Murderers and celebs

In the first of an occasional series, James Morton takes a sideways look at recent legal issues hitting the headlines

'Myra Hindley to be freed' - or words to that effect - declared most headlines in reporting the decision by the European Court of Human Rights to end the right of the home secretary to overrule Parole Board decisions in favour of adult murderers whose fixed tariffs have expired.

There is no question of finding Hindley shopping in Manchester at the weekend because the ruling does not cover those on whole-life tariffs, but Hindley's position seems to have been strengthened immeasurably.

Her tariff was initially 25 years but was converted to whole-life by Michael Howard, the then home secretary.

She has now served in the region of 37 years and, given last week's decision and the current European climate, would seem to be odds on to win a case in Strasbourg.

Even those on whole-life tariffs have their sentences reviewed after 25 years and then on a further five-year basis, so it is likely that there will be renewed challenges in Europe from some of those recommended for licence by the Parole Board.

The home secretary retains the right to fix the tariff, but that too is now seriously under threat.

The court's decision has been generally welcomed - except by politicians.

Given that one of the aims of prison is redemption it is difficult to see how there can be no light, however faint, at the end of a tunnel.

Will it make that much difference? Will we see murderers being released only to kill again? Obviously such cases make hard examples but over the years there have been relatively few men and women released after serving a sentence for unlawful killing who have been convicted a second time of the same offence.

In fact, in the 100 years from 1900, the total of those convicted of a second unlawful killing was only slightly more than 70 in England and Wales, and of those around 30 were convicted of a second murder; not too bad a figure at all.

The preponderance of these have been in the past 40 years.

Of course, you can play with statistics to get any result you want.

Furthermore, critics will argue that many of those convicted before 1964 simply were not around to have the chance of a second go.

Now I would like to provide a run-down on some of the more interesting stories of the past few days.

There is the unfortunate Angus Deighton set up in a sting.

What has emerged is that there is a sort of underground industry in trying to trap 'celebs' in compromising positions, the story of which can then be sold to the tabloids.

In some other cases, it seems middlemen have offered celebs the chance to suppress stories by paying an equivalent of their supposed worth.

I always thought that was called blackmail, but no doubt the law has been changed since I last looked, or perhaps, if the victim can be induced to make the approach, then it is all right.

There was one case which cost a barrister dearly when he became involved in a suppression case.

The lawyer was the rapscallion Billy Rees-Davies MP, known as the one-armed bandit.

Over his years at the bar he had a number of run-ins with the senate, including a time when he absented himself from a trial to take his daughter to Ascot for the Gold Cup.

But it was his association with Stephen Ward which caused him his greatest professional embarrassment.

Ward was convicted of living off the immoral earnings of the beautiful club hostess, Christine Keeler, who had been careless enough to share her favours with both a Russian diplomat and John Profumo, a minister in Harold Macmillan's cabinet.

After the prosecution of Ward, Lord Denning was invited to conduct an inquiry into the whole affair.

Lord Denning became enchanted with Ms Keeler but was less so with the part Rees-Davies had played in the affair.

Before the trial, Ms Keeler, not unnaturally, wanted to give her story to the newspapers, and just as naturally Ward was keen she should not.

As Ward's counsel during a period from 28 January to 6 February 1963, Rees-Davies had rather anticipated the changes in the rules of conduct and acted effectively as a solicitor, interviewing witnesses and endeavouring to negotiate a settlement with a solicitor he had found for her, who had once been his pupil at the bar.

Unfortunately, things were not spelled out clearly in the negotiations.

When the solicitor in a telephone conversation said that she would accept 'five' he meant 5,000 and when Rees-Davies said he was sure that was all right, he thought the sum involved was 500.

Rees-Davies loaned Ward 50 and when the 500 came from Lord Astor he repaid himself and gave the rest to Ward's solicitor.

But Ms Keeler thought that she had been tricked and instead of settling went ahead and printed.

After that it all ended in tears.

When Ward was arrested on a charge of living off immoral earnings, Rees-Davies clearly could not act on his behalf and his solicitor instructed James Burge.

Ward committed suicide while the jury was deliberating the evidence against him.

The judge had postponed sentence until he was fit to appear but Ward never recovered from the overdose.

As an MP, Rees-Davies was almost automatically entitled to be appointed Queen's Counsel if he so wished but, because of his involvement in the affair, his preferment was held back for a several years.

Perhaps the story may serve as a warning to those who seek to by-pass solicitors and instruct counsel direct.

James Morton is a former criminal law specialist solicitor and now a freelance journalist