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25%OFFGitta Sereny - The Case of Mary Bell - 9780712662970 - V9780712662970
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The Case of Mary Bell

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Description for The Case of Mary Bell Paperback. In December 1968 two girls - Mary Bell, eleven, and Norma Bell, thirteen - stood before a criminal court in Newcastle, accused of strangling, within a six-week period, Martin Brown, four years old, and Brian Howe, three. Norma was acquitted. Mary Bell was found guilty of manslaughter rather than murder and was sentenced to 'detention' for life. Num Pages: 352 pages, 1. BIC Classification: BTC; JFFE; JFSP1; JFSP2. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 214 x 136 x 26. Weight in Grams: 382.

In December 1968 two girls who lived next door to each other - Mary, aged eleven, and Norma, thirteen - stood before a criminal court in Newcastle, accused of strangling two little boys; Martin Brown, four years old, and Brian Howe, three.

Norma was acquitted. Mary Bell, the younger but infinitely more sophisticated and cooler of the two, was found guilty of manslaughter. She evaded being branded as a murderer due to what the court ruled as 'diminished responsibility', but she was sentenced to 'detention' for life.

Step by step, Gitta Sereny pieces together a gripping and rare study of a horrifying crime; the murders, the events surrounding them, the alternately bizzare and nonchalant behaviour of the two girls, their brazen offers to help the distraught families of the dead boys, the police work that led to their apprehension, and finally the trial itself. What emerges from this extraorindary case is the inability of society to anticipate such events and to take adequate steps once disaster has struck.

Product Details

Publisher
Pimlico
Format
Paperback
Publication date
1995
Condition
New
Number of Pages
352
Place of Publication
London, United Kingdom
ISBN
9780712662970
SKU
V9780712662970
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 5 to 9 working days
Ref
99-99

About Gitta Sereny
Gitta Sereny is of Hungarian-Austrian extraction and is trilingual in English, French and German. During the Second World War she became a social worker, caring for war-damaged children in France. She gave hundreds of lectures in schools and colleges in America and, when the war ended, she worked as a Child Welfare Officer in UNRRA displaced persons' camps in Germany. In 1949 she married the American Vogue photographer Don Honeyman and settled in London, where they brought up a son and a daughter and where she began her career as a journalist. Her journalistic work was of great variety but focussed particularly on the Third Reich and troubled children. She wrote mainly for the Daily Telegraph Magazine, the Sunday Times, The Times, the Independent and the Independent on Sunday Review. She also contributed to numerous newspapers and magazines around the world. Her books include: The Medallion, a novel; The Invisible Children, on child prostitution; Into That Darkness; and a biographical examination of Albert Speer. Gitta Sereny died in June 2012.

Reviews for The Case of Mary Bell
Gitta Sereny has worked with disturbed children, and her dignified, compassionate book is a mile away from the usual tawdry accounts of sensational murder trials... The story of Mary Bell in all its terrifying detail is told here with fine lucidity, joined to remarkable charity and understanding.
Julian Symons
Washington Post
Accurate and scrupulously fair
T.C.N. Gibbons
New Society
Gitta Sereny's clear and readable book will help many people to make sense of the story... She also draws out the lessons to be learned both by professional workers, and by society at large.
W.H. Allchin
Mind

Goodreads reviews for The Case of Mary Bell


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