19

‘We were very jolly all night afterwards’

Wormwood Scrubs, London, 1893

Throughout the night of 6/7 June 1893, shepherd Harry William Kimberley was out tending his flock on the common at Wormwood Scrubs in London, which was then a rough area, frequented by drunks, prostitutes and adulterers. In fine weather, it was not unusual for people to sleep out all night and so Kimberley thought nothing of the woman lying on her back on the grass when he walked past her at about 5 a.m. on 7 June, until his dog went over and licked her face. When she didn’t move, Kimberley took a closer look and found that the woman was dead.

A doctor was summoned to the scene and, after examining the woman, found that her head had been smashed in and her mouth stuffed full of dirt, presumably to stifle her screams. The woman had apparently received several heavy blows from a blunt instrument, fracturing her skull and jaw in several places and completely obliterating her right eyeball. It had been raining overnight and Kimberley confirmed that the rain started at around 11 p.m. on 6 June yet, although the body was wet, the ground beneath it was dry. Kimberley told the police that he was within 250 yards of the murder scene all night and heard nothing out of the ordinary. The dead woman was wearing a ring and her purse was still in her pocket, although it contained no money, suggesting that robbery was not the motive for her murder and, apart from the catastrophic injuries to her head, face and neck, there were no other marks of violence on her body and no signs of any struggle having taken place in the area where she lay.

The immediate priority for the police was to identify the body and they published a description of the dead woman in the newspapers. She was said to be: ‘About 30 years of age, 5ft 2in in height; complexion dark, hair black, hazel eyes. The body was dressed in a black satin flowered skirt, trimmed with beads around the hem. The bodice is of black satin but the sleeves, neck and waistcoat front are of plum colour. There are satin bows on each shoulder and trimming of beads down the front and at the waist. One petticoat was of blue and red striped flannelette and another was blue and white printed. Her handkerchief bears the name of ‘Minnie Mercer, ’92’ in black ink.’

The description brought forth several people with information. The first was Harriet Bailey, a lodging house keeper from Lambeth, who recognised the description as being of a woman she knew as barmaid Maud Merton or Murton and confirmed her identification after viewing the body at the mortuary. Another woman believed the woman’s name to be Maud Crowcher, while a second lodging house keeper positively identified her as Maud Smith. Elizabeth Deane told police that the deceased was Maud Cooke, who had previously lodged at her house in Lambeth with her husband, who was a policeman. Another woman from Tottenham viewed the corpse and determined that it was the body of her twenty-two-year-old daughter, although it was later shown that she was mistaken. Finally, Thomas Grimshaw (or Grimthorpe) told the police that he worked as a dispensing chemist at Wormwood Scrubs Prison and, while walking home on the night of 6 June, had seen someone matching the dead woman’s description arguing with a policeman outside his cottage near the prison. Taken to view the body, Grimshaw confirmed that this was the woman he had seen.

There had been numerous police officers patrolling in the area on the night of 6/7 June, all of whom were routinely questioned to see if they had witnessed anything. Since the dead woman had supposedly been married to a policeman and the name ‘Cooke’ had been put forward for her, particular attention was paid to twenty-seven-year-old PC George Samuel Cooke, whose official statement was that he was on duty with another constable and had seen nothing that had aroused his suspicions. The police arranged for an identity parade, although Grimshaw failed to pick out Cooke as the officer he had seen arguing with the deceased.

Nevertheless, Cooke was taken in for questioning and asked to produce his uniform and police truncheon for inspection. A spot of blood was found on Cooke’s left boot and a bloodstain was observed on his trouser leg, which Cooke explained by saying that he had sliced open his finger while cutting tobacco. When he was unable to produce his truncheon, a search of his lodgings was ordered and a truncheon and a police whistle were found buried in the garden. When the truncheon was unearthed it was found to be smeared in what looked like blood.

Shortly after 6 p.m. on 8 June, PC Cooke was arrested and formally charged with the wilful murder of Maud Smith (he was also similarly charged with wilful murder in respect of all Maud’s aliases). Cooke initially protested his innocence but quickly realised the extent of the evidence against him and the futility of keeping up the pretence that he had nothing to do with the murder. ‘I suppose it is no use trying to get out of it?’ Cooke asked, before going on to make a full confession.

According to Cooke, the woman he knew as Maud Smith was a street walker, with whom he had been involved in an intimate relationship for many years. The policeman denied any suggestion that he was personally responsible for Maud’s descent into prostitution or that he had ever lived off her immoral earnings, swearing that, on the contrary, he had often given her money and paid for her lodgings. Some time ago, Cooke realised that he wanted to end his relationship with Maud but she refused to take any notice of him and threatened to get him into trouble with his senior offices if he tried to leave her. At that time, Cooke was a member of E Division of the Metropolitan Police and Maud was quick to make good her threats, going to Bow Street police station on 26 April 1893 and complaining that Cooke had mistreated her and stolen some of her belongings.

While the charges made by Maud against him were investigated, Cooke was suspended from duty but was quickly reinstated and transferred to X Division in May, simply to get him away from Maud. He was described by his superior officers at both Divisions as ‘a very good officer indeed.’

