EVEN for the richly
experienced Mr
Justice Hallett, the
trial represented a
personal milestone.
"I have never encountered or
heard of any case like it in my
many years at the Bar and over 16
years on the Bench," he declared.
The murder trial of George
McDonaldWilliams, aman of "very
peculiar mentality," was one of
confession, retraction and denial.
There had been nothing to link the
former Broadmoor patient with the
brutal killing of frail and tiny
spinster Frances Pressley, until - on
the eve of her funeral - he walked
into Southampton's main police
station and astonishingly
confessed: "I killed the old lady."
The following day, in the biting
chill of a winter's morning, wreathbearing
mourners at Thornhill
Baptist Church in Southampton
were probably heedless of three
figures standing in nearby bushes.
There, 30-year-old Williams took
two detectives through the grim
reconstruction of the killing,
explaining to Insp Robert Masters
and Sgt Percy Amess how he had
hidden off a woodland path on the
afternoon of December 6, 1954, and
pounced upon Miss Pressley,
striking her over the head with a
wooden table leg.
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As the 35 tearful members of the
congregation listened to the
scripture, "Vengeance is mine. I
will repay, saith the lord," other
officers a few hundreds yards away
were checking the veracity of his
statement.
Its accuracy was the central issue
in the five-day trial the following
March, when jurors heard how
Williams bizarrely claimed he had
only admitted the killing because
he wanted to hang.
Frances Pressley
The victim had lived with the
family of Victor Bennett atMoorhill
Farm, West End, for 40 years.
Although not blood related, she was
accepted as one of the family.
"Sis" - as she was affectionately
known - had left home that fateful
afternoon to make her customary
shortcut through the woods tomake
a withdrawal from her savings
account at the post office.
She never reached her
destination. Along the main path,
her discarded stick marking the
spot, she was attacked by her
lurking assailant who knocked off
her hat, ripped off her shoes and
stockings, and dragged her behind a
thick screen of shrubs and bushes.
It was not until early evening that
the Bennetts, making a systematic
search of the area, discovered Miss
Pressley after hearing her
pathetic groans.
As she was rushed to
hospital to undergo an
emergency operation, the
conditions at the scene
quickly deteriorated.
Gumbooted officers from
the town's own force and
Hampshire police
colleagues assisted by an alsation
dog called Quacker endured driving
rain, mud, a thick layer of fallen
leaves and a thin layer of snow as
they hunted for clues.
Sadly, they were to receive no assistance from
the victim. Four days after she was admitted to
hospital, she died from a fractured skull.
A sexual motive was quickly ruled out. So too
was robbery because her handbag and shopping
bag were found nearby apparently untouched.
Days passed and with the lack of a major
development, the story began to slip away from
the Echo's main page - until Williams walked
into the police station to make his startling
admission.
"It's about the woman in the wood," he told
Det Sgt Smith. "I want to tell you it was me. I
thought she might have some money and I
jumped on her. It was after dinner and I went
out there and had some drinks in a pub. I was
nearly drunk.
"I met her on the path and jumped on her. I
took her stockings off and tied one around her
throat. I am a bit vague and I was bit drunk. It
has been worrying me a lot."
He said he had been too frightened to steal
anything valuable and at one point had to hide
because a man came running past to catch a
bus.
Williams was
duly charged with
murder, but ten
days later following
a consultation
with a solicitor, he
extraordinari ly
retracted his statement,
saying he
had only made it
because he wanted
to hang.
"Since I have
been in prison I
have thought it
over and come to
the conclusion there is a possibility of being
sentenced, not to death, but to Her Majesty's
Pleasure which I do not cherish... It is a sentence
the court could impose on me because of
my medical history.
"I was fed up with life. I would not mind being
hung but I do not like the idea of spending the
rest of my days at Broadmoor."
His five-day trial opened on March 20, 1955,
and the two contrasting statements were the fulcrum
of a 65-minute opening address by prosecutor,
Henry Phillimore QC.
In a soft accent, he told the jury of nine men
and three women to disregard the notion
Williams could have furnished the police with
such a detailed account of her death from what
he had read in the press.
"Do you think anyone could have done that
unless he had actually been present and done
the deed?" he argued, scoffing at suggestions
the defendant could have based his confession of
what he had seen in the Echo.
Williams told jurors how he had come to
Southampton three days before the murder to
find work and had been found lodgings by a
probation officer. On the morning of the murder,
he went to the Employment Exchange
where he was directed to a sausage skin factory
in Millbrook, but he was told he was unsuitable
for the work.
"I thought so myself too," he said, adding,
"There was an unpleasant smell and a lot of
water on the floor."
In the afternoon, he returned to the
Employment Exchange and was given a card to
to go to the Marchwood power factory. "I am not
positive about this, but I think I was given a
card by the foreman to come back the following
day, to start work in the morning."
Williams said he then returned to
Southampton and did some shopping in
Woolworths, buying shaving things, a
towel and a comb, before returning to his
hostel, insisting to defence lawyer
Malcolm Wright QC he had never attacked
Miss Pressley.
But in his summing up the judge told the
jury the defendant's mental and criminal
history - that he had been to Parkhurst
and had been detained in Broadmoor -
had been revealed by Mr Wright because
they wished it. But no defence of insanity
had been raised and it was not open to
them to consider it.
The judge however made his telling
observations about the extraordinary
number of coincidences in themurder's
reconstruction when Williams led
detectives on a tour of the woods, ignoring
six side turnings and leading them
to within 6ft of where Miss Pressley
had been found.
Almost three hours
elapsed the following day
when jurors filed back
into the historic courtroom
in Winchester to
return their guilty
verdicts.
Williams calmly shook
his head and unemotionally
replied, "No,
nothing to say" when
the judge asked him
why sentence of death
should not be carried
out.
But the judge gave Williams hope
of a reprieve: "The medical officer
of the prison reported to the court
before the trial began that, in his
opinion, you were sane enough to
be tried and to be held responisble
for the crime you have committed.
"But it is the invariable practice
of the Home Secretary to cause
further inquiries to be made after
conviction in a case such as this. I
shall indicate my opinion as to
the desirability of that practice
being followed in this present
case.
"In the meantime, it is my duty
to pass upon you the only sentence
under our law for this
offence."
Even though his appeal
against conviction was rejected
in the Court of Appeal,
Williams was never to hang. A
few days before his appointment
with the hangman at
Winchester Prison, the Home
Office announced he had been
certified insane as a result of a
medical examination.
So Williams was to return to
the very same institution
where he had been a patient
from March 1949-April 1950
when he went berserk and
smashed up the contents of
his cell at Parkhurst Prison.
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