The day Princess Anne was almost kidnapped on The Mall — 50 years on

On this day 50 years ago, 23-year-old Princess Anne found herself fighting off a gunman as her bodyguard and driver lay wounded beside her. Emma Loffhagen takes a deep dive into the disturbing day one of the most senior royals was almost kidnapped.

By Emma Loffhagen

20 March 2024

“Your daughter has been kidnapped. The following are conditions to be fulfilled for release.”

In March 1974, Ian Ball used a rented typewriter to haphazardly type a letter intended for the then-head of state, Queen Elizabeth II.

Ball, 26, a funeral home worker, demanded £3 million — to be paid in £5 notes — in exchange for the return of the Queen’s daughter, Princess Anne.

After becoming fixated with the 23-year-old princess, he spent two years hatching an elaborate plan to kidnap her.

Today, March 20, marks the 50th anniversary of Ball’s kidnap attempt — one of the most bizarre and disturbing episodes in British royal history.

A “loner,” Ball had been inspired to hatch his elaborate kidnap plot by the novel Day of the Jackal.

He wanted to follow in the footsteps of the book’s hero, the contracted assassin the Jackal.

“He was a very strange man,” Ball’s neighbour later said. “The only time he ever went out was when he went down to the launderette or went out for some food.”

It was thought that he had developed a “fixation” on the royal, whipped up by the widespread and lavish coverage of her wedding to Captain Mark Phillips the previous year.

As part of his plan, Ball had moved from his run-down flat in Bayswater to a lush rented house in Fleet, Hampshire.

It was only a few miles from Sandhurst, where Anne lived with her then-husband Phillips.

After a quick phone call to the Buckingham Palace press office, Ball knew which engagements and events Anne attended each week.

He rented a car under the alias John Williams, stocking the boot with Valium tranquilisers and two pairs of handcuffs.

On the evening of 20 March 1974, Anne was travelling back to Buckingham Palace in an Austin Princess limousine.

She had attended a screening of Riding Towards Freedom, a documentary by the charity Riding for the Disabled.

Captain Phillips, her bodyguard James Beaton, and her lady-in-waiting Rowena Jane Brassey, were also in the car driven by royal chauffeur Alexander Callender.

At around 8pm, as the group drove up The Mall, a white Ford Escort swerved in front of the limousine, forcing Callender to stop.

Then a 31-year-old inspector, Beaton, who had been Anne’s bodyguard for a year, got out to investigate.

“I thought it was somebody who wanted to be a pain in the neck,” he later said. “There was no hint of what was to happen.”

Suddenly, a bearded man with light red hair jumped out of the vehicle and pulled out two handguns, smashing the passenger window with the butt of one.

Beaton had not even had the chance to pull out his weapon when he was shot in the shoulder.

He then attempted to fire back at Ball — but missed. Upon a second attempt, his gun — a Walther PPK — jammed.

Ball turned to the passenger door behind the driver’s seat and started shaking it. Anne was sat on the other side. “Open, or I’ll shoot!” he shouted.

As the princess and Captain Phillips desperately tried to hold the door closed, Anne’s lady-in-waiting crawled out of the door on the passenger side.

Beaton got back in the car, placing himself between the couple and their assailant.

Ball shot into the car, and Beaton’s hand deflected the bullet.

He shot the bodyguard a third time, hitting Beaton in the abdomen and causing him to fall from the vehicle.

“I felt tired and very drunk, although I hadn’t been drinking,” Beaton later told police. “I just wanted to lie down.”

Callender stepped out to confront the gunman, but Ball shot him in the chest and he fell back into the car.

Pulling the door open, Ball grabbed Anne’s forearm as her husband held on to her waist.

“Please, come out,” Ball reportedly told the princess. “You’ve got to come.”

As the pair struggled over Anne, her dress ripped, splitting down the back, which she later recalled prompted her to “lose her rag.”

But, rather than panic, she had what she described as a “very irritating conversation” with her potential kidnapper.

Unbelievably calm despite the commotion, Anne famously replied: “Not bloody likely!”

In an interview with the late television presenter Michael Parkinson, she recalled:

“He [the gunman] opened the door and we had a discussion about where — or where not — we were going to go.

“I said I didn’t think I wanted to go. I was scrupulously polite because I thought it would be silly to be too rude at that stage.”

