Episode 102 - June anne devany

This week on Twisted Britain Bob tells about the very tragic murder of June Anne Devaney, a nearly 4 year old girl abducted from her hospital bed in the 1940s, but we try to focus on the excellent police response including the cirst ever mass fingerprinting


thanks for listening

Episode Transcript

(00:31):
Hello and welcome to Twister Britain,a podcast in true grind in Britain with
a sprinkling of the weird in themacab and Your hosts are me Bob Dale
and me Ali Downey. You looklike you had a moment there where you
forgot what you were doing. I'malmost deaf, Bob. Oh, yeah,
put the theme tune on far tooallowed to start with third and that
was painfully loud. Yeah, wehad to start it again. It was
that bad. Nobody will have heardthat because it's fucking intense. The best

(00:54):
thing about camping, fucking in tense. Oh my god. Yeah, sorry,
but that's probably the only part oftonight's show. I'm sorry, that's
quite good. Yeah, I'd liketo set made it up, but it's
obviously said. I got at acracker, but I definitely didn't get it
in a cracker joke. What kindof crackers have you been buying? And
Summer's crackers adult crackers? There go'llbe a marketplace for Twisted Britain adult crackers.

(01:15):
Yeah, I mean I'll buy something. We'll do it for next year,
you will, I'm fabulous. We'rejust back from the whole Well,
no, we're into the whole newworld of recording. This is a new
take on twisted recordings. Is wecan't saying a whole new world because of
Disney copyright, but a whole newworld well said without any Was that difficult
to do without actually like busting intothis where they was last week we recorded

(01:41):
well, I was sat at thebar just from my headphones, and we
did it on on Yes, Isaw a picture you had your phone propped
up against a hand jail, dispenser. We're a professional podcast alistir, Yeah,
I was. I was down south. I'd set up myself like a
little say I Sarah, Sarah's endme up a little booth. Oh no,
I had then set up and thenthe Wi Fi or lack of became

(02:05):
my issue. And I suppose everycloud. I had to sit at the
bar all night. Ah shame.I feel for you in my heart bleeds.
Phone a doctor, Wow, Yeah, I don't care A phone a
doctor. But we're also doing twoepisodes this evening, right, we're double
recording. We are double recording,and that's that's what we'll do every couple

(02:27):
of weeks when you're up here,we'll record a couple of episodes and I
feel like maybe we should tag whichone is the second one? When we
releasing case, there will be nomistaking which of these episodes is the second.
No, I don't mean these onesspecifically, I just mean in general,
in future maybe these ones absolutely noneed. I've written the second one.
Well there you go. Well that'sthat deal. Have some fun planned

(02:50):
for the second one. I'm quiteworried about it, if I'm being honest,
but I should be. It's atwisted Britain first, is it the
twisted Olympics? Almost? Oh god? Shit? Is sport al? You
know? There's no sport involved.No sport. It's the only thing you're
good at sports? Sports? Nowhat else? I have the first case
this evening. But before we getonto that, you've only got a couple

(03:13):
of days of work left at thispoint. I have three days of actual
work left at this point. Fuckyou. And then you're just sauntering off
into the sunset. I'm not saunteringoff into the sunset. Although it's quite
sunny down in Bournemouth. It's fuckingnot here, man, it's nus idiots
the cold here. Yeah, Ireally fell over the way the hell,
but yeah, I'm heading down toBournemouth for a year, but you'll be

(03:35):
back to record, as we say, I'll be back every couple of weeks
hopefully to record. And we canrecord long distance when I am traveling.
We have tested and we can't testedlong distance. And yeah, actually,
do you know what, I'd bepretty cool if you are somewhere else in
the you know, rather than justat Sarah's as well. You need to
find a local pub down there sothat if we ever have the distance record,
you're in a pub. Two.Okay, I think that's I'm sure

(03:55):
Sarah can find a pub that Iwon't get stabbed in. Yeah, no,
do that. If you do it, take notes and I'll do a
podcast about it. Sweet contemporaneous notesof my own stabbing. Please awesome.
Anyway, enough waffle. I havethe first case this evening. I spoke
earlier on and I said something alongthe lines of, it's the only one

(04:19):
podcast that I've ever written. Ifeel like I need to put a warning
at the top. It's disclaimer.Yeah, so two disclaimers. One.
I dictated this to my laptop todayto see if I could do that.
See me typing it, and itseems to have worked. But then again,
I've not read it back yet,so we'll see. But it's also

(04:40):
my second time doing this. You'regonna read it back verbatim, we'll see.
I've never done anything verbatim in thispodcast once that even when I've given
you things, indeed, I can't. Your language is too flowery for me.
But the other kind of disclaimer andput at the top is it's kind
of warning at the top of theshow. This is a horrific case.

