written and posted by members of Lancashire Dead Good Poets' Society

Saturday 17 August 2019

Travesty

Bakewell, Derbyshire is something of a family home on my father's side. He and my uncle grew up there, went to school there, and the Rowland family built the house on Upper Yeld Road in which we would stay for weeks at a time during my childhood. At the end of Upper Yeld Road stands Bakewell Cemetery. We used to pass it regularly on our walks to and from the town centre.

In September 1973, the town and its cemetery became notorious for what was soon disparagingly dubbed the Bakewell Tart Murder and the person charged with the offence went on to spend 27 years in prison - for a crime he did not commit. His conviction was eventually overturned in 2002 and stands as possibly the worst miscarriage of justice an innocent man has suffered at the hands of the British policing and judicial system - a travesty, in his case, if ever there was one.

You are probably not familiar with the details. Why would you be, unless you had some personal connection to the town that made the events register for you? Allow me to summarise. It is quite an extraordinary account of wrong-doing compounded by wrong-doing on wrong-doing.

Wendy Sewell was a secretary working for the Forestry Commission in a Bakewell office. Married and in her early thirties, she had something of a reputation locally for being promiscuous. She'd had several periods of separation from her husband, was known to be conducting 'love affairs' with local businessmen and often resorted to the extensive grounds of the cemetery as a place of rendezvous and al fresco liaison (outdoor sex).

Bakewell Cemetery - at the end of our road
On the fateful day in question, she was seen hastening up from town to the cemetery in her lunch hour for an assignation, presumably with one of her lovers. She was found less than an hour later, partially unclothed and badly bludgeoned around the head in a part of the cemetery near the groundsmen's toolshed.

The person who found her was the junior groundsman, a simple lad aged 17 but with a reading age of 12. He used to go home to his Mum for lunch every day and had just returned to work. He summoned help from the older workmen in the cemetery and they returned to see Wendy Sewell stumbling about, fall and hit her head on a gravestone and lose consciousness. She died in hospital two days later.

The lad, Stephen Downing, was arrested by police at the scene and they proceeded to interrogate him for several hours without a formal caution and without a solicitor present. They persuaded him to sign a confession, much of the substance of which he couldn't read or understand, admitting he had assaulted the woman. He did this because he was thoroughly frightened and thought it was best to do as he was told so he could go home. When Sewell subsequently died, Downing found himself in the frame for her murder. At his trial he protested his innocence and said he'd signed the assault confession under duress.  The only evidence against Stephen Downing - apart from the signed confession which he retracted - was that his clothes were spattered with Sewell's blood. Downing tried to explain that Sewell had shaken her head when he'd first gone to her assistance and that's how her blood came to be on his clothing. The forensic expert maintained the spattering was entirely consistent with Downing having been the assailant. The police never looked for anyone else in connection with the death and Downing was found guilty by a jury and sentenced to life imprisonment. Because Stephen always protested he was innocent of any crime, he was never considered for parole; and because he was labelled a 'sex-offender' he was regularly bullied, beaten up and even apparently raped by fellow inmates. He had to be relocated eight times before his eventual release in 2001 after a long campaign to discredit the case against him.

It is startling to read how he came to be convicted despite evidence to the contrary. Firstly, he was seen leaving the cemetery (to go home for lunch) and Sewell was subsequently seen loitering between the gravestones by a 15 year old girl, but her testimony was disregarded. Secondly, Sewell had been beaten on the head with a pick-axe handle, eight separate blows to the back of her skull, by a right-handed person and a blood-stained right hand print was clearly visible on the handle, but Stephen Downing was left- handed (shades of To Kill A Mockingbird) and wearing gardener's gloves at the time. Thirdly a blood-stained man was reportedly seen running from the scene by several witnesses that day but the police didn't follow up that line of enquiry.

