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Crime and the Construction of Forensic Objectivity from 1850 pp 69–98Cite as

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The Biggar Murder: ‘A Triumph for Forensic Odontology’

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Part of the book series: Palgrave Histories of Policing, Punishment and Justice ((PHPPJ))

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the murder of a fifteen-year-old girl in a small Scottish town, Biggar, in 1967. The main evidence was a bite-mark on her body. Dental impressions from staff and youths at the nearby ‘approved school’ were made, and Gordon Hay, a youth with highly unusual dental features, became the chief suspect. Professor Keith Simpson, the UK’s foremost forensic pathologist, argued that it was possible to identify the person who was responsible for making a bite-mark on a body. The case was the first in Scotland where results from forensic odontology formed the main evidence in the trial. It was a ‘triumph for forensic odontology’ in that the evidentiary links, some of which were quite fragile, held together without breaking.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    W. Muncie, ‘The murder of Linda Peacock: A triumph for forensic odontology’, Police Journal, 1968, 41: 319–340.

  2. 2.

    W. Harvey, O. Butler, J. Furness, and R. Laird, ‘The Biggar murder. Dental, medical, police and legal aspects of a case “in some ways unique, difficult and puzzling”’, Journal of the Forensic Science Society, 1968, 8(4): 157–219.

  3. 3.

    M.J. Saks et al., ‘Forensic bitemark identification: Weak foundations, exaggerated claims’, Journal of Law and the Biosciences, 2016, 3(3): 538–575.

  4. 4.

    For example, see R. McKay, ‘The Tell-Tale Toothmark’, Daily Record, 19 October 2007; A. Gaw, ‘The Biggar murder & Warren Harvey’, Forensic Dentistry Online, 2015; G. Saunders, Casebook of the Bizarre: A Review of Famous Scottish Trials, Edinburgh: John Donald, 1991, pp. 17–39.

  5. 5.

    See NRS ED15/347/1 Loaningdale School, Biggar.

  6. 6.

    For other newspaper reports example see The Scotsman, 8 March 1968, ‘Close School’ demand at Biggar. Experiment ‘a disaster’ quoted words from Mr. James Stephen, a local garage proprietor and Honorary Treasurer of the burgh who once employed Hay for a week before dismissing him. Also see Scottish Daily Express, Friday 8 March 1968, ‘The boy who killed Linda Peacock’, complied by David Scott.

  7. 7.

    See P. McMichael, ‘After-care, family relationships and reconviction in a Scottish approved school’, British Journal of Criminology, 1974, 14(3): 236–247. The article makes no mention of the Biggar murder.

  8. 8.

    J. Murphy and G. McMillan, British Social Services: The Scottish Dimension, Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1992.

  9. 9.

    Ibid., p. 118.

  10. 10.

    Children and Young Persons, Scotland, 1964 Cmnd. 2306. Also see S. Asquith (ed.), The Kilbrandon Report. Children and Young Persons in Scotland, Edinburgh: HMSO, 1995.

  11. 11.

    I. Brodie, C. Nottingham and S. Plunkett, ‘A tale of two reports: Social work in Scotland from ‘Social Work and the Community’ (1966) to ‘Changing Lives’ (2006)’, British Journal of Social Work, 2008, 38(4): 697–715, p. 699.

  12. 12.

    Murphy and McMillan, British Social Services, p. 129.

  13. 13.

    M. Smith, ‘Something lost along the way: Changing patterns of leadership in Scottish residential schools’, Scottish Journal of Residential Child Care, 2015, 14(2): 1–16, p. 2.

  14. 14.

    Ibid., p. 7.

  15. 15.

    Murphy and McMillan, British Social Services, p. 135.

  16. 16.

    Brodie, Nottingham and Plunkett, ‘A tale of two reports’, p. 700.

  17. 17.

    ‘…my own view that an inquiry would be of little positive value.’ NRS ED15/347/1 Letter from Bruce Millan to Judith Hart, 17 November 1967. Also See William Harrold, ‘Millan ‘No’ to School Probe’ by William Harrold, Scottish Sunday Express, 19 November 1967.

  18. 18.

    NRS ED15/347/1 The Loaningdale School Company. Note of Meeting with Representatives of the Scottish Education Department, held at 41 Mansionhouse Road, Edinburgh, held on Saturday 25 November 1967.

