‘OF COURSE NILSEN WAS MAD... BUT HE WASN’T INSANE’

Former MP tells of role at killer’s trial

TRIAL: Dennis Nilsen and, inset, Sir Ivan Lawrence.

A FORMER Staffordshire MP who defended serial killer Dennis Nilsen in court has revealed what it was like trying to convince a jury to convict his client of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

Sir Ivan Lawrence QC – who was the MP for Uttoxeter at the time – was a barrister in the defence team during Nilsen’s 1980s trial.

Nilsen had strangled or drowned his victims, who were often homeless or drug addicts, before watching television with the bodies and later dissecting them and burning the remains.

Sir Ivan – who served as the town’s MP from 1974 to 1997 – has been speaking following the ITV series Des which dramatised the murder trial of Nilsen, played by former Doctor Who star David Tennant.

In the series, Sir Ivan was portrayed in the courtroom scenes by actor Pip Torrens.

Sir Ivan, now aged 83, said: “He didn’t look like me, didn’t sound like me and didn’t ask the same questions I asked.

“A lot of people have watched it and have been impressed with David Tennant. He was very good.”

The series starts when body parts are found to be blocking a drain outside Nilsen’s flat.

He is subsequently arrested and immediately admits to killing 15 men after he leads officers to several bodies still stored in his flat.

The three-part series then followed the police’s journey in finding out the identities of his victims, despite the fact he barely knew their names.

He was later found guilty of the murder of six men and two counts of attempted murder.

The remains of at least 12 were discovered in a ‘burn pile’ in his garden, but six were never identified.

His defence team argued that Nilsen suffered from diminished responsibility, rendering him incapable of forming the intention to commit murder, and should therefore be convicted only of manslaughter.

He denied murder at his trial. Sir Ivan said: “The situation was about whether it was murder or

CASE: David Tennant as Dennis Nilsen in the TV programme Des. diminished responsibility. If, with diminished responsibility, there is that intent to kill which is modified as a measure of craziness, then it would be manslaughter.

“The real issue is a legal one on whether the jury was going to say this man was sane and had intended to kill or he was ‘loopy loo’.

“It didn’t much matter whether he was convicted of manslaughter or murder, as he was going to go to prison for the rest of his life.

“In my final speech to the jury, I said if you consider that this man is all there and is totally sane and in no way mad, then it is murder.

“But if you kill 15 people you don’t know for no reason in the way in which he did, then you are mad.

“Then if you bury the bodies under the floorboards and then bring them up, powder them, perform a sex act on them, watch television and have conversations with them, then cut off chunks of them and boil their heads and then drink a cup of tea, then you are deranged – and that is diminished responsibility.

“The jury had a great deal of considerable difficulty in deciding.

“They were out for two days and came back with a majority verdict.

“My guess is they must have considered he was mad, but were concerned he could be walking the streets in a matter of months or years [if they convicted him of manslaughter].

“Of course he was mad. It was diminished responsibility, but he wasn’t insane.

“Insane means you are insane all of the time and you cannot have conversations with people.

“Nilsen was a civil servant; he was perfectly sane sounding. He found victims that he thought weren’t going to be missed.

“He was perfectly calm and sensible and admitted what he had done.

“The jury made a practical decision, but it didn’t much matter what the verdict was – he was still going to prison for the rest of his life because he had killed 15 people.”

The series also centres around author Brian Masters, who visited Nilsen in jail many times following his arrest with the intent of publishing a book about the murders.

Masters later released his book Killing for Company: The Case of Dennis Nilsen.

Sir Ivan said: “I could never bring myself to re read the book.

““It was all pretty re revolting and terrible st stuff and I didn’t have to for the purposes of w what I was doing.

““Nilsen wasn’t su surprised at the verdict. He said ‘I am mad’.

““He never denied that he killed them. I mean he wrote 53 notebooks of what he did and how he did it, and made dr drawings.”