21

‘I bet he’s strangling her’

Burnley, Lancashire, 1915

Shortly before six o’clock on the evening of 23 December 1915, twenty-five-year-old Reginald Haslam arrived at the Central Police Station in Burnley and drunkenly claimed to have strangled a woman to death. When questioned by the police officers on duty, he simply handed them the keys to a house in Ellis Street, where PCs Washbrook and Bridge found the body of thirty-five-year-old Isabella ‘Belle’ Holmes Conway lying on a sofa, her head resting on a pillow and a green silk ribbon tied tightly around her neck. A doctor called to the scene pronounced Belle dead and confirmed that she had been strangled.

Haslam and Belle Conway had been living together as man and wife for approximately four months, in spite of the fact that both were married to other people. On 20 December, the couple quarrelled and Haslam stormed out, but after spending two nights sleeping at his mother’s house, he realised that he really wanted to be with Belle and went back to her.

Haslam arrived at the house in Ellis Street at about 11.30 p.m. on 22 December and knocked on the door. Belle was at home but she seemed flustered and refused to open the door straight away, although when Haslam asked her if there was someone with her she insisted that she was alone. Annoyed at being left standing outside in the rain, Haslam peered through the letter box and saw a pair of legs clad in military uniform trousers. ‘Don’t open the door,’ the man was saying urgently to Belle and Haslam recognised his voice as being that of his sister’s husband, William Ashton.

‘Now that I know who it is, I will go,’ Haslam shouted to Belle. He walked a few yards up the street and seconds later she opened the door and called to him from the doorstep. ‘There is nobody here that matters anything,’ she told him but Haslam wanted to see for himself and pushed roughly past her into the house.

‘Don’t go in there,’ Belle pleaded as he barged into the living room, where Ashton was sitting comfortably in an armchair, completely at ease and looking like the master of the house. On seeing Haslam, Ashton scrambled to his feet and blustered that he was only visiting Belle to ask her if she knew the whereabouts of his wife. As he was speaking, Ashton hurriedly put on his hat and coat and left the house within minutes of Haslam’s unexpected arrival.

As soon as Ashton had gone, Haslam rounded on Belle and demanded to know why his brother-in-law was visiting her. Belle, who had been drinking, indignantly told Haslam that, as far as she was concerned, he had left her and that consequently she could please herself who she had in the house. Angrily, Haslam told her that he was going to bed and went upstairs, threatening to go and see Ashton the following day to find out exactly what had taken place that evening. ‘You can please yourself about that,’ Belle told him as she joined him in bed.

When the couple woke the following morning, Belle was suffering from a terrible hangover and asked Haslam to make her some tea, which he took upstairs for her. When Belle came downstairs a little later, she had a pounding headache and was not at all keen to engage in a discussion with Haslam about their relationship. Haslam on the other hand, was insistent on knowing where he stood and eventually in exasperation, Belle blurted out that she had slept with another man on the night of 20 December.

‘If I thought you had, I would kill you,’ Haslam told her and the subject was quickly changed to a letter that Belle had received from her sister in Manchester. The sister took care of Belle’s son and had written to complain that Belle was neglecting the child. Haslam suggested that Belle should send the boy something for Christmas and stood over her while she wrote to her mother, enclosing a postal order for 2s and a box of chocolates. When the gifts were parcelled up, Haslam addressed the package and left it on the kitchen table for posting, before making another pot of tea.

Believing that Haslam was siding with her sister on the matter of her son, Belle challenged him and before long the couple were arguing again. The argument ended when Belle taunted Haslam about the number of men she had slept with while they were co-habiting, including Ashton and another young soldier, Johnny Todd, who had been sent home from the First World War battlefields, suffering from shellshock.

In his statement made to Superintendent Hillier on 24 December 1915, Haslam recalled losing his temper, grabbing Belle around the neck with both hands and squeezing hard. By the time he released his hold, Belle was slumped in an armchair, apparently lifeless. Haslam felt her heart and, finding that it was still beating very faintly, he laid her on the sofa, placing a pillow beneath her head and covering her body with a shawl. He then tied a ribbon tightly around her throat, before picking up the parcel addressed to Belle’s son and leaving the house, locking the door behind him.

