The Scapegoat: One Murder. Two Victims. 27 Years Lost.

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The more I talked to people, the more it appeared that half the population of the town and its surrounding villages knew what had ‘really happened’, and were ‘certain’ who the murderer was. About half-a-dozen names regularly cropped up.

I quickly came to realise that in a small community during that period, gossip and rumour spread like wildfire. Yet if you attempted to trace it back to its source, a wall of silence would suddenly descend, the more usual response being, ‘I don’t want to get involved.’

Amazingly, I was to encounter tales of drunken boasting in the town’s numerous pubs of many men claiming to have been ‘involved’ with Wendy and/or her killing. Many of the claims were contradictory, yet one remark was uttered consistently: ‘Stephen Downing didn’t do it.’

I thanked Margaret Beebe for her help and asked if she could put me in touch with her children, Ian, Lucy and Jayne.

Ian and Lucy were a possibility, she said, although how accurate their memories would be after 21 years was debatable, considering their tender ages at the time.

She wrote down my number and said she would pass it on to them. She added that they both lived nearby. Jayne, however, was another matter. Mrs Beebe confirmed that Jayne was now in her late thirties, but had lived in fear of her life ever since she was a teenager.

Despite the passage of time, Jayne remained convinced that the person responsible for Wendy Sewell’s death still meant to harm her after she had dared to speak out at the appeal. Mrs Beebe said she had promised her daughter that she would not reveal Jayne’s whereabouts.

* * *

Lucy Beebe, or Lucy Wood, to use her married name, telephoned me a few days later at the Mercury office. She was very helpful and described the events quite clearly, saying, ‘I went into the cemetery looking for my brother Ian and my friend Pamela at lunchtime on the day of the murder. We used to play there all the time. We were little devils. We used to play with the flowers on the graves. Ian and I were playing hide-and-seek that day.’

‘So, did you see anything unusual on that particular day?’

‘I saw Ian. He was pale and shocked, and I helped him back home. He didn’t or couldn’t say anything. I remember that it took him a while to recover. He even left his bike in the road. He’d obviously seen something that really frightened him.’

‘Did he say what had scared him so much?’

‘He spoke later of a bloodstained man on the graves.’

I didn’t press Lucy any further, or ask her any leading questions, as I wanted her memories to be untainted by suggestion as far as possible.

So many rumours had flown around Bakewell for the past 20 years or more, and I was acutely aware that someone who had been a child at the time may have been influenced by half-overheard adult gossip or repeated theories.

I asked Lucy to get in touch with me if she remembered anything else, and I remained determined to speak to her half-sister Jayne Atkins. I had been making strenuous efforts to discover her whereabouts, pressing the family to let me know where she was. I was still convinced Jayne could be a vital witness, as she had recalled seeing Wendy embracing a man after Stephen had left the cemetery.

Jackie, who had been eavesdropping on my call, obviously felt as I did. Once I had put down the receiver, she said, ‘Don, we really must talk about Jayne Atkins.’

For the past week or so, Jackie had immersed herself in the details of the failed 1974 appeal. Margaret Beebe had agreed to talk to her on the telephone, and Jackie had spent hours questioning her about Jayne and talking to the Downings about the case that had been prepared for the Court of Appeal.

She had studied the newspaper reports and court papers from the time, as well as old police notes provided by my friendly informants in the force. They all confirmed that Jayne’s evidence was rejected mainly on the grounds that too much time had passed before she came forward. I was desperate to chat with Jayne to find the reasons why.

I was delighted by Jackie’s enthusiasm. ‘We’ll arrange a proper meeting, Jackie,’ I replied. ‘We need to go through everything with the team.’

* * *

A few days later I met up with Allan Taylor, a presenter on Central Television, in a pub far away from the madding crowds of Bakewell. Allan was tall and wiry, and spoke in a deep, slow Scottish drawl. I had known him for many years, and during my time at the Mercury we had co-operated on many stories.

I outlined the case and my findings to date. Allan was particularly concerned about Stephen Downing’s original statement and the amount of time he was detained without support. Over the next few days he began making some enquiries of his own and even went to see the Downings.

On his way back to Nottingham one day, he called in at the Mercury offices. Jackie got her chance to tell us about her research on Jayne Atkins. She filled in Allan with the background, explaining how Jayne was a 15-year-old girl at the time, living in a house on Burton Edge, along the topside of the cemetery.

Jackie explained, ‘She had come home during her school lunch break from Lady Manners and was looking for her pet dog. She remembered she had left the house after listening to the one o’clock news headline on the radio. She had turned right along the path by the top of the cemetery towards the junior school. Halfway from her home to the end of the cemetery there’s a bit where the hedge stops, and then there’s a wall.

‘Just then, she looked into the graveyard and saw a woman near the Garden of Remembrance. In her statement she told police the woman was young and slim with dark hair and wearing a beige-coloured trouser suit with dark brown matching jumper. She didn’t know her.’

She continued, ‘Jayne continued walking along the path by the cemetery. By the beech hedge at the far end, she looked into the open fields beyond. There was still no sign of her pet dog. The dog often went into the cemetery, so she decided to have a look in there. As she walked along to the side gate at the junior school end, she remembers seeing a dark-coloured van – she thought it was brown – parked on waste ground close to the school.

There was a man sitting inside, a biggish bloke. Then she went into the cemetery and walked along the top path towards the workmen’s store at the unconsecrated chapel.

‘When she reached the main drive, she saw Stephen Downing walking out, a good way in front of her towards the main gate. She knew Stephen by sight, as he lived on the same estate. He didn’t see her.