It took the dedication of a campaigning journalist in the late 1990s to build sufficient doubt about the original conviction before the authorities agreed to re-examine the case. The police claimed all the original evidence, notes, files et cetera had been lost; even the transcript of the original trial had somehow been destroyed - and then the murder weapon, that pick-axe handle was found to be on show in Derby Museum.

In 2002 the Court of Appeal overturned Stephen Downing's conviction and awarded him £750,000 in compensation for the travesty he had suffered. He now works as a chef, a skill he learned while in prison.

The police conducted a fresh murder investigation at a cost of another £500,000, re-interviewed everyone they could trace and took fresh statements from people who had not come forward at the time. A list of 22 suspects was drawn up but nothing conclusive could be proved against any of them - not even the owner of the van that someone had observed parked outside the cemetery gates that lunchtime and noted the registration number of, because he and his two colleagues were acting strangely. The witness kept the note of that number for nearly thirty years. In tracing back its history, it turned out it had belonged to one of the men Wendy Sewell had been seeing at the time of her death. Finally in 2014 a pathology report from 1973 resurfaced, the contents of which - had it been submitted at Stephen's trial - would have contradicted his 'confession', completely exonerated him as a suspect and most certainly have saved an innocent and vulnerable young man from the travesty of a gross miscarriage of justice.

Wendy Sewell's killer is still at large and there must be people in the close-knit community of Bakewell who know who is responsible.

Follow that with a poem, I hear you challenge. Very well, I shall...

On Finding Wendy Sewell
Cemetery gothic,
tombstones, cypress and yew,
and you - the pretty lady.
I've seen you here before,
but you didn't see me.
I've seen you disappear into the trees
with your men friends
and get down on your knees,
but you never saw me.
Sometimes I think I'm invisible.

Are you hurt? Crawling in the dirt
and crying. Can I help?

I tried to rescue a fox once
that had been hit by a car,
fur all bloodied and it couldn't walk.
I went to pick it up.
It had the same look in its eyes
as you do. It tried to bite me.

Don't shake so. There's blood
everywhere. Your head.
Stay there pretty lady.
Don't you have a mother
who'll make everything all right?
Sometimes I think I'm incapable.

I'll get help. Lie down and rest.
Blood on the buttercups,
this is not good. Cemetery gothic,
tombstones, cypress and yew.
We all need a mother
who'll make everything all right.

I couldn't sign off on such a downbeat note, so I'll conclude with a little sweetener, still on topic. Here is a slice of original Bakewell pudding:


Note the puff-pastry case, layer of raspberry jam and then rich, buttery custard filling, baked to perfection. That's the real deal. No short pastry, frangipani, sickly icing and stupid cherry here. Those Kiplingesque confections marketing themselves as Bakewell Tarts are just another travesty!

Thanks for reading. Stay on the bright side, Steve ;-)

42 comments:

a v said...

Rivetting and shocking.

Tom Shaw said...

Another top drawer blog and powerful poem. Well written Steve.

Deke Hughes said...

A hard-hitting account for sure, I wasn't aware of the case previously but I just googled and there is a book about it written by the campaigning journalist you mentioned - might be worth a read. I like your poem for its sense of pathos and implied irony. Great effort.

Anonymous said...

Good blog but that bakewell pudding looks disgusting!

Rochelle said...

Steve, your writing is always compelling. It is quite shocking that someone could be locked up for so lomg for a crime they didn't commit. The risk of that happening is why I believe the death-penalty should never be reintroduced. I'd also like to think that our police have become less prone to make mistakes as forensics and computing have advanced - this travesty was nearly 50 years ago after all. Your poetry - as ever - very accomplished and quite moving.

Anonymous said...

Excellent! 👍

Millstoned said...

Yes, shocking and a travesty but your summary doesn't mention the strong rumours from that time that it was a Masonic cover-up with the police complicit. Good poem btw.

Harry Lennon said...

Another most compelling read. Thank you Steve.

Ben Templeton said...

