The Cretingham Murder (10 page)

Outside in the churchyard, the recent grave was still covered in wreaths and ‘they and the falling leaves, varied in hue, typical of the fading year remind us of the uncertainties of life.’

One thing that was certain was that by the following day some other crime would be reported which would capture the public’s interest. Cretingham’s time in the spotlight had come to its end.

7

THE ASSIZES,
15 NOVEMBER 1887

Such is the fragility of fame that when the Cretingham murder case came up at the Assizes just five weeks later, the national papers found little room for it beyond a brief paragraph outlining the case and announcing the verdict.

In the circumstances, it was hardly surprising. There were far more serious things to occupy the pages than the fate of an insignificant curate. The government and the country as a whole were gripped with fear that the stability of social order was about to be severely undermined by Radicalism.

For several days hundreds of the unemployed and homeless had marched upon London, converging on Trafalgar Square where they remained waiting for the rally which was to be addressed by the leading Radicals, Tom O’Brien, John Burns, the MP, Cunningham Grahame and Mrs Annie Besant. By Sunday 13 November, so great was the number assembled to hear the various speakers expounding on what the authorities felt could only lead to anarchy, that 2,000 hand-picked policemen, with contingents drafted in from Epping Forest to Epsom, supported by another 200 mounted police armed with batons, were brought in to disperse them. The rough force and bloodshed that ensued from retaliatory sticks and stones, gave the press the opportunity to use such headlines as ‘The Second Battle of Trafalgar’. The aftermath of ‘Bloody Sunday’ rumbled on for most of the following week, filling the papers with eyewitness accounts and columns of comments and letters.

Away from the capital, in Norwich, the autumn session of the Suffolk and Norfolk Assizes opened at the Shire Hall on 14 November. The case of the Crown v Gilbert-Cooper was listed to be heard on Tuesday 15th before Mr Justice Field. Messrs Mayd and Rawlinson appeared for the prosecution with Messrs Murphy QC and Dering for the defence. The defence seem to have accepted that Arthur had indeed committed the crime but set out to prove his insanity at the time of the offence. This was vital if they were to save him from the inevitable sentence of the time – hanging. So, before the prisoner was arraigned, Mr Murphy made an application that a jury should be empanelled to try whether the prisoner was fit to plead.

His request was granted and a jury sworn to try ‘whether the prisoner is of sound mind and understanding, so as to be capable of making his trial on the charge whereof he stands indicted’.

The members of the jury and those who had crowded into the courtroom, including a large number of the ‘fair sex’, had now to listen to all the medical evidence mustered to testify as to Arthur’s mental instability.

First was George Hetherington MRCS, surgeon to Ipswich Gaol, who had had the prisoner in his special charge from 6 October until the time Arthur had been removed to Norwich for the trial.

Dr Hetherington reported that the prisoner was hesitant in his manner and showed an inability to answer quite simple questions. He gave the impression that he was unconcerned, even indifferent to events. The prisoner’s expression showed a want of intelligence and when questioned, appeared resentful, giving only monosyllabic replies. As a final proof of Arthur’s odd behaviour, he cited what happened during Chapel services. The prisoner, he said, would stand up when others knelt and vice versa and make responses when he ought not. (Far from proof of mental derangement, were these not rather the actions of a high churchman – and a clergyman to boot?)

The next expert was Dr Eager, the resident physician and superintendent of the Suffolk County Asylum at Melton. He had, he told the court, been instructed by the Home Office to enquire into the condition of the prisoner. He had first seen Arthur on 1 November (a month after the event) at Ipswich Gaol. He had interviewed him, not in his cell but in the governor’s room where the prisoner had been brought from the exercise yard. When the doctor had entered the room he had found the accused with a fixed expression staring into space through half closed eyes. The prisoner had seemed perfectly unaware of the doctor’s presence in the room until Dr Eager had called his attention. Then he seemed to come to himself, jerking his head and laughing in a foolish way.

The doctor had engaged Arthur in conversation for an hour or so. Asked to relate what had been said, the doctor reported that the accused had revealed that he felt he was being influenced by people he could not see, especially at night. He had confided that he never felt alone at night if he was awake, as he was surrounded by things in the air. Probing into the events surrounding the death of the Revd Farley, Arthur had said, ‘I felt dazed when I got out of bed. I did not know what I was going to do. I did not distinctly understand what happened until a few days ago.’

