The Case Of Mary Bell: A Portrait of a Child Who Murdered

by Gitta Sereny

  “Well, they never ran straight away, they just like toddled on.”

  “Yes. Well, after they had toddled away, go on from there May, will you?”

  “Well, she went back to him and she started to squeeze his neck again.”

  “Yes?”

  “And I tried to pull her off but she just went mad, she just screamed at me.”

  “Did she say or shout or scream anything in particular, or just make a screaming noise?”

  “Just made a screaming noise.”

  “Yes, go on?”

  “And we went, and I’m not sure if she—if she banged his head off that bit of corner wood or just he might have missed it, I don’t know.” (This particular bit of fencing was to be pointed out later to the Jury as having some significance.) “But,” she continued thoughtfully, “oh, she wasn’t banging his head like that, she just let it drop or something.”

  “My Lord,” said Harvey Robson, “when she said ‘like that,’ she demonstrated several times.”

  “Demonstrated with her hands,” Mr. Justice Cusack explained to the Jury, “the motions of somebody who would actually be banging.”

  “More than once, My Lord.”

  “Yes.”

  “Could you see what Brian was like then?” Harvey Robson asked Mary.

  “He was struggling and you could tell she was pressing hard because her fingertips, where her nails were, were going white.”

  “Yes?”

  “And Lassie was crying—no, that was the second time it was crying, I think. I’m not sure whether it was crying the first time or the second time, but we went back and I says I don’t want anything to do with this, Norma. I says, I should tell the police but I’m not going to. I think we . . .”

  “You were saying, ‘I think’ something?”

  “I don’t think we went back the railway way. I think we went back the car park way.”

  “Now when you say you went back and you started to go back, where was Brian?”

  “He was lying down.”

  “And did you notice anything about him?”

  “He just had a bit of slavery stuff on his mouth and when we come back the second time it looked like fluff.”

  “Don’t go back to the second time yet. Were his eyes open or shut when you left?”

  “They were a little bit open, I think.”

  “A little open, yes. And you say you went back, you think by the car park way?”

  “Yes, sir.” She said she and Norma went to their respective homes. She thought she went in for a drink, or something.

  The day before, R. P. Smith had examined Norma about these same events. “Where did you go,” he asked, “when you got out of the tank?”

  “May said, ‘The blocks, howay Norma,’” Norma answered.

  “May said to you, ‘The blocks, howay Norma’?”

  “Yes.”

  “All three of you went? Did you go to the blocks?” Mr. Smith’s questions to Norma were always simply phrased.

  “Yes.”

  “. . . What happened when you got to the blocks?”

  “May told Brian to lie down.”

  “Did he?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what did May do?”

  “Started to hurt him.”

  “How?”

  Norma did not answer. “How did she hurt him, Norma?” She still did not answer and began to hide her face. “What part of him did she hurt?” Mr. Smith asked again, but still she would not reply.

  “Just think a moment,” Mr. Justice Cusack said quietly. “Listen to me: you say that she started to hurt him?”

  “Yes,” Norma murmured.

  “Did he get hurt?”

  “Yes, ’cos she put her hands on his neck.”

  “What was there about that that hurt him?”

  “She used her other hand as well, but she had it across him like that,” she had made a gesture with her hand.

  “What was that?” asked the Judge.

  “Would you do it again, Norma?” Mr. Smith requested.

  Norma repeated the gesture. “She demonstrates the pinching of the nose between the thumb and fingers of her hand,” Mr. Justice Cusack explained to the Jury.

  “Covering the mouth with the remaining fingers,” Mr. Smith added. “. . . Did that hurt Brian?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I says to May, ‘Leave the bairn alone.’”

  “Did she?”

  “Yes, she left him alone ’cos somebody was coming; some boys came.”

  “Some boys came, did they?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where did they come from?”

  “I think some of them from the houses above.”

  “What happened when the boys came?”

  “Brian’s dog Lassie was there, sir.”

  “Had Lassie come all the way with you from where you first met Brian and Norman?”

  “Yes. . . .”

  “. . . So what happened when the boys came along and Lassie was there?”

  “Well, Lassie was behind the block and May said to the boys, ‘Get away or I’ll set the dog after you.’”

  “May said that to the boys, did she?”

  “Yes.”

  “But did the boys go away?”

  “Well, they was still around about.”

  “So what happened next?”

  “May went back to Brian.”

  “What was Brian doing?”

  “This time he was sitting on the block.”

  “Yes?”

  Someone up in the gallery began to cough and Norma, immediately distracted, turned and looked, curiously—

  “If somebody is going to have a coughing fit,” said the Judge, “will they please kindly go out of Court.”

  “What happened, Norma?” Mr. Smith urged her back to the proceedings. “There is Brian sitting on the block, and what happened then? Did May do something?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did she do?”

  “She throwed him on the ground ’cos she wanted him to lie down.”

  “Yes, and then?”

