Evil Relations (2 page)

Nonetheless, I read
One of Your Own
when it was published and to my utter surprise discovered that it was completely different from anything else I had read about the case, or about Brady and Hindley individually. Although it was then too late to be part of something that had greatly impressed me, I contacted Carol Ann to congratulate her on the book. She invited me to her home to discuss what she had learned during her research and to look at the notes she had made, which she believed – correctly – might be of interest to me.

I was even more impressed after our initial meeting and now looked on her as a major authority on the case. We became very close friends and I found myself talking to her openly, even searching deep within myself and dragging out thoughts and feelings I thought would remain locked away for ever. I had never expected to share those memories and emotions with anyone again after the deaths of Gran and Aunt Jean, not outside the family. After Carol Ann and I got to know each other better, she told me that she had spoken at great length to David Smith and his wife Mary. Then she mentioned the possibility of writing a book with David about his life. She saw it as a story that needed to be told but was acutely aware of how David Smith was regarded by certain members of the victims’ families.

She asked me what I thought. I had no such reservations and advised her to go ahead because it was time – in fact, long overdue – that David Smith had his say. We talked about the reactions such a book might provoke. I felt that it would, hopefully, enlighten many people and even help erase certain long-held fears for many others. It would be wrong to let such an invaluable opportunity slip away.

Carol Ann told David Smith what I thought. I was deeply moved by his response, especially that he wanted to thank me for my positive reaction to his wish to tell his story . . . me, a member of one of the victims’ families. Was I supposed to detest the man who brought the murders to an end? Or bury my head in the sand and have no opinion about the events that have been an abiding dark cloud in my life? I could only give my support and encouragement to Carol Ann and, through her, to David Smith and his wife.

I am glad this book has been written, for several reasons. Foremost for me personally is that through David Smith’s dogged recall of painful memories certain areas and landmarks of potential interest in the search for Keith have come to light. I have to add, with great sorrow in my heart, that this information was never allowed to come to the fore at the time of the original investigation in the 1960s, and the subsequent search in the 1980s, because of the hard-headedness and mishandling of David Smith by some senior detectives. Of course, there were exceptions, Joe Mounsey in particular, but the damage was done and the man who was the chief prosecution witness in ‘the Trial of the Century’ was reduced to a suspect too many times, and a bruised and battered man for decades.

My hope now is that this book and the truths within it will enable the public to understand that Brady and Hindley’s lies brought intense pain and distress not only to the victims and their families, but also to many others. Years into her imprisonment, Hindley admitted that she had lied about David Smith and that she was sorry for it. She repeated the same thing to me personally when I visited her in Durham and then Highpoint prison to talk about the search for Keith and what she might do to help. Brady, however, will never admit the truth. Indeed, he invents new lies to replace the old ones when they lose their ‘exclusive’ media status.

A number of officers from the original investigation admitted they could and should have listened more closely to David Smith and treated him as a witness rather than a suspect. I suppose the errors can be explained to some extent by old-style policing methods, but it still doesn’t alter the fact that chances were lost, that the chief witness was never able to tell the truth without fear and duress, and that he was forced to withdraw into himself in the belief that no one was listening.

We can only hope that those people whose lack of thought and darkness of soul caused David Smith and his family such suffering over the years never have to endure the same in order to make them finally realise the damage they can do.

With this new edition of David’s story, I’d like to take the opportunity to thank DCI Tony Brett and his team, who worked on the case during the early 2000s; I am forever grateful to them for their determination, advice and respect for Keith, and their help in so many ways.

Alan Bennett

‘What is your opinion about David Smith?’

The question comes from a quiet-looking man in his mid-20s, sitting in the back row. Immediately, there is a frisson in the room, as the audience turn first to peer at the enquirer, then at the woman seated directly to my right, who made a small noise of disgust in her throat at the mention of the name, and finally at me.

