Inseparable Bond

by David Poulter

  On arrival at his house, he was even more concerned to see a police car blocking his driveway, with a hive of activity around the small building.

  He parked the car and was approached by three detectives who wanted to know his recent whereabouts. Keeping calm, he entered his house whilst being bombarded with questions, looked at by the neighbours curiously at either side.

  The police escorted him into the house and continued the grilling into his movements but with little evidence against him, they reluctantly left and the street cleared of everyone except the neighbours, who were gathered en masse at this latest outcome on their doorsteps.

  It was time to lay low; he closed his curtains to avoid the gathering outside his house and went upstairs to his bedroom where he hid under the covers of his bed.

  The next day the police returned and neighbours watched as they systematically dug up the front garden of John Bell’s house, but gradually admitted their search was fruitless and they cleared the area.

  Detectives returned to the house with a warrant for John Bell’s arrest and he was escorted to the waiting police car, watched by horrified neighbours.

  A pure coincidence led to his arrest, One of Bell’s employees was a close friend of his latest victim to visit his house, he was the young lad who had been offered a pay rise and a Kentucky meal which he never lived to enjoy either.

  The lad’s friend had searched for him and went to report his disappearance to the police, stating that he was last seen getting into Bell’s car outside his factory.

  This resulted in a massive search for the missing youngster, due to the nature of his disappearance being similar to the growing list of further missing young kids.

  The game was up and Bell knew it, although he refused to admit to any crimes or disappearance of his employee, even when they read out the names of his victims.

  Meanwhile, more and more human remains were being discovered in the field by Bell’s house, yet only he knew his victims were dissolved in acid

  The police forensic team set about the interior of Bell’s house while he was safely in custody and made their gruesome find in the basement. On sifting through the sludgy remains of the acid bath, they found human body parts which had not dissolved and the blocked sewer, which contained a mass of human bones.

  Upstairs they found the bloodstained tiles in the bathroom of his latest victim and human hair on the stair carpet leading to the basement.

  This was the evidence they needed to convict Bell, but could not identify any of their findings or the amount of victims which had suffered at his evil hands.

  The trial was held at Preston Crown Court, which attracted intense attention from the media with the courtroom being packed every day, and outside throngs of spectators blocked the pavements to watch the protagonists arrive and leave.

  On the arrival of Bell, apparently amused by his fate, the police had trouble controlling the mob as they surged forward to get a closer look at the police van as it entered the court gates. The sensational details of his sordid life had enthralled the nation, particularly the residents of Thornton and the gay establishments of Blackpool.

  Newspaper reporters in court could not disguise their disgust for the killer or their sympathy for the relatives of his victims.

  Fewer murderers have rivalled John Bell for cold hearted, premeditated callousness and cruelty of which the judge summed up on his guilty verdict by saying, “I shall recommend to the Home Secretary the sentence for your crimes will be life which is a long period but you are an unusually dangerous man, I express the hope that where I have said life imprisonment, it will mean precisely that.”

  As he left the court, he lowered his head flanked by four prison guards and was taken down to await his immediate departure to Strangeways Prison in Manchester, with only him knowing how his victims died through the unimaginable terror they had experienced at the hands of John Bell

  The person or persons responsible for the bodies found in the shallow graves around the area is still at large, with Bell paying the price for their freedom and continuation of brutality and murder.

  BANGED UP

  Prison can mean reality, something ultimately known, with special but familiar sights, sounds and smells, Or it can be a fantasy, something that one reads or hears about but never sees, terrifying, mysterious, and perhaps exciting.

  To the architect, a neat solution to a complex housing problem, To the psychologist, a career in the study of human behaviour; but to thousands of people, an experience which slows up time, which crowds them together, sets them apart and changes the course of their lives.

  In practice, much of the ‘treatment and training’ in prison is designed to keep people occupied at least some of the time. There is work, usually of a simple kind, and a few leisure activities. But quite a lot of informal learning does occur, though it may not exactly be of a social kind. Criminal techniques are often discussed and passed on.

  John Bell was to enter one of the countries oldest and severest prisons in the system.

  Strangeways, in the city of Manchester, was a mere sixty miles from where he committed his brutal and sadistic acts. It was an old Victorian purpose built building with a reputation of housing some of the countries most brutal killers.

  Inmates have to sleep two or three to a cell constructed over a century ago for one; the overcrowding, the lack of space and the constant shortage of staff combine to produce a daily routine with little work and in which boredom is the main characteristic.

  This was to be home for John Bell for the next twenty years of his life. The white van with its blacked-out windows pulls to a halt at the large double entrance doors to the building. After a few moments, the doors open and the van drives through with the doors quickly closing behind it. Once in the yard, the doors of the van open and Bell is escorted from the vehicle to the large metal single door, flanked by prison officers.

  Two officers hold him as a group of others prepare the paperwork at the small desk in the corridor. Bell stood handcuffed in blue overalls, looking forward at the officers until he was escorted to the desk.

