The victims of serial killers are marginalised in the accounts of the crimes. They are often presented as minor characters in the main drama that is the exploration of the motivations and psychology of the killer. One of the aspects of serial killing that sets it apart from other types of murder is the lack of a previous relationship between the killers and their victims. The victims are a means to an end—the satisfaction of the desires of the killer. The result is that in true crime accounts we often find out little if anything about the victims and their families. The novelist David Peace (interview with the authors, 2016) discussed the way that, in 1980, the figure of Peter Sutcliffe cast a present, a bleak, mournful shadow over the novel. In much writing about the Ripper case, his victims remain frozen in the police posters of the time—a series of passport style photographs. Wilson (2007) notes that the victims of modern UK serial killers overwhelmingly come from marginalised groups: older people, gay men, prostitutes and working class children. This is a key element in the narratives that develop around particular crimes and the prominence of the media coverage they receive.
This chapter begins with a brief consideration of the foregrounding of victims within the Criminal Justice System and will examine the ways that the media represents victims. It will argue that the reporting and the media profile of particular crimes highlight that there is a hierarchy of victims. In the same way that some killers have a higher profile than others, so do victims. The label of ‘victim’ appears to be a relatively straightforward one that is bestowed on someone who has been the victim of a crime. The everyday reality of being seen as a victim is much more complex and situated in the wider ‘historical, social and cultural processes and their relationship to human action’ (Spalek 2017:26). These factors will influence whether a society is likely to support, stigmatise and further victimise victims. They shape who society regards as being legitimate victims and therefore deserving of our sympathy, help and support. There is ample evidence that some victims gain more media attention, greater sympathetic media coverage and more public support than others. This is based on notions of class, race, gender, sexuality and age. These notions are also heavily based on assumptions of ‘innocence or guilt’ (Jewkes 2004:24). One of the most high profile examples of this is the Yorkshire Ripper case where it is clear that the fact that some of his victims were sex workers had a huge impact on the police investigation and media coverage. These factors also influence media coverage and public responses to abducted, missing and murdered children, whose photogenic appeal, alongside the status of their parents and the circumstances of the disappearance can amplify the fact that some children more than others are worthy of public sympathy (Jewkes 2004; Jones 2012). It is equally true that the label and status of ‘victim’ is a movable, not a static one and is liable to change over time (Walklate 2007).
The crimes of Brady and Hindley are clearly appalling acts of sexual violence. They were also viewed as having a wider symbolic value. In our discussion of the trial, we have shown how media and social commentators saw the crimes as a product of the moves towards more liberal social attitudes, particularly sexual behaviour. It is also the case that the crimes were seen as emblematic of rising crime, particularly violent crime and a breakdown in social norms. In August 1966, the nation was further shocked by the killing of three police officers by Harry Roberts in London. These murders led to demonstrations calling for the return of the death penalty. Taylor (2003) argues that attitudes to major social issues are not expressed in theoretical terms. Common sense or widely held views are rather spread by images, stories and myths. This is particularly the case in the area of law and order. Particular cases, the Moors Murders being a prime example, take on a symbolic significance. Clark (2011) noted the way that Hindley became the poster girl for the paedophile moral panic in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Brady and Hindley had been in prison for 25 years at that point. However, their crimes were woven into a narrative of stranger danger that constructs the risks of sexual abuse of children in a particular form, that is, as being outside of the family. This is not to diminish the nature of these crimes. It is to suggest that children are actually at greater risk from adults they know rather than strangers who might attempt to entice them into a car.
One of the most significant trends in the past 35 years has been the increase in the use of imprisonment. This has been particularly the case in the USA. The cultural dominance of the USA is important here. We have seen how the modern notion of the serial killer is essentially an American construct. Attitudes to law and order are similarly influenced by developments in the States. The increase in the use of imprisonment in the USA and the UK has been driven by an often racialised image of the offender as a young, strong, and psychically fit male. The message being that such individuals pose a general threat to the wider populace. The greater politicisation of debates about law and order accompanied by harsher penal policy is termed by Simon (2007) as Governing through Crime. This meme can be viewed as a combination of fear of crime, law and order having a much more powerful impact on the wider political debate and a general public disillusion with alternative to imprisonment.