Asked by counsel what assessment Dr Eager had put on his report of that visit on 1 November, he answered, ‘He is now hopelessly insane and irresponsible.’

The doctor was then asked if he had seen Arthur since that date. He replied that he had that very morning spent two or three minutes with the prisoner in a cell at the back of the court. Describing what had taken place during that brief meeting he said he had asked Arthur for that day’s name and date, both of which he had given correctly. Invited by counsel to give a medical opinion on Arthur’s current mental state, the doctor relied, ‘I think he is able to form a judgement as to why he is here; but I do not think he is able to form any judgement as to instructing his counsel.’

The learned medical opinions offered were not sufficient to sway the jury who quickly made up their minds that Arthur was indeed fit to plead his case. That jury was then thanked for its service and dismissed. Another jury was sworn in and the trial began in earnest.

Wearing a thick overcoat over his usual clerical attire, Arthur was led in looking flushed and excited. When he entered the bare dock, he looked round for a chair which was hastily provided for him. From the clean-shaven, moustached young man of just over six weeks before, it was remarked that he now had long side whiskers and a beard. One assumes that it was considered dangerous to allow a razor anywhere near him.

He stood for the formal charge to be read out and answered ‘Not guilty’ in a firm, clear voice.

The trial followed the course of the previous hearings, with Harriet Louisa beginning with her account. It was observed that the widow, who was still in deep mourning, seemed to have aged considerably since her last court appearance. She too was allowed to be seated as she gave her evidence.

During her cross examination, she said she did not know that Arthur had ever been in an asylum but for the first time she admitted that she had been aware from the beginning that ‘his mind was wrong’. She said that Archdeacon Groome had read two letters to her husband which she had not heard, but her husband had later given her the impression that the curate was not quite right but perfectly safe. ‘He [the Revd Farley] said “he is a very worthy, good young man but a little weak. He is perfectly harmless.”’

Harriet Louisa was later questioned about her correspondence with Arthur’s mother. Was it right that in one letter she had written ‘he is so bright and cheerful’ after his return? ‘Oh yes, he was. He was bright and childish about the house.’ And yet, the defence argued, was it not also correct that in a second letter she had written, ‘he is not at all well and came home sadly’?

When questioning Dr Jones, Murphy for the defence laid particular emphasis on the doctor’s examination of Arthur while in custody immediately following the murder. Had Arthur, Murphy wanted to know, realized the importance of the situation he was in? The doctor did not think so. In fact, Arthur had given the impression of having some idea of a wrong and that
he
was to be punished by having
his
throat cut.

Witnesses for the defence all set out to reinforce Arthur’s insanity. His uncle Gen C. Gilbert-Cooper told the court of the severe sunstroke and weeks of fever that had followed it when the young Arthur was in India. Then came the revelation of the heredity madness on the Shuldham side of the family; not just one uncle but two great uncles as well had suffered in this way.

Mr Mickley, the resident medical superintendent of St Luke’s Hospital, having stated that Arthur had been admitted as a patient on 2 November 1878, quoted entries from the hospital records:

20.12.1878. This morning Cooper made an unprovoked attack upon Baker and when the attendant came to stop him he attacked him, in a violent manner. Was visited upon two occasions by his father this week, who considered him improved since his last visit. Patient told one of the attendants he would commit suicide if he could. Is a dangerous patient and will attack suddenly without warning.

10.8.1880. In a very unsatisfactory state. He cannot be trusted.

At the request of the family solicitors, Dr Mickley had visited Arthur at Ipswich Gaol on 12 October. He gave an account of the interview he had had:

I saw the prisoner in Ipswich Gaol and said to him, ‘How were you feeling just before this occurrence?’ His answer was ‘I was distrait and out of sorts mentally.’

I said, ‘How did you feel that night when you first went to bed?’

‘I felt very comfortable.’

‘How was it you went to Mr Farley’s room?’

‘I don’t know how or why I went. I could not help it.’

I then asked whether he knew the Mr Farley was dead.