  19. 19.

    While the murder was being investigated, a number of meetings took place between Biggar Town Council and Judith Hart, the local MP, between the Town Council, Bruce Millan of the Scottish Office, the Social Work Services Group and the Board of Managers of Loaningdale School. See file for NRS ED15/347/1. These items are not separately catalogued.

  20. 20.

    NRS ED15/347/1 347/10 Notes of Meeting with Biggar Town Council, Friday 27 October 1967.

  21. 21.

    The Town Council listed a catalogue of petty crimes and other incidents attributable to the boys at the school, a list which they claimed they could corroborate. NRS ED15/347/1 Loaningdale School: Notes of a meeting of Judith Hart and with Biggar Town Council, Friday 25 October 1967, p. 3.

  22. 22.

    For example, see NRS ED15/347/1 Loaningdale School: Notes of a meeting of Judith Hart and with Biggar Town Council, Friday 25 October 1967, p. 2.

  23. 23.

    See McMichael, ‘After-care’ on the social milieu therapy regime.

  24. 24.

    NRS ED15/347/1 Draft letter for Bruce Millan to send to Judith Hart (presumably drafted by R.D.M. Bell of the Scottish Education Department) n.d.

  25. 25.

    NRS ED15/347/1 Loaningdale’s success rate was 47% set against a national overall success rate of 40%. NRS ED15/347/1 Draft letter from Bruce Millan to Judith Hart, n.d., ‘an ex-pupil is regarded as successful if he is not found guilty of an offence in the three years following release. Even this arbitrary and unreliable yardstick can be applied as yet to only a very small number of boys in view of its short life; for boys released in the year to 31st March 1964 the Loaningdale success rate is 47 per cent as against an overall rate of 40 per cent.’

  26. 26.

    NRS ED15/347/1 Letter Bruce Millan to Lord Birsay (Chair of Loaningdale Management Board), 17 November 1967.

  27. 27.

    NRS ED15/347/1 Letter to Mr Millan, cc Solicitor General, p. 1. From R.D.M. Bell (Scottish Education Department) 5 February 1968.

  28. 28.

    The Scotsman, 8 March 1968 ‘Close School’ Demand at Biggar: Experiment “a disaster”; Scottish Daily Mail, Friday 8 March. ‘Rid us of killer’s school says Linda town’ by Ian Ramsay and Ron Flockhart.

  29. 29.

    Bloor et al. in M. Bloor, N. McKeganey and D. Fonkert, D., One Foot in Eden: A Sociological Study of the Range of Therapeutic Community Practice, London and New York: Routledge, 1988 state that after McMichael’s study showing that Loaningdale’s reconviction rates were no lower than other approved schools ‘Loaningdale was subsequently closed’, p. 22 but they do not give a date for the school’s closure.

  30. 30.

    Harvey et al., ‘The Biggar murder’.

  31. 31.

    For example, see R. Laird, ‘The Biggar murder—Some personal recollections’, Dental History Magazine, 2010, 4(1): 8–14. Muncie, ‘The murder of Linda Peacock’; W. Muncie, The Crime Pond. Memoirs of William Muncie, Edinburgh: Chambers, 1979, chapter 10, pp. 137–165; K. Simpson, Forty Years of Murder. An Autobiography, London: Harrap, 1978, chapter 25, pp. 270–278.

  32. 32.

    Muncie, The Crime Pond. See chapter 6 for details of the Manuel murders.

  33. 33.

    Records of Scottish criminal trials in the High Court of Justiciary are closed to the public for 100 years. See https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/research/guides/crime-and-criminals.

  34. 34.

    H. Collins, Tacit and Explicit Knowledge, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2010.

  35. 35.

    Harvey et al., ‘The Biggar murder’, p. 194.

  36. 36.

    Ibid., p. 192. There are hints of this when Simpson said dental impressions were obtained by accepted methods. ‘Q. “Thus far, are you as a pathologist satisfied that the methods and techniques carried out have been recognised and correct ones?” A. “I have seen nothing unorthodox or unusual about them; they follow the usual pattern.”’

  37. 37.

    M. Lynch, ‘Science, truth and forensic cultures: The exceptional legal status of DNA evidence’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C, 2013, 44(1): 60–70.

