This was the day appointed for the sentencing of the killer of our cousin, so my sister and I were off to the Old Bailey again - hopefully, for the last time. We met people from the Crown Prosecution Service again, and we also met the two policemen who apprehended the killer, so at least we were able to thank them personally.
We had to listen in court to the dreadful details of how the young German killed Douglas, by punching him so hard that he fractured his own hand, and knocking Douglas to the ground. Once Douglas was on the ground, the young man, who is very athletic and strong because of weight training, stamped repeatedly on his head, smashing his skull. This is really far more detail than we ever wanted to know, but has to be a matter of public record.
Since we had had a meeting with the police some days beforehand when we were allowed to read some background summaries, we now appreciated how seriously mentally ill this young man is. 'Completely bonkers' just about sums it up, in what you might call laymen's terms.
We read that he had been a very talented child who excelled at school and in sports. There was some suggestion that his paranoia, which only began to develop a year ago, might have been brought on or perhaps exacerbated by smoking a lot of dope. Anyway, a paranoia certainly developed, one feature of which was that he believed he had been sexually assaulted by pedophiles, and he made a number of visits to mental health clinics. At one of these clinics he met a woman who he afterwards saw and spoke to in the street. He apparently then went to her house and beat her to death with the leg of her coffee table, believing she was a witch; he left before the police arrived, so an investigation began in his home town, but it was not know who had killed her.
In the meantime, he went to Berlin where he was found by the police climbing up a building 'to get closer to God'. He was taken to a mental health clinic there, but he managed to avoid telling them anything about the murder. He believed by then that he was an angel sent by God to destroy evil people, and he had to do as God commanded. He refused medication and discharged himself against medical advice, and a few days after that, came to London. Apparently, it has been very difficult to get him to accept medication, even in the secure hospital.
When he saw my cousin Douglas he believed he had 'the eyes of the Devil' - I mentioned in an earlier posting that Douglas' eyes were always very red and sore. One of his many health problems was that his eyelashes had started to grow inwards; he had to go to hospital to have them plucked out once a month. As well as the eyes of the devil, Douglas may also have reminded him of a man that he believed was a pedophile who he thought had sexually assaulted him. Anyway, he decided he had to destroy Douglas, and that's what he did.
This was all quite difficult to listen to, though there was also a lot about Douglas himself and his life history. I had made sure, by writing a description of Douglas for the court, that it was appreciated what kind of man he was. The judge said he had been much moved by my statement.
Then we moved on to sentencing. It was what is known as a 'hospital order' which means that the young man will be locked up in a secure hospital, hopefully until he is no longer crazy. He is also subject to a restriction order, which means it isn't psychiatrists or lay people who let him out if they decide he's well again, but, in the case of Germany, where he's going next, a judge and a court.
He'll be sent to Germany now to stand trial for the killing there, and he'll be treated and locked up there. The German law says that a judge has to decide that there is no longer any chance at all of his ever attacking anybody again, so I imagine he'll be locked up for a very long time.
In the unlikely event of the German case against him collapsing (there is DNA evidence and his confession to police here, but you never know) he would be returned from Germany to a secure hospital here and be locked up again here. I'd naturally prefer he stayed in Germany.
He's still regarded as very dangerous, so he'll be taken back to Germany on a military plane using a military airfield, and he'll have a heavy police escort as well as a medical one.
After it was all over, we were asked if we would speak to the BBC, and describe Douglas. We agreed to do this, in the pouring rain and amidst all the traffic noise, and spoke at some length - too great length, probably. Just at the end, the journalist slipped in the question that, thinking back, was probably the one thing he really wanted to ask. He asked me what I thought of the verdict. I just said I hoped he would be detained for long enough to come to understand the enormity of what he had done - and that's the only bit they broadcast!
There were one or two short articles in the press, mostly with Douglas' surname spelled wrongly - I think that's really sloppy journalism. The press might at least give him the dignity, in death, of bothering to spell his name correctly. Most of the coverage was in local London papers, though there was also something in the Telegraph. I gave an interview to the Camden Journal, which ran a tribute article about Douglas.
After such a miserable post, here are a couple of photos to cheer you up.
The azaleas in the garden were wonderful at the end of May.
These are some small ones from the front of the house.
A bit later, we were able to admire the peonies I can see from the window as I sit on the sofa.
They cheer me up, anyway.
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