John Casor

John Casor (surname also recorded as Cazara and Corsala), a servant in Northampton County in the Virginia Colony, in 1655 became the first person of African descent in the Thirteen Colonies to be declared as a slave for life as a result of a civil suit. In an earlier case, John Punch was the first man documented as a slave in the Virginia Colony, sentenced to life in servitude for attempting to escape his captors.
In one of the earliest freedom suits, Casor argued that he was an indentured servant who had been forced by Anthony Johnson, a free black, to serve past his term; he was freed and went to work for Robert Parker as an indentured servant. Johnson sued Parker for Casor's services. In ordering Casor returned to his master, Johnson, for life, the court both declared Casor a slave and sustained the right of free blacks to own slaves.
Laws racializing slavery hardened during Casor's lifetime. In 1662, the Virginia Colony passed a law incorporating the principle of "partus sequitur ventrem", ruling that children of enslaved mothers would be born into slavery, regardless of their father's race or status. This was in contradiction to English common law for English subjects, which based a child's status on that of the father. In 1699 the Virginia House of Burgesses passed a law deporting all free blacks. But many new families of free blacks continued to be formed during the colonial years by the close relationships among the working class.
Background.
At this time, there were only about 300 people of African origin living in the Virginia Colony, about 1% of an estimated population of 30,000. The first group of 20 or so Africans were brought to Jamestown in 1619 as indentured servants. After working out their contracts for passage money to Virginia and completing their indenture, each was granted of land (headrights). This enabled them to raise their own tobacco or other crops.
Although most historians believe slavery, as an institution, developed much later, they differ on the exact status of their servitude before slavery was established, as well as differing over the date when this took place. The colonial charter entitled English subjects and their children the rights of the common law, but people of other nations were considered foreigners or aliens outside the common law. At the time, the colony had no provision for naturalizing foreigners.
Legal dispute.
Anthony Johnson was an indentured servant brought to the James River area of Virginia on the ship "James" in 1621. During the late 1640s, Johnson moved with his family to Northampton County on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. He acquired property on Pungoteague Creek and began raising livestock. He was the first known African landowner in the colony. By July 1651, he had expanded his holdings, which he referred to in a court record as "myne owne ground," to , then a considerable tract by Eastern Shore standards. He was prosperous enough to import five indentured servants of his own and was granted an additional as "headrights" for bringing in workers.
In 1653 John Casor, an African employed by Johnson, filed what later became known as a freedom suit. He said that he had been imported as a "seaven or eight yeares" indentured servant and that, after attempting to reclaim his indenture, he had been told by Johnson that he didn't have one. According to the civil court documents, Casor demanded his freedom. "Anthony Johnson was in a feare. Upon this his son in law, his wife and his two sonnes persuaded the said Anthony Johnson to set the said John Casor free."
Casor went to work for Robert Parker, an English colonist who, along with his brother George, later testified that they knew Casor had an indenture. One commentator said that Johnson may have feared losing his headrights land if the case went to court.
Anthony Johnson brought suit in Northampton County court against Robert Parker in 1654 for detaining his "Negro servant, John Casor," saying "Hee never did see any [indenture] but that hee had ye Negro for his life". In the case of "Johnson v. Parker", the court of Northampton County upheld Johnson's right to hold Casor as a slave, saying in its ruling of 8 March 1655:
This daye Anthony Johnson negro made his complaint to the court against mr. Robert Parker and declared that hee deteyneth his servant John Casor negro under the pretence that said negro was a free man. The court seriously consideringe and maturely weighing the premisses, doe fynde that the saide Mr. Robert Parker most unjustly keepeth the said Negro from Anthony Johnson his master ... It is therefore the Judgement of the Court and ordered That the said John Casor Negro forthwith returne unto the service of the said master Anthony Johnson, And that Mr. Robert Parker make payment of all charges in the suit.
Slavery.
In sustaining the claim of Johnson to the perpetual service of Casor, the court also gave judicial sanction to the right of free blacks to own slaves of their own race. In a 1916 article, John H. Russell wrote, "Indeed no earlier record, to our knowledge, has been found of judicial support given to slavery in Virginia except as a punishment for a crime." Russell makes that distinction because in 1640, John Punch "was reduced from his former condition of servitude for a limited time to a condition of slavery for life." In 1670, the colonial assembly passed a law prohibiting free and baptized negroes and Indians from purchasing Christians, meaning whites, but allowing them to buy people "of their owne nation." In this meaning, "purchase" also related to buying the contract services of indentured servants of various "nations."
In 1665 Anthony Johnson and his wife, Mary; his son John; and his wife, Susanna; and their slave, John Casor, moved to Somerset County, Maryland. Casor remained Johnson's slave for the rest of his life.
Legal restrictions continued to be made related to African servants. The courts reasoned that "Insofar as Negroes were heathens, they could never become Englishmen; insofar as they were not Englishmen, they could not be entitled to the protections of the common law," which was limited to English subjects. Africans were considered foreigners or aliens.
In 1662, the colony passed a law that children of enslaved women (who were of African descent and thus foreigners) were to take the status of the mother, rather than of the father, as was current under English common law. The principle, called "partus sequitur ventrum", had been adopted from Roman law and caused children born of a free white mother and Negro father were to be born free. In 1691, the law was amended; such mixed-race children had to serve as indentured servants for 30 years while the mother would be fined fifteen pounds sterling. If the mother failed to pay the fine within a month of birth, she was indentured herself for five years.
By the end of the 17th century, colonists were importing many Africans via European slave traders as slaves to satisfy the demand for labor. There was limited demand for slaves and trade with America was not profitable, with the trade with the West Indies and South America remaining far more lucrative. The most likely source of slaves was directly from the West Indies, rather than Africa, through the contacts that the American colonists maintained with the European colonies in the region. By an act of 1699, the colony ordered all free blacks deported, virtually defining as slaves all people of African descent who remained in the colony.