  38. 38.

    Harvey et al., ‘The Biggar murder’, p. 211.

  39. 39.

    Ibid., p. 213.

  40. 40.

    Saunders, Casebook of the Bizarre, p. 37.

  41. 41.

    Muncie, The Crime Pond, pp. 140, 142.

  42. 42.

    Muncie, ‘The murder of Linda Peacock’, pp. 319–320.

  43. 43.

    Ibid., pp. 322–323.

  44. 44.

    Ibid., p. 322.

  45. 45.

    Ibid., p. 323.

  46. 46.

    Ibid., p. 324.

  47. 47.

    Harvey et al., ‘The Biggar murder’, p. 159.

  48. 48.

    Ibid., p. 190.

  49. 49.

    Ibid., p. 160.

  50. 50.

    Muncie, ‘The murder of Linda Peacock’, p. 324.

  51. 51.

    NRS AD99/7/5 Extracts from trial of Gordon Hay, Volume II, p. 275.

  52. 52.

    M.A. Crowther and B. White, On Soul and Conscience. The Medical Expert and Crime. 150 Years of Forensic Medicine in Glasgow, Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1988, p. 84.

  53. 53.

    NRS AD99/7/5, pp. 291–292.

  54. 54.

    Harvey et al., ‘The Biggar murder’, p. 161. The Identity Bureau was the section of the Glasgow Police which handled scenes of crimes, fingerprints, tool-marks and other marks relating to crimes.

  55. 55.

    Laird, ‘The Biggar murder’, p. 9.

  56. 56.

    Muncie, ‘The murder of Linda Peacock’, p. 340.

  57. 57.

    Harvey et al., ‘The Biggar murder, p. 214.

  58. 58.

    Simpson, Forty Years of Murder, p. 272.

  59. 59.

    Ibid., p. 272; Laird, ‘The Biggar murder’ p. 9.

  60. 60.

    Simpson, Forty Years of Murder, p. 272.

  61. 61.

    Harvey et al., ‘The Biggar murder’, p. 161.

  62. 62.

    Ibid., p. 214.

  63. 63.

    Ibid., p. 164.

  64. 64.

    Ibid.

  65. 65.

    Ibid., p. 167.

  66. 66.

    Ibid., p. 164.

  67. 67.

    R.M. Bruce-Chwatt, ‘A brief history of forensic odontology since 1775’, Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, 2010, 17(3): 127–130, p. 129; Simpson, Forty Years of Murder, pp. 270–271.

  68. 68.

    K. Simpson, ‘Dental evidence in the reconstruction of crime’, British Dental Journal, 1951, 91(9): 229–237.

  69. 69.

    Simpson, Forty Years of Murder, p. 172.

  70. 70.

    Ibid., p. 273.

  71. 71.

    Ibid.

  72. 72.

    Harvey et al., ‘The Biggar murder’, p. 167.

  73. 73.

    Ibid., p. 197.

  74. 74.

    A requirement for sixteen points matching for fingerprints was still in operation in Scotland, England and Wales at this time. By the 1980s the sixteen-point standard was coming under criticism in the UK for being neither statistically nor scientifically valid and was abandoned in England and Wales in 2001 See I.W. Evett and R.L. Williams, ‘Review of the sixteen points fingerprint standard in England and Wales’, Journal of Forensic Identification, 1996, 46(1): 49–73. In Scotland, the sixteen-point standard was abandoned after the controversy surrounding the Shirley McKie case—see https://archive.parliament.scot/business/committees/justice1/reports-07/j1r07-03-vol1-01.htm.

  75. 75.

    Harvey et al., ‘The Biggar murder’, p. 170.

  76. 76.

    Simpson, Forty Years of Murder, p. 275.

  77. 77.

    Harvey et al., ‘The Biggar murder’, pp. 170, 172.

  78. 78.

    Ibid., p. 172.

  79. 79.

    Ibid., p. 177 and Gaw, ‘The Biggar murder.’

  80. 80.

    Harvey et al., ‘The Biggar murder’, p. 177.

  81. 81.

    Harvey et al., ‘The Biggar murder’, p. 177.

  82. 82.

    Ibid., pp. 194–195.

  83. 83.

