My friend the (middle-class) murderer

Criminologist Professor David Wilson – no stranger to coming face to face with people who have committed unspeakable acts – tells the story of an unlikely bond

As the UK’S leading criminologist, Professor David Wilson has spent the last 30 years working with some of the country’s most dangerous and violent offenders, including Charles Bronson and the serial killer Dennis Nilsen. Many hate him; he suspects some would like to see him dead. So how did he strike up a special relationship with one particularly unusualkiller?

It was on the rugby pitch that I first met Jimmy. He was fast, fearlessly tackled everyone that came into his path and it became obvious that he had a head for rugby. At the time was the assistant governor of Huntercombe, a youth custody centre in Oxfordshire, where, in a throwback to the days of borstal, staff and inmates played rugby together. I’d only spoken with Jimmy informally once or twice about rugby before I took a look at his prison file. Frankly, I was surprised to find out that he had committed a murder.

He had done so when he was 15. Even more surprising was his thin prison file – the files of all of the other lads bulged with the details of their previous convictions – and the remarks made by the judge when he had passed sentence, describing Jimmy as ‘cold and calculating’. To me he seemed rather shy and self-contained.

Jimmy was now 19 and could spend a further two years at Huntercombe, at which point he would either be released or moved into the adult penal system. I would be one of the people who would help to make that decision. Perhaps Jimmy knew that too and so, at first, he was wary of talking to me.

With all my charges, I liked to have an idea of their background prior to their incarceration, but Jimmy’s slim file provided little information. There were some pre-sentencing probation reports and a solitary newspaper cutting describing a ‘Public School Boy Sentenced for Murder’.

What I managed to glean was that Jimmy was the middle child from a professional, middle-class family. He had an older brother and a younger sister. He was the first in his family to ever get into trouble with the police and it was clear that the relationship with his parents had broken down long before the murder. Jimmy had been expelled from his boarding school, having been caught one too many times drunk in the dormitory and, after innumerable wasted chances, he was asked to leave. His parents had taken him back, but Jimmy couldn’t settle. After a few weeks he had moved in with an aunt but, when that relationship broke down too, he had drifted about and was seemingly sleeping rough at the time of the murder.

Jimmy was still drinking heavily when he met his elderly male victim in a pub. According to his report of the evening in question, he’d been invited back to spend the night on the sofa, rather than sleeping rough. The pair had continued to drink after closing time and, once home, the elderly man had made a pass at Jimmy. He rebuffed the pass and then calmly walked into the kitchen, where he found a knife. Jimmy returned to the sitting room where he plunged the knife into the elderly man’s heart, killing him instantly. Jimmy had then fallen asleep on the sofa and only made his escape the following morning. It was this behaviour that had prompted the ‘cold and calculating’ comment from the trial judge.

The elderly man’s sister had found him dead when she visited later in the day and reported the murder to the police. It didn’t take them long to track down the young man he had been seen drinking with the previous night and Jimmy quickly admitted that he had killed his victim. He had later tried to plead self-defence, but no one believed that the

elderly man had actually posed any threat and Jimmy was convicted of murder.

Four years on from the murder, Jimmy had resumed his academic studies and was hoping to start an Open University degree. He’d gotten into one or two fights with other lads – mostly through their mistaken belief that Jimmy would be an easy target; played a great deal of sport; had been sober for four years, and staff thought of him as a calming influence within the prison. To most of the rest of the staff, Jimmy was a ‘good lad who keeps his head down’, end of story. He might indeed be a ‘good lad’ but I needed to be certain that he wouldn’t kill again.

My first step was to explain to Jimmy that as I had to write parole reports about him, I wanted to see him for an hour in my office each Wednesday afternoon. My aim was to discover two things. First, why had Jimmy started to drink? Second, I needed to satisfy in my own mind the question of why Jimmy had murdered his elderly victim. Was this a one-off, dreadful

Jimmy calmly walked into the kitchen, where he found a knife. He returned to the sitting room where he plunged it into the elderly man’s heart

act of aberrant behaviour by a young, drunk, immature man or something that might be repeated when he was released as an adult? Was Jimmy really, in the words of the trial judge, a cold and callous killer? If that was the case, I had to find out what would stop him killing again.

Jimmy was ambivalent about these Wednesday meetings. On the one hand I think that he liked the attention but, on the other, he found my questioning of him intrusive and painful.

Very few of the lads that I worked with at Huntercombe were like Jimmy. He came from a middle-class background and this fact alone meant that he stood out. Youth custody swept up working-class boys who were largely illiterate, school-excluded and unemployed, as it sadly still does today. Jimmy may have been expelled from his boarding school, but he had used his time in custody to earn himself three A-levels. That achievement in itself was unusual.