Most historians argue that John Punch, an African who was ordered indentured for life in 1640, should be considered the first documented slave in Virginia. Punch had escaped along with two white indentured servants, one from the United Provinces and the other from Scotland. When they were captured, all three were sentenced to whippings. The Dutchman and the Scotsman were sentenced to an additional four years of servitude. However, John Punch, the African, was sentenced to servitude for the rest of his life. The difference in penalties makes this one of the first cases to show a racial distinction between black and white indentured servants.


Thomas Langlois Lefroy

Thomas Langlois Lefroy (8 January 1776 – 4 May 1869) was an Irish-Huguenot politician and judge. He served as an MP for the constituency of Dublin University in 1830–1841, Privy Councillor of Ireland in 1835–1869 and Lord Chief Justice of Ireland in 1852–1866.
Early life.
Thomas Lefroy was born in Limerick, Ireland. He had an outstanding academic record at Trinity College, Dublin, from 1790 to 1793. His great-uncle, Benjamin Langlois, sponsored Tom's legal studies at Lincoln's Inn, London. One year later, Lefroy served as Auditor of Trinity's College Historical Society, the still-active debating society of the college. Later still, he became a prominent member of the Irish bar (having been called to it in 1797) and published a series of Law Reports on the cases of the Irish Court of Chancery.
Tom Lefroy and Jane Austen.
In 1796, Lefroy began a flirtation with the young Jane Austen, who was a friend of an older female relative. Jane Austen wrote two letters to her sister Cassandra mentioning "Tom Lefroy", and some have suggested that it may have been he whom Austen had in mind when she invented the character of Mr. Darcy in "Pride and Prejudice", as the courtship between Tom Lefroy and Jane Austen took place over the year or so that "Pride and Prejudice" was written. In his 2003 biography, "Becoming Jane Austen", Jon Spence suggests that Jane Austen actually used her and Tom LeFroy's personalities as the models for Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet, but not in an expected way. Spence suggests that Jane Austen used Tom Lefroy's more gregarious personality as the model for the novel's heroine Elizabeth Bennet, and her own measured demeanor was used as the model for the male protagonist, Mr. Darcy. So while the exact influence of Tom Lefroy on "Pride and Prejudice" continues to be debated, it does seem certain that his presence in Austen's life is in some way reflected in the novel.
In a letter dated Saturday (9 January 1796), Austen mentioned:
You scold me so much in the nice long letter which I have this moment received from you, that I am almost afraid to tell you how my Irish friend and I behaved. Imagine to yourself everything most profligate and shocking in the way of dancing and sitting down together. I can expose myself however, only once more, because he leaves the country soon after next Friday, on which day we are to have a dance at Ashe after all. He is a very gentlemanlike, good-looking, pleasant young man, I assure you. But as to our having ever met, except at the three last balls, I cannot say much; for he is so excessively laughed at about me at Ashe, that he is ashamed of coming to Steventon, and ran away when we called on Mrs. Lefroy a few days ago.. . .After I had written the above, we received a visit from Mr. Tom Lefroy and his cousin George. The latter is really very well-behaved now; and as for the other, he has but one fault, which time will, I trust, entirely remove — it is that his morning coat is a great deal too light. He is a very great admirer of Tom Jones, and therefore wears the same coloured clothes, I imagine, which he did when he was wounded.
In a letter started on Thursday (14 January 1796), and finished the following morning, there was another mention of him.
"Friday." — At length the day is come on which I am to flirt my last with Tom Lefroy, and when you receive this it will be over. My tears flow as I write at the melancholy idea.
Austen's surviving correspondence contains only one other mention of Tom Lefroy, in a November 1798 letter that Austen biographer Claire Tomalin believes demonstrates the author's "bleak remembrance, and persistent interest" in Lefroy. In the letter to her sister, Austen writes that Tom's aunt Mrs. Lefroy had been to visit, but had not said anything about her nephew...
 "...to "me", and I was too proud to make any enquiries; but on my father's afterwards asking where he was, I learnt that he was gone back to London in his way to Ireland, where he is called to the Bar and means to practise."
Upon learning of Jane Austen's death (18 July 1817), Thomas Langlois Lefroy travelled from Ireland to England to pay his respects to the British author. In addition, at an auction of Cadell's papers (possibly in London), one Tom Lefroy bought a Cadell publisher's rejection letter—for Austen's early version of "Pride and Prejudice", titled "First Impressions". Caroline Austen said in her letter to James Edward Austen-Leigh on 1 April 1869:
I enclose a copy of Mr. Austen's letter to Cadell—I do not know which novel he would have sent—The letter does not do much credit to the tact or courtesy of our good Grandfather for Cadell was a great man in his day, and it is not surprising that he should have refused the favour so offered from an unknown—but the circumstance may be worth noting, especially as we have so few incidents to produce. At a sale of Cadell's papers &c Tom Lefroy picked up the original letter—and Jemima copied it for me –
It was rather unlikely that Caroline Austen would address the Chief Justice Lefroy as only 'Tom Lefroy' (she indeed addressed him as "the still living 'Chief Justice"' in the later part of the letter). However, if it is true that the original Tom Lefroy purchased the Cadell letter after Jane's death, it is possible that he later handed it over to Thomas Edward Preston Lefroy (T.E.P. Lefroy; husband of Jemima Lefroy who was the daughter of Anna Austen Lefroy and Benjamin Lefroy). T.E.P. Lefroy later would give Cadell's letter to Caroline for reference. Cadell & Davies firm was closed down in 1836 after the death of Thomas Cadell Jr. The sale of Cadell's papers took place in 1840, possibly in November.
In the latter years of Tom Lefroy's life, he was questioned about his relationship with Jane Austen by his nephew, and admitted to having loved Jane Austen, but stated that it was a "boyish love". As is written in a letter sent from T.E.P. Lefroy to James Edward Austen Leigh in 1870,
My late venerable uncle ... said in so many words that he was in love with her, although he qualified his confession by saying it was a boyish love. As this occurred in a friendly & private conversation, I feel some doubt whether I ought to make it public.
A fictitious account of their relationship is at the center of the 2007 historical romance film "Becoming Jane". In this film, Lefroy is played by James McAvoy and Austen is played by Anne Hathaway.
