walk away. I’d have to find a way of making him pay. Either through the law or…’
‘I thought you didn’t believe in the dark alleyways of justice?’ Clough said ironically.
‘It’s different with kids, though, isn’t it?’
It was the great unanswerable question. They pondered it in silence for the rest of their drinks. When George came back with the third round, he seemed a little brighter. ‘We’ve still got enough, even without the St Albans stuff.’
‘I think Stillman feels guilty about not taking more action,’ Clough said.
‘Good. So he should. Maybe he’ll make a point of keeping an eye open for the return of Mr and Mrs Wells.’
‘I hope so, George. Even if we get our committal, we’re still a long way off home and dry.’
Daily News, Friday, 28th February 1964, p.1
Alison: Stepfather to be tried for murder
The stepfather of missing schoolgirl Alison Carter will stand trial for her murder even though the 13-year-old’s body has not been found.
In a dramatic decision yesterday Buxton magistrates committed Philip Hawkin for trial to the Derby Assizes on charges of murder and rape.
Alison has not been seen since she disappeared from the remote Derbyshire village of Scardale on 11th December last year.
During the four-day committal, her mother, who married Hawkin just over a year ago, gave evidence for the prosecution. It was Mrs Carter (as she prefers now to be known) who discovered the gun which prosecuting counsel Mr Desmond Stanley, QC claimed had been used to murder her daughter.
Yesterday the court heard from Professor John Hammond that the absence of blood at the alleged murder scene did not necessarily mean no killing had taken place.
He also testified that blood found on a heavily stained shirt identified as belonging to Hawkin could have come from Alison. (cont. on p.2)
High Peak Courant, Friday, 12th June 1964
Peak Murder Trial Next Week
The trial of Scardale landowner Philip Hawkin begins on Monday at Derby Assizes.
Hawkin is charged with the rape and murder of his stepdaughter, Alison Carter. At his committal before Buxton justices in February, his wife was among the prosecution witnesses.
Alison has not been seen since the afternoon of 11th December last year when she disappeared after taking her collie Shep for a walk in the dale after school.
The presiding judge at the trial will be Mr Justice Fletcher Sampson.
The fanfare of trumpets seemed to hang in the air like the shimmer of a rainbow. In all his scarlet and ermine glory, Mr Justice Fletcher Sampson had arrived at the oak-panelled county hall with his mounted police escort. George Bennett sat in an anteroom, smoking a cigarette at an open window. He imagined the dramatic procession of the judge to his courtroom, to take his appointed place at the judicial rostrum beneath the royal coat of arms. At his side on this, the first day of the Assize Court, would be the High Sheriff of Derbyshire in full ceremonial uniform.
By now, he thought, they’d be in the courtroom, staring down from the rostrum at counsel, arrayed before them in their grey wigs and black gowns, their brilliant white bands and shirt-fronts making them look like strange hybrids of hooded crows and magpies. Behind the barristers, their support staff of solicitors and clerks. Behind them, the ornate but solid dock where Hawkin would sit, flanked by a pair of police officers, dwarfed by the timber and kept firmly in his place by the row of iron spikes that topped the wood. Behind Hawkin, the press benches with their assortment of eager youths desperate to make their marks, and old hacks who needed to feel they’d seen and heard it all. Don Smart’s fox-red hair would stand out among them like a blaze. Above and behind the journalists, the public gallery, crammed with the concerned faces of Scardale and the prurient eyes of the others.
And over to one side, just beyond the witness box, the most important people in the place would soon sit. The jury. Twelve men and women who would hold Philip Hawkin’s fate in their hands. George tried not to think about the possibility of them rejecting the case he had worked so hard with the lawyers to construct, but he couldn’t help the niggle of fear that squirmed inside him in the night when he tried for sleep that miserably eluded him too often. He sighed and flicked the butt into the street below. He wondered where Tommy Clough was. They’d been supposed to meet at the police station at eight, but when George had arrived, Bob Lucas had told him Clough had left a message that he’d see him at court. ‘Probably chasing some skirt down Derby way,’ Lucas had said with a wink. ‘Trying to take his mind off the trial.’
George lit another cigarette and leaned on the window-sill. Now the clerk of the assize would be calling all those who had business before his Lady the Queen’s Justices of Oyer and Terminer and General Gaol Delivery for the Jurisdiction of the High Court to draw near and give their attention. God save the Queen. He remembered looking up these strangely grandiose terms in his early days of infatuation with the law. The Commission of Oyer and Terminer literally meant to hear and determine; it was originally the royal writ that empowered the King’s Judges and Serjeants to sit in judgement on treason and felonies. By 1964, it had become an archaic phrase to cover the commission granted to circuit judges, giving them authority to hold courts for trial. Under General Gaol Delivery, the custodial authorities were obliged to hand over to the judge all the persons awaiting trial and whose names were listed in the court calendar.
In practice, today that would only apply to Philip Hawkin. The sole scheduled murder trial of the assizes, his case would be heard first.
Two days previously, George had had one last try at persuading Hawkin to confess. He’d visited him behind the grim high walls of the prison, where they’d come face to face in a tiny interview room that was no more appetizing than the cells themselves. Hawkin had lost weight, George was pleased to see. The principle that a man was regarded as innocent until proven guilty never held fast inside a gaol; George knew that Hawkin had already been given a taste of his own medicine behind bars. Prison officers were never quick to intervene when a rapist was on the receiving end of an assault. And they always made sure the other prisoners knew exactly who the child molesters were. While the civilized part of him objected, the prospective father in George was in total sympathy.
They had eyed each other across a narrow table. ‘Did you bring some cigarettes?’ Hawkin demanded.
Silently, George placed an open packet of Gold Leaf between them. Hawkin snatched one greedily and George lit it for him. Hawkin drew in the smoke and his whole body relaxed. He ran a hand over his hair and said, ‘I’ll be out of here in a few days. You know that, don’t you? My brief is going to tell the world just how bent you bastards are. You know I never killed Alison, and I’m going to make you eat your words, one by one.’
George shook his head, almost admiring the man’s defiance. ‘You’re whistling in the dark, Hawkin,’ he said, deliberately condescending. ‘However hard you try to make the world believe otherwise, I’m an honest copper. You know and I know that nobody’s fitted you up. Nobody had to, because you killed Alison
