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ABSTRACT
In 1987 Myra Hindley submitted a petition to the Home Office requesting permission to undergo hypnosis in an attempt to locate the grave of Keith Bennett. Whilst the request was initially declined, the issue continued to be an administrative challenge for the Home Office for the fifteen years that followed. Drawing on her ‘prison records’ currently held in The National Archive, this paper details the reasons for the request, how the policy response to it was developed, maintained, and then changed, and how it shaped broader orientations to the use of hypnosis in criminal investigations.
KEYWORDS:
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Jenkins, Decade of Nightmares.
2. Jenkins, Intimate Enemies.
3. Reiss, “Police organisation in the Twentieth Century,” 51.
4. Lyman, The Police: An Introduction.
5. Goldstein, “Improving policing: A problem orientated approach,” 236.
6. Wattis, “Revisiting the Yorkshire Ripper Murders,” 3.
7. See note above 3, 51.
8. Ibid.
9. Newburn, “Tough on Crime,” 425.
10. Rock, “The social organisation of a Home Office Initiative,” 141.
11. Rock, “The opening stages of criminal justice policy making’, 2.
12. Innes, “Investigating Murder.”
13. See note 11 above, 2.
14. Drake and Walters, “Crossing the Line,” 414.
15. Stevens, “Telling police stories,” 237.
16. Gravitz, An early case of hypnosis,” 224.
17. Laurence and Perry, “Hypnosis, surgery, and mind–body interaction,” 351.
18. See, for example: Orne, “The use and misuse of hypnosis in court,” 311; Reiser, Handbook of Investigative Hypnosis; Haward, and Ashworth, “Some problems of evidence obtained by hypnosis,” 469; Hibbard, and Worring, Forensic Hypnosis; Sanders, and Simmons “Use of hypnosis to enhance eyewitness accuracy,” 70; Wagstaff, “Hypnosis and witness recall, ” 793; Wagstaff, “The enhancement of witness memory,” 3.
19. American Medical Association, “Scientific status of refreshing recollection,” 1918.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. See, for example: Kleinhauz et al. “The use of hypnosis in police investigation,” 77; Reiser, Handbook of Investigative Hypnosis; Hibbard, and Worring, Forensic Hypnosis; Haward, “Hypnosis by the police,” 33; and Bowers, Hypnosis for the Seriously Curious.
23. See, for example, Kirsch, “The social learning theory of hypnosis,” 439; Lynn, “A nonstate view of hypnotic involuntariness,’ 21; Spanos, and Chaves, Hypnosis; and, Wagstaff, “Compliance, belief and semantics in hypnosis,” 362.
24. See for example, Barber, Hypnosis; Barber, Spanos, and Chaves, Hypnotism, Imagination, and Human Potentialities; and, Sheehan, and Perry, Methodologies of Hypnosis.
25. Wagstaffe, “Hypnosis and the law,” 1284.
26. Loftus, and Loftus, “On the permanence of stored information in the human brain,” 409.
27. “The Svengali Squad.” 1976. Time, September 13.
28. Claiborne, “Threat seen in police using hypnosis,” The Washington Post, April 08.
29. Mottahedin, “Investigative hypnosis in south east England,” 369.
30. Lakeman, G. 1983. “Genette murder police fly out for new probe,” The Daily Mirror, June 27.
31. “Where will the M5 rapist strike next.” 1980. The Observer, January, 13.
32. “Murder hunt hypnosis quiz.” 1981. The Daily Express, September, 22.
33. “Rape victim pays a £900 penalty.” 1982. The Daily Mirror, January, 27.
34. “Hypnosis in murder inquiry.” 1983. The Guardian, August 15.
35. “Rape girl, 11, hypnotised.” 1984. The Daily Mirror, March 19.
36. “Killer of newsboy gets life.” 1988. The Daily Express, November, 04, 1988.