Political career.
Lefroy contested Dublin University in an 1827 by-election, as a Tory, but finished third.
An idea of Lefroy's politics is given by the opening of an editorial in "The Times" (of London) on Friday 27 February 1829 when he was opposing the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829, whose effect was to admit Irish Catholics to parliament (if they met a high property qualification).
Lefroy may have been influenced by Huguenot family memories of persecution by French Catholics; this was the case with other opponents of Catholic emancipation such as William Saurin mentioned above.
Richard Lalor Sheil published a profile of Lefroy stating (amongst many hostile remarks on his combination of piety and moneymaking) that Lefroy was well known for his interest in the conversion of Jews to Protestantism, leading Daniel O'Connell to joke during a lawsuit over a collection of antique coins that Lefroy should be given the Hebrew coins as his fee while O'Connell received those with a Roman inscription. Patrick Geoghegan's life of O'Connell, King Dan, states that O'Connell held Lefroy's legal abilities in contempt and regarded him as a prime example of a lawyer promoted above more meritorious Catholics (notably O'Connell himself) because of his Protestant religion and Tory politics.
He was elected to the House of Commons for the Dublin University seat in 1830, as a Tory (the party later became known as Conservative). He became a member of the Privy Council of Ireland on 29 January 1835. In 1838, Thomas Langlois Lefroy received American politician Charles Sumner during Sumner's visit to Ireland. Tom Lefroy continued to represent the University until he was appointed an Irish judge (with the title of a Baron of the Exchequer) in 1841. In 1848 he presided over the sedition trial of the Young Irelander John Mitchel.
He was promoted to Chief Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench in Ireland in 1852. Despite some allegations in Parliament, that he was too old to do the job, Lefroy did not resign as Chief Justice until he was aged 90 and a Conservative government was in office to fill the vacancy. This was in July 1866. One apocryphal story (in the memoirs of the Home Rule MP JG Swift MacNeill) describes Lefroy's son as denying in Parliament that his father was too old to perform his duties, but being himself so visibly old and feeble as to produce the opposite effect on parliamentary opinion. Another version of this story has the son defending his father's capacity although he himself had applied to be excused certain official duties on account of advanced age. The Hansard report of the debate can be found here.
In a satirical pamphlet on the Trinity College Dublin election of 1865 Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu suggests that Lefroy was so old that he had "ridden on the mastodon to hunt the megatherium" and mocks the manner in which the Conservative lawyer-politicians Joseph Napier and James Whiteside allegedly insisted whenever the Conservatives were in power (and might appoint them to replace him) that Lefroy is too old to perform his duties, only to insist whenever a Whig government is in power that he is in perfect health.
Interest in astronomy.
Tom Lefroy was also interested in astronomy. On 30 March 1846, he visited William Parsons, the 3rd Earl of Rosse in Parsonstown to try Parsons's new telescope called Leviathan of Parsonstown. Tom later said to his wife (Letter 31 March 1846):
Family.
According to the website of (Tom Lefroy's house in Longford, Ireland), the Lefroy family came from the town of Cambrai in the northwestern corner of France. They were a Huguenot family, and one of their heads of the family, the Lord L'Offroy, died at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415.
Tom Lefroy's siblings.
Tom Lefroy was born of the Irish Lefroys, descendants of a Huguenot Lefroy who migrated to England in the 16th century, hence the French-sounding name (the family head being a Lord L'Offroy). In 1765, Tom's father (Anthony Peter Lefroy) was secretly married to Ann Gardner in Limerick (Ireland). Five girls were born without Benjamin Langlois (Tom's great uncle and his family's benefactor) knowing it (Radovici mentioned five, but Cranfield mentioned four; it is possible that one of Tom's elder sisters died in infancy). Thomas Langlois Lefroy was the sixth child, also the first son. The list of Tom's siblings (including him) is as follows:
Tom Lefroy's children.
Tom Lefroy married Mary Paul on 16 March 1799 in north Wales. From their marriage, they had seven children as listed in the "Visitation of Ireland":
Another son (Benjamin, born 25 March 1815) died in infancy. Tom Lefroy's daughters never married.
Jane Christmas Lefroy.
Tom Lefroy's first daughter was named Jane Christmas Lefroy. Scholars debate the derivation of this name. Some believe that the name "Jane" was derived from Lady Jane Paul (Tom's mother-in-law). Others believe the name referred to Jane Austen. The second theory is implied in the 2007 film "Becoming Jane". Christmas was a family name coming from the Paul family
Carrigglas Manor.
Carrigglas Manor was a Gothic-style great house built for Lefroy and his family circa 1830 ("Memoir of Chief Justice Lefroy"). The family had lived in Carrigglas before 1837 (one of Tom's letters for Mary was dated 5 October 1834). James Gandon the famous architect of Dublin's Custom House designed and built a stable block and farmyard and walled garden for Lefroy. In 1837, Lefroy renovated the Manor with the help of Daniel Robertson, Esq., a famous English architect. A hurricane on 6 January 1839 destroyed some parts of the house, and Lefroy had to rebuild it.
The Lefroy family sold the Manor and Estate in 2006. , the plan to adapt the manor house to be part of a newly built hotel, and to turn the park into a golf course and housing estate collapsed and work at Carrigglas was terminated before the hotel or any of the new houses were occupied.
In 2014, the estate was bought by the Longford family and company Glennon's who are the current owners.


Zakharov v. Russia

Zakharov v. Russia was a 2015 court case before the European Court of Human Rights involving Roman Zakharov and the Russian Federation. The Court ruled that Russia's legal provisions governing communications surveillance did not provide adequate safeguards against arbitrariness or abuse, and that therefore a violation took place of Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights (right to privacy).
Case.
In 2003, editor Roman Zakharov brought judicial proceeding against three mobile network operators, claiming that there had been a violation of his right to the privacy of his communications. He maintained that Russia's SORM system (surveillance equipment installed at mobile phone companies) enables unrestricted interception of all telephone communications by the security services without prior judicial authorization. The claim was rejected on the grounds that Zakharov did not prove to be a victim of such an interception himself. The rejection was upheld in 2006.
