On the night of 2 June 1953 most people in England went to bed tired but happy, having spent the day enthusiastically celebrating the coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, which had taken place that day at Westminster Abbey. Mr and Mrs Court of College Street, Swindon were no exception. They had attended the Sanford Street Coronation Party, held in a nearby church hall and, as well as enjoying a special tea, had each been given a gift of 10s by the organisers.
The gift of money was not unwelcome to the Courts. Mr Court was a chronic invalid who suffered from heart trouble and had only recently been discharged from hospital. In the struggle to make ends meet, the Courts had opened their home to lodgers and, in June 1953, had two men staying at the house, a third lodger having left just days before.
At just before midnight, the peaceful house was disturbed by desperate shouts of ‘Murder!’ coming from the downstairs hallway. Lodger Arthur Polsue, a commercial traveller from St Albans, had been asleep in bed for about three quarters of an hour when he was awakened by the commotion. When he went to investigate the noise, he found Mr Court in his pyjamas, lying at the foot of the stairs, shouting.
Having made Mr Court as comfortable as he possibly could, Polsue rushed outside to alert the neighbours and summon help. Mr and Mrs Messenger, who lived next door to the Courts, were initially awakened by the disturbance in their neighbour’s home and within moments, another neighbour was knocking at their door, asking to use their telephone. While they were waiting for the police and a doctor to arrive, the Messengers went next door and helped Arthur Polsue to get Mr Court into bed.
Meanwhile, Mrs Beatrice Court had been found sitting in a chair in the kitchen, quite obviously dead. On another kitchen chair, on the opposite side of the room, the Court’s second lodger, twenty-seven-year-old factory machine operator John Owen Greenway, sat weeping, his head in his hands. Ivor Messenger noticed that Greenway had blood on his right hand and that there was a bloody hatchet lying on the kitchen floor.
The High Street, Swindon, in the 1920s. (Author’s collection)
When the police arrived at just after a quarter past midnight, they arrested Greenway and charged him with the murder of Mrs Court. Greenway was by then in a state of near collapse, begging Inspector Young, ‘What have I done? Is she dead? Don’t let me see her,’ as he was taken away to the police station for questioning. He was charged with Mrs Court’s murder at 3.30 a.m. ‘There is nothing to say,’ stated Greenway in response to the charge.
Later that day, however, he did find something to say, giving a statement to the police explaining precisely why he had so viciously attacked and killed his landlady. It happened, he told them, because ‘She made Chris go away.’
Greenway had come to lodge at Mr and Mrs Court’s home from his native Pontypridd, Wales in April 1953, in the company of a friend, Christopher Percy, whom he had known for six years. The two men shared what was described in the contemporary newspapers as ‘a strong affection for each other’. They also, through their own choice, shared a double bed at their lodgings.
On 29 May, Christopher Percy had unexpectedly left Swindon, without first telling Greenway that he was going. He left a note saying, ‘Get out of here as soon as you can as it is the worst food we have ever had in our lives. I have gone. God knows where.’ In the letter, Percy also promised that he would telephone Greenway’s sister and let her know his whereabouts.
Greenway had telephoned his sister, telling her to expect a telephone call from Christopher Percy. Percy had indeed rung a couple of days later and she had passed a message on to her brother when she had next spoken to him. Greenway had rung his sister again from a telephone kiosk on the evening of the murder, but there had been no further message from Percy.
Having returned to his lodgings after making his telephone call, Greenway decided to confront his landlady, knocking at her bedroom door at between 11.30 and 11.45 p.m. In a rage, he had accused Beatrice Court of driving away his friend by serving such terrible food. Mrs Court argued that Percy’s departure was not her fault, at which Greenway showed her the letter from his former roommate. An argument ensued, during which Greenway picked up a hatchet stored in the kitchen and struck Mrs Court several times over the head. When Mr Court tried to intervene, Greenway attacked him too, injuring his hand, although fortunately not too seriously.
Swindon, 1920s. (Author’s collection)
Dr George Henderson, a consultant pathologist, conducted a post-mortem examination on Mrs Court’s body. He found seven transverse cuts to the back of her neck at the base of her skull, the longest being 3in. Mrs Court’s skull – which Henderson noted was slightly thinner than normal – had several fractures, all of which could have been caused by the hatchet. In addition, there were cuts and bruising to the back of the head and the left hand and severe bruising on the left thigh. Dr Henderson confirmed that the cause of sixty-eight-year-old Beatrice Court’s death was destruction of parts of the brain by violence, with resultant bleeding.