  “And she went back to hurt him and this time she wouldn’t let go of him when I told her to.” Norma stopped and began to sob.

  “I know that you get excited, Norma,” Mr. Smith said gently.

  “You have told me, Norma,” Mr. Justice Cusack took over, speaking very quietly, “that she went back to hurt him and she wouldn’t leave go?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened after that? Can you just tell me?”

  “She went back to him.”

  “What did she do to him?” Mr. Smith asked.

  “She started back with her hand again.”

  “What was she doing with her hand?” asked the Judge.

  “The same as the first time but I didn’t know she was going to really hurt him.”

  “You did not know what?”

  “I didn’t know that Mary was really going to hurt him.”

  “Did she hurt him?” asked Mr. Smith.

  “I think so.”

  “You think so? Why do you think so?”

  “’Cos when he was on the ground he started to go purple and she wouldn’t leave go of him.”

  “Could you hear anything—any noises?”

  She started to cry again. “Little Brian was trying to shove Mary’s hand—shove—shift Mary’s hand.”

  “Which hand was he trying to shift? I mean whereabouts upon him was the hand that he was trying to shift?”

  “Mary was—I mean little Brian was lying down and Mary kneeled down and she got her hand on his neck and Brian tried to shift away from her.”

  “Are you saying just one hand or was it two that she had on his neck?”

  “One.”

  “What was Mary doing with her other hand?”

  “I don’t remember ’cos I wasn’t there very long.”

  “Did you say anything to Mary about that?”

  “No. Before, when Mary was le
aning on him she said—when she was really hurting him she said, ‘Norma, take over, my hands are getting thick.’”

  “What did you do?”

  “I went away from her. She wouldn’t even leave him alone.”

  “Why did you go away?”

  “’Cos she wanted me to hurt him.”

  “Did you want to hurt him?”

  “No,” she shook her head vehemently.

  “You are shaking your head, Norma. Do you mean that you didn’t?”

  “No. I don’t like to.”

  “Did you want Brian to get hurt?”

  “No.”

  “So you went? You went away. What was the last you saw happening? What was happening when you went away?”

  “He was still alive, I know that.”

  “Did she still have hold of him?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “Where did you go to?”

  “Back the same way we come.”

  “Back over the fence, over the railway and through the hole in the fence, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And then where to?”

  “Up our back lane.”

  “Up your back lane. What did you do?” Norma didn’t answer.

  “You went up your back lane?”

  “Of Linda Routledge.” (59 Whitehouse Road.)

  “What did you do?”

  “For about twenty minutes we were making pom-poms.”

  Later in the cross-examination she was asked about the second time she and Mary had gone to the “Tin Lizzie”:

  “And later,” said Harvey Robson, “you went back and something was done with some scissors?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you use the scissors?”

  “I never even used them.”

  “Now I just want to ask you about the scissors. You had seen the scissors with Norman [Brian’s brother]. That’s right, isn’t it, earlier?”

  Norma hesitated. “I think you told us that Norman had the scissors, didn’t you?” Mr. Justice Cusack coaxed her.

  “Yes.”

  “And you took them from him?” Mr. Robson continued.

  “And gave them to Mary, yes, way down Crosshill Road.” (She had already said to Mr. Smith in her examination-in-chief that she had passed the scissors to Mary on their way down to the “Tin Lizzie” with Brian, before anything had happened to him.)

  “Was this when you first went with Brian?” Harvey Robson now asked.

  “Yes. I’m not sure, mind.”

  “You are not sure?”

  “But Mary still had them.”

  “I understand that, but you do not remember when you first gave them to her?”

  “The first time.”

  “If you don’t, say so.”

  “The first time,” she repeated.

  “The first time,” the Judge repeated.

  “She wanted them, as you say,” said Harvey Robson. “Did she tell you what she wanted them for?”

  “To make him baldy.”

  “To make him what?”

  “Baldy.”

  “To make him baldy,” the Judge said.

  “And was that when you were going with Brian?” asked Mr. Robson.

  “No.”

  “Toward the ‘Tin Lizzie,’ or later on?”

  “Later on.”

  “When you first gave them to her and you said you did that because she wanted them, did she tell you what she wanted them for at that time?”

  “No, because it was her secret.”

  “Did you see what she did with the scissors at that time?”

  “Start cutting some of his hair off,” she was getting confused.

  “Do you mean . . .?”

  Mr. Justice Cusack interrupted. “Would you allow me to intervene, because it may be I will get a response? First of all, Norman had the scissors, had he?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. She hated talking about the scissors and her answers concerning them were mumbled.

  “And then you had them, and then you were walking along the roadway?”

  “Down Crosshill Road.”

  “Walking across the road?”

  “Crosshill.”

  “Yes, and then Mary had the scissors?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where were you when you handed over the scissors to Mary in the road?”

  “Crosshill. . . .”

  “Crossing,” said the Judge, misunderstanding her. “And when you handed them over to Mary, did she say then why she wanted them?”