37. Horwell, “Mouncher Investigation Report.”
38. Wagstaff, “Should ‘hypnotized’ witnesses be banned from testifying in court?’ 186.
39. HO 336/28—extract 8. The National Archive.
40. HO 336/28—extract unnumbered. The National Archive.
41. HO 336/30—extract unnumbered. The National Archive.
42. Ibid.
43. See note 39 above.
44. Ibid.
45. See note 40 above.
46. Birch, “If looks could kill,” 32.
47. Clark, “Why was Myra Hindley evil?” 1.
48. Birch, “If looks could kill’, 32
49. Seal, Women, murder, and femininity.
50. Jenks, Transgression.
51. Clark, “Normal girl, interrupted.”
52. Cummins et al. Serial killers and the media.
53. See note 49 above.
54. See note 48 above, 32
55. See note 52 above.
56. Topping, Topping, 43.
57. HO 336/27—extract 55. The National Archive.
58. HO 336/27—extract 56. The National Archive.
59. HO 336/28—extract 23. The National Archive.
60. HO 336/29—extract unnumbered. The National Archive.
61. Ibid.
62. See note 40 above.
63. Ibid.
64. HO 336/28—extract 50. The National Archive.
65. HO 336/28—extract 35. The National Archive.
66. See note 41 above.
67. Ibid.
68. See Clark, ‘Normal girl, interrupted’.
69. Ibid.
70. HO 336/32—extract unnumbered. The National Archive.
71. Whilst the name of the hypnotist in question is redacted within the files held at The National Archive, Topping would later reveal her to be Una Maguire.
72. HO 336/29—extract 39. The National Archive.
73. HO 336/29—extract 36. The National Archive.
74. HO 336/43—extract 97/98. The National Archive.
75. See note 56 above, 227
76. HO 336/28—extract 9. The National Archive.
77. Ibid.
78. HO 336/26—extract 9. The National Archive.
79. Ibid.
80. Ibid.
81. HO 336/28—extract 6. The National Archive.
82. Ibid.
83. Ibid.
84. Ibid.
85. HO 336/28—extract 26. The National Archive.
86. HO 336/29—extract 18. The National Archive.
87. HO 336/29—extract 31. The National Archive.
88. See note 72 above.
89. Ibid.
90. HO 336/28—extract 7. The National Archive.
91. HO 336/29—extract 30. The National Archive.
92. HO 336/43—extract 81. The National Archive.
93. Ibid.
94. HO 336/29—extract 102. The National Archive.
95. Ibid.
96. HO336/43—extract unnumbered. The National Archive.
97. See, for example: “Put me in a trance pleads Myra”. 1988, The Daily Mirror, January 7.
98. HO 336/45—extract 45. The National Archive.
99. HO 336/79—extract unnumbered. The National Archive.
100. See note 60 above.
101. HO 336/29—extract 90. The National Archive.
102. HO 336/43—extract unnumbered. The National Archive.
103. Ibid.
104. HO 336/29—extract 95. The National Archive.
105. Ibid.
106. Ibid.
107. See note 60 above.
108. HO 336/29—extract 82. The National Archive.
109. Ibid.
110. HO 336/79—extract 15. The National Archive.
111. HO 336/29—extract 47. The National Archive.
112. HO 336/29—extract 57. The National Archive.
113. HO 336/29—extract 71. The National Archive.
114. See note 60 above.
115. Ibid.
116. Ibid.
117. Home Office Circular No. 66/1988.
118. See note 90 above.
119. See note 41 above.
120. Ibid.
121. Ibid.
122. See note 60 above.
123. HO 336/33—extract unnumbered. The National Archive.
124. HO 336/33—extract 103. The National Archive.
125. HO 336/33—extract 87. The National Archive. This is presumably a reference to the Hickey cousins, not brothers, Vincent Hickey and Michael Hickey. As part of ‘the Bridgewater Four’, they were convicted of the murder of Carl Bridgewater in 1979, although the decision was overturned by the Court of Appeal in February 1997.
126. HO 336/33—extract 87. The National Archive.
127. HO 336/33—extract 37. The National Archive.
128. HO 336/152—extract 16. The National Archives.
129. HO 336/33—extract 79. The National Archive.
130. See note 123 above.
131. Ibid.
132. See note 123 above.
133. HO336/43—extract 5. The National Archive.
134. Ibid.
135. HO 336/120—extract 44. The National Archive.
136. See note 123above.
137. HO 336/149—extract 12. The National Archive.
138. Ibid.
139. HO 336/14—extract 6. The National Archive.
140. HO 336/14—extract unnumbered. The National Archive.
141. Ibid.
142. HO 336/14—extract 3. The National Archive.
143. See note 140 above.
144. Ibid.
145. HO336/282—extract unnumbered. The National Archive.
146. HO336/282—extract 2. The National Archive.
147. Rock, “The social organization of a Home Office initiative,” 2.
148. See note 52 above.
149. See note 49 above.
150. See note 46 above, 32.
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Tom Clark
Dr Tom Clark is a Lecturer in Research Methods at the University of Sheffield. He is interested in all aspects of research method and methodology, particularly with respect to learning and teaching. His other interests have variously focussed on the sociology of evil, student experiences of higher education, and football fandom.