The Law Killers (6 page)

What confronted her was no longer any kind of dream but the beginning of the worst nightmare a woman could have. Silhouetted in the gloom of the half light was the figure of a powerful man holding a knife. He stepped forward and when he brought the blade up to point threateningly at her she saw that both his hands were covered in blood.

Then he lay down on the bed and told her he had just killed her mother and unless she did what he asked, she would be next. There was no reason to disbelieve him. The knife, like his hands, was blood-soaked and his chilling words explained the unusual sound which had come from the next room, which was now completely silent.

Practically paralysed by fear, the young woman shuddered at what she knew was about to happen. Then through her half closed eyes, she made an astonishing discovery. The agitated man lying beside her was a neighbour of the same age who lived only two doors away in the row of neat terraced houses.

Almost as soon as she realised who he was, her terror intensified. Her recognition meant she would be able to identify him to police – and he would be just as aware of that. He could not simply vanish anonymously into the night. It meant that what was about to occur was likely to have only one ending.

Her torment seemed endless. In the anguish that followed, she was raped repeatedly. Attempted protest was met with the knife again being held menacingly into her face. Resistance brought the repeated threat that she, too, would die as horrifyingly as her mother.

Her ordeal lasted two hours. As daylight filtered into the room, the devastated victim knew the scenario would soon be about to change. She began to plead for her life, begging her captor to spare her. At first her words were desperate, then, as it seemed he was hesitating in his intentions, she somehow found the resolve to be gently persuasive. Everything would be all right if only he would leave quietly and without any further trouble, she assured him. He could depart before the neighbourhood was fully awake and no one would be any the wiser.

The performance of the 21-year-old that April morning in 1983 was remarkable for its courage and, almost unbelievably, it was also successful. The man who had terrified and violated her, nodded slowly, gradually convincing himself of the seeming logic of her plea.

With a final threat that the trembling woman before him should keep his identity secret, he backed slowly out of the room, departing as silently as he had come.

She lay in the bedroom for long minutes after that. She needed to be sure he had gone and she needed to stop shaking from the horror that was enveloping her. But she knew, too, that she had to go the bedroom next door to find out about her mother, even though she was certain of what awaited her.

The sight that greeted her was something no daughter should have of her mother. Only then did she flee the house and leave the scene of unspeakable horror behind to make her way to the home of a friend to haltingly describe what had taken place.

Things happened rapidly after that. At the arrival of the police she told them her attacker was John Smith and supplied his address. But when they went for him he was not there. Detectives quickly traced him to the home of his sister and found him on a sofa fast asleep after his monstrous night’s work.

He did not lie about what he had done. In the car on the way to police headquarters the 21-year-old whose full name was John Cant Smith calmly described how he had broken into the house and had ‘stabbed someone.’ But he did not explain that he had swung his kitchen knife so often that his helpless 61-year-old victim had had no chance to defend herself. Casually, he admitted that he had gone to his sister’s house to wash the blood from his clothes, and, if they wanted it, they’d find the knife in a rubbish bin near her home. Under caution at headquarters, he explained further that on the evening leading up to the atrocities he had had a lot to drink and on the way home had decided to break into his neighbour’s house to steal. There had been no intention to kill, no plan to rape, he volunteered.

Although his story was not disputed, there is every reason to believe that he might have been fully aware that there were no men in the house when he forced his way in. The murdered woman, who was described as a ‘credit to the community’ and faithful church worker who had been in much demand as a singer at local functions, spent most nights alone because her husband was a bakery worker on overnight shifts. Her daughter’s boyfriend visited frequently, as he had done that night, but had departed before midnight. Since Smith lived so close to the semidetached house in the Lochee housing estate, he was in a position to be aware of movements at his neighbour’s home.

In light of his early admissions, there was no need for a trial. Two months after his crimes, Smith appeared in the dock at the High Court in Edinburgh and again confessed to what he had done.

Sentencing him, Lord Wheatley looked at Smith with unconcealed distaste and told him:

In view of what has been said, there is nothing I can say to you, save this: These two atrocious crimes were carried out within a home and people, particularly women, are entitled to expect that in their home they are safe from attacks such as you perpetrated. If women cannot be safe in their own home, then society has reached a sorry state. Therefore, in order to mark the court’s great displeasure and anxiety at such offences and to deter others, I propose to fashion my sentences accordingly.

His Lordship said the law prescribed but one penalty for murder – life imprisonment. As far as the rape was concerned, he would impose a separate sentence of seven years’ imprisonment, explaining that this would place it on Smith’s record, to be taken into account when his possible release was being considered.

Referring again to the life sentence, Lord Wheatley added that he would make a recommendation – something he seldom did – that Smith should serve a period of at least 12 years. He ordered that the two sentences should run concurrently, meaning that the seven years for the rape would be served at the same time as the sentence for murder.

Compared with present-day sentencing protocols, when judges are obliged to suggest a minimum tariff, 12 years might seem a relatively lenient disposal, particularly in the circumstances of a brutal and unprovoked murder followed by the repeated rape of a second victim. But it was not particularly exceptional at the time and brought no public outcry.

However, Lord Wheatley, then Scotland’s most senior judge, might have felt differently had he had known how John Cant Smith was to behave in the future. He was not to know, either, that 12 years was nowhere near to the time the murdering rapist would actually spend behind bars.

A little over three years after descending the steps in the dock of the High Court to vanish out of public view and into the penal system, Smith once again burst into prominence. But this time it was not a helpless young woman who was to become his hostage but a prison officer.

