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Arthur
HUTCHINSON
A.K.A.: "The Fox"
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics:
Rape -The family had
celebrated the marriage of one of their daughters on the previous
day
Number of victims:3
Date of murder: October 23,
1983
Date of arrest:
December 1, 1983
Date of birth: February 19,
1941
Victims profile:Basil Laitner,
59, his wife
Avril Laitner, 55, and their son Richard Laitner, 28
Method of murder: Stabbing
with knife
Location: Sheffield,
South Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom
Status: Sentenced to life in prison on September 14, 1984
Arthur Hutchinson,
a petty criminal who also had a history of violence, Hutchinson
gatecrashed a wedding reception at the home of a Sheffield
solicitor in 1983. He stabbed to death the bride's mother, father
and brother, before raping her sister at knifepoint. A palm print
on a bottle of champagne helped lead police to him. He was jailed
in 1984.
Arthur Hutchinson
(born Hartlepool, County Durham, England, on
19 February
1941) is an English murderer and rapist who committed three
murders and a rape in 1983. He is currently incarcerated, serving
a sentence of life imprisonment.
All of Hutchinson's murders and the rape were
carried out during one combined attack on a family who had
celebrated the marriage of one of their daughters on the previous
day. Neither the victims of the attack nor their assailant had
ever met each other before.
In 1983, 28-year-old Richard Laitner was
stabbed to death by Hutchinson in his bedroom in the South
Sheffield suburb of Dore. His father, solicitor Basil Laitner,
went upstairs to investigate the noise and was then stabbed to
death by Hutchinson. Hutchinson then went downstairs and stabbed
Avril (Basil’s wife) twenty-six times. She died from her wounds.
Returning upstairs, Hutchinson then attacked Nicola, the youngest
of the Laitners’ daughters, repeatedly raping her. The previous
afternoon the family had enjoyed the wedding reception of the
other Laitner daughter, Suzanne, who was away on her honeymoon
when the crimes occurred.
Hutchinson was 42 years old when the crimes
were committed. His palm print, left on a bottle of champagne (from
the earlier wedding reception) led police to him. He was
subsequently arrested, tried, convicted and received a mandatory
sentence of life imprisonment in 1984.
The trial judge recommended a minimum term of
18 years, which could have seen Hutchinson paroled in 2002, but at
least one subsequent Home Secretary is known to have issued
Hutchinson with a whole life tariff (thereby making it extremely
unlikely that he will ever be released) and in May 2008 he failed
in a High Court appeal for his whole life tariff to be quashed.
Wikipedia.org
Arthur
Hutchinson
(born Hartlepool, County Durham, England, in 1941) is a
notorious British murderer, serving life sentences for stabbing
to death three members of the same family at their home
following a wedding reception.
The Laitner
massacre
On October
23rd 1983, Suzanne Laitner got married and a reception was held
afterwards at the family home in Dore, a suburb of Sheffield,
South Yorkshire. The reception was attended by the close
families of the bride and groom as well as numerous friends, and
the couple set off on their honeymoon at the end of the day
before the guests dispersed.
Remaining at
the house were the bride's 28 year brother, Richard Laitner; her
sister Nicola; and her parents Basil, a partner in a local firm
of solicitors, and Avril, a doctor.
Richard
Laitner subsequently went upstairs and a confrontation began in
his bedroom which led to him being stabbed to death. The
intruder then inflicted several fatal knife wounds on Basil
Laitner, who had come upstairs to investigate the noise, before
going downstairs and stabbing Avril Laitner 26 times. Returning
upstairs, he went to Nicola Laitner's room and raped her
numerous times at knifepoint before fleeing. Nicola Laitner
immediately raised the alarm.
Quick
identification
Police
launched a wholehearted search for Hutchinson, identifying him
publicly as their suspect after matching a handprint found on a
champagne bottle with a print on his criminal file. Hutchinson
was previously known to the police for petty thefts and
violence, and he was already on the run after escaping from
custody during an appearance before a magistrates court in
Selby, North Yorkshire on a rape charge. He had previous
convictions for indecent assault, unlawful sexual intercourse
and fraud.
