Drug-crazed killer jailed for 34 years
A SADISTIC murderer who tortured an 89-year-old widow for hours before killing her “for pleasure” was jailed for a minimum of 34 years yesterday.
Reece Dempster broke into DorothyWoolmer’s home in a search for cash to feed his “lust” for drink and drugs.
The court heard Dempster, 23, subjected MrsWoolmer to a “heinous” sex ordeal before battering her to death at her house in Tottenham, north London, last August. Dempster, of Tottenham, had initially denied murder, admitting manslaughter instead on the grounds he was so high on drink and drugs he did not know what he was doing.
But he changed his mind three days into his Old Bailey trial and admitted murder, sexual assault and burglary.
Sentencing Dempster,
Mr Justice Edis told him: “You seem to have killed for pleasure in your drug-crazed state.”
FOR MORE than 200 years, the parade grounds and lecture halls of Sandhurst have taught British Army officers how to lead soldiers in battle. Bellowing colour sergeants at the world’s most famous military institution have screamed orders at the likes of Winston Churchill, Princes William and Harry, singer James Blunt and even the author Michael Morpurgo, to name a few of the better-known alumni.
All have benefited from the strict discipline, but the tough lifestyle is not everyone’s cup of tea.
But now the Commandant of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in Berkshire has joined the ranks of self-help gurus.
Major General Paul Nanson has written a book, Stand Up Straight, which urges non-military folk to adopt the skills drummed into officer cadets to achieve their full potential. And it’s already a best-seller.
“The skills taught here are transferable into civilian life,” General Nanson insists, spotless in neatly ironed khaki kit and gleaming boots.
He looks a good decade younger than 54 years, so it’s clear his highly disciplined lifestyle choices have served him well. But many in civvy street might struggle with the daily regime, which involves room inspection after the National Anthem is played at 6am.
Getting most people out of their beds at the crack of dawn is tough enough, never mind having to undergo inspection of trouser creases and bed sheet folds.
Sensibly, General Nanson is not advocating quite such a rigid approach, but he still believes that the general principles behind it are extremely useful in anyone’s life.
“To be able to look after people you have to look after yourself,” he says. “It’s about attention to detail, understanding and habit forming.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re a soldier or a civilian, if you have an orderly mind, an orderly house, you have probably got an orderly way of approaching life’s challenges.
“Here it is very disciplined. You have to prepare your bed in a certain way, fold your socks in a certain way.
“No one does that at home but it’s about the mindset, about knowing where everything is.
“Looking after yourself is a fundamental part of leadership.”
Once order has been established, officer recruits learn the next lesson: how to make good decisions under intense pressure. They are taught the “Combat Estimate” system, built around seven key questions, created by a US military expert.
“It developed from operations,” explains General Nanson. “The first three questions cover the context of the decision you are going into. It’s a logical way of breaking down a problem and dealing with it.
Question four is about how to achieve the effects, then it’s about resources and what command and control I need.”
Sandhurst’s officers-to-be write down their questions and answers and go through them with a platoon commander, but in civvy that role could be taken by manager.
One of the chapters examines an army expression used in combat zones: “Taking the knee”. It describes the way soldiers keep a low profile to avoid an enemy attack while they make important decisions.
“If you are a commander, you ‘take the knee’ before deciding what to do in a situation,” says General Nanson.
“Adrenaline will be pumping through your body, you’ll be scared, wanting to do something straight away, but often the hot-headed response is not the right one.”
In the Iraq war in 1991, he was a platoon commander seeking out enemy positions in the desert, ahead of the main fighting units. As his men advanced, they unexpectedly saw tanks moving across in front of them.
The instant response was: “It’s got to be the enemy, let’s open fire.” But, recalling his Sandhurst training, he chose to take a few moments to weigh up the potentially deadly situation. “Something in my mind said, ‘Take a knee’. Think this through. No one was shooting at us, so I took a pause.
“Eventually it became clear it was one of our other units which had got lost,” he recalls.
“Had we not taken a knee and opened fire we’d have killed our own people.”
In Iraq in 2003, in round two of the war, he was involved in fighting to take control of Basra. When the city was liberated, his troops had the difficult job of enforcing law and order.
“I had about 120 Fusiliers and there was no order,” he says.
“Soldiers became medics, midwives, distributed grain, water. It was a difficult situation.”
WORD FROM THE WISE: Nanson with a cadet
Hstreet a line
IS troops were responsible for a detention centre, where looters were taken. At one stage, a senior officer called him in to say prisoners were being beaten up, a direct breach of the war conventions.
“I was called in by my commander and told, ‘You have to sort it out’,” he recalls. “I immediately thought, ‘That’s my career.’ I’ve made a mistake. My blokes have let me down.
“I went back to my company to speak to my sergeant major and said, ‘We’ve got to find out who it is. One of our blokes is beating up prisoners.’
“It was a very dodgy 12 hours. I remember feeling pretty miserable.”
But then one of the Fusiliers approached Nanson and insisted: “It’s not us.”
The General recalls: “He was one of the biggest scrotes in the company but I believed him.
“I thought to myself, I should have trusted them. I shouldn’t have jumped to the conclusion.
“We’d been together 12 months preparing for this. We’d fought together.We’d lost one of our friends and yet my automatic assumption was to think it was one of them.”
Eventually the culprits, men not under his command, were found and