Dorset Murders (28 page)

Having checked 130 outlets in Bournemouth and Poole, police had conclusively established that the French hair curler was not available for sale anywhere in the area. Yet Mrs Williams used identical curlers. The bloodstained brown paper bag was found to have a fault in the serrations on its edge and no less than twenty-three similar bags were found in Williams's room, each with a similar fault and all obviously manufactured by the same machine. The police were able to establish that Williams had bought a job lot of the bags from a shop that was closing down.

Casswell outlined the prosecution's theory about the murder. Destitute and desperate, Williams had visited Dinnivan with the intention of robbing him. As the two men enjoyed a drink, Williams had removed the hammer he had brought with him from its paper bag and hit Dinnivan hard from behind on the top of the head, rendering him unconscious. Then, as Williams was rifling through the safe, either he heard the two ladies from the upstairs flats or Dinnivan had regained consciousness. It had then been necessary to kill him, to prevent him from later identifying his attacker.

On the third day of the trial – Friday 13 October – Williams himself took the stand and it was at that moment that the case went wrong for the prosecution team.

Casswell would later write in his memoirs,
A Lance for Liberty,
that Mr Justice Croom-Johnson appeared extremely prejudiced for the defendant, almost as if he were reluctant to put on the traditional black cap and pronounce a death sentence. Casswell believed that this was the first murder case that Croom-Johnson had presided over, and whether he was suffering from first-time nerves or just particularly sympathetic to the age of the accused, it soon became evident to Casswell that he was fighting an uphill battle.

As Casswell cross-examined Williams, Croom-Johnson fidgeted, snorted and exclaimed loudly from the bench, while Williams rather cockily proceeded to argue every piece of the evidence against him that the police had gathered. He denied being anywhere near Dinnivan's flat when the murder was committed and explained the presence of his thumbprint on the beer glass by suggesting that it had been improperly washed after his previous visit on 14 May. He could have left the curler on another occasion and he wasn't the only person in the area with a rare blood group. As for the paper bag – surely anyone from that area might have received one of the defective ones from the local shop?

As soon as Casswell had finished his cross-examination, Croom-Johnson immediately invited the jury to dismiss the case there and then. ‘You have heard this man and seen him in the box', he told them. ‘Recollect that the prosecution has to establish a case for your satisfaction without any reasonable doubt and, having regard to the fact that none of the money has really been traced to this man and no bloodstains, with the exception of those on a pair of trousers, have been found on any of his clothing, if you think that this case is one in which it would be unsafe to leave him in peril any longer you are at liberty to say so but if you think the case ought to proceed you are also at liberty to say so.' After a five-minute recess, the jury elected to continue the trial but Croom-Johnson had not finished interfering.

In his summing up, Croom-Johnson again seemed to bend over backwards to refute the case for the prosecution. He reminded the jury that the murder weapon had never been found, in spite of an extensive search and that none of the missing jewellery had been traced. He ridiculed the hair curler, asking if a woman's hair curler were really the sort of thing that a murderer took along with him to the scene of the crime. He pointed out that there were approximately 15,000 people in the Bournemouth district with the same blood group as Williams and that there was no evidence that he smoked, or ever bought, cork-tipped cigarettes. He finished his summing up by instructing the jury that, while it was proper that they should punish the guilty, it was better that dozens of guilty persons should escape rather than one innocent person suffer wrongly. They should be quite certain in their minds that they were not convicting the wrong person.

Within seventy minutes, the jury had returned a verdict of ‘Not Guilty' and an obviously delighted Joseph Williams was a free man. He was whisked away from the court by Norman Rae of the
News of the World,
to whom he had promised an exclusive interview. Frustratingly for Rae, he subsequently found himself with not just a story, but with a journalistic scoop, but one that he was forced by journalistic ethics to withhold for twelve years until after William's death in 1951.

Initially, Williams maintained his innocence to Rae, saying that he had known all along that he wouldn't be convicted and had therefore taken a perverse pleasure in playing the police along, amusing himself at their efforts to tie him to the murder. However, after a long evening of celebratory drinking, Rae found Williams knocking at the door of his hotel room in the early hours of the morning.