  “No,” Norma said again. “It was a secret.”

  “No,” the Judge repeated. “It was a secret.”

  “Would this be right—I think it is, Norma,” said Mr. Robson, “that something was said about making him baldy only when you went back the second time?”

  “I am not sure. It was second or third time.”

  “Second or third time. . . . And you do not remember what Mary had done with the scissors while you were at the ‘Tin Lizzie’ the first time?”

  “No, because I never seen them when I . . .” she floundered.

  “Isn’t this right: that you yourself got the scissors when you were back near your home after the first time, or it may be the second time?”

  “No, it was only the first time, because I gave them to May when we were going down Crosshill.”

  They had approached it from every side, had tried to surprise, trick, and shock her into contradicting herself. But she had come full circle; she had handed the scissors to Mary who wanted them for her own reasons on their first visit to the “Tin Lizzie”; Mary had held onto them, had then, on their way down the second time, said she wanted to make Brian “baldy” and had proceeded to cut off some of his hair.

  Mary’s story about the scissors was quite different. When Harvey Robson asked her whether, after having gone into her house to get a drink of water or something, she had stayed in there, or come out again, she spoke not only of the scissors:

  “Come out,” she said, “and Norma asked us to get a pen and I says no.” (In her statement to the police, Mary had alleged that Norma told her to get a pen because she wanted to “write a note on his stomach.”)

  “Yes, go on,” said Harvey Robson.

  “Norma had a pair of scissors and a razor blade.”

  “When did you first see the scissors?”

  “When—when we come back. When Norma asked me to get a pen.”

  “And when you first saw the scissors, where were they?”

  “Norma was putting them down her pants. . . .”

  “‘Putting them down her pants,’ she said,” Mr. Justice Cusack repeated.

  “Pants. Yes, My Lord,” said Harvey Robson. “When did you first see the razor blade?” he asked Mary.

  “The same time as the scissors, sir.”

  “You say Norma had a razor blade. What did she do with it? Did she hold it in her hand or put it somewhere, or what?”

  “I think she carried it in her hand, sir.”

  “And did you go somewhere?”

  “We went back, sir.”

  “How did that come about?”

  “Norma says, ‘Are you coming back?’ and I was—I just says yes, and I just obeyed her and I went.”

  (This time she had really made a mistake: when she claimed to have “obeyed” Norma, this was so highly improbable that almost for the first time since the beginning of the trial, there were smiles on many faces and even a few nervous giggles, immediately suppressed.)

  “Yes?” asked Harvey Robson.

  “I was all—I felt funny.”

  “Yes, and you went back, do you mean to the same place?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And what did you find when you got to the same place, the blocks?”

  “Brian, sir.”

  “And was he still on the ground?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Yes, go on, what happened when you were back there?”

  “Norma was
cutting some of his hair. Cutting some of his hair with the scissors.”

  “Yes?”

  “I never saw her cut his stomach with the razor blade,” she volunteered, employing the technique of making something more credible by denying knowledge of it before it was brought up, “but I saw her cut just above his knee.”

  “When she was cutting the hair—before she cut the hair, did she say anything about him?”

  “I can’t remember, but Lassie started to whine.”

  “Lassie had gone back with you?”

  “Lassie stopped there and Lassie started to cry, but she says, ‘Don’t you start or you’ll get the same,’ and she went for it, but it growled and she says, ‘Now, now, don’t be hasty.’”

  “While this was going on, May, what were you doing?”

  “I was just standing and looking. I couldn’t, I couldn’t, I couldn’t move. It’s as though some glue was holding us down. I just couldn’t move.”

  “Yes, did you say anything to Norma or did she say anything to you while you were at the blocks?”

  “She asked us to cut some of his hair.”

  “Yes, and did you answer?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Well, I never answered, but there was just—I don’t think I answered, but there was just a man, well, not a man, a boy, a teenager, that was coming down over the railway, along the west part of it.” She continued to tell how this young man shouted at some children who were playing some way off.

  “. . . When this man started shouting what did you and Norma do?” asked Harvey Robson.

  “We thought he was coming over to us and so Norma dropped the scissors and put the razor blade under that big square slab, and we ran away.”

  After that they had walked back toward home and Mary recounted the conversation she claims to have had with Norma:

  “. . . Norma says, ‘You should not have done that, you know, May,’ she says, ‘you are getting into . . .’ and then she just stopped and I says, I never even done anything, because I never, and then after that she says ‘Trouble,’ and just after that she says, ‘Trouble.’”

  Her account of this conversation was curiously disconcerting, for although by this time no one underrated Mary’s intelligence or power of invention, the details and the “wording” she quoted were almost too genuine for comfort.

  Norma, in the course of her examination-in-chief by her counsel the previous day, had told a very confused story about the razor blade, suddenly out of the blue on the witness stand volunteering the information that she had told a lie to Chief-Inspector Dobson about seeing Mary with it.