Simon (2007) places the origins of the development of Governing through crime in the economic and political crises of the 1970s and 1980s. He argues that these led to a crisis in government legitimacy. One way for governments to reassert their legitimacy was in the area of law and order. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, there had been much more of a centrist political consensus. The vast majority of offenders were seen as individuals who could be reformed by the intervention and support of state agencies. There were clearly always those who did not accept this. It was a consistent feature of Conservative Party politics both in the USA and UK that those on the right called for a return of the death penalty as part of harsher responses to crime. In these debates, Brady and Hindley were often used as the paradigmatic example of murders who should have been executed because of the nature of their crimes in the UK context. The deterrence argument was on a much shakier foundation. Brady and Hindley committed the first four murders when the death penalty was still in use. They clearly paid no attention to the debates about abolition before starting out on their career of torture and murder.
In his examination of the politicalisation of debates around law and order, Simon (2007) argues that the victim of crime, particularly violent crime came to be representative. The development of penal populism (Garland 2001) involves the foregrounding of victims as well as politicians making appeals to the public over the heads of a range of experts—criminologists, lawyers, psychologists and prison administrators and so on. Garland (2001) suggests that in this process, violent offenders come to represent all offenders. The politics of risk and risk management mean that agencies such as probation now focus on reporting and surveillance rather than the tackling of social and personal issues that lie at the root of offending. Simon (2007) provides several examples where violent crime has had a direct impact on the election process. The most famous of these is the case of Willie Horton, a convicted murderer, who raped a woman whilst he was on a period of weekend leave. This case was used by George Bush (Sr) in an attack advertisement on Dukakis in the 1988 Presidential campaign. In 1993 a 12-year-old school girl, Polly Klaas, was kidnapped and murdered by Richard Allen Davis. Following the public and political response to this appalling crime—Governor Wilson spoke at the funeral—Mike Reynolds, whose own daughter had been shot, used the case to support his campaign to introduce Proposition 184. This led directly to the introduction of the three strikes law in California. Such policies replace the perceived weakness of liberal courts and judges with a clear populist response. One of the most powerful of insights into the nature of state power is the fact that violence and the need to respond to it generate a very strong support for its wider use (Hall et al. 2013). Many commentators have made this link post 9/11, and Hall et al. show that the early 1970s crises such as the UK response to Irish nationalist terrorism had similar impacts; for example, the targeting and demonising of minority communities and the introduction of legislation that restricted civil liberties.
Despite the increased political and policy foregrounding of victims, there is still a focus on the behaviour of individual victims and whether this is seen as a possible contributory factor to the offence. The notions of deserving and undeserving victims are linked to victim blaming. In reporting crimes, the focus is often on the behaviour of the victim rather than the offenders. The media focuses on the idea that the victims may be culpable in some way. The reporting often is concerned with how far victims comply with Christie’s (1986) concept of the ideal victim. To be considered an ideal victim, your behaviour, dress and actions prior to victimisation must put you beyond blame or culpability for that attack. The attacker must be bigger than you and a stranger (Christie 1986). Whilst some children and young people are viewed as easily meeting these criteria, for example, victims of sexual abuse by strangers, this is not always the case. Children who are victims of other crimes such as street crime or gang crimes might be viewed far less favourably (Porteous 2008). Even children and young people who have been sexually abused by strangers, have been regarded as culpable for the crimes committed against them under certain circumstances (Palmer and Foley 2016). This, usually but not exclusively, has been applied to adolescents. For example, teenage girls under the age of 16 have been portrayed as ‘making life style choices’ rather than being the victims of sexual crime. There has been a great deal of work done to challenge these attitudes but they have not totally disappeared even from staff in agencies such as social services and the police that have the task of protecting children.