I was very aware that I didn’t want to be seen to be giving preferential treatment to Jimmy, so I went out of my way to explain to the staff that as Jimmy had been sentenced under Section 53 of the 1933 Children and Young Persons Act, which meant that if he had been an adult he would have received a life sentence, I was required to answer particular questions about him, regarding granting him parole, that demanded greater than normal scrutiny. I also made space on Wednesday afternoons for any of the other lads there who wanted to see me. Many did, but mostly their worries were about what they were going to do after their release, as opposed to Jimmy who might not get released at all.

Throughout some 12 months of our sessions together, Jimmy stuck resolutely to the story that he had told in court. He had been drinking heavily and the elderly man had made a pass at him, at which point Jimmy admitted that he had been confused and ashamed by the sexual advance. In my experience, shame and the notion of ‘losing face’ are frequently a prelude to the violence of young men. Killing the elderly man had allowed Jimmy to regain some control over the situation. We got to this point quite quickly and also to the fact that he wasn’t gay.

Over the next few months I asked Jimmy about the time that it took between the pass being made and going into the kitchen to find a knife. What was he thinking about when he picked up the knife? Did he intend to kill the elderly man? Jimmy freely admitted to me that he had indeed intended to kill him and that the idea of ‘self-defence’ was only something that had been suggested to him by the duty solicitor after he had been arrested.

This part of the story, which emerged in our sessions, was confirmation of the narrative that I had already read. This gave me some confidence. I usually trust stories that don’t get embellished or change vital facts. I distrust details which are suddenly remembered, like rabbits being pulled from a hat. However, I still wasn’t satisfied. Something – and I didn’t know what – wasn’t adding up.

As our sessions progressed, I started to form an impression that something was being repressed. Why had he not called the police when he woke in the morning? Why had he not left town? It was as if he had wanted to be punished. I also realised that I had become so focused on the murder that I had failed to ask about his drinking. ‘Jimmy, why were you drinking so much?’ ‘Don’t we all? You have a pint after the rugby too!’ That was true and, reflecting the culture of both rugby clubs and youth custody centres at the time, no one thought anything of sharing a pint with the lads after the game. Some might find this scandalous but, if I am honest, I still think it helped to narrow the distance between ‘them’ and ‘us’ and served to remind us all of a shared and common humanity. ‘But why did you start?’ Jimmy said something evasive. A sixth sense suggested I should probe but, rather than asking something direct, I suggested, ‘Would you mind if I wrote to your parents?’

The impact of this question was immediate and electrifying. Jimmy almost pleaded with me not to. ‘I’m not writing to them to complain, Jimmy. You’ve done really well. I just want to ask them some questions to help with my parole report.’ I can’t say that Jimmy was pleased, nor did he give permission. However, there were legitimate questions to ask and, anyway, I didn’t need his permission to write to his parents.

As it transpired, their reply helped me to unlock Jimmy’s secrets. The letter I received back from Jimmy’s father was typed and effusive. It was soon clear that Jimmy had broken ties with his family and they were desperate to have him back within the fold. What came across strongly was that Jimmy had been a much-loved and valued member of the household. I got the impression that the pain that was being expressed to me in writing was not just about the murder but also about the fact that Jimmy now no longer wanted contact with his family. The letter also responded to my question about Jimmy’s abusive drinking. When he had first been caught, it was regarded as something that could be dealt with by way of a warning as to his future behaviour. Jimmy’s father indicated he now regretted a line of conversation with Jimmy about ‘not amounting to much’ and urging him to ‘be more like your brother’, who had been former head boy of the school Jimmy had been expelled from and was now a very successful banker. The warnings about drinking weren’t heeded and Jimmy’s father gradually became even more insistent that Jimmy was ‘wasting his life’ and ‘the whole family was disappointed in him’.

About the murder, the letter offered nothing new but ended with a hope I might persuade Jimmy to allow his family to visit. I began to wonder if the root of the problem might be Jimmy’s worry he could never match the success of his brother, so had spectacularly sabotaged his chances of success. What better way of not competing than getting yourself locked up?

The letter had arrived on a Friday and so our next scheduled meeting was the following Wednesday. However, we had a rugby match in Wallingford that Saturday and I thought that the opportunity to talk might present itself after the game, in a more relaxed and informal environment. It was a hard-fought match and Jimmy played exceptionally well. Afterwards, the lads all showered, changed into their white shirts and grey flannels, and

Was this a one-off act of aberrant behaviour by a young, drunk man or something that might be repeated as an adult?

put on their prison ties, then made their way into the bar area. Jimmy was sitting with some friends at a table discussing the match and I took the chance to join them. After a few minutes I found an opportunity to quietly tell him of his father’s letter and his family’s desire to come and visit. Jimmy looked off into the near distance. I was about to speak again when we were interrupted by the captain of the Wallingford side who made a gracious speech and then said that the Man of the Match was the Huntercombe full back. There was some polite applause and the captain then shook Jimmy’s hand and presented him with a club tie. Jimmy looked pleased, embarrassed and humbled. This type of kindness was repeated in every club we played against and says much for the sport of rugby. People suspended their judgement of the lads, even if one or two would sometimes slide up to you at the bar and ask, ‘So, what are they in for?’