A nearby tabloid journalist, Brian McConnell, arrived on the scene.

Recognising the limo’s insignia, he realised the commotion must have involved a royal family member.

“Don’t be silly, old boy,” he told Ball. “Put the gun down.”

Ball responded by shooting him too and McConnell collapsed bleeding onto the road.

A man named Ronnie Russell drove past at this point.

He was on his way home to Strood, Kent, from working as an area manager for a cleaning company in London.

In a stroke of incredible luck, Russell happened to be a former boxer. He had cut his cloth at the Repton Club in east London, an infamous venue sponsored by the notorious Kray twins.

Jumping out of the car, Russell punched Ball twice in the head before leading Anne and her lady-in-waiting away from the attacker.

He later explained that he “did not like bullies,” which prompted his decision to intervene.

Despite being injured, Ball still shot the first police officer to arrive on the scene, Constable Michael Hills, 22, before running off.

Detective Constable Peter Edmonds, who answered Constable Hills’ radio request for backup, chased Ball down The Mall and through St James’s Park before tackling him on the ground.

At Ball’s Old Bailey trial in May 1974, more details came to light about the plot.

Ball kept his head lowered for most of the proceedings, only uttering the word “guilty” to confirm the charges of attempted murder and kidnapping.

In his pocket, detectives had discovered the kidnap note addressed to the Queen, which demanded the £3 million ransom (the equivalent of £26 million today), a free pardon, and a plane to fly him to Switzerland.

He had planned to take the princess to a central London property he had rented under an alias.

In a police interview, Ball also said he believed Anne would be an easy target after ascertaining her whereabouts by phoning the Buckingham Palace press office.

“I had thought about it for years,” he said. “She would have been the easiest. I have seen her riding with her husband.”

Ball also showed no remorse for having shot three men on the night of the attempted kidnap.

“They were getting in my way so I had to shoot them,” he said. “Well, the police, that's their job. They expect to be shot. I took a chance of getting shot so why shouldn't they?”

He added: “I suppose I’ll be locked up for the rest of my life. I am only sorry I frightened Princess Anne. There is one good thing coming out of this: you will have to improve on her protection.”

Ball was diagnosed with schizophrenia following the trial and sentenced to a mental health facility under the Mental Health Act, “without limit or time."

He remains in the Broadmoor Hospital in Berkshire to this day.

The facility has been home to a series of notorious criminals, including serial killer Peter Sutcliffe and London gangster Ronnie Kray.

Immediately after the attack, the royals ceased having only one protection officer.

When Anne visited Beaton in hospital, “she turned up with two policemen,” her bodyguard said. “From then on, that’s what it was.”

“I had nothing…There was no back-up vehicle,” Beaton told The Times separately.

“The training was non-existent; but then again, [we thought] nothing was going to happen. They are highly specialised now, highly trained.”

Beaton continued to work for Anne for another five years — before the Queen employed him.

After Beaton’s weapon jammed, the type of guns used by bodyguards were also changed: “The Walthers were got rid of overnight.”

Beaton was honoured for his bravery, receiving the George Cross — the UK’s highest civilian honour for gallantry.

Russell also received the honour. In a 2006 interview, Russell recalled what Queen Elizabeth said as she presented his George Medal:

“The medal is from the Queen of England, the thank you is from Anne’s mother.”

(via GIPHY)

Wooden chair from the secure high dependency Banbury Ward at the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum (now The Broadmoor Hospital), the underside of the chair is stamped "B.C.L.A.", manufactured in Britain, c. 1880-1920.

Science Museum

back when we were doing dracula daily, someone posted something about how van helsing was both a lawyer and a doctor, and i was like “?? but jack is also both?”, but when i tried to find support for this idea of mine, i couldn’t find it. eventually i resigned myself to it being something i had dreamt.

but then!! i was again rereading the october 1st passage, where renfield says:

[…] I am as sane as at least the majority of men who are in full possession of their liberties. And I am sure that you, Dr. Seward, humanitarian and medico-jurist as well as scientist, will deem it a moral duty to deal with me as one to be considered as under exceptional circumstances.

and this is where i had gotten the idea, i think. but a medico-jurist is not a lawyer, which i had assumed because of the word jurist. no, a medico-jurist is, as the name implies, someone who’s involved in medical jurisprudence.

from wikipedia (awkwardly abridged for convenience):

Medical jurisprudence or legal medicine is the branch of science and medicine involving the study and application of scientific and medical knowledge to legal problems, such as inquests, and in the field of law. […] medicolegal cases involving death, rape, paternity, etc. require a medical practitioner to produce evidence and appear as an expert witness, […] Medical jurisprudence includes […] questions of competence or sanity in civil or criminal proceedings.