Along with two other lifers held with him at Peterhead Prison, Smith took part in a riot in an attempt to air alleged grievances. The trio petrol-bombed a section of the jail’s A Hall and seized one of their guards before embarking on an orgy of destruction. By the end of the five-day stand-off they had caused £260,000 of damage and made national headlines before surrendering.

His fellow rioters were every bit as dangerous as himself. One was William Ballantyne, a 27-year-old jailed shortly before Smith for stabbing a man to death in a Glasgow street brawl. The other was one of Scotland’s most notorious criminals – 32-year-old Andrew Walker, a former Army corporal who had machine-gunned three soldiers to death in a £19,000 military payroll robbery 18 months earlier, for which he was given a 30-year sentence.

To justify his actions, Smith made an eloquent plea during his trial at the High Court at Peterhead, claiming that he had ‘taken desperate measures because of his desperate situation.’

His written plea in mitigation of his actions read:

Can anyone ever understand the horrors of prison life, even by visiting prison? No one can understand this without being part of it, feeling the anxieties, knowing the helplessness, living in desolation.

Prison life does not provide the creative correction and training needed for a man to be able to make a new beginning on the outside. Instead, it is geared to use the men as labour, punish them if necessary and disregard their inner spirits as of no consequence.

Physical and mental brutality does exist in Peterhead. This matter can only be resolved with the introduction of rehabilitation. If the prison authorities insist on treating prisoners like animals, then prisoners will naturally continue to act like animals.

Prisoners (including myself) have been described as incurable psychopaths, subversive and hell-bent on destruction. This can only be described as an excuse rather than a truth. I ask you, have prisoners been given the chance to express themselves in any other way? Certainly not in Peterhead.

However well-expressed, the plea cut little ice with presiding judge Lord Murray. He made no distinction between the trio and sentenced each of them to 10 years, terms he wanted taken into account when their life sentences and eventual release were being considered.

Smith had plenty of time to reflect on prison life and its care of inmates. He was to remain in Peterhead for another 16 years before eventually being freed on licence. Altogether he had served 19 years. Notwithstanding his words to Lord Murray, he claimed that during his incarceration he had ‘found God’ and reformed his ways. Some police officers and social workers who knew him doubted his conversion and considered his new-found faith to be little more than a ploy to obtain his freedom. Privately, they called him the ‘master manipulator’.

It was a description that seemed particularly fitting considering Smith’s next brush with the law.

Several months after his release in October 2002, the man with the violent past attended a Saturday night dance in Stonehaven where he befriended a 49-year-old Canadian-born woman. After a few dances, he talked her into allowing him to walk her home. He even persuaded the woman, a bank manager, to invite him into the cottage she shared with her daughter for a cup of coffee. Within a short time, however, and for whatever reason, Smith’s new acquaintance became uneasy. Regretting her offer of hospitality, she told him to leave. Reluctantly, he agreed and, after some hesitation, departed.

But a few days later, in the early hours of one morning, he returned to the cottage, which was in darkness.

He moved cautiously, sure he was unobserved. He did not know, however, that his stealthy approach had been detected. The woman’s daughter, who had risen from bed for a glass of water, had spotted him walking up the garden path and became instantly apprehensive. Ducking out of sight, she watched, terror-filled, as the handle of the door slowly turned from the outside. Her heart pounded so hard she was certain the uninvited visitor on the other side would hear it. Desperately, she tried to remember if the house had been locked up for the night or if the door would start to open. She closed her eyes and prayed. When she opened them again, the handle had ceased to turn and the sound of footsteps moving round the side of the house told her her God had been listening.

The girl let out the breath she hadn’t been aware she’d been holding and after a few moments quietly alerted her mother. Together the pair remained silent but petrified as the man who had killed prowled around the exterior of the house, peering into various windows. Whatever his original intentions, and to the enormous relief of the terrified mother and daughter, Smith appeared to have a change of heart and a few minutes later departed. Once he was out of sight they called the police and a short time later the sinister, unwelcome visitor, was found close by and arrested.

After being taken to the police station in Stonehaven, Smith requested permission to visit the toilet. It was then his earlier intentions became all too evident. Checking the WC immediately after he’d used it, police found a knife and a packet of condoms in the cistern. The discovery raised questions in the minds of the officers but, with nothing else to go on, they dismissed the find as just the actions of an anxious man brought in for a minor offence. Had they been aware of their prisoner’s history and the chilling echoes of the last time he had used a knife for a murderous sexual spree in a house where a mother and daughter were alone in the early hours, they might have viewed matters differently. That same knowledge would certainly have unnerved the two women in the cottage far beyond their most fearful imaginings.

Surprisingly, Smith was again treated unexpectedly lightly at his subsequent court appearance. Although on licence from a life sentence, he was jailed for just three months, a term which seems inconceivably lenient considering the marked similarities to the circumstances of his crimes some 20 years previously. One explanation may be that the sheriff dealing with the case was unaware of the ghastly background to the crimes which had led to Smith’s long confinement in Peterhead.

If that is the case, the judge’s ignorance was nothing to that of the next innocent victim who was to receive the attention of the killer rapist.

Some three years later, on the evening of 3 February 2006, Smith surfaced once more to become the centre of a police hunt – and again it was for terrorising a woman.

A slightly built lady doctor was loading shopping into the passenger side of her vehicle in a supermarket car park near Broughty Ferry when she was suddenly seized from behind by two powerful hands grabbing her round the waist. The attacker pinned her arms to her side and, in the darkness of the isolated area, dragged her round the vehicle. She screamed but the few late night shoppers who heard her, dismissed the incident as a domestic squabble and went about their own business.