At our next Wednesday meeting Jimmy had come along prepared for a fight, adamant that he didn’t want his family to visit. I realised that I would be banging my head against a brick wall if I continued to press and so returned to asking questions about the murder. Jimmy sighed and shifted uneasily in his chair and then stared out of my office window. ‘You’ve never really told me what you were thinking when you left the sitting room, went into the kitchen and picked up the knife,’ I continued, undeterred. Jimmy stopped staring out of my window and looked at me for the first time in our session. ‘That this will sort it for ever.’ ‘Sort what? What’s “it”?’ There was a silence. ‘Is this about your brother?’ I asked. Silence. ‘Were you afraid that you couldn’t live up to the standard that he had set and so deliberately made sure that you couldn’t compete?’

Then Jimmy did something totally unexpected. He laughed, although not in an arrogant way. He was laughing because my suggestion was ridiculous to him. ‘I love my brother, I love my family. Competition wasn’t the issue.’ A dam seemed to have burst and Jimmy then added for good measure, ‘I would have won. Hands down. Easily.’

I tried to take all of this in. If I understood him correctly, what was being repressed was not that Jimmy couldn’t compete against his brother but that he could and he would be the one who was successful. His was not a fear of failure but of success. What then for the family that he loved? How would they cope with the adjustment to their thinking? Above all, how would his brother manage? In his own immature way Jimmy had sought to resolve all those seething, unconscious questions by ‘sorting it for ever’. For ever. The result was drinking to excess to render any competition void; being expelled from school; murder and cutting all ties to his family. In Jimmy’s adolescent, unconscious mind he was making sacrifices to everything and everyone that he held dear. The tragedy was that an elderly man needlessly died in the process.

From that day to now, I still try and make sense of what Jimmy said, going over in my mind how credible his explanation might be. I try and walk in his shoes. I know that I could never have taken the life of the elderly man who had shown him kindness, although that does not diminish what Jimmy might have thought and therefore how he had behaved.

What Jimmy’s story taught me was that what we tell young people about who we think they are and what they might be capable of – how we label them for good, or more likely for ill – plays a central role in who they will become. Imagine being perpetually judged for the worst thing that you did in your own childhood, never being allowed to forget and to move on to be the person that you have become.

My Wednesday meetings with Jimmy continued until I was posted to Finnamore Wood, a small open youth custody centre that was a satellite of the much larger Huntercombe. By that point, they had lost much of their intensity. Slowly I realised that Jimmy was becoming more of a friend and I wondered to what extent I was becoming for him another version of his elder brother. After all, I wasn’t too much older than Jimmy and we had similar backgrounds. Freudians would have called this process ‘transference’ and I worried that it served to dissolve the professional distance that should have existed between us. A few weeks after I left, with no further prompting from me, Jimmy invited his family to come and visit.

I was confident that Jimmy could make something of his life and would be successful.

Before leaving Huntercombe I wrote Jimmy’s parole reports suggesting that when he reached 21 he should be transferred to an adult open prison, where he might be allowed to enrol at the local university. He actually didn’t do that but took a design and engineering City & Guilds course and set up his own business once released. That business now employs over 15 people.

Years later I still see Jimmy on a regular basis. Three years ago, when I was planning a reality TV series, Bring Back Borstal [in which young offenders volunteer to experience the strict regime of a 1930s-style borstal for up to four weeks], Jimmy and I arranged to catch up. He arrived at my house in his new Porsche, looking every inch the successful businessman. After chatting about our families, I thought it time to ask my favour.

I explained to Jimmy the premise of the series and wondered if he might like to appear. Of all the people I knew, his story was the one which best suggested how young people who commit crime – even murder – can go on to to lead perfectly responsible lives. He could be an inspiration. As soon as the question was out of my mouth, I knew he was going to say no.

Jimmy reminded me that, while his wife knew all about his background, his boys knew nothing. They were at boarding school and he could well imagine what life would be like if their peers discovered that he had been convicted of murder.

Fair enough, I thought. Even so, I was glad to have been part of the process that freed him and still delight in his success. Extracted and abridged from My Life with Murderers: Behind Bars with the World’s Most Violent Men by David Wilson, out 21 March (Sphere, £20). Pre-order a copy now for £16.99 at books.telegraph.co.uk or call 0844-871 1514.

*Names and details have been changed to protect anonymity

Three years ago, Jimmy and I arranged to catch up. He arrived at my house in his new Porsche, every inch the successful businessman

Professor David Wilson, photographed by Thomas Wynne