John Kilbride, Lesley Ann Downey and Keith Bennett, the three youngest victims of the crimes of Brady and Hindley, would be clearly placed in the category of ideal victim . They were primary school age children who were manipulated into getting in the car by adults. Pauline Reade was on her way to a dance when she accepted a lift from Hindley. Pauline Reade knew Hindley and her family from the local neighbourhood. She would have had no reason to fear Hindley. Edward Evans was the eldest victim. He was 17 when he was murdered. His death was the catalyst for the literal unearthing of the other murders. Despite this, Edward Evans has remained on the periphery of the public imagination in relation to the victims of the Moors Murders. This may be attributable to the fact that his body was found within hours of his murder. There was no public spectacle or media coverage as with the search for other bodies on the Moors. His parents did not give media interviews or appear in public to discuss the case. In the drama See No Evil (Menaul 2006), there is a brief shot of the weeping couple leaving the police station having identified their son’s body. The Evanses did challenge Brady’s claim that their son was ‘homosexual’. This has to be seen in the context of the social attitudes of the time. Homosexuality was illegal. The Sexual Offences Act 1967 decriminalised homosexual acts in private between two men and the age of consent was 21. In See No Evil (Menaul 2006) Brady is shown discussing a plan with Smith and Hindley to raise money. He suggests that they could go to Canal St and meet a businessman of a certain persuasion … who they could then rob. The modern viewer will clearly see this as a reference to a gay man. Canal St is at the heart of Manchester, now world famous Gay Village. The Gay Village did not actually exist in 1966. Brady met Evans near Oxford Road Station. Brady goes on to say that the victim would not report the crime out of fear and embarrassment. A 17-year-old gay young man in 1966 would have been stigmatised and at risk of arrest. He would not have been viewed as an ideal victim. What is clear is that Brady and Hindley targeted younger children, presumably because they were easier to subdue physically and Brady had a sexual interest in children. Pauline Reade’s disappearance was also taken seriously, but the search for her was not as widespread as it was believed she might have simply left with a boyfriend. It was not until much later in the investigation that the police began to suspect that Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett might also be victims of Brady and Hindley.
There is an almost insatiable public appetite for crime news. This is particularly for crime news that involves sexual violence and murder (Jewkes 2004; Greer 2004). In Chap. 5, we examine the way that these narratives focus on development of the serial killer. Far less attention is paid to the impact of the crime on the victim or co-victims. There has been a growth in victim-survivor memoirs and their popularity probably coincides with the growth in true crime and the growing prominence of the victim’s movement. Victim-survivors of high profile crimes have told their ‘story’ and several of these have been on the ‘best sellers list’. For example, after the relatively recent high profile child sexual exploitation cases that gained substantial media coverage, several victim-survivors have written memoirs, appeared on mainstream TV chat shows, given evidence to the select Home Committee and given radio interviews. Motivated to tell their side of the story and to challenge and change police and social workers’ attitudes and to help others in similar situations (Palmer and Foley 2016). One such memoir Girl A, provided the basis for the BAFTA acclaimed drama, also starring Maxine Peake, of the Rochdale CSE case Three Girls (Lowthorpe 2017). This adds further evidence to the argument that people have a fascination for crime stories but particularly those involving sexual violence. Although the true crime genre is popular, it may also reinforce the spatial stigma attached to areas where high profile crimes have been committed (Holt and Wilkins 2015). One of the differences with victim-survivor memoirs, compared to more traditional crime genre is the different emphasis on the victim-survivor. Memoirs and recent dramas such as Three Girls (Lowthorpe 2017), have a stronger emphasis on the impact of crime on the victim-survivor and their families and on the secondary victimisation involved in making a police complaint and the investigative and court process.