In 2006, Zakharov lodged a case with the ECtHR. He relied on Article 8 (right to privacy), arguing that Russia's national law permitted the security services to intercept, through technical means, any person's communications without obtaining prior judicial authorization. He further relied on Article 13 (right to an effective remedy), complaining that he had no effective legal remedy at national level to challenge that legislation.
Findings.
In a unanimous Grand Chamber decision, the Court ruled that several aspects of Russian surveillance legislation were incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights:
Although Russian law generally provided for prior judicial authorization of communications surveillance, the Court concluded that in practice, this could be circumvented. It also remarked that the proceedings indicate the existence of arbitrary and abusive surveillance practices.
Russia's SORM system was therefore found to be inconsistent with the requirements of Article 8. The Court held that the existence of the contested legislation amounted to an interference with Zakharov's rights.
Aftermath.
On the same day of the ruling, the Russian government passed a law allowing it to overrule international court orders to "protect the interests of Russia" if these orders are contradictory to the constitutional law.
Commentators have noted the decision for the fact that the applicant was able to challenge the surveillance regulatory framework without being required to prove that he had been spied upon himself. The Court instead considered the legislation "in abstracto" as well as its application in practice.
The case was featured in Oxfords University Press blog in its 2015 "Top ten developments in international law" list.


Thomas R. Limerick

Thomas Robert Limerick (January 7, 1902 – May 23, 1938) was an American criminal, who took part in the third documented escape attempt from Alcatraz Island on the night of May 23, 1938.
Biography.
Thomas Limerick was born on January 7, 1902 in Council Bluffs, Iowa. He grew up in a middle-class family until his father died when he was 15. His family was soon thrown into poverty and left Thomas, the oldest of 5 children, to get a job. Originally a boxcar bandit, he joined a gang of bank robbers headed by Maurice Denning based in Gage County, Nebraska in 1934. On August 23, 1934 the gang robbed a National Guard Armory, and between October and November of that year, robbed large banks in Hawarden, Iowa, Dell Rapids, South Dakota and Superior, Nebraska. Limerick was arrested in a nightclub in St. Joseph, Missouri on May 25, 1935. Limerick was sentenced to life imprisonment at Leavenworth Penitentiary, but later transferred to Alcatraz.
Alcatraz escape attempt.
In the spring of 1938, Limerick, James Lucas, and Rufus Franklin planned an escape from Alcatraz. Their escape plan began by incapacitating an unarmed guard supervising a work detail on the top floor. Once the supervisor was rendered unconscious, the convicts would escape through a window to the rooftop, where they would incapacitate an armed guard and leave the island via a seized police boat. They enacted their escape plan on May 23, 1938 in the prison's mat shop, where they assaulted Custodial Officer Royal Cline with hammer blows to his head. They proceeded to the roof, where an armed guard shot both Franklin and Limerick, although Lucas wasn't shot. Other guards arrived at the scene. Franklin, Limerick, and Lucas were cornered and surrendered to the guards.
Cline died of his injuries the next day, as did Limerick. Lucas and the other surviving convict, Rufus Franklin, were tried for murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.


Ankara Agreement

The Agreement Creating An Association Between The Republic of Turkey and the European Economic Community (commonly known as the Ankara Agreement) (), is a treaty, signed in 1963, which provides for the framework for the co-operation between Turkey and the European Union (EU).
Background.
Turkey first applied for associate membership of the European Economic Community (EEC) in July 1959, the EEC having been established in 1958. The EEC responded by suggesting the establishment of an association as an interim measure leading to full accession. This led to negotiations which resulted in the Ankara Agreement on September 12, 1963.
Agreement.
The Ankara Agreement was signed on 12 September 1963 in Ankara. The Agreement initiated a three-step process toward creating a customs union to help secure Turkey's full membership in the EEC. Upon creation, the customs union would begin the integration of economic and trade policy, which the EEC considered necessary.
An Association Council, set up by the Agreement, controls its development and gives the Agreement detailed effect by making decisions.
In 1970, Turkey and the EEC agreed an Additional Protocol to the Agreement.
One part of the Agreement was to be financial assistance from the EEC to Turkey, including loans worth 175 million ECU during the period from 1963 to 1970. The results were mixed; EEC trade concessions to Turkey in the form of tariff quotas proved less effective than hoped, but the EEC's share in Turkish imports rose substantially during the period.
The Agreement sought the free circulation of workers, establishment and services, including virtually total harmonisation with EEC policies relating to the internal market. However, it excluded Turkey from political positions and precluded its recourse to the European Court of Justice for dispute resolution to some extent.
With the European Union replacing the EEC with the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, the Ankara Agreement now governs relations between Turkey and the EU.
Individual rights.
The Agreement, its Additional Protocol and Decisions of the Association Council are part of EEC law. The European Court of Justice has decided that these give specific rights to Turkish nationals and businesses that the EEC Member States are required by EEC law to respect.
Under Article 6(1) of Association Council Decision 1/80, Turkish nationals legally employed in an EEC member state for a certain period gain rights to remain or switch employment in that state:
A Turkish national who works legally as an au pair or while a student can count as a worker.


Murder of Lesley Molseed

The murder of Lesley Molseed, an 11-year-old British girl, occurred on 5 October 1975 in West Yorkshire, England. Stefan Kiszko ( ), an intellectually disabled young man who lived near Molseed in Greater Manchester, was wrongly convicted of sexually assaulting and murdering her, and served 16 years in prison before his conviction was overturned. Kiszko's mental and physical condition deteriorated while he was in prison, and he died 20 months after his release in 1992, before he could collect money owed to him for his suffering. His ordeal was described by one British MP as 'the worst miscarriage of justice of all time'. Evidence that Kiszko could not have committed the crime was suppressed by three members of the investigation team, who were initially arrested in 1993 before charges were dropped. However, in 2006, a DNA match led to the arrest of Ronald Castree for Molseed's murder; he was convicted the following year and sentenced to life in prison.