I hesitate before replying, aware that I need to choose my words carefully. This is the first talk I’ve given about my book,
One of Your Own: The Life and Death of Myra Hindley
, and it’s being held in a room on the upper floor of the Deansgate branch of Waterstone’s in Manchester. For the past 45 minutes, people have expressed their views with an intensity that few other murder cases can provoke. Whether it’s Hindley’s avowed remorse or how to persuade Ian Brady to reveal the location of Keith Bennett’s grave, those who speak are resolute in their judgements. Feelings run feverishly high; someone suggests slowly stabbing Brady with knives until he confesses and the idea is met with clamorous approval and applause by three-quarters of the crowd. ‘They should have let
us
deal with the murdering bastards before they put them away,’ someone else calls above the noise, and the clapping breaks out afresh.

David Smith has already been mentioned, and a murmur of deep-rooted disgust passed then among the audience. Now they wait for my response to the question raised by the young man on the back row. The woman seated to my right is Keith Bennett’s mother, Winnie Johnson, and I’m aware from my previous meetings with her that she regards David Smith with much the same loathing as she does her son’s killers.

My reply is cautiously phrased but unequivocal: ‘Well, I’ve no wish to upset Winnie or anyone else, but David Smith
is
the man who put an end to the Moors Murders. Not only that, but he also enabled those children who were missing to be found – apart from Keith – and his actions prevented more children from becoming victims of Brady and Hindley.’

There is an intense silence in the room. I realise that the majority of the audience are appalled at my response, including Winnie Johnson. Two people start to mutter angrily, until the young man from the back row asks in a loud voice, ‘What do
you
think, Winnie?’

Instantly, the room falls silent again. We all look at Winnie, who after a moment of contemplation declares: ‘I think David Smith is as rotten and guilty as them two swines. He did what he did to save his own neck. And I know that I’m not the only one to think that. Ask anyone and they’ll tell you the same thing.’

‘He
did
go to the police, though,’ a smartly dressed man on the end of one row ventures.

‘Yes, to save his own neck,’ Mrs Johnson repeats. She looks out at the audience: ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’

The crowd nod in almost perfect unison; and David Smith’s reputation remains unchanged from 45 years earlier, when his position as chief prosecution witness at the Moors trial brought him nothing but hatred and public vilification.

Months before the Waterstone’s event, I’d written to David Smith asking if he would be willing to be interviewed for the book I was working on about Myra Hindley. I knew that he had never spoken in depth about the past and although my primary aim for contacting him was to discuss Hindley (and, to a lesser extent, Brady), I was also very interested in his life before, during and after his marriage to Myra Hindley’s sister, Maureen.

His reaction was swift but disappointing, and clearly meant to dissuade me. But I wrote again, this time ending with a quote from one of his two great heroes, Bob Dylan (the other is John Lennon). His second email arrived a few days later, slightly less abrasive, but still intended as a rebuff. I doubted then that he would respond to further communication.

To my surprise, however, I got a call from his second wife, Mary, to whom he has been married for 35 years. We talked at length, both on that occasion and during other phone calls. She told me of her hope that one day her husband would finally have the chance to tell his story in full. ‘Not to try and alter anyone’s perceptions of him necessarily,’ she explained. ‘But I think it’s time to tell the truth in as much detail as possible. For our grandchildren, if nothing else.’

Although I was only really familiar with those aspects of David’s life that were relevant to a study of Myra Hindley, I understood why Mary was so firm in her belief that his story was worthy of a book of its own. The idea hovered between us as we made arrangements for me to visit them in Ireland, ostensibly for an informal exchange about David’s memories of Hindley and Brady, although he made it clear that he did not want to be directly quoted in the book I was writing. ‘It always ends up as the same old garbage,’ he said bluntly on the telephone. ‘No matter how honest your intentions might be, you’ll turn out like the rest of them. That’s just how it goes.’

