Free Children Who Kill: Profiles of Pre-Teen and Teenage Killers by Carol Anne Davis

traumatised children that many of us are very familiar with.
    ‘These children would be described as difficult – but no one seemed interested in looking into their background to find out why they were difficult. They were thrown into approved schools and didn’t see a relative for many months. Nobody thought that the poor little devils would be homesick.’ These kids would try to toughen up in order to survive – and as a result they’d probably end up in borstal. An adult prison would be next.
    Bruce’s life was as hopeless as many of these kids. Indeed, he’d had so little encouragement from society that he simply couldn’t envisage his future. His prison doctor would write ‘Asked about future plans, he has none.’
    That said, Ron was pleased at how much better nourished and cared for Bruce looked when he visited him in prison after his arrest. For the first time he had the security of a roof over his head and three meals a day. He was later moved to the secure hospital in Liverpool where he still resides. ‘He’s better off since his arrival there than at any time in his life,’ Ron says.
    Bruce also has friends of sorts for the first time. Ron says that the former arsonist ‘enjoys his reputation and likes rubbing shoulders with the more notorious inmates.’ Some of these inmates leave, of course, so he has to make other friends. He sometimes talks about his ‘defence team’, a term he seems to have picked up from another offender or from television. In truth, there isn’t one.
    He still resents being told what to do (who doesn’t?) and acted strangely when first imprisoned, having shouting spells for no apparent reason. But he seems calmer now and has access to a snooker table and a TV.
    Ron has understandably chosen not to keep in touch with Bruce, preferring to maintain a professional distance. But he was pleased to get a letter from him in 1990 via his solicitor. Bruce had heard that Ron was going to Africa to work and told him to take care.
    It’s interesting that a boy as brutalised as Bruce Lee would worry about a detective, albeit a caring andinsightful one. But it seems that Bruce could be two very different personalities at different times, an uncaring arsonist who wanted to seek revenge on society and a desperately uncared for child who simply wanted love.
    Bruce once told Ron Sagar of his earliest memory, possibly stemming from an age before he could walk. ‘I was crawling about floor (sic) looking for anything left in beer bottles and cans at me home once. My mum always had men in for a drink and that and I used to get the slops they left. I was only little then.’
    It’s unlikely that any psychiatrist will risk setting such a confirmed arsonist free in the future, especially now that Bruce has spent almost his entire forty-two years in some form of institution – that is, in orphanages and then a secure hospital. It’s a sad indictment of society, but this special hospital has provided Bruce with the closest he’s ever had to a secure home.

5 Dare to be Different
    Luke Woodham
    Luke was born on 5th February 1981 to John and Mary Anne Woodham who lived in Pearl, Mississippi. John was an accountant and Mary Anne a kindergarten teacher. The couple already had a son, John junior, who was eight years old. Mary Anne was thirty-four and John senior was forty-two by the time baby Luke came on the scene but she was able to take him to work with her, which made it easier to cope.
    It also suited Mary Anne as she was an over- protective mum obsessed with her sons’ diet, neatness and bath times. She was also very protective towards the children she taught at her work, constantly asking them if anything was wrong at home. Ironically she didn’t seem to notice that her older son resented the sudden arrival of his baby brother and often nipped Luke as he lay in his crib.
    Mary Anne also seemed not to notice when her husband started to work longer and longer hours. When he did come home