In tears, Williams told Rae that he needed to clear his conscience. ‘The jury were wrong', he confessed. ‘It was me. I killed Walter Dinnivan. Now I've told you, I feel better. I'll be able to sleep now.'

Rae escorted Williams back to his own room then lay awake mulling over what he had just been told. In the eyes of the law, having been tried and acquitted, Joseph Williams could not be tried again for the same offence. No matter what statements he might make after the trial, he was officially innocent and could not now be brought to justice.

By morning, Williams had recovered from the excesses of the night before and was now openly bragging about how he had avoided the hangman. Rae kept in touch with him for a few years but eventually lost track of him until the beginning of March 1951, when Williams died penniless and alone in Nottingham. Only then was Rae free to reveal his story, but since Williams's confession was only hearsay, the case of the murder of Walter Dinnivan could not be officially closed.

[Note: In certain contemporary accounts of the murder, the victim's name is alternatively spelled Dinivan. I have taken the spelling used by the majority.]

D
avid Miller Jennings was, it was said, the stuff of which heroes are made. Recognising that war was inevitable, Jennings, a former miner and farm labourer from Warrington, had joined the Army in 1938, determined to fight for King and country. He had seen action in Dunkirk and generally conducted himself with courage and dignity, but tragically his actions were to cause the death of another equally courageous and dignified soldier; in this instance, one who had fought in the trenches during the First World War.

On 26 January 1941, twenty-year-old Jennings, now stationed at Dorchester, had been for a training session on the rifle range. Yet shooting at targets had failed to ease the anger and bitterness he felt at having recently received a ‘Dear John' letter from the girl he loved and had fully expected to marry. That evening, in the company of a number of his comrades, Jennings tried to drown his sorrows with drink.

Their evening started with several pints of beer, alternated by shots of whisky, at the George Hotel. From there the group moved to the Antelope Hotel, where they drank yet more beer and whisky, then to the Ship Inn. There, Corporal Leith spotted him buying a round of drinks.

Leith had good reason to be surprised since Jennings, who was spending freely on drinks, owed him money. He tapped Jennings on the shoulder and remarked to him, ‘That five shillings you borrowed off me seems to be going a long way.'

Jennings smiled drunkenly at him. ‘I borrowed more, Corp.' he explained. ‘This is my night to howl.'

‘Then make sure you don't end up howling in the guardroom', Leith warned him.

Shortly afterwards, Leith shook his head as he watched Jennings and his companions stagger out of the bar. Aware that Jennings had been jilted, Leith was of the opinion that he was now spending the money he had carefully saved in anticipation of his marriage.

The drinkers returned to the Antelope Hotel where Jennings bought yet more beer. At closing time the group moved to a milk bar, where they ate meat pies and drank cups of tea, before making their way unsteadily back to barracks.

During the course of the evening, Jennings had consumed around seven shots of whisky and ten and a half pints of beer. His friends described him as ‘talkative and merry', but by the time they reached their rooms the reality of his situation was slowly beginning to dawn on Jennings. Not only had he lost his girl but also he had just spent all his savings on drink. Furthermore, he still owed money to Corporal Leith and others.

Private Hall, with whom he shared a room, watched in disbelief as Jennings stripped off his best battle dress and, instead of changing into his pyjamas, put on his second-best battle dress with a pair of gym shoes. ‘What the hell are you up to, David?' asked Hall.

‘Nothing', replied Jennings brusquely.

‘It has to be something otherwise you'd be putting on your pyjamas instead of that bloody lot. Come off it – what are you on?'

‘If you must know, I'm going to do a break in', said Jennings.

Hall tried his hardest to dissuade him, but was told by Jennings to mind his own business. Hall redoubled his efforts to stop Jennings when he saw him pick up his rifle and take some ammunition from his bandolier.

‘Leave that. You're too jerked up to take a rifle with you.'

Jennings ignored him. ‘Don't you split on me', he warned Hall who, knowing the unspoken Army code of not ratting on your pals, eventually decided that he had tried hard enough. He fell asleep as Jennings crept quietly out of their room.

Jennings managed to leave the barracks without being seen and walked into Dorchester. Meanwhile, Corporal Leith was becoming increasingly concerned about the young private, so much so that he decided to go to his room to check on his welfare.