(emphasis mine)

so… our boy jack is out here giving expert witness testimonies in court?

now, i will admit to being someone who’s interested in true crime, and historical cases are always of interest because of the continuous evolution of forensic science and the shifting ideas around diminished responsibility. looking at the late 18th century and the 19th century, there are two points of interest regarding cases in the uk where defendants were found not guilty by reason of insanity:

1. a lot of them where kept at bethlam or broadmoor, famous mental hospitals

2. a lot of the expert witnesses were doctors and superintendents at bethlam or broadmoor, or at times at private asylums

some names that pop up a lot are:

william orange (superintendent at broadmoor)

sir william charles wood (superintendent at colney hatch, with its own connection to seward, later at bethlem)

edward monro (doctor at bethlem, appeared as an expert witness up to around 400 times!)

sir alexander morison (doctor at bethlem)

forbes winslow (owner of his own private asylums, also funniest middle name ever: benignus)

i’m not gonna ascribe nefarious motives to these doctors (especially dr. winslow because he seems to have been a pretty good guy who was “cutting-edge” by treating his patients humanely uhhh) but i still think there was a lot of potential for a conflict of interest, which is why i pointed out their professional positions.

but there is one doctor i will ascribe possible nefarious motives to: our dear doctor jack seward.

i know i’m not the only one who thinks that he was “saved” by the narrative in that in gave him a purpose and a stronger anchoring to his friends (both old and new). considering his opening entry, where he’s like “of course i wouldn’t experiment on renfield, that would be unethical and send me to hell…. but what if?? 👀” like, this guy… this guy!! i say this with love, but he’s primed for becoming an evil scientist.

i don’t think he would have done it when we meet him in the novel, or afterwards when he’s been through the whole adventure/mission – but if the events of dracula hadn’t happened, i could definitely see him descending deeper into self-justified malpractice, by which i mean he’d testify that accused criminals are insane just to get his hands on them, to be able to study them.

but aside from my speculation about that^ i also wonder if perhaps he’s well on his way to becoming an eminent expert witness when we meet him in the book. by renfield’s words, it would seem that he has been involved in an inquest or legal case at least once (but probably more if he’s going to claim the title medico-jurist). we all wonder sometimes how a 29 year old doctor came to have an immense lunatic asylum under his care, but honestly, some of these trials were huge, and expert witnesses could rise to some prominence and gain benefactors that way (just like they do today).

and who knows, maybe jack got his foot in the courtroom door via his lordling friend arthur, which would allow him to establish himself as a medical expert despite being young and (presumably) recently graduated.

The Retired Colourman

Published in 1926, this was placed last in the Case-book compilation, although it was not the last Holmes story Doyle published. That is "Shoscombe Old Place", which we have yet to cover.

A colourman is someone who makes and sell paint. The term is very little used these days.

Lewisham is a London suburb located six miles from Charing Cross; it had transferred from Kent to London in the 1889 creation of the London County Council and today forms its own London Borough.

The Coptic Pope at the time was Cyril V, who reigned from 1874 to 1927, the longest serving head of the Coptic Orthodox Church.

The Theatre Royal Haymarket was opened in 1720 and remains in use today as a theatre. It's currently running a production of Noises Off and next year will play host to The Picture of Dorian Gray, which is going to see Sarah Snook play all 26 roles.

Blackheath is a suburban station today served by electric trains operated by Southeastern from Victoria, Charing Cross and Cannon Street.

Lothario dates back to Don Quixote as a name, but its use for a serial seducer of women comes from the 1703 Nicholas Rowe play The Fair Penitent.

Crockford's Clerical Directory is a book listing clergy in the UK and Ireland.