An appeal was
made to help locate Hutchinson, who it was believed had fled
back to his native north east, although ten police forces
throughout the north and midlands were briefed to search for
him. Fewer than two weeks after the killings, he was arrested in
a field near Hartlepool, County Durham, after being spotted
trying to call his mother from a telephone box. Hutchinson tried
and failed to stab himself when he was apprehended.
Hutchinson
already had a leg injury, which he had sustained during his
escape from Selby Magistrates Court. He was immediately taken to
hospital for treatment, and then into police custody for
questioning, before being charged with three counts of murder
and one of rape.
The trial
On September
4th 1984, Hutchinson went on trial at Durham Crown Court and
claimed in his evidence that he was not at the house at the time
of the killings, trying instead to implicate a journalist from
the Sunday Mirror newspaper. Hutchinson also said in
court that he knew of the Laitner family and their address after
meeting Nicola Laitner in a bar, and she had told him in
innocence where she lived. Local gossip later strengthened this
claim after the trial, but it was entirely false.
The forensic
evidence of the palm print, along with blood group matches and a
bite mark from a piece of cheese was overwhelming evidence
against Hutchinson and after a ten-day trial, during which time
the jury became the first ever to see an entire scene-of-crime
video shot by the police, he was found guilty and sentenced to
life imprisonment.
Outrage was
expressed by representatives of Rape Crisis, a national
organisation which counselled and assisted rape victims, after
reporting restrictions were lifted at the outset of the trial,
allowing media organisations to identify Nicola Laitner by name
as a rape victim. She had been due to give evidence about the
attack on her by Hutchinson - and indeed did so - but legal
arguments were made, and accepted, to solve the problematic
issue of her anonymity when it was common knowledge from the
initial reports of the massacre that Hutchinson had also
committed an act of rape on a further family member.
Representations were made which submitted that maintaining
Nicola Laitner's anonymity would have also necessitated keeping
the names of the three murder victims - her parents and brother
- out of the trial; something deemed to be a legally pointless
exercise as the case had attracted considerable public interest
and their identities had been widely publicised and were widely
known.
Aftermath
Hutchinson was
denied compassionate release to attend his father's funeral in
1985 and subsequently lost an appeal against all of his
convictions. He remains in prison to this day and was on the
published list of prisoners issued with a whole life tariff,
ensuring that he would never be released alive.
However, a
European Court of Human Rights judgement decided that such
tariffs were unlawful and as a consequence, all prisoners served
with such tariffs reverted to the original recommended periods
of incarceration from their trial judges.
The judge in
Hutchinson's case, Mr Justice McNeill, recommended a tariff of
18 years, but the Home Secretary of the time, Leon Brittan,
later extended this to a whole life tariff. Hutchinson, now a
pensioner, has long served his original recommended term of
incarceration set by his trial judge, but he remains in prison
and it is likely he will be there until he dies.
The Laitner
house was sold in 1984 and the firm of solicitors which Basil
Laitner co-partnered and bore his surname was bought out and the
name changed. It is believed that Nicola Laitner (and her sister
Suzanne, who had gone on honeymoon and not been caught up in the
attack) both assumed new identities and left Sheffield.
Triple killer will die in
prison
BBC News
Friday, 16 May 2008
A convicted
killer who murdered the parents and brother of a bride hours after
her wedding will die in prison after a judge rejected his appeal
bid.
Arthur Hutchinson was given a life sentence for
stabbing to death Basil Laitner, wife Avril and son Richard at
their home in Dore, Sheffield.
Reviewing the case a High Court judge ruled the
66-year-old must remain in prison for life for his 1984 crimes.
He is one a small number of UK killers with a "life
means life" tariff.
Hartlepool-born Hutchinson, then 42 years old
and not known to the Laitner family, committed the murders at the
family home hours after they had hosted the wedding reception of
their daughter Suzanne.