(05:02):
It has shockingly horrible events in itthat I feel quite sickened having read about
it and now telling you about it. It involves the brutal murder of a
child, and it's not something Iwould ever normally cover. No, we
don't like those cases. You've donea couple of infanticides before. The one
in Edinburgh jumps to mind, andI can't remember her name, Jesse King,

(05:25):
thank you very much, but theones I tend to stay away from.
This case, however, was suggestedto me by one of the regulars
that comes in the pub, andhe suggested it to us because he said
it's a really horrible case but it'sgot a big policing first in it,
and he knows I kind of likeWe've talked about first fingerprints, first they
and a US first sniffer dogs.We've talked about all that kind of stuff

(05:47):
before, but this is a bigpolicing first electro shock, yes, yeah,
galvanism and all sorts. Yeah,but this is a policing first that
I'll not spoil what it is atthe moment. I'll go on and tell
you that this is not what I'vedone recently. It's certainly not an unsolved
case, and someone is caught andtried and convicted of murder. So if
any kind of solace can be takenfrom anything, it is that the punishment

(06:13):
that was due to the culprit inthis was dished out. The policing first
that happens is part of an extensivesearch for justice that I regard quite incredible,
and that's kind of why I wantedto tell you about this case.
This is the murder of June andDevanny. She was nearly four years old
at the time of her death inBlackburn. She's been in hospital when she's

(06:35):
been abducted from the hospital and brutallymurdered in the hospital grounds. It was
the case that not just shook thelocal area, but as the entire of
Britain, as the British press didwhat they do and they ran with the
story as it's quite in a horrificone. And I'll tell you about the
circumstances of why June was in thehospital, and then we'll get onto the
crime of the evening. As Isaid, June and Devanny, it was

(06:59):
nearly four years old, and shewas actually three years eleven months when she
was abducted from Queen's Park Hospital.And the time frame we're talking about is
nineteen forty eight May, the fifteenthof nineteen forty eight, in fact,
Queen's Park Hospital where Blackburn, Sorrybecause there's quite a few yes, indeed,
no, this is Blackburn and theBlackburn area were talking about. She'd

(07:19):
been admitted to hospital with a milecase of pneumonia. She'd been taken in
on the fourth of May, soshe'd been in the hospital for nine or
ten days by this point, andit was a mild form of pneumonia,
as mild as pneumonia could be.She certainly wasn't in any stress from it
and was really recovering quite well.And in fact, she was recovering so

(07:39):
well she was due to be releasedfrom hospital released not the right word.
Discharged from hospital on the fifteenth,the following day. However, this never
happened. June was the third childto Albert and Emily. She had two
older brothers and a younger sister whohad been born in the previous year.
I don't get the impression that Junewas particularly unwell child, as I say

(08:00):
she had been admitted to hospital,and I mean that by like she hadn't
had problems with since birth or anythingthat she had just got new money.
She's got viral infection and ended upin Queen's Park Hospital under the supervision of
Nurse Gwendolyn Humphreys. Wow, goodname, Yeah, Gwendolen spelt with a

(08:22):
y as well. I'm sure shewas in carry on possibly. Yeah.
I did quite a picture a quiterotund nurse when I was reading. I
don't know if that's just a buxomematron. Yeah, totally. And on
the Children's Ward of Queen's Park Hospital. Nurse Humphries was in charge of Ward
c HD and c H four.June was on Ward c H three,

(08:43):
which I guess would be Children's Wardthree. She was covering quite well and
she was kept in a cot ina room amongst six other children. Now
we know on the evening of thefourteenth into the fifteenth of May, that
Nurse Humphries had been checking up onthe children in Ward CHD just before midnight,
and she'd gone in because she'd heardthe cry of one of the small

(09:05):
boys and went in to check onhim and make sure he was okay.
Yep. After soothing the small boyon the wards, she resumed her duties.
She was pretty much preparing breakfast forthe following morning for the two wards
that she had watched off overnight,and nothing much else happened. She carried
on with her preparations and checked onthe two wards shortly afterwards. However,

(09:28):
it was sometime not long after oneam that Nurse Humphreys felt a draft coming
from Ward H three, So shestuck her head into the ward and noticed
that the door at the end ofthe war had been opened, which it
hadn't been when she'd been in before. Nurse Humphrey closed the door and checked
around the ward. She was shockedto find that the cot that had contained

(09:50):
June and Devanny was empty. Nowshe knows her for a fact that she'd
been in there before when she'd beenin to soothe the boy, because she
checked around all the cots afterwards,and she'd been in one after that once
after preparing breakfast stuff. So she'sa little bit worried because the child should
isn't where they should have been.If you imagine a cot with a drop

(10:11):
downside on it, if the copfor some reason had its side down,
then June at the age of nearlyfour, Now I've got a three and
a half year old in the house. She didn't climb out of her bed,
no problem at all. But ifI if she was in the bottom
of a cot, I don't knowif she'd get up right over the top.
Maybe in fact, Poppy would.I don't know if that's a normal
thing, but anyway, it wouldhave been much more likely that she'd vacated

(10:35):
the court herself if the side hadbeen down, is basically what I'm trying
to say. So the only wayfor June and Devanny to have been removed
from the cot would have been tobe lifted out of it. Was the
cot the closest to the door,do we know? No, Actually,
I'll come on to it in abit, but it's not no, not