Haslam went to his mother’s house in Pitt Street and changed into his best clothes. On leaving, he bumped into his boss, coal dealer Charlie Butterworth, and asked him if he could have his outstanding pay. Butterworth handed over 6s plus a few coppers, at which Haslam returned to his mother’s and gave her 3s as a ‘Christmas box’. He then invited his sister Lena and her friend to have a drink with him.

As the three were walking to The Commercial Hotel, they met Frank Cunningham (or Cummings) a soldier friend of Haslam’s. The four went from pub to pub, drinking a glass of rum at each establishment before Haslam handed his sister a shilling for Christmas and went off alone with Cunningham. Over more rum in The Plane Tree Inn, Cunningham remarked that Haslam seemed downhearted and asked him what the matter was. Haslam insisted on treating Cunningham to drinks until all of his money was spent, when he asked his friend to accompany him to the police station. Only when they got there did he reveal to Cunningham, ‘I have murdered Belle.’

‘What?’ asked Cunningham incredulously. ‘You never have. You think too much about her to do that.’

‘I did it in a fit of temper,’ Haslam replied before walking into the police station alone and giving himself up.

At a six-hour-long inquest into Belle’s death held on 27 December, the only surprising evidence was that of William Ashton, who strongly denied any sexual affair with the dead woman, insisting that he had done nothing more than visit her, in order to get information about his own wife. Not even the couple’s closest neighbours had been aware of any quarrel between them, although one woman claimed to have heard the sounds of a slight disturbance during the night prior to the murder, when Haslam was at his mother’s house. ‘I bet he’s strangling her,’ the woman jokingly commented to her husband, telling the inquest that she had not intervened because there had been nothing to suggest that Belle Conway was in any danger. However, given Haslam’s confession, it came as no surprise when the jury found a verdict of wilful murder against him and he was committed to the assizes for trial, first on the coroner’s warrant and later by magistrates.

At the Manchester Assizes on 18 February 1916, Haslam’s defence counsel Mr Sandbach tried his hardest to convince the jury that his client had been provoked into killing his paramour in a moment of uncontrollable passion. Sandbach contended that Haslam’s crime was manslaughter rather than wilful murder but the jury found the defendant guilty as charged, although they did recommend mercy on the grounds of provocation. After Mr Justice Bailhache pronounced the mandatory sentence of death, he promised to forward the jury’s recommendation to the appropriate authorities.

‘Mercy?’ interrupted Haslam. ‘I don’t want any mercy!’ Nevertheless, his counsel immediately announced that he intended to appeal the verdict and petitions were raised appealing for clemency for the condemned man.

The appeal was heard on 13 March 1916, when it was stated that Belle Conway had so aggravated Haslam with her boasts about her infidelity that it had provoked him into killing her. However, the appeal was dismissed and the Lord Chief Justice explained that, in the case of a couple, such provocation by word of mouth was sufficient to reduce the crime from murder to manslaughter only if the killer and his victim were legally married. Since Haslam and Belle Conway were only living together, the verdict of the jury was correct but as they had seen fit to recommend the prisoner to mercy, the details would be presented to Home Secretary Herbert Samuel, who would look at the case and advise His Majesty on the relevant issues.

As well as the jury’s recommendation, Samuel was also presented with two petitions for clemency for Haslam, one of which had been sent from the First World War trenches in France and bore the signatures of more than 1,000 officers and soldiers. Yet, towards the end of March 1916, Haslam’s solicitors received a letter from the Home Secretary’s Office informing them that there were no grounds to advise the King to interfere with the due course of the law.

On 29 March 1916, Haslam walked calmly to the scaffold at Strangeways Prison, Manchester, to meet executioner John Ellis and his assistant Edward Taylor. A he reached the trap doors, he suddenly dropped to his knees and clasped his hands before him in prayer.

‘Almighty God,’ he prayed, ‘as I kneel before Thee I wish to state that I am innocent of this charge of malicious murder and hope that if I am guilty Thou wilt strike me dead while kneeling here before Thee.’ Since there was no answering thunderbolt from the heavens, Haslam then rose to his feet and allowed Ellis to do his job.