Child abduction and murder is a relatively rare crime. There is a great deal of public fear and anxiety around the abduction and murder of children by strangers. This is partly influenced by high profile cases of child abduction and murder. This is, of course, a terrible crime and represents every parent’s worst fears, but it remains a relatively rare crime (Cavanagh et al. 2005; Jewkes 2004; Pritchard and Sayer 2008). However, we remain focused on ‘stranger danger’ and on the male, stranger, sexual pervert stereotype (Kitzinger 2004). This means that other dangers closer to home, or in the home are overlooked or minimised. In reality, children remain at greater risk of intra-familial abuse and murder (Roach and Bryant 2015) than stranger danger. This is of course a challenge to deeply engrained notions of the family as a site of protection, not one of potential risk or abuse. Cavanagh et al. (2005) found that many murders of children by strangers and acquaintances involved a sexual element. Their victims tended to be older children, both boys and girls, but predominantly girls. Brady shares many of the characteristics of this group of offenders; he is young and careful planning went into the abduction and murder. The victims were chosen by location and because they were alone, they were abducted, sexually assaulted and murdered. Brady used a degree of force to overpower them and to kill them. Like many such offenders, Brady had previous minor convictions for theft. He was clearly willing to use violence. Hindley does not fit this pattern of offender in the same way that Brady does. She was a woman. She was involved in the planning, selection and abduction of children. There has been a series of debates about the exact nature of her role in the murders and the sexual assaults that preceded them (Clark 2011).
Roach and Bryant (2015:202) have pointed out that if homicide represents, as signal crimes have come to act, as a barometer of public fear of crime, ‘child homicide must be elevated to the status of “signal, signal crime” by virtue that few crimes can provoke as much public, outrage, disgust and fear’. There is a huge public reaction as shown in the crowds that appear at court hearings to attempt to attack perpetrators or shout abuse. The image of a killer arriving at court with a blanket over their head, of being driving away in a prison van as an angry crowd hurls abuse and photographers running after the van trying to get a picture is a standard feature of British crime news reporting. This public disgust is intensified in very high profile cases. The desire to inflict harm on the perpetrators of such crimes was evident in the Moors case. It also extended to witnesses; David and Maureen Smith were subject to vilification and abuse for the rest of their lives. Crowds gathered at the first court appearances of Thompson and Venables who abducted and murdered James Bulger in 1993 (Morrison 1997). This moral disgust and hostility for perpetrators also extend to children who are killed within the family. In the case of Baby P, it extended to social workers who were responsible for their protection (Shoesmith 2016; Warner 2015).
The rarity of such crimes themselves and the fact that one of the perpetrators was female resulted in significant, local and national media interest in the Moors Murders. The search for the bodies and the subsequent trial all received huge news coverage. The disappearance of John Kilbride and the subsequent police search made the headline news in the Manchester Evening News and the Ashton Reporter as well as featured on the local TV news. The police searched Ashton market and the wider area, enlisted help from the local community and circulated 500 posters of John in the hope that the public would come forward with information. The local media also covered the disappearance and search for Keith Bennett and Lesley Ann Downey. Her disappearance prompted the circulation of 6000 posters of her image and flyers asking for information from the public (Lee 2010). As noted above, at this distance, the initial response to the disappearances seems more muted. This is partly due to the way that modern media covers such events. As noted above, the cases were not initially linked. See No Evil (Menaul 2006) indicates that in the cases of John Kilbride, Keith Bennett and Lesley Ann Downey, the police initially focused their investigations on their fathers.