(10:56):
at all, Because it was oneof the things that I obviously had to
look at. You know, itwas there a diagram of there are photographs
of the war that it happened on, because nineteen forty eight so were not
actually that long ago. It's reasonablyrecent for me actually, but it was.
I mean, imagine it's not aVictorian ward, but because there's a
black and white four that's immediately whenI went to of just like steel or

(11:20):
metal cots with the proper up anddown circular railings n't done three in a
row on each side. At theend. It was almost like a I
want to say, like a porchybit. There was like a wee sitting
area at the back of the roombeyond the courts, which had a door
out to the grounds. So Idon't know. It was kind of rectangular

(11:41):
room with a circular bit on theend of it, and the door at
the end of it was the onethat was open. June's caught. As
far as I'm aware, nobody certainlyspecified in the reading that I saw anyway
which one it was. But I'llthis hasn't been a I think what you
were getting at is that sundry snackthe first child they've come to. Yeah,

(12:01):
that doesn't certainly doesn't seem to bethe case. Sorry, where I
was I alongside noticing that the cockside was still up. Nurse Humphreys is
quite incredible actually, rather than justlosing her shit because she's lost a child,

(12:24):
she's quite meticulous in what she does. She searches the ward area in
case the child has gotten out ofthe carself, and she notices while searching
around the ward that there was atrail of footprints leading out towards the door,
made by stocking feet. It wasa highly polished wax floor right,

(12:46):
so basically she was saying that she'dseen some stocking imprints in the wax flooring
finish. I suppose leading towards thedoor, and in my head, I'm
going surely that it wouldn't leave distinctof footprints. But I suppose if there
was a couple of milli wax onthe top of the floorboards, it would
leave, and a stocking foot amuch more obvious Also if the wax.

(13:09):
We have our floors waxed in work, and if you don't leave it to
dry for at least twelve hours beforeyou open the shop and it's not dried
properly, you get footprints, allright, so it's probably been something like
that, or even if it's ahot day. Oh yeah, okay,
you can literally melt the floor justthat, just that tiny, tiny,

(13:31):
tiny bit enough to allow just toleave an impression, especially a stocking foot,
which would have been moist and thereforetacked onto anything on the floor,
and probably more obvious than a shoedfoot because it would have been a large
ball and a small ball rather thana footprint. Yeah. Yeah, So
it's either been freshly polished or it'sbeen a warm day or something to that

(13:54):
effect. But it was just somethingI was like, because the only thing
I think about waxing is like abowling alley, Like, it's not been
a bowling alley in the children's ward. No either way. Nurse Humphrey's notice
is the seventh Prince, and shecontinues her search. After about thirty minutes
of searching around the two wards,she contacts the police, who arrive at
about five to two in the morning. So this is only like maybe fifty

(14:18):
five minutes after she was in theroom checking on the ma after breakfast,
so you know, less than anhour later and the police are there,
which I think is pretty good,and they begin searching the hospital and the
surrounding grounds attached to the hospital,and this is where the gruesome discovery of
June and the Vanni's body is foundin the hospital grounds. In the hospital
grounds, now, I'm gonna giveyou some detail as to what the police

(14:41):
found, and if you don't wantto listen to this, I'm going to
insert here what time to skip to. I'll give you a quick short description
of what happens so that you cancontinue the story. But it's quite I
would understand if you wouldn't want tolisten to it. Gruesome. Yeah,
So basically what was found was thebody of a nearly four year old June
in the hospital grounds at three seventeenam. She was lying in the grass

(15:05):
of the grounds alongside a boundary wall. If you'd like to skip the details
of what actually happened to June inthe garden outside the hospital that day,
skip forward a minute twenty seconds.It's not a long description, but it's
also not a pleasant one. I'llgo on with what actually happened. For

(15:26):
those of you who do want tolisten on, I'll give you a bit
more of an in depth description ofSo what happened. It's a description that
I'll struggle mentally to get through,and it certainly was when I was writing
it, and I'm going to say, you're not going to enjoy this at
all. June Anne's body was foundlying face down alongside a sandstone boundary wall,

(15:48):
only about one hundred meters from theward where she'd been taken. Her
night clothing had been torn from herbody and left her exposed. She had
been sexually assaulted. There were numerousinjuries to her body. She had blood
coming from her face and pouring outof her nostrils. The injuries she had
suffered were horrific. The boundary wallshe was lying next to was also covered

(16:11):
in blood. She had teeth markson her legs and her buttocks, and
from what we understand, the perpetratorheld her by the ankles and killed her
against the wall. And that's thelevel of detail I'm going to go into
it. I can tell by yourface out that it's not what you wanted
to hear. But this is thepoint on mark for the people who listened

(16:32):
to the short bit but didn't wantto listen to that extra bit to come
back in on because the one ofthe police officers on scene made a statement
about the evening, and I'd liketo read it to you. I am
not ashamed to say I saw itthrough a mist of tears. Years of
detective service have hardened me to manyterrible things, but this tiny, pathetic
body in its night dress, soakedin blood and mud, was something no

(16:55):
man could see unmoved. It hauntsme to this day. I swore,
standing there in the rain, Iwould bring her murderer to justice. He
is the He becomes the lead inthe assessment investigation. A guy called DC
I Chapman. No, sorry,DC I CapMan, John CapMan. We'll

(17:17):
come back to John in a bit, because he's quite an incredible DCI.
If I might say, I've donemy best not to go into too many
details in the short version, andactually I've left it a bit looser in
the longer description there. And Ican already tell by the look in your
face that that was enough detail foryou. Yeah. I don't need anymore.