‘She passed the unconsecrated chapel and, as she got about level with the little grass island near it, some movement caught her attention. She glanced across and noticed the woman she had seen a few minutes earlier standing behind the consecrated chapel on the bottom path with her arms round a man.

‘Later, when she saw newspaper photographs, she was able to identify this woman as Wendy Sewell. She told police she didn’t know the man, but said he had sandy-coloured shoulder-length hair, was about five feet eight inches tall and was wearing denim jeans and a jacket.

‘She couldn’t see her dog, so she turned around and retraced her steps along the middle path. She then spotted the dog at the end of the cemetery near the far wall, which bounded the fields, and, after a few minutes, she said she managed to catch him near the bottom gate.

‘While putting on his lead she heard the sound of a motor vehicle and, on looking round, saw that a white van had come into the cemetery. She left by the side gate near the school and turned right towards her home. As she walked along the path she heard a shout. She couldn’t see who it was because the boundary hedge at this point was about six feet high. She didn’t think much of it.

‘As she continued back to her house on Burton Edge, she saw Stephen again, this time walking back across the road and heading towards the main cemetery gates. She thought it must have been about 1.25 p.m. when she got home. She went back to school and was late.’

Allan was fascinated by this witness. He had been scribbling down notes the whole time Jackie had been talking. ‘She confirms Downing’s timings too!’ Allan said. ‘Her account of seeing this woman in the Garden of Remembrance coincides exactly with what Stephen wrote to you, Don – and the time he left the cemetery and Stephen returning. It all fits! And the description of Wendy Sewell’s clothing was accurate, although she could have got that from newspaper reports, I suppose. But why didn’t she say all this at first?’

Jackie held the Jayne Atkins file aloft. ‘Plenty of reasons,’ she said. ‘In the Court of Apeal, Lord Justice Orr made the point that she didn’t come forward with her story for many months after the murder, even though the police visited her house and asked if anyone had seen anything.’

Jackie paused and studied the paperwork more closely, searching for Jayne’s exact words. She said, ‘“I was afraid the man in the cemetery might have recognised me, and I might be the next one!”

‘Now, we know the judges didn’t accept this as a good enough reason for her keeping quiet for several months,’ Jackie continued. ‘But there were things that were never said about Jayne Atkins.

‘For a start, she was only 15 when all this happened, and a very vulnerable 15 at that. I don’t know the exact details, but she had quite a troubled home life. Soon after the murder, in early November, Jayne ran away from home.

‘She was eventually placed with foster parents in Buxton. I know it’s only ten miles away, but it would be like another world, away from the estate and all the neighbours gossiping about the murder and Stephen Downing. She simply lost touch with developments on the Wendy Sewell murder case.

‘That is, until she saw an article in the newspaper. She had a Saturday job at the Barbecue Cafe in Buxton, and this article had been left lying open on a table by a customer.’

With a flourish, Jackie produced a copy of the Derbyshire Times from 23 February 1974. She turned to page six.

YOUTH ON MURDER CHARGE FOUND GUILTY

Stephen Downing, aged 17, was found guilty of murdering 32-year-old typist Mrs Wendy Sewell in a cemetery at Bakewell, Derbyshire, by a unanimous verdict at Nottingham Crown Court last Friday.

‘Look at the last paragraph!’ Jackie insisted.

He had told the jury that he found the victim lying semi-conscious in the graveyard after going home during his lunch hour, but the prosecution said his lunchtime walk was only an alibi after he had carried out the attack. Downing pleaded not guilty to the murder.

‘When Jayne read it,’ continued Jackie, ‘she knew Downing had told the truth at his trial. That phrase – “The prosecution said his lunchtime walk was only an alibi after he had carried out the attack” – she knew it wasn’t like that.

‘She had seen Stephen leaving the cemetery on his lunchtime walk. Wendy Sewell had been very much alive at that point – she had been in the arms of another man.

‘It dawned on Jayne that there were probably only four people who knew that Stephen had told the truth – herself, Stephen, the victim, who was now dead, and the man Wendy had been embracing before she was attacked. The mysterious sandy-haired man had not come forward, for whatever reason.’

‘So, is that when she went to the police?’ asked Allan.

‘No, not straight away. It was in March. It kept playing on her mind, though. You see she’d always assumed that Stephen must have attacked Wendy later that afternoon, after she saw him going back to the cemetery. I mean, the police were so confident they’d got the right man, that’s what they kept telling everyone on the estate – “he’s confessed, he did it” – so why should Jayne query it?

‘She only heard about the attack when she got back from school later that afternoon, and no one had told her the exact time it was meant to have happened. And, of course, she was terrified. This mystery man was out there somewhere. But who could she tell? Remember, she was only 15, cut off from her family, and maybe knew she wouldn’t be believed.

‘Eventually she told her foster parents what she knew. Ironically, her foster-father was a Buxton policeman. He told her she should go home and tell her family, and the Bakewell police, everything she had told him. So that’s what she did. She then visited the regional HQ at Buxton and spoke with CID officers there.’

‘And did they believe her?’ Allan asked.

‘Well, partially,’ said Jackie. ‘Talking to her family, it seems the police basically believed her story about seeing Wendy with this other man, but they told her she must have got the wrong day.’

‘Even if they thought she’d got the days mixed up, they should still have tried to track him down. If Wendy Sewell had been meeting someone in the cemetery and knew him well enough to be putting her arms round him … well, surely the police should have found out who he was,’ Allan pointed out.