When Cooke met a respectable young lady, he redoubled his efforts to sever all connections with Maud, particularly after proposing marriage to his sweetheart. However, Maud was most unwilling to be cast aside and wrote to Cooke telling him that she would meet him while he was on his night duty on 6 June.

Maud went to the police station at Wormwood Scrubs on 6 June and asked a policeman where she might find Cooke. She was told that he was patrolling near the prison and walked there to meet him, asking PC Harris in passing if he could tell her where Cooke was.

When Maud and Cooke finally met, he asked her what she was doing there and she announced her intention of staying where she was until he went off duty.

‘There will be another policeman along in a minute,’ Cooke told her, to which she replied, ‘Good. I should like to see him as I have something to tell him.’

‘You clear off!’ Cooke shouted but Maud defiantly replied, ‘I shall not,’ and continued arguing with him and threatening to ruin his career and reveal their relationship to his fiancée. He begged her to go away and leave him in peace to carry out his duties but she refused and continued to follow him around. In an effort to escape, he walked off across the common but Maud would not be shaken off and hurried after him, continuing to harangue and taunt him. Cooke’s statement continued by revealing that, as they walked, he had surreptitiously concealed his police truncheon up the sleeve of his tunic.

Eventually, Cooke stopped and asked Maud, ‘Are you going?’

‘I am going to stop and annoy you until Sunday and then you can go and **** yourself,’ Maud replied, at which Cooke was so maddened that he lost control and hit her hard over the head with his truncheon.

‘She fell down and never moved one nerve,’ Cooke claimed, adding that he had hit her again on the head and on the jaw before placing his booted foot on her neck and keeping it there for five minutes, during which time she made a sound described by Cooke as both a gurgle and a groan. Once he had ascertained that Maud was dead, Cooke returned to his beat where he patrolled with PC Alban Kemp until 4 a.m. ‘We were very jolly all night afterwards,’ Cooke claimed.

Having finished his shift, Cooke went back to his lodgings where, according to his landlady Kate Robinson, he didn’t eat breakfast as he usually did, contenting himself with a cup of tea. Cooke then spent some time pottering about in the garden, where he buried his truncheon and whistle, although his landlady was unable to see what he was doing. Mrs Robinson was married to a policeman and had a second lodger, PC Robert McDonald, who was later to reveal that Cooke had introduced him to Maud when she visited him at his lodgings. McDonald, who assisted in digging up the truncheon and whistle that Cooke buried, stated that the last visit Maud made to Cooke’s lodgings was less than a week before her murder. He was allowed to speak to Cooke for a few moments after he made his confession and claimed that Cooke told him that he considered himself lucky not to have been caught in the act and that the police did not have the weapon with which he actually killed Maud. ‘I only wish that PC 149 [Kemp] had not been detained and then it would not have occurred,’ Cooke told McDonald but, in spite of his apparent remorse, he had already concluded his confession by telling Inspector Hatcher and Inspector Morgan, ‘I thought nothing of killing her. I have been happier since she was dead than I was before. She was always annoying me and I was in misery.’

The coroner for West London, Mr C. Luxmore Drew, held an inquest at Hammersmith Coroner’s Court, at which Cooke’s confession to the murder was read in full. In summarising the evidence for his jury, the coroner referred to Cooke’s statement as ‘a most damning piece of evidence’, claiming that it showed evidence of premeditation. The jury consulted for around ninety minutes but seemed unable to reach a conclusion upon which they were all agreed. They were directed to retire again and eventually agreed by ‘a bare majority’ on a verdict of wilful murder against Cooke, although they wished it to be officially recorded that they believed that he had acted under very great provocation. Magistrates at West London Police Court concurred with the verdict of the coroner’s court and Cooke was committed for trial. He appeared before Mr Justice Hawkins at the Central Criminal Court on 7 July 1893, where he pleaded not guilty to the wilful murder of Maud Merton, also known as Maud Smith and Maud Cooke.

‘The prisoner lolled in the dock and assumed a most careless air,’ reported the contemporary newspapers, while Charles Mathews and Horace Avory outlined the case for the prosecution, describing the finding of the body and the medical evidence and explaining what connected the victim to Cooke, calling witnesses who had either known the dead woman or had been introduced by her to Cooke. The prosecution rested with the reading of Cooke’s confession.

Defence counsels Messrs Moyses and Cooney immediately recalled one of the police inspectors and questioned him about statements made on the previous day by a Mr and Mrs Honour, who lived on the common, close to where the body was found. Moyses was questioning Inspector Gillham, when Mr Justice Hawkins interrupted to say that he could not allow Gillham’s testimony to be admitted as evidence. It would be dangerous not only to prisoners but to the public if he permitted hearsay evidence of this nature to be heard, Hawkins explained, adding that the correct procedure was to put the witnesses in the box.

Moyses stated that he had hoped that the prosecution would call the witnesses but Hawkins replied that he could not dictate to the prosecution what course they should pursue. Moyses was about to resume his questioning of Gillham when the judge again interrupted, testily reiterating that he would not allow mere hearsay evidence to be introduced.

