Yesterday at Susan Mays memorial service a Guardian journalist called Eric Allison stood up to share his thoughts about Susan. He struggled with his emotions and delivered much of his speech whilst looking at the floor to keep control of himself. He ended by reciting The Owl and the Pussycat which was his favourite poem. He recited it because he found out that it was also Susans grandchildrens favourite poem. Anyway, here is the official obituary that he wrote for the Guardian. It is well worth a read and summarises the case history. Susan May, who has died of cancer aged 68, had the unwanted distinction of becoming the first prisoner serving a life sentence to be released on tariff (having served the minimum time ordered by the court) while still denying her conviction. Her offence was murder, the killing of her 87-year-old aunt, Hilda Marchbank, in March 1992. May was born in Royton (then in Lancashire, now in Greater Manchester), the younger of the two daughters of Dan and Dorothy Sheldon. She was educated at a local primary school and Chadderton grammar school, leaving at the age of 16 to become a trainee hairdresser. In 1968, she opened her own salon in Royton and married Terry May, with whom she had a daughter and two sons. She gave up the salon to look after her children, though she worked part-time as a playground assistant at a local school. She described those years as normal and peaceful. May also began to look after Marchbank, who had played a big part in her upbringing. On 12 March 1992, she made her usual early morning visit to her aunt, who lived around the corner from her. Marchbank was dead in bed; she had been beaten and suffocated. The police believed it was a robbery gone wrong, as the house had been ransacked. Suspicion fell on May after she denied being in a relationship with a local man. (May said that she lied because it was none of their business and nothing to do with Aunties death.) Police found marks on the wall of Marchbanks living room, which was used as a bedroom. They were said to contain Mays fingerprints and her aunts blood. May was charged with murder. At the trial, the following year, the crowns case was that May had stumbled along the wall in the dark after killing her aunt, and created the marks. She was convicted and ordered to serve a minimum of 12 years. What the jury did not know, because police failed to disclose it to the defence, was that a neighbour of Marchbank had seen a car, unoccupied but with its engine running, outside the house, at midnight on the day of the murder. It was later seen being driven away with three men in it. Nor did police reveal that they had received two anonymous phone calls naming a local man, a heroin addict with form for robbing elderly people, as the killer. May was released in 2005 and returned to live in Royton. I first met her in 2004 – though we had corresponded before – in Askham Grange open prison, near York. I went there with the journalist Rosie Cowan, who was interviewing her for the Guardian. I asked May what was the worst thing she had endured in prison; I knew she had been in the womens wing at Durham, which was ordered to be closed – a scathing inspection report described it as restrictive and oppressive – after six women had killed themselves there in three years. She replied: The worst thing is anyone daring to suggest I would harm a hair of Aunties head. I loved her. Mays friends Dorothy Cooksey and Geoff Goodwin set up a campaign group, the Friends of Susan May. According to Cooksey, shopping in Royton with May would take at least an hour, because so many local people would stop them to ask how the campaign was going and voice their support. Mays claim of innocence was twice rejected by the court of appeal. Soon after the second appeal, in 2001, the Labour MP John McDonnell set up the Parliamentary Friends of Susan May, which numbered 72 MPs and 25 peers. Mays case is currently being considered by the Criminal Cases Review Commission. Earlier this year, the fingerprint expert Arie Zeelenberg produced a report stating that there is overwhelming evidence that [the marks on the wall] were not comprised of blood but instead of sweat and a minor residue of another unknown substance. May, whose marriage ended in divorce in 1982, is survived by her three children. • Susan May, hairdresser, born 22 November 1944; died 30 October 2013 -sg
Posted on: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 21:49:46 +0000
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