The impact of violent crimes resonates in families and communities. The murdered children are not the only victims of Brady and Hindley; the parents of the murdered children can be regarded as co-victims. The evidence suggests co-victims experience more ‘severe psychological problems than parents whose children have died in other circumstances and women are likely to experience more intense grief symptoms than men’ (van Wijk et al. 2017:121). In addition, co-victims are at greater risk of long-term depression, can be overwhelmed by feelings of intense anger towards the perpetrator and world in general and suffer from a range of physical symptoms (Gekoski et al. 2012; van Wijk et al. 2017). These all feature in the lives of Brady and Hindley’s co-victims. Ritchie (1988) highlights the long-term suffering of the mothers. Mrs. Reade became an in-patient at Springfield Hospital and was heavily tranquilised when she was finally able to bury her daughter. Sheila Kilbride, like the other mothers, was ‘sentenced to a lifetime of suffering’ (Ritchie 1988:49). The most prominent of the co-victims were Ann West and Winnie Johnson. They appeared frequently in local and the national media to oppose any moves towards Hindley’s parole and campaign for her continued imprisonment. van Wijk et al. (2017) found that the sense of loss experienced by co-victims grew over time and although emotional and psychological problems receded with time, intense emotional responses could resurface in the future under specific circumstances. Hindley’s and her supporters’ repeated attempts to rehabilitate her image and gain her freedom may have reactivated the co-victims’ extreme hatred and rage towards her, thus, ironically making Hindley’s release less not more likely. Ann West made it clear that she would make it her lifetime mission to ensure that life for Hindley meant life. The constant appearance of the case in the media meant the family was contacted by newspapers and TV for their comments. It is hard to imagine how one copes with the loss of a loved one in such circumstances. However, these families were thrown into the media spotlight in the most awfully traumatic way. Current policy and procedure in relation to supporting victims of crime and advice for bereaved friends and family members would not have been in place at the time the Moors Murders were committed. These families would not have received the support of family liaison offers. Their contact with the police and the criminal justice system would have been more limited than it currently is. The co-victims of Brady and Hindley did give statements to the police about their children’s disappearance. Ann West and Sheila Kilbride had to identify their children’s clothing and give evidence in court. Current research has demonstrated that even with support policies in place, co-victims still feel ill-prepared and supported through the process of viewing the body, the police investigation and giving evidence in court. Understandably, they struggled to contain their emotions in court (Gekoski et al. 2012). The co-victims in this case will have experienced significant secondary victimisation, listening to the evidence of how their children died at the hands of Brady and Hindley and their indifference to their child’s suffering.
Wright (2016:56) has suggested that the character of the mother-victim is a powerful one that has sought from personal experience to challenge and change deficiencies in the criminal justice system that help ‘crystallise and direct public anger about perceived rising levels of violent crime’. There are many examples of successful campaigning from mothers, such as Sara Payne, who campaigned with the help of the News of the World, for tighter controls on sex offenders following the rape and murder of her daughter Sarah. Other mothers, like Denise Bulger have, like Anne West and Winnie Johnston, focused attention of what happens to the perpetrators and on not wanting to see them released. One of the difficulties this creates is that the suffering of mothers is measured against the suffering of the offender (Wright 2016) and this has implications for the offender and for the ‘fairness’ of the criminal justice system. This is evident in the battle between the co-victims and Hindley’s attempts at parole and it goes to the heart of the way in which Hindley regarded herself as a victim of the state. Co-victims and the public felt she had not suffered enough. Life should mean life, as the death penalty was not available. The co-victims did not have the opportunity to be free of the life sentence they were enduring. By this measuring stick, the public were never going to be convinced that Hindley had suffered enough or could ever do enough to demonstrate her capacity for rehabilitation. Media attention reflected and reinforced this view with constant stories about her ‘easy’ prison life, and her opportunity to study for a degree. All of which was set against the enduring suffering of co-victims and the opportunities their children were never allowed to have.
Whilst the media tends to focus on parents, particularly on mothers as co-victims, the siblings of the murdered child overall, receive considerably less coverage. This, of course, does not mean that they are not experiencing similar losses. Many will also live through the police search, investigation and subsequent media coverage. Each new media story on Brady and Hindley is likely to reactivate their feelings of loss and anger. They will witness at first hand the impact of the abduction and murder on their parents and on the local community. They will be aware of the lurid rumours and local gossip that attach themselves to the case. Butler and Drakeford (2011:vii–viii) noted when writing about the death of Maria Colwell, any new coverage of the death of a child for the surviving siblings and relatives ‘is a continuous reminder of a part of their own experiences’. It is the death of a real child, who rather than being mythologised was remembered ‘simply and respectfully’ (Butler and Drakeford 2011:viii).