'Whole life'
After killing three members of the family,
Hutchinson raped the Laitner's other daughter, aged 18 at the
time. He was convicted of this charge at the murder trial.
At the trial the judge recommended a minimum
jail term of 18 years but qualified it by saying it was "a genuine
life case".
At Friday's hearing Hutchinson's solicitors
argued that a "whole life" tariff violated his human rights.
But Mr Justice Tugendhat told the court he
agreed with the Home Secretary's decision that Hutchinson must die
in prison.
And he refused to allow the appeal to go any
further.
Justice Tugendhat added: "There is no reason at
all for departing from the decision of the home secretary."
At the time of the killings Hutchinson was on
the run from police for another rape.
Arthur Hutchinson will die in prison
By Sam Beattie - Evening Gazette
October 7, 2008
A MULTIPLE murderer who butchered three members
of the same family has been told he will die behind bars.
Arthur Hutchinson - who gained notoriety on
Teesside as The Fox - killed solicitor Basil Laitner, his doctor
wife Avril, and their son, Richard, just hours after their elder
daughter Suzanne’s wedding in 1983.
He left their mutilated bodies in pools of
blood and subjected their other daughter, Nicola, then 18, to a
barbaric rape at knifepoint.
But as the full horror of the massacre unfolded,
The Fox - so named after bragging about his “cunning” on tapes
found by police - went to ground.
Less than a month before, he had become a
wanted man after escaping from court where he was on remand for
rape.
It was only after a manhunt across nine
northern counties that he was finally brought to justice.
Hutchinson, now 67, denied the killings at the
time and challenged his life sentence at the Court of Appeal in
London yesterday.
But his bid for freedom was shattered when the
court’s three judges told him his crimes were so deranged, life
must mean life. All three described his case as the most heinous
they had ever dealt with.
Earlier this year, High Court judge Mr Justice
Tugendhat reviewed the original tariff of 18 years and ruled that
the triple-killer must never be set free. Judges yesterday denied
Hutchinson permission to appeal.
Lord Justice Dyson, sitting with Mr Justice
Henriques and Mr Justice Openshaw, said there was “no substance”
in Hutchinson’s application.
He said: “This was a truly shocking case. In
the experience of all three members of this court we can say that
none of us is aware of a case of greater gravity or more heinous
than this case.
“In our judgment Mr Justice Tugendhat was
plainly correct in saying that this applicant should spend the
rest of his life in custody without prospect of release.”
Hutchinson, formerly of Kelso Grove, in
Hartlepool, systematically massacred members of the Laitner family
in their Sheffield home a quarter of a century ago. The only
survivor at the house, their daughter Nicola, was raped by
Hutchinson in her bedroom as he held a knife to her throat - and
then had to face him again when she took to the witness box to
testify against him.
At the time the court took the unusual step of
allowing her to be named, due to the massive public interest.
Before the Laitner murders, Hutchinson had
spent five-and-a-half years in jail for trying to shoot his half-brother.
But his time behind bars did nothing to quench
his thirst for violence.
Basil Laitner was found in his pyjamas lying
face down at the top of the stairs. Mrs Laitner, who had tried to
fend off her killer, lay in a puddle of blood on her bedroom floor.
And Richard Laitner, also in his pyjamas, was discovered half on
and half off the bed.
Police made a video recording of the scene as
evidence. Murder squad detectives were so sickened by Hutchinson’s
acts, the officer leading the investigation told the Gazette it
was the worst case he had worked on.
How the killer was captured
A CHILLING message sneered on to an audio tape
that soothed his twisted ego - but proved vital in securing his
fate.
A manhunt that spanned 39 days and nine
counties - but ended a stone’s throw from his home.
A dangerous loner who committed the most
horrendous crime known to man - but ended up sacrificing his
freedom just to see his mother.
Many have tried to glean some sort of insight
into Arthur Hutchinson’s mind after he ended three lives and
ruined a fourth on October 23, 1983. Few have even come close.
And a quarter of a century on, top judges are
still so disturbed by the lethal enigma that is Hutchinson, they
have reiterated: “You must die in jail”.