My first visit to them lasted three days. I went with my son, River, who was then nine years old. Mary was welcoming from the start; David was belligerent, guarded and, at times, rude. Within a few hours of our arrival, we were in his local pub, where he had called on his ‘mafia’ (his sons, their families, and friends) as support against what he thought would be another intrusive and pointless encounter with a journalist. I told him I wasn’t a journalist and never had been; he gave a snort of derision. ‘Well, no. You don’t even look old enough to hold a pen, to me.’ I didn’t let him put me off for several reasons: I trusted Mary; I knew that his attitude was a test to find out whether I would give in and leave, perhaps following up my visit with an unpleasant article in the press; I wanted to hear what he would say, once his guard was down; and because he was so good with River, as he is with his own grandchildren.

By the afternoon of the following day, everything was different. David was calm, relaxed and ready to talk. Together with Mary, we spoke at length about his memories of that particular time in the ’60s. It was more obvious than it had ever been that his story deserved to be told on its own merits, rather than as an adjunct to a book about the Moors case. When I left Ireland, the three of us knew that we had work to do.

While I was writing
One of Your Own
, I met Ian Fairley, who attended the arrest of Ian Brady on the morning after the last murder. He was very keen to talk about David Smith: ‘He was a bit of a rum customer, but if it hadn’t been for Smith, more children would have been killed. People were so vicious about that poor lad after it all came out, but he saved lives
and
he enabled us to bring home those children who had already been murdered so that their parents could give them proper funerals. Without him, we would never have known where to start. Smith was the one man more than anyone who brought the whole thing to justice. Albeit unknowingly in parts, but he did it and it wasn’t an easy thing to do. Because if he hadn’t come to us, Evans [
Brady and Hindley’s last victim, 17-year-old Edward Evans
] would have ended up on the moor and we would never have been any the wiser. The men who mattered on that inquiry – Jock Carr and Joe Mounsey – they believed in David Smith completely. Unfortunately, mud sticks and he ended up an outcast. But it’s about time people started realising he’s a hero, not a villain.’

Ian Fairley’s view, and that of Joe Mounsey and Jock Carr, quickly became lost in the media furore that surrounded the Moors case. It’s a curious and unhappy fact that despite their hatred of Brady and Hindley, a large section of the public chose to believe the two killers’ insinuations against David Smith. The stories that abounded during the original investigation and trial had their source in the statements Brady and Hindley made about him, though it is also true that the revelations about David’s juvenile convictions and his 1966 deal with the
News of the World
did him no favours. By the mid-1980s, when Hindley finally exonerated him of any part in their crimes, it was already too late. The old untruths are still doing the rounds, supplemented by new and often bizarre fictions.
Evil Relations
tells the facts. It is not, as someone has already claimed, an ‘apology’ for David Smith, or even an attempt to ‘rehabilitate’ him in the eyes of the public. It is simply his story.

In 2003, Granada Television approached David with a view to producing a dramatisation of his life during his marriage to Maureen Hindley. When David and Mary agreed to the idea on the understanding that it wouldn’t focus on Brady and Hindley, work began on
The Ballad of David Smith
. Following a meeting with Granada bosses, the script was shelved in favour of a dramatisation of the Moors case, which aired in May 2006 as
See No Evil: The Story of the Moors Murders
. During the many months of work on
The Ballad
, David had begun to write down his memories in lengthy but isolated fragments; these became the foundation stone of the present book. He started writing again after our initial meeting, and these reminiscences, together with our interviews and my research, form what is hopefully a coherent narrative of his life.

On that very first day in Ireland, Mary drove us through the village where she and David have lived for the past 15 years. He asked her to make a slight detour; although wary, he was determined that I should visit a particular place with him.

We drove past a modern housing estate to an overgrown field surrounded by rough limestone walls. At one end were the ruins of a long, low building with a collapsed orange roof. Near the wall was a wooden notice, beautifully rendered and inscribed. It told the history of the place: the ruin was all that remained of the local workhouse built in 1852 to accommodate 600 inmates and razed to the ground in the 1920s. The field in front of us, with its long grass and wild flowers, was the site of the graveyard, where many workhouse children had been buried anonymously, without coffins.