Most of the books written about the Moors Murders provide little insight into the immediate or long-term impact of the surviving siblings. Keith Bennett’s brother Alan has spent a great deal of time responding to sensationalist stories attached to the disappearance of his brother and the search for his body. In the foreword to ‘Witness’ (Smith and Lee 2011), Alan Bennett writes that he was almost nine when his brother Keith disappeared and ten when Brady and Hindley were arrested and charged. He describes the impact of the investigation and media intrusion on family life. Brady and Hindley haunted his childhood. Remember that they did not confess until the 1980s but they were thought to be responsible for the abduction and murder of his brother from the time of their conviction. Alan Bennett also writes of the many years he spent searching Saddleworth Moor ‘in the hope of bringing Keith home’ (Smith and Lee 2011:10), of the time spent speaking and writing to people he thought may be able to help him. This even included writing to and visiting Hindley in prison (Staff 2013). Of course, all will have witnessed the devastating impact on their parents both at the time and throughout the rest of their lives. Much less attention is given to fathers/stepfathers in accounts. Yet they too suffered—not only from the loss of a child. In addition, they were under the suspicion that they might be the possible perpetrator of that crime. The fact they were under suspicion is not surprising as fathers/stepfathers are often the perpetrators of child abuse and homicide (Cavanagh et al. 2005; Pritchard and Sayer 2008; Roach and Bryant 2015). However, this was clearly a terrible ordeal for Alan West and Jimmy Johnson, who were taken away for questioning several times before being eliminated as suspects (Lee 2010).
Whilst understandably there was significant public sympathy for the parents of the children killed by Brady and Hindley, this did not extend to others, who were clearly victimised, in very different ways, over a number of years, by the public. David Smith, Maureen Smith and their children were regarded not as victims but as legitimate targets and recipients of public vilification and abuse (Smith and Lee 2011). There are several factors contributing to public antipathy of David Smith. He saw Edward Evans being murdered. He then helped to clean up the crime scene. His history of violence and offending meant that he was far from being the blameless ideal victim. It is, perhaps, easy to forget he was only 17 years of age in October 1966. In Witness (Smith and Lee 2011), in his own account of the murder, trial and aftermath, he struggles to articulate his actions but attributed it to survival instincts, believing that he would be the next of Brady’s victims. What we do know factually, is that he was sickened and terrified by the murder and went to the police as soon as it felt safe to do so. Whilst initially hostile to his account, the police eventually accepted that he was telling the truth. His position remained ambiguous for some time, as the police were unsure if he was a witness or an accomplice (see Chap. 6 for further discussion).
Brady and Hindley’s actions have had an enduring impact on the lives of those touched by these crimes. When these crimes were committed, there was little knowledge of the impact on victims or the need to support victim-survivors, co-victims or their families. Policies to support and protect witnesses, particularly vulnerable witnesses and their families were not in place at the time. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Board was in its infancy, established in 1964 to provide financial compensation to ‘innocent’ victims of crime who might require health services. Victims in the 1960s were peripheral to the Criminal Justice System and none asked what they wanted. The shift from the margins to a more central and important position from 1979 onwards predates but was influenced by high profile cases such as the Moors Murders (Walklate 2007). This lack of awareness of the needs of co-victims and prosecution witnesses meant they were left alone to deal with the aftermath of the crime, investigation, trial and media frenzy. For the fathers, there was the added burden of being seen initially at least, as a suspect. Some of the mothers were able to provide mutual support. Anne West was instrumental in setting up support groups for the parents of murdered children. Winnie Johnson spent her lifetime trying to find out where the body of her son was buried. Ann West spent the rest of her life petitioning against the parole of Hindley. Their ongoing media campaigns for justice can be seen as a precursor to ongoing campaigns to improve services to victim-survivors and their families.