(17:37):
I get the gist of what's happened. I don't need the grim detail.
So let's leave that horrific moment andmove on with what happens. Now
everyone's got the gist of what happened, and from there, let's move on
to the investigation part of this crime. Because this is the bit that this

(17:59):
is the reason why I even saidyes to doing it when it was suggested
to me. The investigation kind oftakes like super speed flight. At this
point they go, right, weneed to get this fucking sortid. There's
no lasing about on the police's part. It takes a while to do the

(18:21):
investigative process and it is not animmediate result. But there's an immediate effect.
No, you know what I mean. There's an immediate action. There's
immediate response. Yeah, absolutely,that's what I mean. But there's not
an immediate result. Result. Itdoes come, and it comes reasonably quickly,
but not quite as quickly as theytake flight into this. The local

(18:42):
police force immediately contact in Scotland Yardto get the experts in, and now
they do it for a couple ofreasons. Actually, one is to get
the experts in because they have amuch higher level of investikive knowledge than a
local police force would have had.But also apparently if they had started the
investigation on their own and then calledScotland and Yard in later, they would

(19:06):
have to absorb the cost, whereasif you get Scotland Yard to take the
lead from the start, Scotland Yardpaid for it horrible logistics to follow up
a horrible crime. But there yougo. I suppose it stops regional police
forces from calling Scotland Yard in unlessit's serious. Yeah, true, because

(19:30):
they wouldn't come in at the startif it wasn't serious, and they have
to accept the fact that they can'tdo it almost if they call it in
it later day. Yeah, Isuppose. So two detectives are assigned to
the case from Scotland Yard. Oneof them is DCI John Capstick that we
spoke about a moment ago that gavethe Capstick. Yeah, he was the

(19:52):
one that made the very wonderful statementthat I read it a moment ago.
And he moves this forward and ediblepace. You make some decisions that I
think we're probably instrumental in catching thekiller. During the search that happened at
the hospital immediately afterwards, a fewthings were found alongside the footprints is another

(20:12):
thing that's going to make a massivedifference to this case. Also found in
the same ward underneath in fact,the cot that June was in was a
bottle, a Winchester bottle. AWinchester bottle. Imagine they make guns.
Yeah, they do, very differentcompany, I believe, or possibly the

(20:33):
same one, it doesn't really matter. Picture a tall, brown, quite
fat bottle with our gross popp toptlike seal on it. Yep, one
of those bad boys from the lateforties. Right on this bottle is the
thing that is the pivot in thiscase. They recover some twenty fingerprints from

(20:57):
the surface of the bottle. Thefingerprints they were found twenty, so you
know the twenty ye twenty fingerprints werefound, different fingerprints, twenty recoverable prints.
So not two people haven't held thisat the same time, or five
people with one hand on or whatever. No, there's is twelve recoverable fingerprints

(21:18):
from it. They make some wonderfuldeductions from their fingerprints. I'll get onto
and just now. Actually, whenthey found the bottle was partially filled with
sterile water, so it had probablycome from the hospital itself. It doesn't
really matter what it's filled with orwhat it was. It was found under
the cot that June had been lyingin. The footprints that they'd found earlier

(21:41):
in the waxed floor measured to tenand a half inches and the patterns of
the stockings were taking as part ofthe investigation, so they had a fairly
good set of addentative markers from thefingerprints and the stockings and the length of
the feet, and with this informationthey managed to gather that it was a
fairly young man. Now, thereason that they can do this is the

(22:03):
size of the feet suggest that itwas a man. On average men,
the feet suggest a man y.Yeah, the measurement of the footprint suggests
it's a man. And the fingerprintsstill had quite a detailed impression on them.
There was no cracks or wearing orcuts or scarring that would suggest it
was an older man. So theyhad a profile at this point a young

(22:26):
man in his twenties. That wasthey could probably surmize a rough height from
the footprint, and you know,so that they would have a fairly detailed
in a description of the man thatperpetrated this crime. There's also I think
it's probably worth saying that there wasnobody that had any reason that I could
see to abduct June just came froma fairly well loved family. Nobody had

(22:51):
any beefs with the dad or youknow, like nothing there was none of
that was no obvious motive that Icould see, apart from the obvious motive,
which is two brutally yeah and killa child. Pause that thought.
I actually pause that because I don'tdisagree with you. But when we get

(23:17):
to the perpetrator, I don't knowif I fully agree with you. It's
really yeah, right, we'll come, we'll come, We will come back
to that. So where do yougo from here? You've got a profile,
Well, this is where DCI JohnCapstick decides to go all out.
He orders fingerprints to be taken ofeverybody who works at the hospital. They're

(23:38):
taken, and none of them matchthe ones on the bottle, so they
widen the search a bit further.All boyfriend's girlfriend's, wives, husbands,
partners, grannies, anybody who livedwith somebody who worked in the hospital had
their fingerprints taken. And now you'regetting into the region of hundreds and hundreds
of people that have had therefore printstaken. At this point, is that