Little Purlington is fictitous, but Frinton is real. Now Frinton-on-Sea, it is located on the Essex coast and by 1927 was attracting regular high society visitors. Former residents of note include Deborah Watling, who played Victoria Waterfield in Doctor Who. Due to its reputation as a place to retire to, it became the subject of a common joke "Harwich for the Continent, Frinton for the incontinent", the former being an LNER advertising slogan. Probably not a good idea to make that gag locally though.

Third Class trains had originally been ones with wooden seating, but by this time, Second Class had been abolished and the former passengers were now generally in upholstered carriages. Third Class became Second Class in 1956 on British Railways and is now Standard Class.

I have been unable to find when cyanide pills became a thing. Doing a search for them gives you the number of a suicide prevention line first, which is quite reasonable.

Broadmoor is a high-security psychiatric hospital in Berkshire, completed in 1863. Notable patients have included Ronald 'Ronnie' Kray, 'Yorkshire Ripper' Peter Sutcliffe and Edward Oxford, a barman who tried to kill Queen Victoria. Until 2018, it maintained sirens to be used in case of an escape.

The Silent Twins

June and Jennifer Gibbons were identical twins born to a Caribbean couple in 1963. The family moved to Haverfordwest, Wales, shortly after the children’s birth. From the time they learned to speak, June and Jennifer had a particular high-speed patois that made it difficult for people to understand them. Being the only black children at their school, they were frequently bullied by their peers. The bullying led to their special language becoming even more irregular, to the point where no one could understand what they said.

At 14 they were sent to separate boarding schools, to encourage them to thrive on their own. Both girls became catatonic and were quickly reunited. Following their reunion, they spent several years locked in their room, playing with dolls, putting on operas for one another, and writing.

They wrote several short stories that they self-published. The stories tend to revolve around criminality and sex. After the stories failed to garner any attention, they left the confines of their room and started living in the real world. They continued to speak with no one but each other. They started committing crimes such as arson, theft, and assaulting one another. A judge ruled that they need to be committed, and they were sent to Broadmoor Hospital, where they remained for 14 years.

In 1993 it was decided that the twins would be transferred to Caswell Clinic, a lower-security facility. When the twins arrived at Caswell, Jennifer was found to be unresponsive. She was rushed to the hospital but later pronounced dead. The cause of death was acute myocarditis or a sudden inflammation of the heart. No drugs or poisons were found in her system.

A few days after Jennifer’s death, June was reported to say, “I’m free at last, liberated, and at last Jennifer has given up her life for me.”

LEE MALKOVICH: the one where he never got caught

Name: Lee Albert Malkovich

Age / D.O.B.: 50, April 1st

Gender, Pronouns & Sexuality: male ig, he/him, bi

Hometown: London, England

Affiliation: Civilian

Job position: Photographer

Education: Photography; Philosophy + Literature minor

Relationship status: Single?, divorced like thrice <3

Children: None. Snip snip

In a world where Lee never got caught for murders in his twenties, he was never sent to Broadmoor Hospital — the UK destination for insanity cases

And so, he was able to pursue a life closer to normality; an established career in photography in London — where he still lives to this day

Never making it to the system, Lee was never recruited into The Syndicate. Instead, he's enjoyed the longevity of serial killing under the radar

Which involves two ex-wives and an ex-husband, countless photography showings in the UK, and even a book or two.

His life is in London — but he'll sometimes visit New York, if work calls. That, and Americans have got to be his favourite type of kill.

June & Jennifer Gibbons were born on April 11, 1963, and grew up in Wales. They became the subject of books as "The Silent Twins" due to their choice to communicate only with each other, in their own language. They wrote brilliant works of fiction but were convicted of arson and were committed to Broadmoor Hospital for 11 years. Prior to their release in 1993, they informed the CEO that Jennifer would have to die, "to allow June to be free." On that very day, Jennifer died suddenly at aged 29.

Crimes That Shook Britain (Yorkshire)

The Crossbow Cannibal Between June 2009 and May 2010, Stephen Griffiths murdered three sex workers in Bradford, West Yorkshire.

His final attack was captured on CCTV and led to his arrest. He shot his last victim - Suzanne Blamires - with a crossbow as she tried to escape his flat, before stabbing her in the head with a knife.

In custody, he boasted to officers of West Yorkshire Police, ‘I’ve killed loads,’ and also claimed to have eaten body parts of his victims. It’s thought his other known victims - Shelley Armitage and Susan Rushworth - also suffered this fate. Griffiths, who called himself the Crossbow Cannibal, was jailed for life and will die in prison.

