Let This Be Our Secret

by Deric Henderson

At the height of his career, Colin Howell was handling between 2,500 and 3,000 appointments each year, the majority of them women who, he claimed, tended to look after their teeth better than men. When he first began to specialize in implantology in 1999, most of his patients were in their fifties, but as the years passed he began to notice more and more younger people coming to him for cosmetic work. Most were women who wanted sparkling new teeth and a brilliant smile to brighten their appearance and boost their self-confidence.

  In the late 1990s and early 2000s, implantology was very much at the cutting edge of dentistry in the UK and Ireland. A dental implant is typically a small, screw-shaped attachment, usually made from titanium, which is inserted into the jawbone to take the place of a missing tooth root. Once the bone has attached firmly to the implant, a replacement tooth is secured to the top of the implant. The new tooth can look, feel and perform just like a natural tooth. It is also possible to use multiple implants to support a denture or bridge. Implants are more comfortable than conventional dentures, because there is no slippage or movement, and even though it is an expensive process – generally in the region of £2,000 per implant – which can take between three and nine months, the benefits are immediate. Implants help maintain the shape and structure of the jawbone, and can do wonders for the self-confidence of the patient.

  Howell’s approach in the surgery was generally business-like and professional, and most of the women who came to see him were impressed by his quiet manner. He dressed casually in chinos and an open-necked shirt, and he often arrived at the clinic carrying a small shoulder bag. Howell was always in a hurry. He might say a quick hello to the girls at the reception desk, gather up his mail and sprint upstairs for the first appointment. He was efficient with his paperwork and his appointments book was nearly always full. The initial consultations and assessments were normally carried out on Thursdays and, once he decided what treatment a particular patient needed, they were sent well-tabulated letters outlining various options and the costs involved. Patients came from all over and for different reasons. He was prepared to accommodate them, no matter the hour, and sometimes he was called upon to work at weekends to facilitate patients with Monday-to-Friday jobs.

  Howell was clearly the boss in the surgery, as one former patient confirms: ‘He came across as a really powerful and influential man. If he said jump, the staff would have asked, “How high?” All the staff ran around him. It was as if he was this God-like figure, this God-like man. Everybody bowed to him and did whatever he wanted them to do … The nurses were lovely and made you feel at ease. They would not have said very much. They would have been very quiet … He would have dominated the whole conversation.’ Regular patients noticed that there were few glossy-style magazines of the type which would generally be found, well fingered and usually out of date, in dentists’ waiting rooms. Howell did not approve of such reading material, it seems – he much preferred travel brochures, or books with a strong Christian message.

  But the dentist did not always treat all his patients the same. With some, particularly women, he could be charming and reassuring and, if they worked in a profession which excited his interest, then he was keen to know how they were getting on and where their job took them. Others found him less engaging, uncommunicative at times, and occasionally downright rude. He would stand with his back to them as they entered his surgery and, without turning his head, simply say: ‘Why don’t you just pop yourself into the chair?’ He might not speak again throughout the treatment, not even to explain what he was doing.

  And maybe the signs were there that Colin Howell was not entirely what he first appeared to be. One female patient recalls: ‘The one thing I remember about him is his smile. Obviously, being a dentist, he had teeth that were perfect, but he had this huge smile. He was always smiling, this big, white, grinning smile.’ He might compliment young women patients on their hairstyles, their clothes or ask what part of the world they had been to, to get such a fantastic tan. On one occasion, he questioned one particularly well-endowed young lady as to whether she had her belly button pierced. Body piercing, he told her, made him feel a bit squeamish, but when she raised her T-shirt ever so slightly, to reveal her midriff and the piercing, he said admiringly: ‘That’s lovely.’ Another female former patient remembers: ‘He would’ve been very charming sometimes, a bit over-the-top. Sometimes he was sleazy, not … like you’d expect from a dentist or a doctor. He would have been over-friendly, a bit smarmy.’

