Serial killer to appeal against his convictions
HULL’S most notorious serial killer will appear at the highest appeals court in the land this week hoping to have his convictions for killing 15 people overturned.
Peter Tredget, who was more commonly known as Bruce Lee but has since changed his name, is known as the man who burnt 15 people to death in a string of arson attacks throughout Hull in the 1970s.
He was 13 when he committed his first arson. He is now 61, and has remained locked up in a psychiatric unit ever since being convicted at Leeds Crown Court in January 1981 of starting 11 fires, which led to the deaths of 26 people.
However, his conviction for starting the fire at Wensley Lodge in Hessle, which claimed the lives of 11 men aged from 65 to 95, was later overturned by the Court of Appeal in 1983, after evidence proved the fire had been caused by the boiler.
This reduced the number of deaths he was responsible for to 15.
Now, the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) has referred the arson and manslaughter convictions of Tredget to the Court of Appeal, with the hearing listed for Monday before Mr Justice Hilliard and Lord Hughes.
In 2019, the CCRC stated a review of tens of thousands of documents by another police force, in a review commissioned by them, had led to their recommendation for an appeal.
It stated: “The commission has conducted a thorough detailed and extensive investigation into Mr Tredget’s remaining convictions and the circumstances surrounding them.
“This has been one of the commission’s longest-ever running cases; the investigation has involved the commissioning of reports from numerous expert witnesses, obtaining and analysing of tens of thousands of pages of casework information, and the use of the commission’s power under section 19 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995 to appoint a police force to carry out specific enquiries on the commission’s behalf and under its direction.
“The commission has decided to refer the case for appeal because it believes that new evidence identified in the course of its investigation raises a real possibility that the Court of Appeal will quash Mr Tredget’s convictions.”
The Commission said that the original prosecution relied principally on confessions made by Tredget, who initially confessed to starting the fire at Selby Street, west Hull, on December 4, 1979. The blaze killed three brothers – Charles, Peter and Paul Hastie, who were 15, 12 and eight.
He went on to confess to starting ten other fires that caused death and serious injury. He also confessed to starting a further 14 non-fatal fires at a range of premises including shops, warehouses and lodging houses, but was not prosecuted for those.
Tredget pleaded guilty at Leeds Crown Court and in January 1981 he was sentenced to detention without limit of time in a secure mental hospital.
Mr Tredget subsequently appealed at the Court of Appeal, and in December 1983 the court quashed his conviction on one count of arson and 11 counts of manslaughter relating to a fire at Wensley Lodge – an old people’s home in Hessle, which happened in 1977 and killed 11 men aged from 65 to 95.
The commission said there are multiple grounds for his appeal, including expert evidence obtained from a psychologist and a forensic linguist relating to the veracity of Mr Tredget’s confessions; expert evidence from a specialist document examiner relating to written confessions; non-compliance in relation to police interviews with Tredget, and expert evidence relating to the causes of the fires.