Murder.
Lesley Susan Molseed was a child who lived at 11 Delamere Road, Rochdale, Greater Manchester, part of the Turf Hill Estate. Known as 'Lel' to her mother April, step-father Danny, brother, and two sisters, she had been born with a congenital cardiac condition. When she was three, she had open-heart surgery to rectify her illness, but the procedure affected her health and development, and she remained frail and with a reduced mental level for her age.
Around lunchtime, in 1975, she was asked by her mother to go from her home to a local shop on nearby Ansdell Road to buy bread and air-freshener. The children had a rota for chores and for Lesley, such an errand would have been considered routine in that culture and era. Walking alone in a blue raincoat, and with £1 in cash and a blue canvas bag, she was last seen by witnesses in secluded Stiups Lane. When Lesley failed to return home, her concerned mother sent her siblings out to look for her, and her step-father also joined the search. At 3:00p.m., with no sign of her, and no evidence that she had arrived at the shops, the Rochdale Police were contacted.
A search around the town and the adjacent M62 area was immediately begun. Molseed's body was found three days later, around 8:00a.m. on 8October, in a natural turf shelf 9metres above a remote roadside layby on the trans-Pennine A672 near Rishworth Moor in West Yorkshire. Lying face down in some tall grass, she had been stabbed 12 times in the upper shoulder and back. Some of the wounds were very deep and one had penetrated her heart. There were no defensive wounds, and a time of death could not be calculated. None of her clothing or possessions were disturbed, but the money was missing and someone had ejaculated on her clothing and underwear. Other evidence collected by forensics included foreign fibres, traces of dry wallpaper paste, and 379 other objects in the vicinity.
Prime suspect – Kiszko.
At the time of the hunt, four Maxine Buckley aged 12, Catherine Burke aged 16, Debbie Brown aged 13, and Pamela Hind aged all claimed that Kiszko had indecently exposed himself to them the day before the murder. One of them also said he had exposed himself to her a month after the murder, on Bonfire Night. Kiszko was then a 23-year-old local tax clerk of Eastern European (Latvian) descent. His father, Ivan (spelled Iwan and also called John), had emigrated from Soviet Ukraine and his mother, Charlotte ("née" Slavič), from Yugoslavia (modern-day Slovenia) after the Second World War to work in the cotton mills of Rochdale. West Yorkshire Police quickly formed the view that Kiszko fitted their profile of the sort of person likely to have killed Molseed, even though he had never been in trouble with the law and had no social life beyond his mother and aunt. His father had died of a heart attack in the street in Kiszko's presence on 26September 1970. Evaluation showed that Stefan Kiszko had a mental and emotional age of just 12. Kiszko also had an unusual hobby of writing down registration numbers of cars that annoyed him, which supported police suspicions. The police now pursued evidence which might incriminate him, and ignored other leads that might have taken them in other directions.
Acting upon the teenage girls' information and their suspicions of Kiszko's idiosyncratic lifestyle — and having allegedly found girlie magazines and a bag of sweets in his car — the police arrested him on 21 December 1975. During questioning, the interviewing detectives seized upon every apparent inconsistency between his varying accounts of the relevant days, as further demonstration of his likely guilt. Kiszko confessed to the crime after three days of intensive questioning: he believed that by doing so, he would be allowed to go home and that the ensuing investigations would prove him innocent and his confession false. Prior to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act of 1984, suspects did not have the right to have a solicitor present during interviews and the police did not ask Kiszko if he wanted a solicitor. His request to have his mother present while he was being questioned was refused and, crucially, the police did not caution him until long after they had decided he was the prime suspect – indeed, the only suspect.
After admitting to the murder to police, Kiszko was charged with Molseed's murder on Christmas Eve 1975. When he entered Armley Gaol after being charged, he was nicknamed 'Oliver Laurel' because he had the girth of Oliver Hardy and the perplexed air of Oliver's comedy sidekick Stan Laurel. Later, in the presence of a solicitor, Kiszko retracted his confession. Kiszko was remanded until his murder trial, which began on 7 July 1976 under Sir Hugh Park at Leeds Crown Court (then at Leeds Town Hall). He was defended by David Waddington QC, who later became Home Secretary. The prosecuting QC, Peter Taylor, became Lord Chief Justice the day after Kiszko was cleared of the murder in 1992.
Trial and appeal.
Kiszko's defence team, led by Waddington, made significant mistakes. Firstly, they did not seek an adjournment when the Crown delivered thousands of pages of additional unused material on the first morning of the trial. Then there was the inconsistent defence of diminished responsibility which Kiszko never authorised, on the grounds that the testosterone he was receiving for his hypogonadism might have made him behave unusually. Kiszko's endocrinologist strongly disagreed with this theory, and if called to testify, would have said that his treatment could not have caused him to act in such a way that would make him carry out a murder. He was never called.
The manslaughter claim undermined Kiszko's claims that he was totally innocent and destroyed his alibis (a defence known in legal parlance as 'riding two horses'). In fact, his innocence could have been demonstrated at the trial. The pathologist who examined Molseed's clothes found traces of sperm, whereas the sample taken from Kiszko by the police contained no sperm. There was medical evidence that Kiszko had broken his ankle some months before the murder and, in view of that and his being overweight, he would have found it difficult to scale the slope to the murder spot. The sperm findings were suppressed by the police and never disclosed to the defence team or the jury; neither was the medical evidence of his broken ankle disclosed to the court.
Kiszko gave evidence that in July 1975, he had become ill and was admitted to Birch Hill Hospital, where he was given a blood transfusion. In August, he was transferred to a Manchester hospital and diagnosed as being anaemic and as having a hormone deficiency. He agreed to injections to rectify the latter problem and was discharged in September. He said correctly that he had never met Molseed and therefore could not have murdered her, and he claimed he was with his aunt, tending to his father's grave in Halifax at the time of the murder, before visiting a garden centre and then going home. When asked why he had confessed, Kiszko replied, 'I started to tell these lies and they seemed to please them and the pressure was off as far as I was concerned. I thought if I admitted what I did to the police they would check out what I had said, find it untrue and would then let me go.'
