Damn His Blood (40 page)

Ludlow argued that charging Clewes with a crime he could not be tried for was distracting. ‘Clewes is indicted for a murder,’ he said. ‘On that murder he ought to have a fair and unprejudiced trial, which will not be the case if he is borne down by the extraneous circumstances which belonged to the other indictments.’

‘But at all lengths it would be proper to arraign the three prisoners,’ Curwood countered. Littledale agreed, and they were asked to stand as the indictment charging them with Parker’s murder was read. It was a moment of procedural farce, perhaps a little bewildering to those packed into the Guildhall, dressed in greatcoats, holding tall hats in their laps and decoding as much as they could.

‘How say you, Thomas Clewes, George Banks and John Barnett? Are you guilty or not guilty?’ asked the clerk of the arraigns.

They said nothing, and one by one Taunton, Campbell and Ludlow interjected, objecting on behalf of their clients. Littledale acknowledged their right to do so, and the first of Oddingley’s two murders thus went unpunished. There might yet be justice for Richard Heming, but for Parker, by far the more innocent of the two victims, there would be no vengeance under English law.

For the audience it may have seemed a disappointment, but in reality it was the outcome that those familiar with the esoteric details of the case had long anticipated. ‘It is believed that the prisoners will, as regards this indictment, endeavour to escape by the death of the principal,’ William Smith had written in his notes before the trial. Having realised this, the prosecution had adopted the tactic of pressurising the court into arraigning the men. Thereafter, ‘if they do not consent the Bills will hang over them and very properly so’, Smith had added. It was a good point. A lingering sense of thwarted justice would pervade the remainder of the case. Smith knew that Clewes, Banks and Barnett were within their rights to avoid the charge, but he was keen to display their good fortune to the court. The men had escaped a capital charge not through their innocence, but via a technicality so obscure that it had even confused Littledale and members of the grand jury. Hereafter the momentum would shift. More charges awaited, and on these there were no legal loopholes to slip through.

The clerk was called forward again to read the remainder of the charges. These included the findings of the coroner’s inquistion and the true bill passed by the grand jury accusing Clewes of murdering Heming. The defendants were asked to stand.

‘How say you, Thomas Clewes, George Banks and John Barnett? Are you guilty or not guilty?’ asked the clerk.

‘Not guilty,’ said Clewes.

‘Not guilty,’ said Banks.

‘Not guilty,’ said Barnett.

As they spoke, each prisoner was compelled to raise his right hand beside his head. Clewes’ ‘grey hairs lay straight upon his forehead’, noted one reporter; Barnett paused momentarily before responding firmly; Banks, who had been drawing the most attention from the press gallery, seemed shaken. Throughout his time at the bar his lips quivered and moved ‘as if [he was] engaged in subdued and silent conversation’, one journalist noted.

The charges read, the 12-man jury was empanelled, all of them men between the ages of 21 and 60 holding the requisite property qualifications. They included an innkeeper, an ironmonger, a tailor, a mercer, a weaver, two farmers and a scythe manufacturer, and were headed by the foreman, James Allport, a cabinet maker from Stourport.

Before the case proceeded any further, Clewes’ counsel Ludlow enquired for a second time which of the indictments
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was to be tried first. He pointed out that Clewes had been charged twice, the other defendants only once. Littledale answered that it was customary to try the most serious case first, therefore it made sense to begin with the murder charge against Clewes. Curwood seconded this suggestion and Ludlow acquiesced. Banks and Barnett were then removed from the bar, leaving Clewes to hear the indictment a second time.

As with any criminal case, the prosecution was invited to lay its evidence before the jury first, and Curwood made his way to the front of the court. His opening speech had doubtless been carefully rehearsed. The aim was to set the scene and stroll through the facts of the case, introducing his argument as he went. Curwood’s effort was commendable, an equal mixture of flattery, persuasive rhetoric and lucidity that at times glowed with a mellifluous, rhythmic quality. He began by declaring the case ‘almost unparalleled in the legal annals and totally unparalleled in my recollection’.

‘On 24 June Mr Parker was murdered in one of his own fields, and I believe it will be proved without question that the murderer was Richard Heming, between whom and Mr Parker there was no enmity,’ Curwood observed. It was a strange crime, he went on. Heming and Parker belonged to different parishes; there was no quarrel between them. Only after a time, he explained, did it turn out that he ‘was hired by other persons to do the deed of horror’. Gaining a little momentum, Curwood shifted his attention to subsequent events and Heming’s disappearance.

Years, however, rolled away, and nothing was heard of him, until his remains were found in the barn; those were recognised; his shoes were remarkable; and the bones were identified by his wife. It appeared clear that Heming was the murderer of Mr Parker, and therefore, the inference was that Heming had been murdered by those who employed him, because it having been known that search was made for this man, it became of vital importance to those who instigated him to do the deed that he should be removed. With respect to the others, I will abstain from saying anything; I shall merely observe that Clewes, the prisoner, had a motive, and I shall prove that he used expressions of the most deadly hate to Mr Parker. He said he would give £50 to have him shot. In 1815 he had said he knew Heming would never appear again; and on Bromsgrove fair day, the very day of Mr Parker’s murder, he stated, he hoped he would find a dead parson before him at home. Gentlemen, he did find a dead parson before him at home, and I will produce a witness to show you he knew what became of Heming, and Heming was heard of no more.

Curwood now turned to the subject of Clewes’ confession. He picked up a copy of the document in his right hand, but before he could begin to read it, Ludlow sprang to his feet, objecting that it was unusual to mention a confession in an opening speech. Littledale submitted to the point: ‘Perhaps it would be as well to abstain as much as you can from referring to it, unless you consider it necessary,’ he advised.