The prosecution pointed out that the statements made by the Honours had been forwarded to the defence and they were quite entitled to call the witnesses. ‘We have them here in court for my learned friend if he desires them,’ stated Mathews but whatever Mr and Mrs Honour had said, the defence declined to call them as witnesses, especially after the judge remarked that considering that they lived near the spot, he was surprised that it had taken them until the very day before the trial to come forward.

In fact, the defence called no witnesses at all and it was left for both counsels to give their closing speeches and for the judge to summarise the case for the jury.

For the prosecution, Mr Mathews maintained that there was no shadow of doubt that Cooke had caused the woman’s death. However, the most significant thing for the jury to consider was the statement made by the accused. It was the prosecution’s contention that Cooke planned to kill Maud Smith, fearing that she would be a nuisance and interfere with his career and his future plans for marriage to another woman. This suggested a motive for getting rid of the victim and the fact that Cooke had concealed the truncheon up his sleeve was indicative of premeditation. Mathews was sure that the defence counsel would try to persuade them that Maud Smith had provoked Cooke into killing her but there was no provocation on earth that would reduce a blow from a dangerous weapon from murder to manslaughter.

Moyses then addressed the court in Cooke’s defence, telling the jury that many aspects of the case against the prisoner had been exaggerated and, if viewed from a different angle, were actually favourable to the accused. Having heard all the evidence, it was for them to decide whether or not the provocation was sufficient to reduce the crime from murder to the less grave one of manslaughter. It was the contention of the defence that it was abundantly clear that the victim had been persecuting and annoying Cooke by running after him while he was on duty and had goaded him to the point of desperation. Maud Smith was a woman of violent, venomous and desperate disposition, continued Moyses, who had made Cooke’s life so miserable until, at last, she provoked him into a fury, which caused him to lose all control of himself and inflict the blow which unhappily caused her death. There was an utter absence of premeditation; the crime was perpetrated in a whirlwind of passion and the circumstances would surely warrant the jury taking the most merciful path and finding the defendant guilty of manslaughter only.

The judge agreed with both counsels that there was no doubt as to whose hand inflicted the fatal wounds. If the jury came to the conclusion that the prisoner inflicted the blows with intent to injure, he was guilty of murder. Regardless of intent, Mr Justice Hawkins instructed the jury that, based on evidence they had heard, there was no suggestion that provocation had been given. True, the woman deliberately sought out the prisoner and declared her intention of remaining there to annoy him but he was bound to tell the jury that such acts did not constitute provocation of the character intended by the law. No words, however contemptuous or provocative, could be said to be sufficient grounds to reduce a crime from murder to manslaughter and no words were considered sufficient to justify the use of a deadly weapon, with intent to do grievous bodily harm. The law presumed malice from the act of killing and indeed, the killing of a person was murder unless malice was disproved. If the prisoner used a truncheon on the head of this woman intending to do her some harm then he was guilty of murder and the judge stated that he had heard nothing to suggest that the woman had shown any violence to the accused, or made any attack on him or even lifted a hand against him. In fact, she did nothing other than annoying him and annoyance was no justification for unlawful violence.

It took the jury just ten minutes to return a verdict of guilty of wilful murder against Cooke, although they strongly recommended mercy on account of the provocation he received. Placing the black cap on his head and addressing Cooke, Mr Justice Hawkins told him that he agreed with the jury’s verdict and promised to forward their recommendation to the Home Secretary, to deal with as he saw fit. ‘For my own part,’ Hawkins continued, ‘I cannot help thinking that yours is a case in which peculiar atrocity has been manifested. I cannot conceive anything more horribly cruel than striking – merely because she was annoying you – on the head with a truncheon, a young woman who had turned her face from you. You took the opportunity of striking her when she could not defend herself. That cruelty was aggravated by what followed – you standing upon the neck of the woman, battering her head repeatedly with that same weapon, causing two fractures of the skull, a smashed eye and a broken jaw. The poor woman from the time of the first blow never uttered a single syllable.’

As Hawkins pronounced the death sentence, a young woman in the body of the court began screaming, eventually fainting and having to be carried out of the court. She was Cooke’s fiancée, to whom he was due to be married in October. She was later to say that she knew nothing of the deceased woman and had only found out about her existence when she read about Cooke’s arrest in the newspapers. She remained convinced of his innocence to the last and had visited him daily in prison, pawning her watch and chain to provide him with additional comforts.

The jury’s recommendation came to nothing and, in spite of several petitions for clemency – including one bearing 11,000 signatures from his birthplace, Yarmouth – Cooke was executed by hangman James Billington at Newgate Prison on 25 July 1893. Cooke showed no concern about his fate, continuing to exhibit the same stolid indifference that marked his demeanour during his trial. As the time for his execution drew nearer, he did become anxious about his elderly parents and his sisters and was very distressed whenever he alluded to the pain he had brought them. Although he acknowledged that his deed was unjustifiable and that his sentence was therefore just, Cooke continued to repudiate to his last breath any suggestion that he had intended to take his victim’s life. He insisted that his rash act was entirely unpremeditated and the outcome of an unhappy impulse which, in a moment of keen irritation, he could not overcome.