Kiszko's conviction was secured by a 10–2 majority verdict on 21 July 1976 at Leeds Crown Court after five hours and 35 minutes of deliberation. He was given a life sentence for committing Molseed's murder. The judge praised the three teenage girls who had made the exposure claims, Buckley in particular, for their 'bravery and honesty' in giving evidence in court and their 'sharp observations'. The evidence given by Hind was read out in court. Park said that Buckley's '[s]harp eyes set this train of inquiry into motion'. He also praised the police officers involved in the case 'for their great skill in bringing to justice the person responsible for this dreadful crime and their expertise in sifting through masses of material', adding, 'I would like all the officers responsible for the result to be specially commended and these observations conveyed to the Chief Constable.' DS John Akeroyd and DS Holland were singled out for praise.
Sheila Buckley, whose daughter Maxine played a major part in securing Kiszko's conviction, criticised the police for not arresting him earlier and told the "Manchester Evening News" that '... children are a lot safer, now this monster has been put away'. She also demanded that Kiszko be hanged. Even Albert Wright, Kiszko's solicitor, thought that his client was guilty but that it was a case of diminished responsibility and that therefore he should not have been convicted outright of murder.
After a month in Armley Prison, Kiszko was transferred to Wakefield Prison and immediately placed on Rule 43 to protect him from other inmates, as in the eyes of the law, he was now a convicted sex offender. Kiszko launched an appeal, but it was dismissed on 25 May 1978, when Lord Justice Bridge said 'We can find no grounds whatsoever to condemn the jury's verdict of murder as in any way unsafe or unsatisfactory. The appeal is dismissed.'
Time in prison.
Attacks.
After his conviction, Kiszko was fiercely and bitterly hated by the majority of inmates, receiving taunts and several verbal and written death threats during his first months in prison. He was physically attacked four times in total. The first was on 24 August 1976, just after being transferred to Wakefield Prison, when he was set upon in his cell by five prisoners who stole his watch, smashed up his radio, cut his mouth and injured both his leg and ankle. The attackers said they did it for Lesley and her family. On 11 May 1977, he was hit over the head with a mop handle, leaving Kiszko in need of three stitches to a head wound. In December 1978, he was punched once in the face by another prisoner in an unprovoked attack, whilst in the prison chapel.
In March 1981, Kiszko was again punched in the face by a prisoner in an unprovoked attack whilst in the prison yard, but this time Kiszko retaliated and fought back. Blows were exchanged and a fight broke out. The two had to be separated by guards. Both men were given a loss of privileges for 28 days. On each occasion, the attacks on Kiszko earned him absolutely no sympathy, from either other prisoners or guards, because of the crime for which he had been jailed. Kiszko was not physically attacked or threatened again during his remaining eleven years in prison. During much of that time, he was in the hospital wing of prisons. When he was not, he was placed among less violent offenders.
Mental illness.
In July 1979, the Inland Revenue finally wrote to Kiszko to inform him he had been sacked and from late 1979 onwards, Kiszko developed schizophrenia whilst in prison and began to suffer from delusions, one being that he was the victim of a plot to incarcerate an innocent tax-office employee so the effects of imprisonment would be tested on him. Over the next decade, any of Kiszko's claims of innocence were labelled as symptoms of his schizophrenic delusions, or attributed to his being in a state of denial. One forensic psychiatrist made a note of Kiszko suffering from 'delusions of innocence'. In January 1980, he said that coded messages on BBC Radio 2's "Jimmy Young Show" were being sent to him. In 1982, he claimed that his parents had a tape recorder hidden in the kitchen and made him sing after turning it on, later selling the songs to Barry Manilow to make money out of his talent.
Remaining years in prison.
In October 1981, Kiszko was put on the punishment block for possessing scissors in his cell. On 11 November, he was transferred to Gloucester Prison. In April 1983, he was told that he would only ever be eligible for parole if he admitted to having carried out the murder. If he continued to deny being a child killer, then he would spend the rest of his natural life behind bars, but this made no difference to Kiszko's stance. 13 months later, while still denying having carried out the murder, he was moved to Bristol Prison. Such was his mental deterioration that a month later, in June 1984, it was recommended by a forensic psychiatrist that he should be moved to either Broadmoor, Park Moss Side Hospital (later Ashworth Hospital, Liverpool) or Rampton, but nothing came of it. Six months later, Kiszko was returned to Wakefield Prison.
In August 1987, Kiszko was transferred again from Wakefield to Grendon Underwood Prison, where, in June 1988, the prison governor tried to persuade Kiszko to enrol on a sex offenders' treatment programme, in which he would have had to admit having committed the murder of Molseed. Having done that, he would then have to discuss what motivated him to do it. Kiszko refused to take part and repeatedly and persistently refused to 'address his offending behaviour' on the grounds that he had done nothing that needed addressing. He left in Grendon Underwood in May 1989, where he was classed as having 'made no progress' and moved back to Wakefield Prison. In July 1990, he said he was striking out a ghost who was trying to sexually abuse him. Finally, on 15 March 1991, Kiszko was transferred to Ashworth Hospital, under Section 47 of the Mental Health Act 1983, after six months of delay, on the grounds of his deteriorating mental health.
Case reopened.
Kiszko's mother continued to profess her son's innocence, but was ignored and stonewalled both by politicians, including her local MP Cyril Smith and Prime Ministers James Callaghan (from 1976-79) and Margaret Thatcher (from 1979-90), and by the legal system. In 1984, Kiszko's mother contacted JUSTICE, the UK human rights organisation which at the time investigated many miscarriages of justice. Three years later, she was put in touch with solicitor Campbell Malone, who agreed to take a look at the case.
