one began to recognize the mannerisms which indicated that she had temporarily stopped listening and was daydreaming. Even then, however, she seemed capable of two levels of awareness, for the moment anything was mentioned that interested or puzzled her,
she whispered to her solicitor asking him to explain. Norma’s face, especially at the beginning of the sessions when she was less tired, mirrored every degree of comprehension or bewilderment: a manifestation of childishness everyone in Court was as aware of as of her inability to sustain concentration for long.
After the lunch recess, Mr. Lyons began his specific description of the two crimes. He first dealt in detail with the Crown’s case concerning Martin Brown. He described to the Jury how the little boy’s body had been found: the two girls’ appearance on the scene within minutes of the discovery of the body; their apparent eagerness to be involved as shown by their running to get Mrs. Finlay, and their subsequent approach to Mrs. Brown; the arrival of the police; the examination by the pathologist; and finally the fact that the police regarded the case as an unsolved mystery and not a possible murder until the similar death of Brian Howe, two months later. He then spoke of the breaking into the Woodlands Crescent Day Nursery (on 26 May) and the finding, by the police (on 27 May), of the four “We Murder . . .” notes (on which almost the whole case of Martin Brown’s murder was going to hinge). At that time, said Mr. Lyons, the police had no idea who was responsible for the notes, or for breaking into the Nursery. . . .
. . . But after the murder of Brian Howe in July, said Mr. Lyons—and there was no doubt that he was murdered by asphyxia too—it became clear that both or one of the accused girls was responsible for that murder. They were subsequently questioned about the breaking and entering of the Nursery (on 26 May) and as a result of their answers and of comparisons made by a handwriting expert between the four notes and the undoubted handwriting of the two girls, the prosecution was submitting, Mr. Lyons said, that there could be no doubt the intruders in the Day Nursery were Norma and Mary. The handwriting expert, Mr. Page, was given a lot of other material to examine too. In due course, Mr. Lyons said, Mr. Page would produce a set of charts to show the reasons for his opinion.
The Jury were then handed photostat copies of the four notes alleged to have been written by the two girls and photostats of the specimens of their handwriting.
On the first occasion, and in the days to come, whenever photographs or photostats were examined, Mary could be observed leaning over, trying to see them over the shoulders of her counsel in front of her.
Norma not only evinced complete lack of interest in all documents, but, on several occasions—some of which were to remain in the audience’s mind as some of the most poignant of the trial—desperately resisted any attempt to ask her to acknowledge or identify such photographs.
Mr. Lyons said that both girls had each written one note, and the other two were a result of their joint efforts. “If you accept the prosecution case about the handwriting on these notes,” the prosecutor said, “then you have these two girls writing within hours of the death of Martin Brown that ‘we murdered Martin Brown.’ Maybe . . .” he went on, “they could not resist the temptation in their childish way of showing to the police how superior they were by writing about something they did not know.” He proceeded with the other events that followed the death of Martin Brown; Mary’s calling on Mrs. Brown to ask to see Martin’s body in his coffin, the two girls’ constant visits to Mrs. Finlay and their harping on Martin’s death; and Mary’s visit to the house of Brian Howe in July and her telling his sister and a friend that “Norma got hold of little Martin by the throat” and showing those girls how Norma allegedly throttled Martin. At this time, Mr. Lyons said, no publicity had been given to the possibility (never even officially considered by the uniformed police who would otherwise have turned the case over to the C.I.D.) that the little boy had died as the result of asphyxia.
Yet here was the suggestion, made by Mary, that Norma had seized Martin by the throat. The prosecution would therefore ask the Jury to consider that Mary knew the cause of the boy’s death (long before it was made public).
Detective Chief-Inspector Dobson said he interviewed Norma on 14 August in the presence of her solicitor. He told her that he had reason to believe she and Mary broke into the Day Nursery and wrote some notes. Norma replied that she had broken into the Nursery the following weekend, but not the one Chief-Inspector Dobson was talking about; that on that second weekend she had been in the loft, but not in the school itself at all, and that she had never written any notes. She agreed to give samples of her handwriting.
When shown the four notes she said, “I’ll tell you something: that is Mary’s writing. I have not seen them notes before.” Later she denied Mary’s allegation (to Irene F.) that she had murdered Martin Brown and said, “I never.” Mr. Lyons said that at this stage Norma declined to make a statement, saying she was losing [her] voice and would like to keep it. Her solicitor had intervened and said the interview was at an end.