  One patient who was treated by Howell at around the same time as her closest girlfriend claimed that, while he was escorting her out of the surgery, he made what she believed to be a risqué remark: ‘It was lovely, doing two friends together.’ If it was not intended as a double entendre, nevertheless she felt the observation was, at the very least, highly suggestive. Of course, she was not to know that Howell spent much of his idle time leering at late-night internet pornography, especially women acting out lesbian scenes. This patient refused to respond and thought to herself: ‘You are a stupid man and I am not going to let on that I caught what you are getting at.’ Howell later claimed that he had been completely misunderstood, telling police: ‘I thought it was very nice that two friends had been buddies enough to go to a dentist [together]. It was a really buddy thing to do.’

  Howell’s improper behaviour in the surgery, however, went far beyond the occasional sexual innuendo. Before being sedated for any procedure, his patients had to complete a consent form and give a telephone number in case of an emergency. They were advised not to drive for twelve to twenty-four hours after treatment and not to fill in any legal documents. An escort also had to be available to collect them once their treatment had finished. A nurse had to be with him at all times when a patient was in the chair. All of them were totally unaware of what he got up to when he was left on his own with patients.

  Like all dentists, Howell used a range of sedative drugs of varying strengths, the doses depending on the nature of the procedure. Gas and air – nitrous oxide and oxygen, otherwise known as ‘laughing gas’ – was used to calm particularly nervous patients. For more complex and potentially painful procedures, Howell’s drug of choice, and that of many dentists, was Hypnovel, or midazolam, which is usually administered with a needle in the arm or back of the hand. This drug can produce varying degrees of short-term amnesia very quickly after it is administered, for up to twenty-four hours. Many patients will feel quite tired for the rest of the day. The recommended dose of Hypnovel for routine treatment is 5–10 mg. Some of the procedures carried out by Howell on a number of his patients however were complex and lengthy – they might last the best part of an afternoon – and therefore doses of 10–20 mg could be justified. In some cases, he would administer as much as 25 mg, which would still have been within the therapeutic range.

  The effects of midazolam usually begin to wear off after about forty-five minutes and, like all dentists, Howell had to keep a detailed record of all dosages. Some of his patients had a clear recollection of the time they were being treated, some only partial memories and some none at all for several hours afterwards. They could be discharged only when they were able to stand and walk safely, and no one was allowed to leave for at least an hour after the last dose. The hygienists’ room next to Howell’s surgery was often used as the ‘recovery room’ for his patients, but some of the women who left Howell’s clinic hardly knew where they were. He would help them walk across the room and physically support them as they descended the stairs, where their relatives or partners would be waiting. Howell tended to escort most of the women from the surgery, claiming that, if they fell, the nurses were not strong enough to catch them and he wasn’t prepared to trust anybody – including their relatives – to help them outside. Between the periods of time when he was left alone with a patient in the chair of his surgery, post treatment, and the occasions on which he would insist on escorting them outside, Howell found he had ample opportunity to force himself on ‘favoured’ patients. And
, like the predator that he was, he took his chances whenever he could get them.

  It was only in 2009, after Howell had made his extraordinary confession to the elders and subsequently surrendered himself to the police, that he admitted that he groped some of his patients. After his arrest, police asked all his female patients to get in contact, as part of their investigation. They feared abuse on a wide scale, possibly going back decades.

  Twenty-eight women came forward to be interviewed. Most said they had no complaints about Howell’s treatment of them. Others, who had been given sedation during their treatment, said they had no recollection of any abuse. Some of the women who came forward said they had no memory at all, primarily because of the length of time which had elapsed since they had the treatment. It is believed, however, that there may well have been some patients who refused to confirm that they had been in Howell’s chair, largely because they dreaded the prospect of being traumatized by police questioning, or of having to relive the experience of having been indecently assaulted. Eventually, officers narrowed their investigation down to five women. None of them can be identified for legal reasons. Allegations by a sixth woman remain on police files.

