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Book review by V.V.Pillay MD, DCL |
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Written by V.V.Pillay MD, DCL
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Fitted in: The Cardiff 3 and The Lynette White Inquiry by Satish Sekar (co-editors: Andy Soutter and Michele Bailey)
294 Pages: Publication Date - 1997, ISBN 0 - 9527325 - 0 - 5. Price: £10.99
On Valentine’s Day, February 14, 1988, at about 1.45 to 1.50 a.m., a 20 year old white prostitute was brutally murdered in a run-down flat at 7 James Street, in the Butetown district of Cardiff, Wales. She was stabbed fifty times and her throat had been violently slashed. There were also injuries to her breasts and several other parts of her body. The renowned forensic pathologist, Professor Bernard Knight, conducted the autopsy. Even for Butetown “a nocturnal, upside down, topsy-turvy world where people carry knives as part of their clothing,” it was a horrific crime. Butetown (formerly known as Tiger Bay) is one of Britain’s oldest black communities, which was involved in the first Race Riot in British history in 1919. Lynette’s body was discovered only at 9.17 p.m., by a friend (also a prostitute), Learnne Vilday. In fact the flat in which the murder had been committed belonged to her, and she had given the keys, as she often did, to Lynette to “entertain” a client. |
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Last Updated on Wednesday, 22 October 2008 09:31 |
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Book review by Gyan Fernando |
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Fitted in: The Cardiff 3 and The Lynette White Inquiry by Satish Sekar (co-editors: Andy Soutter and Michele Bailey)
294 Pages: Publication Date - 1997, ISBN 0 - 9527325 - 0 - 5. Price: £10.99 In spite of efforts of the Criminal Justice system to prevent miscarriages of justice a number of high profile cases have occurred in Britain in recent times. Probably the best known among these is the case of the "Birmingham Six" - six men convicted of the Birmingham pub bombings in 1975. The least known case is probably that of the "Cardiff Three" In the early hours of the 14th of February 1988, St. Valentine's Day, a Cardiff prostitute by the name of Lynette White was brutally murdered. Murders of prostitutes are notoriously difficult to investigate for obvious reasons. Several remain unsolved. There is a tendency for the community to close ranks and there is the difficulty of tracing and interviewing the clients. As far as the South Wales Police were concerned they had a previous notorious failure on their hands. Nora Wilfred, an Asian prostitute was stabbed more than twenty times in December 1972. That inquiry was complicated by the fact that the murder occurred on the same day as a rugby international at Cardiff. It was to prove impossible to trace all those who had attended the match. When Lynette White was killed there is no doubt the police were spurred on by the memory of their previous "failure". |
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Last Updated on Wednesday, 22 October 2008 09:56 |
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