(24:03):
an infringement of their human rights?Not if it's voluntary, okay, and
if they've nothing to hide. Idon't think, I genuinely don't think he's
looking for the killer and these people. I know he's looking to eliminate them.
I know I'm not. I thinkit's absolutely the right thing to do.
It's a great step. I'm justwondering. People can be quite funny

(24:23):
about their now data and stuff.Now, do you think that would be
considered an infringement the human rights seventyodd years ago? No, I don't
think so. I mean, I'vegiven my fingerprints just to go into America,
so well, yeah, exactly.And I think we probably think about
it a lot more now. Obviouslyour data has gathered in so many more

(24:44):
places that it is something you thinkabout. But at this time, all
these people were in the mindset thatthey were helping out a criminal investigation.
You know, that they were doingthe good Samaritan thing by providing the prince
if that helps, right, it'sdefinitely not this good group of people over
here. But if you had nothingto do with this crime, but you

(25:06):
also just happen to have killed acouple of other people, you'd be shitting
bricks. I mean, yes,you would. It's quite a niche scenario.
I'm just gonna yes that that couldbe a problem for you. But
I'm going to go out and alimb here and say that these several hundred
people that have an association with ahospital aren't the bad cunts here one of

(25:27):
them is, Well, somebody isabout everyone's fingerprints. We've got everybody this
hospital staff, hospital staff, friendsand family, not friends and family,
like people they lived with, likeimmediates. So yeah, and every friend,
supouses and everybody's ruled out at thispoint. Nobody from the hospital or

(25:48):
the peripheries around them have anything todo with these. Just watch your next
move. You fingerprint the police.You could do that, yeah, yeah,
or you could really fucking for it, and DCI John Capstick really goes
for it. The region we're talkingabout houses about one hundred and twenty three
thousand people, a lot of people. And to every man in the local

(26:11):
area. If you are over theage of sixteen and live in Blackburn,
you were asked to submit your fingerprintsin Britain's first ever mass fingerprinting. I've
just said fisting event. You didso, it was a mass fisting event,
don't I can't nearly got it out. Every man over the age of

(26:32):
sixteen living in the Blackburn area wasasked to submit their fingerprints in Britain's first
ever mass fingerprinting event. As Isay you, we're talking in the region
of one hundred and twenty tho thousandpeople that lived in that area and in
the surrounding area to Blackburn, andthat worked out somewhere in the region of

(26:52):
forty thousand men as an incredible achievement. Okay, But with my data minded
modern mind, I am thinking,surely the one hundred and thirty nine thousand
people that actually submit their fingerprints willall be innocent, and the few guilty

(27:14):
people will choose not to submit theirfingerprints, and all you'll have is a
big database of innocent people. Sothey won't have a big decent data base
of innocent people. Because one ofthe caveats that was put on his ability
to do it was he had topinky promise that all the records would be
destroyed after the event, after theycaught somebody. So I think it was

(27:37):
the local mayor got involved, andhe got involved as a kind of publicity
thing like please come forward, pleasecome forward, don't worry, they will
destroy them at the end, andthey do. We'll get to that bet
in a minute. A small taskforce was put together to go and collect
all of the fingerprints with someone.Twenty or third officers were put into this

(28:00):
task force, and they used thedetails from the electoral role to go out
and get somewhere in the region offorty thousand sets of fingerprints from more than
thirty five thousand homes. However,their play like that's what I mean,
Like when I was saying earlier,I think this is an incredible piece of
wonderful policing. It's proactive policing.Yeah, we've talked about proactive policing before.

(28:23):
I think this is like DC IJohn Kapstick, He's he's got big
thumbs up hero status from me forthis one. As I say, they
gather from thirty five thousand households,but as with the hospital staff and their
families, no match is found.So where do we go from here?
We have to think time frame forthis, and time frame plays a massive

(28:47):
part in this case because obviously noteveryone is going to be on the electoral
role. But we're not long afterthe Second World War, so what else
can they use. Well, mostindividuals that weren't on the register to vote
would have been tracked under military records. Most of the young men sixteen and
above would have had some part ofmilitary service. Maybe not sixteen above,

(29:12):
let's say twenty and above at thispoint in nineteen forty eight, twenty twenty
one and above, most of ifnot all of them would have been part
of the conscription. Yeah, andwould have been played the part in the
Second World War. Yeah, orhave been in the postal service, or
would have some kind of war recordsor the Merchant Navy or something. Yeah.
You're absolutely right. The other thingthat was going on at the time

(29:34):
that helps with this is not justthe military records, but we're still in
the time of rationing. Britain wasstill under ration books in the nineteen forty
eight, and these were registered toindividual people. We were under rations right
up to the fifties. Yeah.Absolutely, And now using the national registration
number that was issued to the rationbooks and the military service records, investigators

(30:00):
managed to find over two hundred moremen who hadn't been on the electoral roll
and went to gather fingerprints from themusing the that they were the emissions from
the original search as such, which, to be honest, I think is
an incredible piece of piece of policing. We've talked on several occasions about how