  The chief officer picked up a clip-board and in a loud and husky voice read out the rules and regulations to Bell, ‘O.K. Bell, listen and listen only once, this is how we do things here, 7am your cell will be unlocked and you will ‘slop-out’ in the lavatory at the end of the landing, 7.30am you will be locked back in your cell, 8am you will go down for breakfast, 8.45am you will exercise in the yard, 9am you will start work where details will be given to you later, 12pm you will go for lunch, 1pm you will be banged up in your cell, 2.15pm you will exercise for one hour, 3.15pm back in your cell. At 5pm you will go for tea. 6pm you will go back to your cell, 8pm, lights out.’

  Bell stared at the officer as he read this out to him, while the guards released the handcuffs from his wrists.

  As Bell looked up, he realised he was being watched and not just by the staff in the central control room with short-circuit televisions, but by herds of prisoners who were chanting while he stood motionless in the centre of a large area with various tall and gloomy sections, which radiated out like the spokes of a wheel.

  There is tier upon tier of cells in each direction with metal stairs joining them and going up to the top. The whole prison would in this way be easily supervised from the central vantage point. As Bell was marched to a room at the end of the corridor, prisoners in their cells turned their shaven heads to face the wall which was compulsory when staff or prisoners approached, the only words spoken were orders.

  Part of this wing had been slicked-up where the old echoing floors had been covered by vinyl, some doors had been painted in bright colours but the dark green brick walls remained the same, underlining the institutional appearance.

  Bell and the prison officers enter the room at the end of the corridor where a small thin man wearing a large white coat stands behind a metal table.

  ‘Bring him over here,’ he orders the two officers as he watches Bel
l approach the desk, looking disapprovingly at the latest inmate. ‘Right Bell, strip down, everything off and pass your clothes to the officer.’ Bell took off his blue overalls and stood naked in front of the thin man whilst the officers grinned as they looked at his hairless thin body and his well-endowed manhood. The doctor struggled putting on a pair of surgical gloves while glaring at Bell. ‘Bend down and touch your toes, lad,’ as the two officers placed a hand on his shoulders to bend him forward.

  The doctor came from the other side of the table and placed his hands on each cheek of his arse to widen the rectum where he inserted his finger in search of any illegal substance. Bell flinched as the finger penetrated his rectum when one of the officers laughed and said, ‘Twenty years inside here Bell, you’ll get more than a finger up there once this lot get their hands on you.’ The doctor retracted his finger with another flinch from Bell and told him to stand up straight, ‘Clothes back on now,’ he sternly said as the officer threw his overalls back to him. He quickly dressed and was again marched out of the room.

  By this time, Bell was experiencing a feeling of low self-esteem as he was led along the dark green corridor, passing other cells containing silent inmates facing the walls.

  He entered an open cell, the closely defined world in which he was to spend his term where everything is exaggerated; rumours, tension, the power of one individual over others who cannot get away. He looked at his bed where he was to lay staring at the walls with a lack of identity, being a number, one amongst hundreds of other prisoners and all dressed the same. The boredom, resentment and rebellion would grind him to his lowest ebb as he would reflect on a failed life. The only excitement for him to break the daily routine would be the occasional visit from his mother and elder sister.

  The cell was cold, a blanket and sheet had been placed at the end of the bed, being the top of a bunk of two, and at the other side was a single bed with an uncovered mattress and a stained pillow. A small barred window gave a small stream of sunlight on to the steel latrine in the corner of the cell. A dull light bulb centred the ceiling, encased in wire netting.

  The two prison officers left the cell with the door open, one turned to him as he left saying, ‘At 12 o’clock, Bell, downstairs for lunch, then to the desk for your work details, but first take a bath in the room at the end of the corridor.’ Sitting on his bed, he gazed at the window, inwardly struggling at the thought of his new role, with anxieties about his acceptance from his fellow cellmates who were on work detail for the morning, then grabbed a towel and made his way to the bathroom.

  The room was colder than the cell, housing six baths and a row of twelve open showers opposite a row of doorless toilets.

  A screw opened the bathroom door and told him to run a bath while he stood next to the bath watching me all the time. The heavy atmosphere and the screws presence is deliberate, it’s designed to have a psychological effect of intimidation on potentially troublesome inmates.

  After his bath he went back to his cell, listening to the clanking of keys and shutting of cell doors. He entered his cell to find a black guy lying on the lower mattress of the bunk bed. He didn’t speak as he turned to face the wall.

  ‘Hi, I’m John Bell,’ he said.

  ‘Ye’ I know who you are, just keep your dick in your pants and you’ll live through it,’ the black guy replied.

  Bell placed his wet towel on his bed and left his cell for his lunch. As Bell walked past the row of open cells, realising the important inmates on this high security wing, those involved in a daring bank robbery or skilled safe breakers. On the other hand, child molesters like Bell are despised and may be given a rough time. The prison department classifies inmates into security categories and this too, can reinforce criminal prestige. If you need to be a category ‘A’ which means you are a top security risk, then you are likely to be somebody who matters and to be respected. Although Bell was considered an ‘A’ category, he had a long way to go before he gained any respect, due to the severity of his crimes against young children.