  18 May 2011

  Howell did not look, but he was close enough to hear her distress. At first she tried to wipe away the tears with her right forefinger, and then she reached into the brown leather handbag at her feet for a white handkerchief. Wearing a slim beige dress and with jewellery on her wrist, she was an attractive woman with blonde hair and a slight tan – just the sort of patient the dentist liked to meet when they presented themselves at his surgery. Women who feared the needle and the invasive drill cried all the time, and he was used to it. He would calm them down, offer words of reassurance and tell them not to worry, that everything would be just fine.

  Only this time, he and the lady weeping quietly over to his left were not inside his surgery in Ballymoney, where she had been heavily sedated before her treatment started in studio one. Now she was free to maintain a respectable distance – well away from him and his gloved and groping hands …

  Colin Howell cut a sad and sorry sight at Antrim Crown Court as a small group of his former patients sat in the public gallery and listened to the explicit details of how they were shamelessly violated by the man in the dock.

  The anaesthetic had left them groggy and unsteady. He helped them to their feet – and then acted in an inappropriate manner as he walked them to the door and then, one step at a time, slowly down the back stairs to the street outside. He got two of the semi-conscious women to rub his groin as he held their outstretched arms. He stroked the skin of two more and cupped the breasts of others. One woman who challenged him afterwards was told that she had just imagined it. It was because of the sedation – sexual fantasy is recognized as a potential side-effect of midazolam, although not common.

  On a scale of one to ten, the indecent assaults apparently fell into the low-end category. But that was probably little consolation to the women whose trust had been abused in such a disgusting manner. One said the memories had flooded back after Howell’s arrest. She told police: ‘I felt ill. I felt sick to the pit of my stomach. Because the first thing that came back into my head was: “Did he touch me? Did he do that? Maybe this is real!” After all these years, I felt really uncomfortable with him and had this underlying feeling something wasn’t right. I was battling with myself in the head as to whether this really happened or not, and convinced myself that no, it was the twilight sleep.’ Another woman, who was groped under her padded coat by the lecherous Howell, did not want to tell anybody at the time: ‘I didn’t say anything to him because you’re mortified. I was embarrassed. But it was very clear that it happened. I wasn’t thinking to myself: “Did I dream it?” I’m not a touchy-feely person and I thought to myself: “Why didn’t I just elbow him or say something?” ’

  Howell eventually admitted abusing five women at different times over a period of four years, between March 2004 and December 2008. All of them had been heavily sedated, although it was concluded that none had been deliberately drugged to facilitate his sexual gratification. The dosages he administered intravenously were all within the therapeutic range, the court was told. Judge Corinne Philpott handed him down a sentence of five and a half years, and also ordered that he be added to the sex offenders’ register.

  13.

  The inquest

  14 May 1992

  Hazel Buchanan had been dreading the prospect of her husband’s inquest. And now, just days before the first anniversary of the deaths, she struggled to keep her composure. She and Howell had managed to fool the police so far, but this very public examination of the circumstances of the tragedy was another huge hurdle to overcome.

  If Hazel was terrified, Howell was fairly calm. Years later, he told police: ‘I wasn’t sure how afraid I should be. I felt relatively confident in what had happened, in the way I had done it and the way I covered it up, and that I would never be caught. I also had a fear, but not as much as Hazel. My role was keeping her calmed down …’

  Now, as she sat in the courtroom at Coleraine Courthouse, flanked by her sisters Winnie and Lorna, Hazel bowed her head and wept. One of her legs began to shake uncontrollably, and the state of unbearable tension she was in as she waited to take the stand was there for all to see. Winnie gently placed her hand on her sister’s knee, to try to stop the trembling. As she glanced around the courtroom, she recognized the face of the man she’d met one day when she had called to see Hazel at Charnwood Park after Trevor’s death. It was Colin Howell, the husband of the dead girl, Lesley Clarke. Winnie was shocked to see how composed and detached he appeared to be.

  Howell was sitting on his own, back straight and with his head held high, but his stomach was churning as well. He knew that this was the day that he and his lover would have to tell the hearing their version of events on the night almost a year previously. He and Hazel had given detailed statements to police in the immediate aftermath of the deaths – but the moment had come for them to stand up in a public court and confirm their accuracy. It would have been a nerve-racking prospect for anyone, but how much more so for two people who had been lying from the outset? And, like Hazel, Howell had been suffering from nightmares which began to plague him about six months after the deaths. In them he would often see Lesley’s face coming towards him. Each time, she was smiling and saying in that lovely voice of hers: ‘Colin, I forgive you.’