(30:21):
we impressed the police is. Thisis, as I say, incredible detail,
going the extra mile, and tome it comes from passion because as
you said earlier, I will Iswear on my whatever to catch the murder.
They really really wanted to find theperpetrator to this crime, so over
the course of two months they managedto fingerprint pretty much every sixteen year old

(30:41):
plus male in the Blackburn area.So let's get to who the perpetrator was.
One of the addresses that was foundas part of the national registration screen
for Rational Books was that of PeterGriffith. Peter Griffith, not Griffin,
No Griffith, just checking there.I knew that honestly could have put a

(31:03):
note in here that you would havegone family guy straight away. Peter was
a twenty two year old man whohad served in the Second World War.
He lived in the local area andworked as a packer on the night shift
in a local flour mill. Weirdly, when Peter Griffiths was asked to provide
his fingerprints, he did so withoutany question. They were taken on the
eleventh of August. So we're afew months down down the line now.

(31:26):
After the event in Queen's Park Hospital, the following day, on the twelfth
of August nineteen forty eight, notlong after three pm, the fingerprints were
compared to those of the ones foundon the Winchester bottle. The fingerprint expert
who was checking the matches and misterColin Campbell apparently stood up out of his
chair shouting, I've got him.It's here. I would like to give

(31:52):
a shout out to the people doingthese comparisons. Forty six, two hundred
and fifty six of fingerprints were gatheredand they were all checked by eye.
I'm pretty good at spot the difference. Yeah, they've done a but this
is this is a big game ofSpot of the difference. This is forty
six and fifty sets of spot thedifference that you reckon. No, no,

(32:16):
I'll show you the fingerprints. Actually, I've got a picture of them,
his ones that were taken and theones that were found off the Winchest
and and they've got the kind ofmarkings to show where they line up.
We can all compare them. Yeah, I'll put them up and maybe I'll
try and take the labels off wherethe comparisons are and see people can match
them up. And also put upour fingerprints to pool people. Yeah,

(32:37):
we'll put up our fingerprints and thatof Peter Griffith. We'll take our fingerprints.
Somehow we'll be able to get anapp or some shit. America have
mine. I don't know America,and Oma has somewhere in the middle of
America, right to the heart ofmatters. Thank you. It took your
moment, but I knew you'd getthere. It really did take me a

(32:58):
moment there. I'm so sorry andyou and knew something had happened, just
remembering two seconds to catch up.So yeah, I'm saying hats off to
the guys that are doing the comparisons. Yeah, legends. They now have
enough information to go and arrest PeterGriffiths. The police go to his home
and Peter is arrested by DCI JohnCapstick. He's taken into police custody and

(33:22):
cautioned. However, during the journeyto the police station, he was basically
he admitted it without admitting it,because he said to the police officers,
is it because of the fingerprints youfound? After being cautioned and told his
rights to say something if he wantedto do, DCI Capstick turned around and
said, well, basically, yeah, that's where we got you, And

(33:42):
I think it's a failure, obviousstatement that they've been looking through hundreds and
hundreds and hundreds of fingerprints to getto this point. And he says,
well, if these are my fingerprintson the bottle, i'll tell you about
it, which essentially to me isan admission of guilt, with the caveat
that says, if you can proveit, I'll tell you. It was
a real hunt thing. I say, I'll not surprised you asked so that

(34:07):
they managed to prove it was him. Yeah, they had his fingerprints,
which I would imagine we're a fairlyobvious match. And they had his height,
shoe size, his stocking print.The fact that he'd pretty much said,
prove it and I'll tell you it'sall to me, it's incriminating.

(34:28):
Yes, the fingerprints of evidence.The statement is incrimination. Yeah, yeah,
totally. Well, he shits hisnickers and he decides to confess to
what happened on the night of thefourteenth into the fifteenth of May. He'd
gone out drinking. He'd drank alot, drank somewhere in the region of
twelve pints and a couple of doubleRUMs. It's quite a lot. It
was smashed, yeah, because Iwouldn't imagine those double RUMs were small measures.

(34:52):
On his way home, he decidesto you know, maybe I should
have a week we walked to soberup. Tries to light say it wasn't
already walking home when he thought that, Yeah, he smashed though. Yeah.
He accepts a lift off of somebodythat recognizes him. He has a
cigarette, and then he ends upoutside Queen's Park Hospital. It's at this

(35:14):
stage he decides to break in andcommit the crime. Fuck knows what was
going through his mind, but nomatter what was going through his mind,
it does not excuse him. Thedrinking is not an excuse about what he
is about to do. He walksinto the ward after taking off his shoes
and picks up a Winchester bottle touse as a weapon in case anybody finds

(35:34):
him. He says he remembers anurse humming to herself, which I presume
would have been Nurse Humphreys. Hewent around the room choosing a child to
take with him, and June isthe one that he chooses. He soothes
her and picks her up and discardsthe bottle as he husts her. He
then leaves through the door at theend of ward to see h three and
the fucking coward refused to talk aboutthe details of what he did to the

(35:59):
child. For the rest of theevening, he never came forward with the
details of what he had done,claiming he had done it in a fit
of rage when she started crying.We know he sexually assaulted her, and
we know he murdered her. Wealso know that he went home and went
to sleep and slept till about nineam the next morning. We also know
that Peter Griffiths did not seem toshow any remorse for what he did.

