Mary Bell

For other people named Mary Bell, see Mary Bell (disambiguation).

Mary Flora Bell (born on May 26 1957 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England) was convicted in December 1968 of the manslaughter of two boys, Martin Brown (four years old) and Brian Howe (three years old). Bell was eleven years old at the time of the killings.

Early life

Bell's mother Betty was a prostitute who was often absent from the family home, travelling to Glasgow to work. Mary was her first child, born when Betty was 16 years old. It is not known who Mary's biological father was; for most of her life she believed it to be Billy Bell, a habitual criminal later arrested for armed robbery who had married Betty some time after Mary was born. Independent accounts from family members suggest strongly that Betty had attempted to kill Mary and make her death look accidental more than once during the first few years of her life.

The killings

Mary Bell was convicted of strangling a young boy, Martin Brown, on May 25, 1968, the day before her 11th birthday. She was, as far as anyone knows, alone on this occasion. Between that time and the second killing, she and her friend Norma Bell (who was not related to her) broke into and vandalised a nursery in Scotswood, leaving notes that claimed responsibility for the Brown killing. The Newcastle Police dismissed this incident as a prank.

On July 31, 1968, the two took part in the death, again by strangulation, of three-year-old Brian Howe. Police reports concluded that Mary Bell had gone back after killing him to carve an "N" into his stomach with a razor; this was then changed using the same razor but with a different hand to an "M". Mary Bell also used a pair of scissors to cut off bits of Brian Howe's hair . As the girls were so young and their testimonies contradicted each other, it has never been entirely clear precisely what happened. Martin Brown's death was initially ruled an accident as there was no evidence of foul play. Eventually, his death was linked with Brian Howe's killing and in August, the two girls were charged with two counts of manslaughter.

Conviction

On December 17th, 1968, Mary Bell was found not guilty of murder but convicted of "manslaughter due to diminished responsibility," the jury taking their lead from her diagnosis by court-appointed psychiatrists who described her as displaying "classic symptoms of psychopathology". She was sentenced to be "detained at Her Majesty's Pleasure": effectively an indefinite sentence of imprisonment. Norma was found not guilty on both charges.

From the time of her conviction onward, Mary was the focus of a great deal of attention from the British press and also from the German Stern Magazine. Her mother repeatedly sold stories about her to the press and often gave reporters writings she claimed to be Mary's. Bell herself made headlines when in September 1979, she briefly escaped from the custody of Moore Court open prison.

Life after prison

Bell was released from custody in 1980 and was granted anonymity to start a new life (under an assumed name) with her daughter who was born in 1984. This daughter did not know of her mother's past until Bell's location was discovered by reporters and she and her mother had to leave their house with bed sheets over their heads. The daughter's anonymity was originally protected until she reached the age of 18. However, on May 21, 2003, Bell won a High Court battle to have her own anonymity and that of her daughter extended for life.

Bell is the subject of two books by Gitta Sereny; The Case of Mary Bell (1972), an account of the killings and trial, and Cries Unheard: the Story of Mary Bell, an in-depth biography based on interviews with Bell and relatives, friends and professionals who knew her during and after her imprisonment. This second book was the first to detail Bell's account of sexual abuse by her mother, a prostitute who specialized as a dominatrix, and her mother's clients.

The publication of Cries Unheard was controversial because Bell received payment for her participation. The payment was criticised by the tabloid press, and the Blair government attempted to find a legal means to prevent its publication on the grounds that a criminal should not profit from his or her crimes, but the attempt was unsuccessful. In a 1999 debate in the House of Lords, Lord Wakeham stated "the public interest oozes from every pore of the book".

References

• Sereny, Gitta. Cries Unheard. Macmillan, London, 1998. Hardback ISBN 0-333-73524-2; paperback ISBN 0-333-75311-9
• Information on Mary Bell's crimes
• Interview with Gitta Sereny, 1998 - with LNL's Phillip Adams