  He entered the row of inmates waiting with their tin trays moving slowly down to the counter, the noise in the food hall was deafening with about two hundred mean looking guys, all dressed the same and sitting in rows on large bench-style tables, sitting on red plastic chairs slumped over their meals. No one looked up as Bell searched for a quiet seat away from the crowds, in desperation to hide his identity.

  Bell was aware that prisoners were particularly prone to split people up in their own minds into black and white, good or bad. The reality is that everyone is some shade of grey. As he sat with his lunch of stew and mash, he looked at each side of his table and the other inmates, wondering what colour he was to be branded once they realised the extent of his torture and murderous lifestyle.

  After his meal, he left the food hall to go to the desk for instructions into his work details. He approached the desk to a waiting screw looking through files behind a netted hatch, ‘I’m Bell, been sent for work detail,’ he told the screw.

  ‘Ah, Bell, right, you’re starting off in the laundry, down that corridor turn right and right again and you see it at the end,’ he firmly instructed Bell.

  The prison laundry was a better job than making road signs, although he was hoping for a job in the garden. He entered the hot laundry room where a dozen other inmates were folding sheets and towels, watched over by a handful of screws lazing around on the industrial machines. The laundry room was well-equipped to introduce modern industrial techniques with the adjoining room being a modern workshop, which produced goods comparable to those in the outside world.

  Bell was taken over to an industrial dryer and commenced loading a trolley of wet sheets through the open glass door.

  Bell realized looking back, that his reputation would soon be out with the publicity surrounding the case and that he was bound to be the one the others were looking for, even the screws given half a chance but in Strangeways, nothing ever goes unnoticed so it was only a matter of time and he had plenty of that ahead of him.

  After his first two hours of laundry labour, the bell sounded and he followed everyone else out to the corridor. He went straight to his cell where the screws were opening all the doors for the waiting inmates. He entered his cell and climbed on to his bed, staring at the ceiling.

  His cellmate arrived a few minutes later but didn’t speak a word to Bell, just a disapproving glance as he removed his shoes

  He started to get undressed and Bell lay with his hand supporting his head, watching him as the late afternoon sun streamed rays of light on his black perspiring naked body. He paraded around the cell before doing a succession of press-ups with his thick, black, heavy penis folding on the cold slate floor as he lowered his body.

  Bell watched the firm cheeks of his arse tighten as he raised his body, which slowly dragged his long, thick penis along the floor tiles. Bell watched as he went over to the small metal toilet bowl and turned his back as he pissed in the bowl. Looking at his back, torso and firm arse, his penis and large black balls could be seen from his open legs where a powerful stream of urine loudly splashed on the water in the toilet.

  He turned to Bell, showing a full frontal view of the muscle rippled torso with a few remaining drop of urine dripping from his half erect penis.

  Bell had a tendency for a ‘bit of black’ but it had previously been with young lads who had drifted into Blackpool from Birmingham and Liverpool.

  Although his speechless cellmate was an attractive 35-year-old, he would most certainly be the controller of any sexual encounter, where for Bell he had never been the submissive type.

  Bell’s eyes followed him as he went over to a pile of books displayed on the only shelf and removed a glossy magazine of naked women.

  Bell lay on his back, staring at the dimly lit ceiling, listening to the clanking of keys from the corridor and the heavy breathing of the guy below as he rapidly invigorated his erect penis, masturbating over the pictures of naked women in his m
agazine.

  Bell listened to his groaning as he ejaculated and threw the magazine from his bed. His rapid panting slowed to a normal level before he jumped off the bed to reach for a towel by the small wash basin, where Bell got a quick glance of the white sperm tricking down the black skin of his flat stomach into a mass of bristly black pubic hair. He wiped the towel down his stomach and pulled back the rolls of flesh from his thick sagging penis to wipe the sperm from underneath his foreskin.

  Throwing the towel to the corner of the room, he threw himself heavily onto his bed. The lights went out with only a small stream of the late sun’s rays making silhouettes on the stained wall.

  John’s cellmate was Rick Smith, a tall handsome, charming and well-educated black man but his gentle polite manner, along with the looks to make any girl swoon, and the old fashioned courtesy to appeal to their parents and anyone who met him, was later consigned to a twenty-year life sentence.

  His crime spree had span over three counties, Greater Manchester, Yorkshire and Humberside, where on conviction the authorities in those counties were convinced that beneath his disarming appearance lurked a Jekyll and Hyde character.

  His victims were raped, clubbed, strangled and finally beaten to death.

  His first crime at the age of 21, was the kidnapping and battering of an 18-year-old girl out shopping in the Trafford Centre. Yet the college graduate, who had planned to become a lawyer, always maintained his innocence.

  The bloody trail of attacks followed Smith around for many years as six other girls in the Manchester and Leeds area disappeared, all with strikingly similar and attractive appearance as the young women in the Trafford Centre.

  In January the first girl vanished from her bedroom in Starbeck near Harrogate, the only hint of her fate was a bloodstain on her pillow. Then in March, a 19-year-old chemist’s assistant left her shop in Wetherby, she was never seen again.

  A month later, the third girl left her college in Headlingly, near Leeds, to go to the cinema, she too, never returned.