(36:22):
He blamed what he did on howdrunk he was, which is not an
excuse. He did, however,finish his formal statement with the words I
am sorry for both parents' sake.I hope I get what I deserve.
He was arrested and formally charged withmurder. I'be gets what he deserves as
well as I say. They didn'tneed much more evidence, but the police

(36:44):
did go in search the asshole's house. They find a ticket for a local
pawn shop that was dated not longafter the murder. When they go and
retrieve what the ticket was for,they find a suit that had belonged to
Peter Griffiths that was covered in bloodstains. It was the same type of blood
as June and Devanny. Who pawnsa blood stained suit? More people than

(37:05):
you think. We've definitely talked aboutthis before, the pawning of items and
clothing and stuff. It's just maditems, is what a blood stained suit?
I didn't say this. He wasa smart criminal Alistair. That's like
the police finding at a pawn shopticket in my house and going to a
pawn shop and finding that I've pawnedmy DNA. Yeah exactly, Yeah,

(37:30):
well that's exactly why he did.He just didn't know he'd done it.
Insane. I mean, I imagineit wouldn't have taken much for the police
to go and find more evidence thatto the fact that he was the perpetrator
of this crime. It's not reallynecessary. He essentially admitted to it.
They have evidence that he'd done it, and so his trial takes place on

(37:51):
the fifteenth of October nineteen forty eightin Lancaster. Peter Griffith, however,
entered a pleave not guilty to thecharge of murder. The defense obviously put
in the fact that he was insane. They used the general defense of insanity,
which I think is probably an obvioustactic at this point. We've certainly
talked about the cases where they've usedthe defense of insanity where you're like,

(38:15):
no, they knew what they did. He's using drink and insanity and rage
as his defense in this point,drink doesn't count as diminished responsibility. No,
certainly not to this amount of diminishedness. That doesn't amount to any amount
of diminished responsibility. You are responsiblefor imbibing alcohol, Therefore, you are

(38:37):
responsible for your actions when drunk.Yeah, you hit someone when you're drunk
behind a wheel, it's still manslaughter. Yeah, less huge deliberately do it,
then it's murder, even if you'redrunk, Even if you're drunk,
even if, as we learned lastweek, you think they were a ghost.

(38:57):
Talk to me about ghosts anyway.Yeah, in this case, it
was a tactic. Like I think, it was probably just a case of
the defense saying we could try this. You'll not be surprised to hear that
they did not work. In fact, it didn't work so much that it
only took the jury twenty three minutesto find Peter Griffin guilty. It was

(39:21):
not long. It's not our shortest, but it's not long. It's not
long. Two cups of tea,that one two cups of tea in a
biscuit. They found Peter Griffith guiltyof murder, the murder of Jane and
La Devenni, and mister Justice Oliver, who was in charge of the case,
donned his black cap and said,Peter Griffith, this jury has found

(39:43):
you guilty of the crime of amost brutal ferocity. I entirely agree with
their verdict. The sentence of thecourt is that you shall be taken from
this place to a lawful prison,and thence to a place of execution,
and that you will suffer death byhanging, and may the Lord have mercy
on your soul. No appeal wasever lodged against the conviction, and Peter

(40:05):
Griffith was hanged at Her Majesty's Prison, Liverpool on the morning oh no,
His Massajesty's Prison, Liverpool, onthe morning of the nineteenth of November nineteen
forty eight. He was buried withinthe confines of the prison and he was
hanged by our old friend Albert Pierrepointand I don't often say this good kind

(40:28):
of thought. You would if I'mbeing honest. Yeah, I'm there against
death tenently, but at the sametime good that is the appropriate punishment at
the time for a monster. Yep, June and Devanny was buried with her
grandparents in a local cemetery, andthe grave to this day is covered with

(40:52):
flowers and butterflies and all sorts ofbeautiful things. The fingerprint records that were
taken as part of this case weredestroyed. That was part of the deal.
As I said, they were basicallytold they were allowed to take all
of the fingerprints and they would bepulped at a local paper mill. Not
all of them, however, weredestroyed. People were offered the chance to

(41:14):
have their fingerprint card given back tothem and keep as a memento. Ah.
I mean, it's a momento ofa really horrible event. But over
five hundred people decided to keep theirfingerprint card. This is this is from
when I gave my fingerprints because somebodyhad horrifically murdered, horrifically killed a child.