Twenty-seven-year-old Greenway appeared before magistrates for the first time on 11 June charged with the murder of his landlady. Mr Pooley, the magistrate’s clerk, asked him if he was legally represented, to which Greenway replied, ‘No, sir.’ He was then offered Legal Aid to appoint counsel, and again replied, ‘No, sir.’
‘Don’t you think you should have someone to represent you?’ persisted Pooley.
‘I don’t know,’ replied Greenway. He eventually conceded that he would do whatever the court thought best and solicitor Mr J.D. Morrison was appointed to act on his behalf.
Greenway made several more appearances before magistrates, on each occasion wearing the same brown suit and brown checked shirt without a tie. On one occasion, the proceedings were relocated to a private house in Wellington Street in order to hear evidence from Mr Court who was confined to bed there, seriously ill. The magistrates heard evidence from all the key players in the tragedy, including Mr Polsue, Mr and Mrs Messenger, Detective Sergeant Cuss, Inspector Young and other police officers involved in the investigation. (Mr Polsue brought a moment of light relief to the proceedings – asked by the prosecution counsel about the quality of food at the lodgings, he screwed up his face and admitted that ‘It was appalling’.) They also heard from the alleged reason behind the murder, Christopher Percy.
Percy told the court that the food at the lodgings was ‘very, very poor’. He had left Swindon partly because he couldn’t stomach the food and partly because he needed to sort out his domestic affairs in South Wales. Percy stated that he had not told Greenway about his domestic affairs.
His evidence was followed by that of Mrs Margaret Ritschel, Greenway’s sister. She described her last telephone call with her brother on the night of the murder. John had been heartbroken that Christopher had left Swindon, telling his sister that, if Percy did not come back, he would commit suicide. A letter was read out in court by Detective Sergeant Cuss, which Greenway had subsequently written to his sister. In it Greenway wrote, ‘I have murdered Mrs Court, the landlady I don’t think I got any chance. I killed her.’ [sic]. According to Cuss, the actual letter had not been forwarded to Margaret Ritschel as his senior officers had considered the contents too crude for her eyes.
John Owen Greenway was eventually committed for trial at the next Wiltshire Assizes and the proceedings opened on 2 October before Mr Justice Parker. When the charge was read out to him at the start of the trial he immediately pleaded ‘Guilty’ to the murder of Beatrice Ann Court on 2 June.
In spite of advice from his defence counsel, Greenway steadfastly refused to amend his plea to the more customary one of ‘Not Guilty’. The judge called the defence counsel to the bench for a conference. The senior defence counsel, Mr A.C. Munro Kerr, explained that he had failed to persuade Greenway to amend his plea, as had his colleague, Mr Inskip, the instructing solicitors and two doctors.
Had the plea been ‘Not Guilty’, Munro Kerr told the judge, the defence would have questioned Greenway’s state of mind at the time of the alleged murder. Two doctors had examined him, with a view to demonstrating that he was not responsible at the time when the act was committed. Munro Kerr told the judge that he now found himself in an awkward position since he was not, at that time, able to determine whether or not his client was fit to plead. At the same time, he was not in a position to state that his client did not understand the effect of the plea he had now made.
All he could say was that he and others had explained the situation to Greenway to the best of their ability and that the accused seemed to be totally logical in his decision. Greenway just wanted to die, which was why he was insisting on pleading ‘Guilty’.
Finally, after all efforts to persuade him had failed, Mr Justice Parker himself addressed the prisoner.
‘Do you appreciate what you are doing?’ he asked Greenway.
‘Yes,’ was Greenway’s reply.
‘Do you realise there can only be one result to such a plea?’
‘Yes,’ said Greenway again.
‘Is that your final decision?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then there is only one sentence which this court can pass upon you,’ concluded the judge, reaching for the black cap.
John Owen Greenway, the man who wanted to die, got his wish on 20 October 1953. He was hanged at Horfield Prison, Bristol, by Albert Pierrepoint, assisted by Harry Allen.