But this was more a gentle warning than a stiff rebuke and did little to deter Curwood from his course. The confession was the most incriminating piece of evidence the prosecution possessed and its validity lay at the core of the case. The earlier Curwood could introduce it to the jury the better, but already the barrister was entering choppy legal waters. Ever since the eighteenth century involuntary confessions (those ‘got by promises or threats’) had been deemed inadmissible in court, and there was every danger Clewes’ confession would be regarded as such by Littledale. The judge would have to consider how Clewes had come to confess: whether he had been offered any inducements to do so, or had been pressured into making his statement. Being probed by a figure of authority (however gently) was considered unacceptable as a suspect might feel compelled to confess out of fear or duty. Some inducements, such as an offer to remove a pair of handcuffs or the promise of a meeting with a family member, were considered acceptable. But the line was thin. In 1833 a female prisoner’s confession would be declared inadmissible because an officer had stated that she had better speak, ‘otherwise the matter would lie on her
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and the guilty would go free’.

The first confession – made orally to Clifton at the gaol – failed both of the legal tests. The defence was sure to argue that Clewes had been seduced by Clifton’s promise of a royal pardon, about as strong an inducement as could exist. They could also point out that Clifton was a figure of authority: he was not just the prison chaplain but also the magistrate who had committed Clewes to gaol just hours before. Clewes had genuine reason to respect or even fear what Clifton said, giving Ludlow a strong argument for having the confession dismissed as evidence. The only hope for the prosecution was to demonstrate clearly that Clewes had made two independent confessions: a first, to Clifton at the gaol, which had been rescinded and destroyed, and a second to the coroner’s inquest two days later, which was legally admissible. Such arguments would come later, but for now Curwood stuck to the matter in hand. He warned the jury to expect the defence to use the confession ‘as a means of escape’. He continued,

The whole of this confession must be given to you: but you are not bound to believe the whole of it. You may believe the prisoner when he says he was present, but you are not compelled to credit his statement when he attempts to explain away his presence. And gentlemen, I may here remark to you, that in the whole course of my practice, I never knew an accessory who did not, according to his statement, fill a very insignificant part in the transaction. He never confesses to being the person who struck the blow or gave the poison.

Unlike the relative informality of the coroner’s court, rule and form permeated grand jury cases. Questions had to be concise and relevant. The tone was formal, and almost every address was accompanied by flattering asides to the judge and the jury. Bad manners, uncouth language or any other solecism were not tolerated, and the judges and barristers – who often knew each other from other stops on the circuit – occasionally betrayed traces of familiarity, though they did their best not to show it. Describing a London courtroom in
Sketches By Boz
, Charles Dickens recorded, ‘Nothing is so likely to strike the person
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who enters them [criminal courts] for the first time, as the calm indifference with which the proceedings are conducted; every trial seems a mere matter of business. There is a good deal of form, but no compassion; considerable interest but no sympathy.’

Charles Burton, fresh from his month as a local celebrity, was the first witness called by the prosecution. He repeated his evidence, stating how he had come across the bones at Netherwood a month and a half earlier and describing how he had cooperated with Smith and Pierpoint in the exhumation of the skeleton and accompanying artefacts. Burton was subject to a light cross-examination from Ebenezer Ludlow, but no more. He admitted that two-foot rules such as the one found in the grave were also carried by masons and other workers as well as carpenters.

Surgeon Matthew Pierpoint also breezed through his evidence without trouble from Ludlow. He was a respected man, and questioning his evidence was unlikely to impress either the court or the judge. Like Burton, Pierpoint narrated his movements throughout January with careful precision; as did the next witness, Elizabeth Newbury. She told the jury about Richard’s disappearance, then proceeded to identify, as they were produced, his shoes (nailed on the heels, low and tied with string), his rule (‘witness examined the rule and put her finger on a mark near the rivet which did not quite close’) and the teeth of the skull. When confronted with the sight of Heming’s skull for a second time, Newbury was ready and composed. ‘He had very good teeth, sound, very strong and tolerably white,’ she said. ‘I will swear they are his teeth.’

An early photograph of Netherwood Farm and its fenced fold-yard, from about 1910. The replacement barn can be seen on the left-hand side

‘Do you know Thomas Clewes?’ asked Curwood.

‘I know Thomas Clewes. He came to the house three times on pretence of work, before Mr Parker’s death,’ she replied.

The first of the prosecution’s points had been proved: the bones discovered in the barn at Netherwood were Heming’s. Curwood could now proceed to his second task – to demonstrate that Heming was a hired gun tempted into the parish to dispose of Parker. Shopkeeper Thomas Barber was the first to support this. He repeated his evidence from the coroner’s inquest, recalling that Clewes had promised ‘£50 for any man who would shoot the parson’ after brushing past Parker in his store. ‘Did he offer you any money?’ Ludlow enquired. ‘The £50 was not offered to me, it was only said in the way of conversation,’ he replied.

As one witness followed another, Ludlow’s attempts to cast doubt on their testimony increased. When Joseph Colley recalled Heming talking about ‘a dirty job at Oddingley’ in the Red Lion, Ludlow suggested he might have been referring to getting the poles out of Evans’ muddy pond. During his cross-examination of Sarah Lloyd (now Sarah Rogers) he discovered there were no living witnesses to corroborate her account of the left-handed toasts and curses in the Pigeon House. ‘I told my father and sister of this the same night, but gave them no particulars,’ she said. ‘Both are now dead.’ Susan Surman was also challenged. Valentine Lee was Ludlow’s deputy and initially more combative. He attacked Surman’s claim that Clewes had said, ‘I shall be glad to find a dead parson in Oddingley when I come back [from Bromsgrove Fair]’ – an important part of the prosecution’s case and the key element of her testimony.