Malone consulted Philip Clegg, who had been Waddington's junior at the July 1976 trial. Clegg had expressed his own doubts about the confession and conviction at the time, and over the next two years, Clegg and Malone prepared a petition to the Home Secretary. The draft was finally ready to be sent on 26 October 1989. On the same day, by coincidence, Waddington was appointed Home Secretary. 16 months passed before a police investigation into the conduct of the original trial could begin. Waddington resigned as Home Secretary in November 1990 to take up a peerage and to serve as Leader of the House of Lords; he was replaced by Kenneth Baker.
In February 1991, and with the help of a private detective named Peter Jackson, Malone finally urged the Home Office to reopen the case, which was then referred back to West Yorkshire Police. Detective Superintendent Trevor Wilkinson was assigned to the job. He immediately found several glaring errors. Kiszko's innocence was demonstrated conclusively through medical evidence; he had male hypogonadism, which rendered him infertile, contradicting forensic evidence obtained at the time of the murder. In 1975, his testes had measured 4 to 5 mm, whereas the average adult testicular size was 15 to 20 mm. During his research, Jackson found someone who confirmed that Kiszko had been seen with his aunt tending his father's grave on the day the murder took place. They said they could not understand why they had not been called to give evidence at the trial. Someone else said that Kiszko had been in a shop around the time of the murder.
Also that month, the four girls - now aged 27, 28, 31 and 33, and who were involved in the court trial - admitted that the evidence they had given which had led to Kiszko's arrest and conviction was false, and that they had lied for 'a laugh' and because 'at the time it was funny'. Burke was interviewed at Sowerby Police Station on 14 February 1991. She said she wished she had not said anything, saying she did not think it would go as far as it did. Burke said she went along with what Hind said. Buckley said it was not Kiszko who had exposed himself to her, but she had seen a taxi driver (not Ronald Castree) urinating behind a bush on the day of Molseed's murder; she also refused to apologise. Brown refused to make any statement. Hind was a friend of Molseed's older sister but she was the most remorseful of the four, saying that what they did was 'foolish - but we were young' and that, had she appeared in court, she would have told the truth about Kiszko - unlike her three friends, who all had committed perjury. Hind did not think Kiszko would be convicted. A decision was made by the prosecuting authorities for a senior police officer to caution Hind and Burke for the criminal offence that each had undoubtedly committed.
Acquittal.
In February 1990, the Home Office privately disclosed that Kiszko's first parole hearing would take place in December 1992, by which time he would have served 17 years in custody. However, he would only be released if he admitted to having murdered Molseed and if he could convince the Parole Board that he would not be a danger to children or the public. In August 1991, the new findings in Kiszko's case were referred to Kenneth Baker, who immediately passed them on to the Court of Appeal. On 19 December 1991, Kiszko was moved from Ashworth to Prestwich Hospital.
10 months before his parole hearing, on 17 February 1992, the judicial investigation into Kiszko's conviction began. It was heard by three judges, Lord Chief Justice Lane, Mr Justice Rose and Mr Justice Potts. Present at the hearing were Franz Muller QC and William Boyce for the Crown, who were there to argue that Kiszko was guilty of murder and therefore must remain in prison custody for at least another 10 months; and Stephen Sedley QC and Jim Gregory, to state that Kiszko was innocent. After hearing the new evidence presented by Sedley and Gregory, Muller and Boyce did not put up any contrary argument and immediately accepted its validity.
Also, after hearing the new evidence, Lord Chief Justice Lane said: 'It has been shown that this man cannot produce sperm. This man cannot have been the person responsible for ejaculating over the girl's knickers and skirt, and consequently cannot have been the murderer.' Kiszko was cleared, and Lord Lane ordered his immediate release from custody. The 1976 trial judge Sir Hugh Park, who had praised the police and the 13-year-old girls at the original trial for bringing Kiszko to justice, apologised for what had happened to Kiszko but said he was not sorry for how he had handled the court case. Anthony Beaumont-Dark, a Conservative MP, said 'This must be the worst miscarriage of justice of all time. It brings shame on everyone involved in the case.' He then demanded a full, independent and wide-ranging inquiry into the conviction.
The Molseed family, who were convinced of Kiszko's guilt up to the moment of him being cleared, also publicly apologised for the things they had said after his conviction such as demanding that he be hanged in public. (Molseed's father, Frederick Anderson, had hurled a volley of angry verbal abuse at Kiszko's mother outside the court, after her son was convicted). Anderson had also told the media that he would be outside the prison gates waiting for Kiszko should he ever be released.
Molseed's older sister Julie Crabbe said when Kiszko was cleared: 'How could anyone feel about this innocent man who has spent 16 years in prison and they were not very nice to him in prison. At least his mum knows that he will come home. Our Lesley will never come home again.'
In February 1992, Kiszko's mother said that it was Waddington who ought to be 'strung up' for his pro-capital punishment views and for the way he had handled her son's defence at the 1976 trial. Lord Lane, Waddington, Sheila and Maxine Buckley, Hind, Brown and Burke, Ronald Outteridge and prosecution barrister Peter Taylor all offered no apology, nor did any of them express any words of remorse or regret for what had happened. Even the West Yorkshire police, while accepting and admitting they had been wrong, tried to justify the position they had taken in 1975. All Waddington would say was that if this evidence had been available in July 1976, the trial would have taken a very different course.
Dick Holland, the surviving senior officer in charge of the original investigation, said: 'Words can't express the regret I feel for the family and for Kiszko, now it has turned out he is innocent. But the enquiry was done diligently and honestly within the terms that were legally and scientifically available. After Kiszko's arrest, the forensic science service received a hanky which may have had seminal stainings from Kiszko. After his arrest, he produced a sample in the presence of his solicitor and doctor which was sent to the laboratory for comparison. Now how much further can you go?'
On 2 March 1992, Edward Tierney, who ordered the sperm tests that led to the freeing of Kiszko, was dismissed after 25 years because he had demanded that police surgeons should be independent of the police and Crown Prosecution Service.
Release and death.
