Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Sources
- Acknowledgements
- Preface
- one The second week of January 1973 …
- two November and December 1972 …
- three The state of social work
- four The public inquiry
- five Social work on trial
- six Afterwards …
- seven The trial continues …
- Appendix 1 Maria Colwell – synopsis
- Appendix 2 Maria Colwell – a chronology
- References
- Index
two - November and December 1972 …
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 September 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Sources
- Acknowledgements
- Preface
- one The second week of January 1973 …
- two November and December 1972 …
- three The state of social work
- four The public inquiry
- five Social work on trial
- six Afterwards …
- seven The trial continues …
- Appendix 1 Maria Colwell – synopsis
- Appendix 2 Maria Colwell – a chronology
- References
- Index
Summary
Maria's death now had to be accounted for and not just by the police and the prosecuting authorities. On the Whitehawk Estate there was anger; at first directed towards Pauline Kepple who, on release from police custody, had returned to 119 Maresfield Road. At Maria's funeral, she had to run the ‘gauntlet of taunts’ and cries of ‘bloody murderess’ (Argus, 25 and 26 January 1973). This anger had not abated by the time of the verdict at Bill Kepple's trial and Pauline had, briefly, to move out of the family home:
The word “murderer” has been scrawled on her front wall and as she edged open the door today, a crowd of neighbours shouted: “Come out here and we will kill you. Let's get hold of you.” They stood by a car on which had been stuck a poster that read “Bring back hanging – especially for child murderers.” (Argus, 17 April 1973)
A number of the Kepples’ neighbours, the ‘ordinary, respectable people’ of Brighton (Sunday Times, 22 April 1973), had observed Maria's life with the Kepples over the last 15 months or so since she had come to live in Maresfield Road. Some had begun to report their concerns about her treatment, beginning with a telephone call to the NSPCC by Mrs Rutson of no. 121 on 3 April 1972. Mrs Rutson was, in the words of the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Care and Supervision Provided in Relation to Maria Colwell (DHSS, 1974a, p 82), ‘an honest and concerned person with the welfare of Maria very much at heart’.
On Easter Monday, 3 April, from her back garden, separated only by a wire fence from the Kepples’, she had heard Pauline:
… shouting at Maria and calling her a “dirty little bitch” because she had dirtied herself, and this was followed by the repeated sounds of slapping; the noise came from the top back bedroom window of the Kepple's house…. (DHSS, 1974a, p 82)
Mrs Rutson did not see Maria again until 12 April:
While in her garden on that Wednesday Mrs Rutson looked up at the bedroom of number 119 with the drawn curtain and saw Maria looking out of the side of the curtain. Her face was, she told [the Committee], “terribly blackened and she had a terribly blood shot eye – one eye was just a pool of blood”. (DHSS, 1974a, p 84)
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Social Work on TrialThe Colwell Inquiry and the State of Welfare, pp. 19 - 58Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2011