Yes that's a shocking case in every respect. Well done with trying to capture some of the experience in your poem - not an easy challenge but it works for me. (I do like the look of that pudding!)

Binty said...

Bravo! 🍰

Brian Cassell said...

It does sound like there were some fairly basic mistakes made. As another has remarked, you'd hope the Force and whole judicial process is more competent nowadays - partly as a result of lessons learned. I enjoyed your poem Steve.

Harald Cools said...

Very interesting story, steve...nowadays with cameras everywhere, you get bundled up immediately for such a hideous crime.


How are things in the jewel of the north? i hope you will come and visit us in Warsaw sometime soon...

Jade Keillor said...

Dead disturbing, as you labelled it. Poor guy to suffer like that for so many years. To be honest, I'm not sure about the poem. I've read it twice and I can't decide whether it works or not. (I hope you don't mind me saying that.)

Anonymous said...

Well-written account and I like your poem. I also ticked the funny box because of what you said about Mr Kipling.

Boz said...

You nailed it again la!

otyikondo said...

Thanks for this, Steve. I do very dimly remember the case from before I left the UK. Quite aside from the gross miscarriage of justice angle, and the ugly - and violent - stuff brought to bear on Don Hale (the journalist, and an ex-footballer to boot), I did have some misgivings about the continued perpetration of the misogynistic "promiscuous woman" trope in "Bakewell Tart Murder". That this was dreamed up by a sweaty-armpitted Sun hack back in the day is no surprise, but I don't get quite why - in this context - it is necessary to repeat it. I thought we'd made a smidgen of progress since then, even if Derbyshire Police have not. "Stephen Downing Case" or "Wendy Sewell Murder" would have done just as well.

Mitch Carragher said...

Since I first read this on Saturday I've idly googled a few online articles about the case - lots of conflicting stances being taken. Clearly Downing's conviction was "unsound" for a variety of reasons as you describe but I found one report that suggested Derbyshire Police still think he's the culprit. As for your poem I think it has merit. Keep the blogs coming.

Anonymous said...

I too, as others have remarked, would hope this kind of miscarriage of justice can't happen in 21st century England - so much CCTV coverage, way better forensics et cetera.

Steve Rowland said...

Thanks all for your feedback. Will, I understand what you're saying about the misogynistic connotation of Bakewell Tart Murder, which is why I said it was disparagingly dubbed thus, and that's part of the travesty as far as I'm concerned (though I got the impression it was a locally coined term - I've not seen any evidence that it was a Sun hack, but I might have missed that).

Stu Hodges said...

Steve, your passing reference to To Kill A Mockingbird (I also have Of Mice And Men in mind) makes me think what you described as happening in Bakewell would make for a classic small-town America novel of passion, crime and conspiracy. It's thankfully quite atypical of an English market town.

Your blog was a rivetting read (as ever) and I might even be tempted to search out the book that has been written about Wendy Sewell's murder.

The poem works for me with its mixture of portent, pathos and matter-of-factness, that clever fox allusion and the emotional tug of naively hoping that everyone has a mother who can make all things right - an ironic rail at the social justice system. Well done.

Nigella D said...

You write so fluently Steve. This was another immensely readable blog and the story it tells is shocking all right. I love what you've tried to do in the poem. Thank you for sharing.

K. Worth said...

That reads well Steve and your poem is certainly effective in the context.

Anonymous said...

Excellent blogging. I don't remember the original crime amd trial but I do recall the publicity around Stephen Downing's release.I think Judge Rinder did a TV special about the case. I agree with the comment above about the poem - effective and affecting in my view.👍

Steve Rowland said...

Did I say that my paternal grandparents are buried in that Bakewell cemetery?

I did not. They are.

Anonymous said...

Top blogging Mister R.

Celia M said...

Steve, that was quite a harrowing read. With your family connection to the place, I can see why it will have shocked you on a personal level over and above the principle of a travesty of justice.