  Presiding over the hearing was Robin Hastings, one of the first people to be alerted on the day the bodies had been found. Having qualified as a solicitor in 1949 and worked for a short time in his father’s legal practice in Magherafelt, County Londonderry, he had lived in New Zealand for some years before returning to his native Northern Ireland. Although he once kept a herd of cattle and reared chickens near Moneymore, he had soon returned to a job in the law, working for the Director of Public Prosecutions in Derry before taking up his present position. Hastings was a rather eccentric-looking individual: tall, with a ruddy complexion and a shock of hair, he walked with a slight limp and his appearance was often rather dishevelled and untidy. He was known for his love of golf, especially his home club at Royal Portrush, as well as his propensity to wear Moses sandals with no socks, even in the snow. Hastings had overseen scores of inquests – but never a double suicide.

  The police officer in charge of the investigation was Detective Inspector Jack Hutchinson, who had been appointed to the case by his superior officer, Superintendent Hamilton ‘Hammy’ Houston. The post-mortem examinations of the bodies of Trevor Andrew Buchanan and Lesley Ann Elizabeth Howell had been carried out on the night of the deaths by Dr John Press, the Assistant State Pathologist. He would retire in 1998, having carried out around 13,000 autopsies.

  According to Press’s report, death in both cases had been as a result of poisoning by carbon monoxide. External and internal examinations on Trevor confirmed that everything was normal and intact, although there was an abra
sion, 1 cm in diameter, on the front of his right knee and two abrasions, 2 cm and 0.5 cm in diameter, on the front of his left knee, as well as a cut on his lip. Analysis of a blood sample revealed a relatively low Temazepam concentration of 0.13 micrograms per ml, and a carboxyhaemoglobin concentration of 71 per cent. No traces of alcohol were detected. The report confirmed that Trevor had always enjoyed good health.

  External and internal examinations of Lesley’s body confirmed that everything was normal and intact. There were no marks of violence, but blood samples revealed an alcohol concentration of 117 mg per 100 ml and three different types of drugs: Diazepam (0.35 micrograms per ml), Nordiazepam (0.54 micrograms per ml) and Temazepam (0.24 micrograms per ml), as well as a carboxyhaemoglobin concentration of 61 per cent. The pathologist’s commentary said: ‘Death was from poisoning by carbon monoxide, a poisonous constituent of the fumes emitted by internal combustion engines. The proportion of the haemoglobin of the blood inactivated by this poison, 61 per cent, was high and was within levels previously detected in cases of fatal poisoning. There were no marks of violence … An analysis carried out by the forensic science laboratory revealed that at the time of her death … the alcohol concentration of 117 mg per 100 ml was not high and the drug levels were within the therapeutic range. In view of this, it is unlikely that the alcohol and drugs accelerated death to any material extent.’

  After these reports had been read out to the court, it was the turn of various individuals to give evidence. Among these would be Gillian Hunter, the owner of the Knockintern Filling Station Lesley had visited on the evening of her death, and Pastor Hansford. But by far the most crucial of the testimonies were those of Colin Howell and Hazel Buchanan.

  Howell told the inquest that there had been stress and division in his marriage after the birth of their daughter, Lauren. Their first child, Matthew, was born on 21 October 1984. While Lesley was pregnant with her second, her mother had gone through a succession of serious illnesses. She had died in a nursing home, ten weeks before Lauren was born, on 14 November 1986. His wife, Howell claimed, had suffered post-natal depression. Their third child, Daniel, was born on 18 May 1989. The following month, Lesley fell pregnant again and he said that initially she found this hard to accept. The situation in their marriage worsened between April 1989 and January 1990, and the relationship broke down completely after the discovery of his affair with Hazel Buchanan.