    Ibid.

  84. 84.

    See C.G.G. Aitken and F. Taroni, Statistics and the Evaluation of Evidence for Forensic Scientists, 2nd ed., Chichester: Wiley, 2004, pp. 101–102.

  85. 85.

    Harvey et al., ‘The Biggar murder’, p. 180. Italics in original.

  86. 86.

    Ibid. Italics in original. If Linda had lived for much longer bruising would have spread causing the bruising and the bite-mark would have lost definition.

  87. 87.

    Ibid., p. 183.

  88. 88.

    Ibid.

  89. 89.

    For example, see Lynch, ‘Science, truth and forensic cultures.’

  90. 90.

    Harvey et al., ‘The Biggar murder’, pp. 184–185.

  91. 91.

    Harvey et al., ‘The Biggar murder’, p. 206; NRS AD99/7/5 Extracts from trial of Gordon Hay, Volume II, pp. 307–344.

  92. 92.

    Harvey et al., ‘The Biggar murder’, p. 206; NRS AD99/7/5 Extracts from trial of Gordon Hay, Volume II, pp. 346–434.

  93. 93.

    Harvey et al., ‘The Biggar murder’, pp. 206–207.

  94. 94.

    M. Ross and J. Chalmers, Walker and Walker. The Law of Evidence in Scotland, 3rd ed., Haywards Heath and Sussex: Tottel, 2009, p. 330, 18.2.3.

  95. 95.

    Harvey et al., ‘The Biggar murder’, p. 191. Preparing books of photographs was standard evidentiary procedure. See A.H. Bell, ‘Bodies in the bed: English crime scene photographs as documentary images’, in A. Adam (ed.), Crime and the Construction of Forensic Objectivity from 1850, Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020, 17–41.

  96. 96.

    Saunders, Casebook of the Bizarre, chapter 2, ‘The Biter bit’, pp. 17–39.

  97. 97.

    Harvey et al., ‘The Biggar murder’, pp. 195–196.

  98. 98.

    Ibid., pp. 191–192.

  99. 99.

    Ibid., p. 192.

  100. 100.

    Ibid., p. 194.

  101. 101.

    Ibid.

  102. 102.

    Ibid.

  103. 103.

    Ibid.

  104. 104.

    J.L. Mnookin, ‘The image of truth: Photographic evidence and the power of analogy’, Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities, 1998, 10(1), Article 1: 1–74, p. 6.

  105. 105.

    Ibid.; Bell, ‘Bodies in the bed.’

  106. 106.

    Bell, ‘Bodies in the bed’, p. 31.

  107. 107.

    Ibid.

  108. 108.

    NRS AD/99/7/5, p. 293; Harvey et al., ‘The Biggar murder’, p. 192.

  109. 109.

    Mnookin, ‘The image of truth’, p. 5.

  110. 110.

    Ibid., p. 65.

  111. 111.

    Ibid.

  112. 112.

    Ibid., p. 66

  113. 113.

    NRS AD99/7/5, p. 289.

  114. 114.

    Ibid., p. 292.

  115. 115.

    Ibid., p. 294.

  116. 116.

    Ibid., p. 303.

  117. 117.

    Ibid., p. 287.

  118. 118.

    Ibid.

  119. 119.

    Ibid., p. 293.

  120. 120.

    Harvey et al., ‘The Biggar murder’, p. 158.

  121. 121.

    Saunders, Casebook of the Bizarre, p. 37.

  122. 122.

    S. Keiser-Nielsen, ‘The Biggar murder’, (Letters to the Editor), Journal of the Forensic Science Society, 1969, 9(3-4): 222–223.

  123. 123.

    For example, J. Hinchcliffe ‘Forensic odontology, part 4. Human bite marks’, British Dental Journal, 2011, 210(8): 363–338 states that Hay was the first person to be convicted by forensic dentistry in the UK.

  124. 124.

    Harvey et al., ‘The Biggar murder’, p. 215.

  125. 125.

    Ibid., pp. 206–207.

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Adam, A. (2020). The Biggar Murder: ‘A Triumph for Forensic Odontology’. In: Adam, A. (eds) Crime and the Construction of Forensic Objectivity from 1850. Palgrave Histories of Policing, Punishment and Justice. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28837-2_4

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