Anonymous said...

A most disturbing account and still the real culprit/s not brought to justice. I heard on the news recently that less than 10% of all crimes result in a conviction. That is a shocking statistic in itself. You'd hope the percentage was higher in the case of murder - but then again it looks as though no one would have been brought to book for Wendy Sewell's killing if that boy hadn't been fitted up for it.

F O'Jay said...

Brilliant as ever. Thank you.

Johnny said...

What a horrifying story; at least current laws relating to capacity give some hope that people who have learning difficulties, whatever those difficulties are, should be afforded some kind of legal protection.

I never knew you had connections with Bakewell, (but why would I have asked?) I spent a fair bit of time there in my late teens and early twenties, and in the surrounding area, climbing at Baslow, Frogatt, Curbar, and bit further afield at Gardoms and Stanage. haven't been back for a long time.

CI66Y said...

Well done, my friend. That was another absorbing read and an affecting poem. Coincidentally, it turns out that the investigative journalist you reference, Don Hale, has just this summer published a new book (his second) about the case - Murder In the Graveyard, June 2019, Harper Collins. Your blog appears very timely. By the way, that Bakewell pudding looks like it could cause a few cholesterol-related deaths of its own :(

LG said...

A quite gripping read Steve and I think your poem is very good.

Steve Rowland said...

Thanks Clive. I had heard about the earlier book - Town Without Pity - but not this newest one. I've just ordered a copy from the Amazone.

Anonymous said...

Very well written. Excellent blogging. 🍰 🍰 🍰

Jambo said...

I'm really intigued by this true life crime story and sorry for the lad who got banged up for it. You've set me off on one here. Top poem too.

TJ said...

What an absolutely shocking narrative (but very well written by yourself). As for the poem, I think you rose to the challenge well. It's very moving.

Geert Mijnals said...

Very fine blog and poetry Steve 👍

What your English friends so intent on Brexit should understand is that Stephen Downing would still be in jail now if the European Court of Human Rights had not ruled that the British Government was in breach of Article 5 of the Human Rights Convention for refusing parole to prisoners who maintained their innocence. The EC stands for justice for all in the community and will curb the excess of individual states. This is sure a good thing, not a bad one.

Anonymous said...

I saw a documentary about this case years ago (2004?). Stephen Downing's conviction was certainly a travesty. As I recall Derbyshire Police didn't come out of it very well but neither did Downing's original defence team.

M Donaldson said...

Another body of a pretty young woman found in a cemetery just this week-end in Accrington, Lancashire. It's sickening. There is too much wickedness in the world.

Anonymous said...

Powerful stuff!

Luke Taylor said...

You did a fine job summarising the whole Downing/Sewell case. Derbyshire police had a well-deserved reputation for being very poor (shall we say?) for decades. As I recall they were repeatedly found 'not fit for purpose' by Home Office audits - and I was surprised there wasn't an independent review into this travesty as you rightly describe it. I found your poem touching - well conveyed.

Anonymous said...

What an awful tale of incompetence and injustice brilliantly relayedand your poem was very moving (considering what was to befall young Stephen Downing).

Steve Rowland said...

I've now read Don Hale's 'Murder In The Graveyard', his updated account of Wendy Sewell's murder in Bakewell cemetery, the wrongful conviction of Stephen Downing (incarcerated for 27 years and denied parole because he would not confess to a murder he hadn't committed)and the long and frustrating campaign to get Downing's conviction set aside.

It's a clear and harrowing account told from the perspective of the ongoing campaign. The police and the justice system don't come out of it well, for the original trial and conviction was deeply flawed. The Home Office appears equally culpable. The likely perpetrators of the killing (named only Mr Red, Mr Orange and Mr Blue) have never been brought to book and the question remains: why? The supposition is that significant information logged at the time is being suppressed - and exempt from Freedom Of Information requests - on grounds of national security...whatever that means in this context.