The Murder of Jo Cox Jo Cox, 41, was MP for Batley and Spen, West Yorkshire - the constituency where she was born - and was married with two small children, aged 5 and 3.

On 16 June 2016, she was killed outside the library where she was to hold a constituency meeting. She was shot in the head and chest with a sawn-off hunting rifle and stabbed 15 times. Jo’s killer Thomas Mair - a far-right extremist - was convicted of murder on 23 November 2016 and was given a whole-life term.

The Yorkshire Ripper Known as the Yorkshire Ripper, serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, from Bingley, in Bradford, West Yorkshire, was serving 20 consecutive life sentences after he was found guilty of 13 murders and seven attempted murders in 1981.

Over five years, he attacked women across West Yorkshire and Manchester, picking victims he believed to be prostitutes, though not all were.

Once arrested, he attempted to plead guilty to manslaughter, claiming diminished responsibility and saying God told him to kill prostitutes. Sutcliffe served most of his sentence in Broadmoor Hospital, a high-security psychiatric facility, but was judged sane enough to be moved to HMP Frankland in 2016.

Sutcliffe died at University Hospital of North Durham aged 74 on 13 November 2020, having been sent there with COVID-19. He had a number of underlying health problems including, obesity and diabetes. He reportedly refused treatment.

The Kidnapping of Shannon Matthews In February 2009, Karen Matthews, from Dewsbury, called the police when her daughter Shannon, 9, didn’t come home from school. What followed was the biggest investigation by West Yorkshire Police since the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper.

Every newspaper in the country reported on the case, with one offering a £50,000 reward for information leading to Shannon’s safe return.

Three weeks after she’d gone missing, Shannon was found alive at a flat less than a mile from her home. The flat belonged to Michael Donovan - the uncle of Karen’s boyfriend - Donovan was arrested and, soon after, so was Karen Matthews.

In November 2008, both denied charges of kidnapping, false imprisonment and perverting the course of justice. Leeds Crown Court heard Karen had engineered Shannon’s kidnap with Donovan to claim the reward. Shannon had been drugged, tethered, and hidden inside a divan bed during her captivity.

Matthews and Donovan were found guilty of all charges and jailed for eight years. Both have now served their sentences.

The Fox Killings Arthur Hutchinson, also known as The Fox, was wanted by police for rape. Then, on 23 October 1983, he broke into the Sheffield home of Basil and April Laitner.

Also there were their children Richard, 26, and Nicola, 18. Hutchinson killed Richard, Basil, and April, then raped Nicola at knife point before fleeing. He’d already spent five years in prison for attempting to murder his brother-in-law.

After a 39-day manhunt, The Fox was captured and serving life. He will never be released.

The Murder of Sharon Beshenivsky Sharon Beshenivsky had been an officer with West Yorkshire Police for nine months in November 2005. On the day she was killed, the mum of five and her colleague went to an emergency call at Bradford travel agency.

There, they were fired on by armed robbers and Sharon was fatally wounded, her colleague seriously injured. Three men were convicted of her murder and got life. Three others were also jailed in connection to the killing.

The Kray Brothers are not the type of people I typically include in these profiles. My focus is been primarily people who have made a contribution to Gay Rights or Gay History. The Kray brother fall into that latter category - Gay Gangsters.

The Krays owned a West End nightclub and were often photographed with celebrities, including Diana Dors and Judy Garland. Frank Sinatra once hired a security team from the Krays during a visit to London. They were also once photographer by David Bailey.

But their real source of income was an organized crime gang in London's East End during the 1950s and 1960s. They called it “the Firm”. This included armed robberies, arson, protection rackets, violent assaults, torture and murder.

According to reports by other gang members Ronnie Kray was openly gay, refusing to hide his orientation from either them or the police.

Laurie O'Leary who wrote a biography of Ronnie said:

“Ron discussed his homosexuality with very few people, but put simply it was a part of his nature he discovered, explored and enjoyed… It did not seem to conflict with his tough guy. Even if (gang members) objected, Ron just smiled at them and told them they didn't know what they were missing.”

John Pearson who interviewed both brothers, wrote that

“Ronnie Kray admitted that he and Reggie discovered they were both gay in their adolescence and would often have sex together, activity which continued into their later life.”