(41:35):
What a memento. There was amass pulping event that happened after the
mass fingerprinting event. A local papermill destroyed everything, and there were journalists
there to record the destruction of therecords, and that alistair is the case
turn them all into a hemp ropewhich they used to hang him. Well,
they should have done it. Yeah, how could someone do that when

(42:00):
this is what? So a whimon his way home to answer two of
your questions from earlier. I thinkthe first one he asked was was she
the closest one to the door ofthe window? No? Yeah, he
specifically chose a child in that room. Yeah, and you'd said something.
I can't remember what you'd said,was it, but basically no, he
he There was no premeditation to this. This was like, as you say,

(42:22):
it was a woman. That makesit even worse. You're right,
monster is the right word. That'syeah. I don't think we can argue
with monster. And that, I'mafraid is the case of June and Devanny
nineteen forty eight, and she diedjust shy of her fourth birthday. I'm

(42:43):
really sorry. It's such a horrible, horrible case, but I thought the
mass fingerprinting was something that I wantedto tell you about. It's a horrible
case, it's a horrible crime,but it's a great piece of proactive policing,
absolutely, and it's something that itwas a struggle through about and certainly
I think actually I dictated it tothe laptop because that was probably easier than

(43:05):
actively typing. It a really hardone to read, and I promise I'll
come back with something slightly more lightnext time. I'm really sorry if anybody's
taking anything away from this and it'supset you, but I just I don't
I didn't want to tell you aboutPeter Griffin's story. I don't care about
his military record. I don't givea fuck about his life at all.
I just want to leave in thereas monster. As you've described. We

(43:27):
certainly don't aim to make anybody sad, but I just thought these was one
of the stories that deserved to betold. And if you are ever in
the Blackburn area, her grave isthere. It's a horrible thing to steal
such a young life from a humanbeing. But I watched YouTuber. He's
a YouTuber in the local area andhe does a walking tour of the graveyard.

(43:50):
There's a three or four kind ofdistinctive graves that he visits. In
one of them is June's and it'slovely, as lovely as it can be.
But you know what I mean,Yeah, I mean, I will
put a link to the YouTube videothat falls up. The guys wonderfully walks
back with his phone and tells itand he's edited in some nice wee shots
and stuff like that. So we'llput a link to that in the episode

(44:15):
notes on the social media's and allsorts of stuff. So I'm sorry to
leave us on a downer this evening. Well you have that is a downer,
but that Yeah, as I said, I just thought, I've got
what he deserved. Yes, hegot what he deserved. You write monsters
exactly, the right word that Ididn't use in any of that scripting at
all. But you're right there.But yeah, as I said just a

(44:36):
minute ago, to me, it'sa story that needed told because it's better
to tell that story than see itand read it and not tell it.
Yeah, that's the story I've neverheard. It's victims like that, the
stories we should know. Yeah,exactly, And we've always said we talk
about the twisted and the macab andslightly different cases that you've maybe never heard

(44:58):
of. I would imagine the peopleof the Blackburn area probably know that story.
But yeah, hopefully other people willdo now they are sorry, as
I say, sorry to make ita drag this evening, but it was
just it was one that it wasn'ta drag. It was just a bit
of an emotional drain, not aroller coaster. Certainly, it was a
downhill the whole way. Yeah,if you listen to the long version,

(45:20):
I'm sorry if you skipped over thebit the description in the middle, I
understand why you did that. Iprobably would have done the same I would
have if I had a skip buttonhere alive. Yeah, yeah, you
have to listen to it though,Yeah, I'm sorry about that. You
also have to listen to me everyweek, so I'm sorry about that as
well, and even when we stoprecording, if you have, I mean,

(45:44):
if you've enjoyed what you've listened to, bloody hell, how do I
get how do I segue from that? If you've enjoyed what you've listened to
and twisted Britain tonight, please callnine What could fucking hand yourself? Said,
a psychiatric helpline that they can callif they enjoyed night's episode. Yep,
yes, yes, please call apsychiatric helpline. If you've enjoyed tonight's

(46:09):
episode, if you've been affected byany of the issues we've raised, if
you have been affected by any issuesit's raised, there are people you can
phone and I'm sure we can probablyfind some helplines that will post with these
And as I say, caveated atthe top to say that this was not
going to be a pretty one,it never was. It was not a
pretty one. Thanks for sticking withit. If you have done, and

(46:31):
there are way over there are nowover one hundred episodes of Twisted Britain out
there in the ether that we goand listen to. We didn't mark our
hundreds because it's funny because we didthe live ones and stuff like that,
so we haven't actually marked one hundredepisodes, but we have done. You
and I have done over fifty,and the Dean and I did fifty as
well. So we are, Imean, within this for the long run

(46:52):
now. Al So, if youwant to join us for the long run,
you can find us on social mediaby search for Twisted Britain wherever you
socially. Media's right. We're onthe Facebook, we're on the X going
to give it to you. We'reon the tic tac. We're not.
We're on the other things. We'reYeah, we're on all the social media.
Is that forty year old men woulduse Yeah, people think that's probably

(47:13):
the easiest way to put it.People in my face, people, my
Space, Friends re united, fuckit, let's go full nineties on this.
It was way after the nineties,Bob. Yeah, right, enough
of us this evening, because we'vegot a whole nother one. What we
do but they don't. There's agap for them. I'm going for a

(47:36):
pee and then we're going to sitdown again. I'm going to leave you
with a the biggest thank you,the biggest love you, and the biggest
goodbye. Yeah, thanks for listening, thanks for joining us, and thank
you. Love you Bye, Sanclayou view Bye, I can hear yourself.
Thank you, bye for no,for never,