Hutchinson’s unnerving spate as one of
Britain’s most wanted men began when, already on the run for rape,
he crept into the Laitners’ house for what is thought to have been
a botched armed robbery.
After slaughtering Basil, 59, Avril, 55, and
Richard Laitner, 28, and raping Nicola with a sharp knife pressed
at her throat, he disappeared into the night.
Just three days after her ordeal, sole survivor
Nicola gave such an uncanny description of Hutchinson to a
newspaper artist, detectives recognised him immediately.
The hunt was on. But by now, Hutchinson had
crossed the county border and was hiding out in Worksop.
Apparently moving around in disguise, Hutchinson darted between
guesthouses and pubs in the North - Barnsley, Nottinghamshire,
Manchester, York, Scarborough.
Sgt Tom Walton, who was helping with the
manhunt, told the Gazette at the time: “This man is on the run and
we believe he is quite clearly capable of killing if cornered.”
Despite all his hot-footing, the police were
closing in - officers reckoned they were rarely more than a day
off his heels.
Nursing a gash to his leg, caused by a close
encounter with barbed wire during his court escape, and
increasingly paranoid that police would shoot him on sight,
Hutchinson could feel the net closing.
So he sought sanctuary with the one woman he
had always loved and had always been loved by - his mum, Louise
Reardon, who lived in Hartlepool. But cops leapfrogged him,
throwing up roadblocks around Teesside.
And thanks to a tip-off, dog handlers spotted
him near a farm just outside Hartlepool. He was cornered and
arrested in a turnip field.
By now, police had also found an audio tape at
one of his squats in Darlington on which he bragged about his
escape from custody, saying he was “also nicknamed The Fox because
of my cunning ways.”
In a stunt that eerily echoed the taunts sent
by Yorkshire Ripper hoaxer, Wearside Jack - real name John Humble
- just a handful of years prior, he goaded cops about the Lainter
murders.
He said: “I’m making no comment on the triple
killings, let the police do what they want. I’m saying nowt.”
But it was the jury of six men and six women
who ultimately decided that. Defended by the same solicitor who
represented the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, Hutchinson
always maintained his innocence.
He was found guilty on September 14, 1984.
Hutchinson had risked - then lost - his freedom to visit his mum
who initially stood by her son, on one occasion spending £125 in
cab fares to see him in prison.
Then, following his conviction, the 79-year-old
vowed never to see him again, saying: “I never could believe
before now that Arthur could be so violent and thought that
everything about the case was a pack of lies. I believed him.”
Chilling words...
HUTCHINSON introduces himself on an audio tape
and says he is nicknamed The Fox - “because of my cunning ways”.
Describing his escape from court, he says: “I
hurled myself through an upper window, crashing into a barbed wire
net, ripping my leg to pieces.”
He says he ran, barely stopping for four miles
before collapsing.
“I stopped in the bushes for hours then I see
the helicopter hunt. So I dragged myself into the gutter, crawled
along the gutter and forced myself into bramble bushes and stayed
there till it got dark.”
He says he spent four nights on the run,
surviving on dandelions and roots before going to hospital in
Doncaster.
“Trousers were at this stage covered in blood
but I kept on going. I got my treatment, left and walked another
three to four miles back into the wilderness. You just have to
keep continuing sometimes.
“I just had to live day by day but I won’t give
in. I’ll never give in - even when they shoot me, else finish me
off.”
Hooking up a transistor, he listened in to
police searches for him, he boasts. “Like playing cat and mouse -
or should I say fox on the trot?” Hutchinson laughs.
“I’m making no comment on the triple killings -
let the police do what they want. I’m saying nowt.
“They knew I was finished but makes no
difference whether they shoot me for this or anything else. If
they think I’m dangerous, let them think that. Maybe I am, maybe
I’m not. I’m still free and that’s the main thing.
“However crackers I might be, I’ve walked past
them several times and they haven’t even noticed me. Like I say,
I’m a master of disguise,” he says, laughing again.