The secret became public when the Sunday Mirror reported that Ronnie Kray was in a sexual relationship with Lord Boothby, a UK Conservative Party politician. The twins threatened the reporters who wrote the story with physical harm. And Boothby threatened to sue. The newspaper backed down, fired its editor, printed an apology plus paid Boothby £40,000 in an out-of-court settlement. This discourage any other news outlet from pursuing the story.

But police continued investigating and were finally able to get evidence of three murders.

The Krays and 15 other members of the Firm were arrested in May 1968 with the plan to convince gang members to testify against the Krays. It eventually worked and the twins were convicted in 1969. Both were sentenced to life prison.

While in prison Ronnie was eventually certified insane (paranoid schizophrenia) and was transferred to Broadmoor Hospital for the rest of his sentence. He died in March 1995 from a heart attack.

Reggie died 5 years later from cancer (October 2000). He had been released 2 months earlier on compassionate grounds to spend his final time with his wife (who he married 3 years earlier while in prison).

After Reggie’s death, Bradley Allardyce a cell mate of his said to the press:

“I am openly admitting for the very first time that we had a sexual relationship."

Two films have been made about the Krays.

“The Krays” (1990) starring Gary and Martin Kemp (of the band Spandau Ballet).

Legend (2015 film) starring Tom Hardy as both twins.

Ok, Are you sitting comfortably then I shall begin lol

I watch a lot of crime documentaries mostly about here in the UK and America, and the policing is SO different you cant match the two together.  One of the main differences, obviously, is in America, everyone has guns, So the Police have to police their territory, very aggressively because they just do not know who is and who isn't armed, but, as humans, a little bit of authority seems to go to their heads and it seems that they do not get reprimanded in any way at all when it all goes wrong. I think the only reason why things are changing and its very slow, is all down to mobile phones being able to film what is going on.  Though here in the UK and the US, they all wear body cams and it seems that in the US that that really doesn't matter, they still break the law, knowing that nothing will come back on them. Which is shameful.  In this country our vile government are right wing and they recently allowed ‘Stop and Search’ which, of course affects our Black community more as it seems to in the US. “March 2021: there were 646,292 arrests in England and Wales – a rate of 12 arrests per 1,000 people. black people were over 3 times as likely to be arrested as white people – there were 29 arrests for every 1,000 black people, and 9 arrests for every 1,000 white people.” That can not be a true representation as 82% of people in England and Wales are white, and 18% black, this makes no sense, that the figures are so much more toward the black community.(source)  For me, this is part of white privilege. America -  White crime 4,729,290 Black crime 1,815,144 (source and breakdown) So, if the police stopped white people as much as they did the black community, by the FBI figures, white crime and arrests would be much much more.  Here in the UK our ‘Homicide’ detectives, detect. They go into everything, The SOCO (Scenes of Crimes Officers) go in, suited up, masks on and if a body is there, they put screens around it so no-one can see and no one is allowed to touch the scene until they've finished. In America, it seems that all sundry walk around the crime seen, touch evidence which negates all that is found.  When people are arrested in the UK, obviously you get those who fight it, as you do in all countries, they are taken to the police station and interviewed, In the UK, you are entitled to a free lawyer, if you haven't got your own and they are with the arrested person from the beginning, then, when being questioned, they also have the right to answer the polices questions with ‘No Comment’ which of course puts that over to the detectives to go and find out exactly what happened. It seems in America that they expect the answers to come to them, which is quite comical, from what I have read and watched, they stay in their office waiting for people to phone and tell them lol if they do go out and investigate, its the bear minimum. When they interview the, maybe, perpetrator, they almost expect these people to sit there and just tell them the truth, which in a lot of instances, they do! Which is fascinating. And if they ask for a lawyer, that's it, the end of the interview, which again is peculiar.  Also, we treat those with massive mental health issues, psychopathy and a like, and its been confirmed by multiple psychologist's, they go to a place like Broadmoor Hospital is a high-security psychiatric hospital. Where as, having just watched a documentary, in the US, they are treated as those who haven't got severe mental health issues.  The one thing I do agree with is the sentencing in the US, You do the crime, you do the time. The sentence's, if multiple, run on top of one another, so you finish one, you start another, Here in the UK they run concurrently. Life in prison here means 25 years, the judge may add years to it, but certainly not every time and some may get a full life term but it is rare. Rape normally gets around 7 years, Paedophilia, 4-5 years, maybe less and in some cases they don't get a sentence. Its shocking. Our government are underfunding, and have been for their 13 year tenure, the Judicial system, including the Police, so all our services are understaffed drastically (NHS, Schools too)  where as in the US, they are probably over staffed with so many different departments that can be called on to help. Ok, I'm done lol  thank you for taking the time to read :) Joanne, AKA Wasbella102