To which he replied: ‘I do not know that he is dead. I have not been told so. If he is dead, it is not murder, because it was not planned. Had it been planned then it would have been murder. Were I in a similar state of mind again the same might occur.’

‘Had you any feeling against the deceased?’

‘No – I can avoid the trial by going to Heaven by having my throat cut by the proper persons.’

‘Are you troubled with voices of imaginary people speaking to you?’

‘They harass me and worry me. They are spiritual voices.’

Dr Mickley concluded with the statement that the prisoner’s manner was dull and stupid. He believed that he knew right from wrong up to a certain point; assuming that he knew what he was about to do was wrong, he had not the mental powers to stop himself.

A second medical expert from St Luke’s, Dr Wood, had accompanied Mickley and he offered a further account of the conversations which had taken place. In his opinion, Arthur had shown no animosity towards the Revd Farley but had said that the thought of murder had come to him that morning. He was under the delusion that he was being influenced by another person who impelled him to commit the crime. He had then asked the doctor ‘Is Robespierre alive?’ On being told he wasn’t, he had replied, ‘perhaps he isn’t dead after all.’ He had then declared with great emotion that Mr Farley was alive. And when told he wasn’t, had declared, ‘I am a Mason.’

Arthur had also volunteered that there were other people by whom he had been influenced. These he identified as the ‘two at Cretingham’. Asked to name the two, he said he could not tell him.

When Dr Wood asked Arthur for his motive, the accused had reiterated that there was none and it was not murder. The doctor’s evidence continued: ‘I said, ‘Is the act right?’

‘No, it was foolish and wicked but I couldn’t help it. I did not mean to kill him. He is alive now. I suppose I must have been quite mad. I thought if I did something of this sort I should get off my trouble. But I knew it would not, therefore I gave it up.’

The final medical statement came from Dr Tuke, FRCS, who had been responsible for Arthur’s first committal to a mental institution: ‘Persons might give way to homicidal impulses then be apparently cured and the attacks might come on years later. Recurring lunacy occurred largely in the autumn, the hotter months influencing the brain.’

In his submission to the jury, Murphy begged them to exercise common sense in their consideration of about ‘the maddest action he had ever heard of. This crime was so extraordinary and unheard of it must be the work of a madman.’ To reinforce this view, he hammered home the question of what motive had Arthur had? Then too, the jury should consider how often was a crime like this committed in the presence of a witness? And if that wasn’t ludicrous enough, surely it was usual for a criminal to have a plan of escape, not to return to the scene as if nothing had happened.

Throughout the trial, which lasted seven and a half hours, there was little reaction from Arthur himself beyond the occasional hand movements which suggested he was brushing things away from his face.

It is not recorded how long the jury took to decide that the prisoner was insane at the time he committed the act. The judge would not accept this verdict until he had established that the jury had in fact found him guilty of the killing. The jury agreed this but added the important proviso that the prisoner was insane so as not to be responsible according to law for his actions.

Sentence was delivered. Under the terms of the Criminal Lunacy Act which had come into force as recently as 1884, Arthur Gilbert-Cooper had escaped hanging. However, he was to be detained at her Majesty’s Pleasure. A few week’s later, a short sentence tucked away in the
East Anglian Daily Times
announced that the curate of Cretingham had been sent to Broadmoor.

8

FINALE

The case is closed, the book is shut, but for the reader there is the niggling question – ‘what happened after that?’ How soon did the villagers at Cretingham settle back to the even tenor of their lives; how long was it before the vicar’s murder and the curate’s incarceration in Broadmoor ceased to be a topic of conversation over the teacups and tankards?

Unfortunately, there is now no one left to tell us of the events of the months which followed. The
Framlingham News
however, related that barely two months after the fatal deed for which the muffled bell of the church had tolled, the bells of St Peter’s Cretingham rang out loud and clear. A date-touch peal of 1887 changes in plain bob methods was rung in one hour and twelve minutes at the beginning of December. The ringers, conducted by G. Wightman (father of Annie) included another Wightman, John Self, Thomas Coates (husband of the woman who had assisted at the Revd Farley’s laying out) and the 13-year-old James Durrant.