Read Online Dennis Nilsen - Conversations with Britain's Most Evil Serial Killer by Russ Coffey - Free Book Online
Authors: Russ Coffey
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side, in the general area of the Broch there were limited prospects to do so. Given his realistic options, the idea of adventure and male camaraderie certainly seemed more interesting than joining Uncle Robert in the Consolidated Pneumatic Tool Company. Above all, Nilsen had had enough of Aberdeenshire. He knew that in the Army there were all sorts of roles he could try. His favourite ideawas to try to be a cook. After a very brief spell in a fish canning factory, he went down to Aberdeen to the Army Recruiting Office and took the exams. He passed them with ease. He then signed up for a period of nine years.
One July morning in 1960, Adam Scott took Dennis Nilsen to the station to catch a steam train to London. The lad had high hopes of his new life. He would be able to see the world and have great adventures, far from the small-town attitudes of Strichen. He had, however, misjudged his ability to fit in with young, ‘normal’, heterosexual men. It would take a further 22 years and the lives of at least 12 young men before Nilsen could really start to accept his sexuality and background. Being frank with himself began with his nine months awaiting trial on remand.
3
PRISON LIFE – BRIXTON
I seek only to reach out to engage with the human dimension which is anathema to rigid officials of the retribution machine.’
D ENNIS N ILSEN , IN A LETTER TO THE AUTHOR
T he nine months Nilsen spent on remand were filled with conflict and confrontation. His crimes and odd personality caused him to be shunned by fellow inmates. Worse were the constant arguments he got into with warders. On occasion, these led to his being detained in solitary confinement. But by the end of his time on remand, Nilsen had begun to stabilise. He was helped both by the lack of destructive stimuli – sex and alcohol – and by the fact that, for the first time in years, he was no longer isolated.
Not only were there people surrounding him, but there were also others interested in him. Nilsen no longer felt invisible and it encouraged him to record his thoughts. Once he had started to write, a pen rarely left his hand. Every scrap of paper in his cell became covered in his dense, spidery handwriting. He was on a search for anything in his past –such as the death of his grandfather – that might provide him with a reason why he had become a killer.
In
History of a Drowning Boy
, however, rather than recall his intense introspection, Nilsen chooses to concentrate on what he considered to be the awful regime of Brixton Prison and the injustices he felt were heaped upon him. The chapter he writes about the period before the trial is fascinating, frustrating and frequently unpleasant. Nothing in what he says is straightforward. Nilsen constantly seeks to cast himself in a better light by putting others down. Petty grumbles are given as much space as his reflections on how he had become ‘addicted to murder’.
Nilsen’s description of the day of his arrest is a case in point. Immediately after the arrest, the police had driven Nilsen over to Hornsey, a smallish police station two miles east of where he had himself been a probationary police officer. Nilsen says that Peter Jay, Geoff Chambers, Steve McCusker and Jeff Butler didn’t know what to expect from him. Jay, for his part, says Nilsen seemed ‘extremely odd’ and he knew he would need to be played carefully.
In particular, Jay suspected that, as a union man, Nilsen would be noticing whether the regulations were being followed. He was right. It shows in Nilsen’s description of Chambers as ‘having forgotten a lot of the basic principles of police evidence gathering despite his exalted rank,’ and his statement that he was pleased his treatment was ‘correct and amiable.’ Indeed Jay’s friendly, light-hearted and efficient manner created an environment in which Nilsen felt comfortable enough to talk freely.
When Nilsen set about unburdening himself, his mannerseemed relaxed and his
One July morning in 1960, Adam Scott took Dennis Nilsen to the station to catch a steam train to London. The lad had high hopes of his new life. He would be able to see the world and have great adventures, far from the small-town attitudes of Strichen. He had, however, misjudged his ability to fit in with young, ‘normal’, heterosexual men. It would take a further 22 years and the lives of at least 12 young men before Nilsen could really start to accept his sexuality and background. Being frank with himself began with his nine months awaiting trial on remand.
3
PRISON LIFE – BRIXTON
I seek only to reach out to engage with the human dimension which is anathema to rigid officials of the retribution machine.’
D ENNIS N ILSEN , IN A LETTER TO THE AUTHOR
T he nine months Nilsen spent on remand were filled with conflict and confrontation. His crimes and odd personality caused him to be shunned by fellow inmates. Worse were the constant arguments he got into with warders. On occasion, these led to his being detained in solitary confinement. But by the end of his time on remand, Nilsen had begun to stabilise. He was helped both by the lack of destructive stimuli – sex and alcohol – and by the fact that, for the first time in years, he was no longer isolated.
Not only were there people surrounding him, but there were also others interested in him. Nilsen no longer felt invisible and it encouraged him to record his thoughts. Once he had started to write, a pen rarely left his hand. Every scrap of paper in his cell became covered in his dense, spidery handwriting. He was on a search for anything in his past –such as the death of his grandfather – that might provide him with a reason why he had become a killer.
In
History of a Drowning Boy
, however, rather than recall his intense introspection, Nilsen chooses to concentrate on what he considered to be the awful regime of Brixton Prison and the injustices he felt were heaped upon him. The chapter he writes about the period before the trial is fascinating, frustrating and frequently unpleasant. Nothing in what he says is straightforward. Nilsen constantly seeks to cast himself in a better light by putting others down. Petty grumbles are given as much space as his reflections on how he had become ‘addicted to murder’.
Nilsen’s description of the day of his arrest is a case in point. Immediately after the arrest, the police had driven Nilsen over to Hornsey, a smallish police station two miles east of where he had himself been a probationary police officer. Nilsen says that Peter Jay, Geoff Chambers, Steve McCusker and Jeff Butler didn’t know what to expect from him. Jay, for his part, says Nilsen seemed ‘extremely odd’ and he knew he would need to be played carefully.
In particular, Jay suspected that, as a union man, Nilsen would be noticing whether the regulations were being followed. He was right. It shows in Nilsen’s description of Chambers as ‘having forgotten a lot of the basic principles of police evidence gathering despite his exalted rank,’ and his statement that he was pleased his treatment was ‘correct and amiable.’ Indeed Jay’s friendly, light-hearted and efficient manner created an environment in which Nilsen felt comfortable enough to talk freely.
When Nilsen set about unburdening himself, his mannerseemed relaxed and his
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