Kiszko needed further psychiatric treatment and remained in Prestwich Hospital until late April 1992 when he was finally released, but the 16 years of incarceration for something he had not done had both mentally and emotionally destroyed him. Kiszko became a virtual recluse and showed little interest in anything or anyone. He bought a new car (a silver Ford Sierra) and drove it on short journeys to the shops, Morrison's or garden centres or to visit relatives, but other people's apologies for what had happened, encouragement and support seemed to frighten him.
As his mental health had deteriorated over the years, so now did his physical health; in October 1993, Kiszko was diagnosed as suffering from angina. He died at 1:00a.m. on 23December that year, after suffering a massive heart attack at his home, 18 years and two days after he made the confession that helped lead to wrongful conviction for murder. Molseed's sister was one of those who attended his funeral, two weeks later, on 5 January 1994. Four months after her son's death, Charlotte Hedwig Kiszko, died at Birch Hill Hospital, Rochdale, on 3 May, at the age of 70. The two are buried together in Rochdale Cemetery.
After being released from prison, Kiszko had been told he would receive £500,000 in compensation for the years spent in prison. He had received an interim payment, but neither he nor his mother ever received the full amount they were awarded, since both died before Kiszko was due to receive it.
Police exonerated.
In 1994, the surviving senior officer in charge of the original investigation, Detective Superintendent Dick Holland, and the retired forensic scientist who had worked on the case, Ronald Outteridge, were formally charged with 'doing acts tending to pervert the course of justice' by allegedly suppressing evidence in Kiszko's favour, namely the results of scientific tests on semen taken from the victim's body and from the accused. On May Day 1995, the case was challenged by defence barristers, arguing that the case was an abuse of process and that charges should be "stayed" as the passage of time had made a fair trial impossible. The presiding magistrate agreed and as the case was never presented before a jury, the law regards the accused as presumed innocent.
Holland, who came to public prominence as a senior officer on the flawed investigation into the murders committed by the Yorkshire Ripper, retired in 1988, at a time when he viewed the conviction of both Kiszko and of Judith Ward (whose conviction was also viewed as unsafe by the High Court, in May 1992) as being among his finest hours during his 35 years in the police force. However, Holland was demoted during the Yorkshire Ripper inquiry, four years after Kiszko's conviction. He died in February 2007 at the age of 74.
New suspect – Ronald Castree.
In 1985, with the case being closed and the public and the police believing that Molseed's killer was safely behind bars, her clothes - were taken from the crime scene - were destroyed but strips of adhesive tape had been kept; these had been used to remove fibres from the inside and outside of Molseed's semen stained pants.
Scientists from the Forensic Science Service's lab in Wetherby, West Yorkshire, managed to extract sperm heads from this tape. And from these sperm heads, in 1999, for the first time ever, a DNA profile of the man who killed Molseed and ejaculated into her pants was obtained. But he was not in the National DNA Database.
On 5 November 2006, it was announced that a 53-year-old man had been arrested in connection with the murder of Molseed that had taken place in 1975. DNA evidence was alleged to have shown a 'direct hit' with a sample found at the scene of the murder. Ronald Castree (born 18 October 1953 in Littleborough, near Rochdale), a comic book dealer, of Shaw and Crompton was charged with murder and made his first court appearance on 7 November 2006 where he was remanded in custody. At a court hearing on 19 April 2007, Castree pleaded not guilty. On 23 April 2007 he was refused bail. A DNA sample from Castree, taken on 1 October 2005 when he was arrested but not charged in connection with another sex attack, was a direct match with a semen sample found on her underwear, when run through the National DNA Database.
Originally from the Turf Hill estate of Rochdale, Castree lived in nearby Shaw and Crompton and was a taxi driver for many years. He was unpopular with his neighbours, who said he had a very nasty temper. His former wife said 'he was foul with his mouth, and foul with his fists'. Two weeks before Castree killed Molseed, his wife had given birth to a son. Castree was not the baby's biological father; his wife had had an affair in late 1974. On 3 October 1975, Castree's wife went back into hospital with deep vein thrombosis, leaving Castree home alone on the day of the murder. She remained there for the following week. The birth of the illegitimate child may have been a trigger for Castree's murder of Molseed. Castree and his wife had two more children together, but they split in 1996 and divorced a year later. On 3 July 1976, Castree abducted and sexually assaulted a nine-year-old girl. On 12 July, he pleaded guilty and was fined £25 on both counts against him, which were indecent assault and incitement to commit an act of gross indecency. On 17 July 1978, Castree was fined £50 after indecently assaulting a seven-year old boy.
Trial and conviction.
During the trial, a scientist told a jury how DNA taken from the underwear of Molseed was linked to the man accused of her murder. Gemma Escott explained to Bradford Crown Court the chances of the semen samples belonging to anyone other than the defendant were one in a billion. Castree's trial began at Bradford Crown Court on 22 October 2007. He was found guilty on 12 November 2007 and jailed for life, with a recommendation to serve a minimum of 30 years, which is expected to keep him in prison until November 2036 and the age of 83.
Media.
A television film adaptation of Kiszko's story was made and broadcast on ITV in October 1998; "A Life for a Life" was directed by Stephen Whittaker, and featured Tony Maudsley as Kiszko and Olympia Dukakis as his mother Charlotte. A documentary about the case, "Real Crime: The 30 Year Secret", was broadcast by ITV1 on 29 September 2008. In the Channel 4 television series "Red Riding", the character of Michael Myshkin is based on Kiszko, being a simple-minded immigrant who is coerced into confessing the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl before eventually being exonerated. The satirical animated series "Monkey Dust" featured Ivan Dobsky, a character similar to Kiszko, being a simple-minded East European convicted of murder after being tortured by police.
In February 2003, a television appeal for new information was made by Detective Chief Superintendent Max McLean of West Yorkshire Police on the BBC1 programme "Crimewatch", publicly announcing the existence of a DNA profile of the killer for the first time, but no new leads were forthcoming. As revealed in the ITV television documentary "Real Crime: The 30 Year Secret", Castree was convicted in 1976 of gross indecency and indecent assault against a nine-year-old girl in Rochdale; he was fined £25 ().
In May 2018, the crime and the convictions were covered in a two-part series by "Casefile True Crime Podcast".