On 2 August, Mr. Dobson had interviewed Mary in the presence of her solicitor. Mary admitted spilling disinfectant and “pink stuff” over the floor, pulling some papers from the office, and writing part of the notes. She denied having written anything about murder and said, “Me and her were at the top at the time it happened. We went to the house and went in. There were crowds of people. We saw Martin in the workman’s arms. We went to tell his Auntie Rita.”
Mr. Lyons pointed out to the Jury that one phrase in that statement was of particular importance—seeing Martin in the workman’s arms. Asked why Norma wrote on the note, “We murdered Martin Brown” Mary replied, “For a giggle. I don’t think she could have done it. She was up at the top with me.”
Mr. Lyons said that fibers found on Martin Brown’s clothing and the clothing of Brian Howe were found by scientific examination (evidence for which would be produced) to match exactly fibers from a gray woolen dress worn by Mary.
He said that in September of this year a teacher at Mary’s school had found two of Mary’s exercise books: on the cover of one of them, entitled “My Newsbook,” there was a poster which said “Evening Chronicle, Saturday, 1968” and then in larger words “Boy found dead in old house.” Mr. Lyons said that the important part of this document was a drawing of a little boy, the main significance of which was that Mary had told Chief-Inspector Dobson that the only time she saw the body of Martin was in the workman’s arms. Yet, he said, here she was drawing what the prosecution submitted was the position in which the body was found, and this before there had been any mention in public of tablets, by either the police or the press. “Is it possible,” the prosecutor asked, “that this was just some clue laying by a very clever little girl?”
There were three points Mr. Lyons’ interpretation immediately raised in one’s mind. The main one: even accepting in advance—as every single person the author spoke to certainly did—that Mary was probably guilty, what exactly would be so clever about drawing attention to herself in this way? Or did he mean on the contrary that she was outsmarting herself through not being able to resist showing off her superior knowledge? What had to be remembered though was that she did not do this drawing for anyone in particular, or to show to anyone in particular, but put it in her newsbook at school where, in the ordinary course of events, only her teacher would see it. Could this really be considered a clever little girl showing off, or is it not much more likely an unconscious cry for help? Secondly: Mr. Lyons’ insistence (reported in the newspapers the next day and on the face of it generally accepted) that it was extraordinary for Mary to know about the bottle of tablets and the position Martin’s body was found in. This was not acceptable because—always remembering that at this point of the trial her guilt had not been established—with three schoolboys and two local workmen having seen and probably described the terrible scene to a number of people, there could be little doubt at all that by the evening of 25 May a large part of the population of Scotswood knew all about the bottle of tablets and the position Martin was found in. And that therefore there was no reason why she should not have known too.
In her conversation with Mr. Dobson, Mary never claimed specifically that she didn’t know what position
the boy had been found in—she said “We saw Martin in the workman’s arms” and (irrespective of her eventually established guilt) there is good reason to believe that, with all their running in and out of the building at the time, the two girls would have seen him in the workman’s arms.
These points—in an effort to maintain an open mind—at the time occurred to this observer. There is of course no question but that it was entirely proper for the prosecution to present the case exactly as it did. However, what has emerged since as the important aspect of this and many subsequent occasions is that this emphasis on Mary’s “cleverness” in instances where this “cleverness” can also be interpreted differently, that is as a cry for help, greatly added to the impression which seems to have been generally accepted: that, irrespective of medical evidence, what we had here was not a “sick” child, but a clever little MONSTER. A conviction which may be at least in part to blame for the fact that few if any questions were asked or information aired about her background and her life during the trial, and that the dispositions made for her by the authorities concerned when the trial was over were never really questioned in the sense of being unsuitable for her—only that they might cause discomfort to other people.
Mr. Lyons completed his presentation by beginning the detailed description of the events following the death of Brian Howe. Describing how Brian had been found, and the police investigation that followed the discovery of his body, Mr. Lyons said that in statements taken by the police each of the two girls told lie after lie, eventually ending up admitting that they had both been there when Brian was killed but each saying that the other had committed the act.
He said that in one of the statements, which could only be described as “cunning,” Mary had tried to involve a totally innocent small boy in these events.