was her child almost as if before saying anything about the past she wanted to establish for me her identity in the present. And what Mary is, above all other things to herself, is the mother of her child. It was to be several days
before I understood that there are two entirely distinct parts to her.
One is the attractive, warm and unconditionally loving young mother who with talent, imagination and intelligence is dedicating a large part of her mind and personality to creating something of an ideal child hood for her daughter. In this part of her life she is calm, organized, disciplined and happy. The other part the one I would inevitably become more familiar with (even though there wasn’t a day in those five months when the subject of her child wouldn’t arise) is chaotic, almost incapable of organization and discipline and, despite a lurking, roguish sense of humour, often very sad.
One of the things I would only discover many weeks after we began to talk is that she had developed a partial dependency on painkillers, which were first given to her in prison and are still prescribed to her for frequent migraines. When she had one of these attacks during the week she stayed with us and I remarked upon the obvious severity of the pain, she said that she was so frightened of it coming that she sometimes took the pills, which also had a calming, indeed soporific effect, before the attacks came, and took a larger dose than was prescribed. It was later that I realized and, clearly hoping for help, she admitted to me that the slurred speech I had occasionally noticed was due to her taking such a preemptive dose of this medicine. She would tell me then more about the number of drugs that had been prescribed to her in prison: one of the positive consequences of our discussing this problem was that she admitted it to her doctor and is being helped to reduce her intake of this medication.
The months we talked, the length of time extended by her quite frequent failure to appear I once spent two weeks expecting her in vain at 9. 15 every morning were dominated by the necessity, which would become almost immediately obvious, not only to give her an incredible amount of time to get to the point of many of her recollections, but also to recheck the authenticity of many of her memories by repeating many of my questions weeks or months later. Over the months, however, I was to become entirely convinced of her essential truthfulness and the reality of her pain.
“How did I become such a child?” These are the words that stayed in my mind during the sleepless night that followed that first meeting in November 1995. And they would remain with me as we worked together when, day after day, she brought up the ever-present spectre of her mother, Betty, who having almost succeeded many times in killing and certainly in emotionally and psychologically severely damaging her daughter, only nominally freed her when she died in January 1995.
part one the trial december 1968 the court december 1968
The age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales is ten years old (eight in Scotland). Children between ten and thirteen, however, until the passage of the Law and Disorder Act in 1998, were presumed in law to be doll incapax, incapable of criminal intent, and this presumption must be rebutted by the prosecution before a child could be convicted. This means that the prosecution had to prove that the child had not only carried out the alleged acts, but knew at the time that what he or she was doing was seriously wrong. The 1998 act has abolished even this safeguard, and anyone who is ten or over is considered to have the same moral awareness of right and wrong as his or her elders. The trial of Regina v. Mary Flora Bell and Norma Joyce Bell would uniquely highlight the problems of doli incapax, and of trying young children in adult courts, but there was never any doubt that it would take place.
Judicial procedure in any country is bound by its
before I understood that there are two entirely distinct parts to her.
One is the attractive, warm and unconditionally loving young mother who with talent, imagination and intelligence is dedicating a large part of her mind and personality to creating something of an ideal child hood for her daughter. In this part of her life she is calm, organized, disciplined and happy. The other part the one I would inevitably become more familiar with (even though there wasn’t a day in those five months when the subject of her child wouldn’t arise) is chaotic, almost incapable of organization and discipline and, despite a lurking, roguish sense of humour, often very sad.
One of the things I would only discover many weeks after we began to talk is that she had developed a partial dependency on painkillers, which were first given to her in prison and are still prescribed to her for frequent migraines. When she had one of these attacks during the week she stayed with us and I remarked upon the obvious severity of the pain, she said that she was so frightened of it coming that she sometimes took the pills, which also had a calming, indeed soporific effect, before the attacks came, and took a larger dose than was prescribed. It was later that I realized and, clearly hoping for help, she admitted to me that the slurred speech I had occasionally noticed was due to her taking such a preemptive dose of this medicine. She would tell me then more about the number of drugs that had been prescribed to her in prison: one of the positive consequences of our discussing this problem was that she admitted it to her doctor and is being helped to reduce her intake of this medication.
The months we talked, the length of time extended by her quite frequent failure to appear I once spent two weeks expecting her in vain at 9. 15 every morning were dominated by the necessity, which would become almost immediately obvious, not only to give her an incredible amount of time to get to the point of many of her recollections, but also to recheck the authenticity of many of her memories by repeating many of my questions weeks or months later. Over the months, however, I was to become entirely convinced of her essential truthfulness and the reality of her pain.
“How did I become such a child?” These are the words that stayed in my mind during the sleepless night that followed that first meeting in November 1995. And they would remain with me as we worked together when, day after day, she brought up the ever-present spectre of her mother, Betty, who having almost succeeded many times in killing and certainly in emotionally and psychologically severely damaging her daughter, only nominally freed her when she died in January 1995.
part one the trial december 1968 the court december 1968
The age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales is ten years old (eight in Scotland). Children between ten and thirteen, however, until the passage of the Law and Disorder Act in 1998, were presumed in law to be doll incapax, incapable of criminal intent, and this presumption must be rebutted by the prosecution before a child could be convicted. This means that the prosecution had to prove that the child had not only carried out the alleged acts, but knew at the time that what he or she was doing was seriously wrong. The 1998 act has abolished even this safeguard, and anyone who is ten or over is considered to have the same moral awareness of right and wrong as his or her elders. The trial of Regina v. Mary Flora Bell and Norma Joyce Bell would uniquely highlight the problems of doli incapax, and of trying young children in adult courts, but there was never any doubt that it would take place.
Judicial procedure in any country is bound by its
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