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 AU Dump because why not

Name: Zoey Kilduff

Callsign: Doe

Rank: Staff Sergeant

Age: 30-31

Height: 5’10”

Race: Romani

Ethnicities: Rroma, Scottish, Balinese, Welsh, Lepcha, Afghan, Moroccan

Nationality: Scottish

Known Languages: English, Roma, Scots Gaelic, Welsh, Spanish, German

Affiliation: Special Air Service, Task Force 141

Specialty: Stealth Operations, Psychological warfare, Assassin fighting style

Preferred Weapons of Choice: Twin 12” Scimitar Knives, .50 Handgun with Silencer, Lockwood MK2

Backstory:

Zoey was more or less born into wealth, but that wealth had come at a price. Her father, Rozric, took over an arms dealership before it gradually developed into a cult and gained a cult following under his ownership. Zoey and her younger siblings, Gavril and Zayne, were trained by their father to be assassins for his cult group and would have been severely punished if they were to disobey him.

As children, the triplets wanted to find a way to escape their very much abusive home but that plan came to a halt when their mother, Ayra, attempted to take the triplets with her in order to escape, instead. She was never seen again after that, and for years, their father would never say what happened to her except that, “She left on her own accord in exchange to leave the triplets with him.”

By the time the triplets were in their teens, Zayne secretly purchased a burner phone and with their older siblings, got the police to raid their father’s compound in the Scottish countryside. Zoey barely made it out alive after her father blew up the compound and left her right arm completely crushed and needed to be amputated. Their father was found alive and immediately arrested, and sentenced to life in prison at the Broadmoor Hospital.

The triplets went into their grandparents’ care and tried their best to fit in in high school, with little success on Zoey’s end. She would get into fights over just her existing or other students picking on her middle brother, Gavril, for his height and shyness.

Her fighting had gotten to the point where her concerned grandparents brought up the idea of joining the British military to possibly help her. Feeling insulted, she left home for the night and needed time to think about it.

She came back the following day seeing both her younger siblings talking to their grandparents about the same topic, with Gavril considering the Royal Air Force, and Zayne the M16. She still felt protective of her younger siblings, but she knew the two of them would be okay on their own; and she gave them her answer: she’ll join, even if that meant being able to stay away from their father if he ever tried to ask for visitation.

At 17, the Kilduffs began their respective recruitment processes and were able to graduate their recruiting classes roughly at the same time, with Zoey taken under the guidance of then Warrant Officer C2 John Price.

Zoey has served in the royal army going on 14 years, utilizing the assassin training her father put her through, successfully joined the SAS and has since been known as Staff Sgt. Doe by Capt. Price.

(via GIPHY)

MURDERED: Brian Cherry (Prime Time Crime)

In 1993, 23-year-old Peter Bryan beat 20-year-old Nisha Sheth with a hammer unprompted while she was working in her parents' clothing shop.

As a result, he was sent to Rampton Secure Hospital.

After making what doctors called "considerable progress," he was moved to the care of a psychiatrist and social worker in 2001.

On February 17, 2004, he was discharged entirely from the mental health unit.

He would proceed to murder his friend, 43-year-old Brian Cherry, that very same day.

He had purchased a claw hammer and a screwdriver, with which he inflicted injuries to Brian's head, face, and chest.

He then chopped off Brian’s limbs.

Peter went on to fry Brian’s brain and eat it.

He was convicted of murder and was transferred to different medical hospitals before settling in Broadmoor.

It was here that he would again take the life of another patient, 59-year-old Richard Loudwell.

In April, 2004, Peter beat Richard's head into the ground and wrapped the cord from his pajamas around his neck.

Richard would never wake up, and he passed away on June 8th.

Though he was originally sentenced to life, this was overturned, and his sentence was changed to 15 years minimum.