Gordon Lowe - Escape From Broadmoor: The Trials and Strangulations of John Thomas Straffen

For Anne, Amelia and Verity

My mother said, I never should

Play with the gypsies in the wood.

If I did, she would say,

Naughty little girl to disobey.

The wood was dark, the grass was green,

In came Johnny with a tambourine.

Nursery Rhyme

Diagram used in the trial of Straffens route from Broadmoor to Farley Hill. Trial of JT Straffen (Fairfield and Fullbrook)

Trial Plan of Farley Hill village. Trial of JT Straffen (Fairfield and Fullbrook)

Front Page Daily Mirror 1 May 1952.

Churchills Minute 8 June 1952. The National Archives

Churchills Minute 5 September 1952. The National Archives

Home Secretarys Reply to Churchill, page 1 of 2, 8 September 1952. The National Archives

I f John Thomas Straffen had not escaped from Broadmoor Institution on 29 April 1952, then the day might have been remembered for its beautiful weather. For the first time that year the residents in the village of Crowthorne, at the bottom of the hill from Broadmoors twenty foot-high redbrick walls, were opening their windows and back doors to air their houses and hear the birds singing outside, while others decided to risk afternoon tea in the garden under a warm sun and blue sky. Daffodils were out on the lawns and primroses grew in clusters on the banks of country lanes. The woods were full of bluebells and children were coming out of school to play on their bikes in the streets. Spring breeds expectancy, but no one could have expected what was in store that afternoon.

Mrs Spencer in Crowthorne was telephoning through an order for dog food and had been promised delivery in the afternoon; seven miles away Mrs Sims in the village of Farley Hill was busying herself setting out a tray of tea things in anticipation of her sister-in-law arriving; and Mrs Loyalty Kenyon in Farley Hill House was halfway through her regular afternoon rest, safe in the knowledge that her two children were in the capable hands of their German nanny; the three of them were already playing a game of hide and seek in the garden among the shrubs and trees bordering the lawn. Mrs Miles in Wokingham was getting the car out of the garage to make a trip into Farley Hill to collect clothes for the Womens Institute. Mr Taylor was starting his afternoon in the office, worried whether the local cricket pitch needed watering; he decided to make an inspection first thing after work. Mr Sims, who was working on an estate near Farley Hill, had warned his wife he would be half-an-hour late back after work because he was going to deliver a load of wood to his father, so there was a chance hed miss tea with her and his sister at Pillar Box Cottage.

Linda Bowyer, aged 5, in her school on Farley Hill high street, could hardly wait for school to be over to get on her bike with the other children. She knew it was a good day because theyd been let out into the school playground during the dinner hour and this hadnt been possible for ages because of the weather. Even though Broadmoor Institution was seven miles away, east of Farley Hill, she still knew it by name. The other children called it a loony bin, and she called it a loony bin, but she didnt really know what that meant. It was a place you put mad people, she knew that much, and so she thought it must be a bin for mad people.

But a black cloud was about to cast its shadow over all of them and for one it would shut out the sun forever.

The black cloud was John Thomas Straffen. At that moment he was lying spreadeagled over the slate roof of an outbuilding behind the main wall of Broadmoor. His thick-soled working boots had slipped as he groped his way up the roof. As he found his feet, the door of the main building behind opened. He prayed it wasnt Mr Cash, the work party attendant, but it was Johns co-patient Whitcombe.

Mr Cash wants to know when youre coming back in? Whitcombe shouted loud enough for Mr Cash to hear inside the building. He couldnt stop himself smiling at the sight of John in three layers of clothing slipping and sliding around the roof like a beached whale.

Tell him Im shaking my duster, John shouted back. Back in a jiff.

Whitcombe shut the door with a bang. John continued his ascent and clutched the top of the wall, levering himself onto the top to take a nervous peek over the side. He blinked at the road winding down the hill that he had last seen from the back of the police car which brought him into Broadmoor six months ago.

Like a passenger contemplating jumping over the ships side, common sense told him to give up and go back down the roof. It looked an awful long way down. What John had shouted back to Whitcombe just then was the truth. He was shaking his duster, or had been until he jumped onto the disinfectant drums under the wall and hauled himself onto the shed roof but hed never be back.

Hed never be back because if you escaped from Broadmoor they didnt send you back. He told everyone that but no one knew where hed got it from. He wanted to escape to show them he could be free and not harm anyone. That would show them he hadnt done the two Bath murders. Theyd say, Look, he got out of the place and didnt hurt a fly.

He looked over the edge of the wall again and saw a fire hydrant cover that might break his fall. Then again, it might break his legs, he didnt know whether to aim for that or the grass bank.

John swung off the top of the wall, clutching the stone ledge with his hands and allowing his feet to dangle under him in space. Then he closed his eyes and let go.

E ight months previously, at 2.30 p.m. on the afternoon of Sunday 15 July 1951, John Straffen left his family home in their crowded flat in Bath to make his weekly visit to the cinema. But instead of following his usual route across the city to the Forum Cinema, he turned in the opposite direction up Lansdown Road towards Camden Crescent. He was dressed in a striped blue suit with an open necked, white shirt and made light work of the climb up the steep hill, moving with a long, gangling stride, mouth slack and eyes fixed on the pavement ahead, without any attempt to look at or acknowledge the couples and families making their way to Victoria Park or Parade Gardens to cool off on the hot afternoon.

John enjoyed his Sundays. It was a day off from the labours of the market garden just outside the city in Bathampton where hed worked steadily for the last few weeks, a day when he could get up late, have a good roast lunch cooked by his mother her best meal of the week and then the afternoon on his own at the matine performance of whatever was on at the cinema. It didnt really matter what the film was, but he preferred a good adventure like a western or Robin Hood, and that meant usually the Forum or Odeon cinemas, the two largest cinemas in Bath almost facing each other across Southgate Street. In fact they were so near each other that if the queue to get in looked too long at one, then he would simply cross the street to join the other, whatever the film.

Sometimes hed see one film at the Forum and then watch the other at the Odeon, even if the programme had already started or was in the middle of the supporting film. They knew him at both cinemas and had stopped trying to work out what he wanted. He was such a frequent customer the usherettes during the intervals would let him have an ice-cream even if hed forgotten his money.

But this Sunday hadnt gone well. John hadnt felt like getting up and his mother had said that until he was up, with his bed made, he wouldnt get any lunch or be allowed out to the cinema. He said she could keep her lunch, but she knew he didnt mean it because he wouldnt miss Sunday lunch for anything. But not going to the pictures that was different. This was his Sunday afternoon and now he was 21 she couldnt stop him. So he got up and made his bed, muttering and cursing, but not too loud in case his father heard and gave him a beating.