PETER Manuel was Scotland's most notorious serial killer – a mass murderer whose horrific killing spree transfixed the nation half a century ago.
Convicted of seven counts of murder at the High Court in Glasgow, including those of a family of three in Lanarkshire, Manuel was executed at the city's Barlinnie prison on 11 July, 1958.
But yesterday a leading Scottish legal expert said the
killer may have been the victim of a miscarriage of justice because vital evidence about Manuel's mental state was suppressed during his trial and a subsequent review of his case before his hanging in Barlinnie.
Dr Richard Goldberg, a reader in law at Aberdeen University, said evidence that Manuel was suffering from frontal lobe epilepsy – a medical condition that could have given rise to a defence of diminished responsibility – was never given at Manuel's trial and never disclosed in a medical report prepared before Manuel's execution. Manuel might have been the victim of a cover-up by the establishment, who wanted to ensure he hanged, Dr Goldberg claims.
He revealed that his late father, Sir Abraham Goldberg, regius professor of medicine at Glasgow University, had been present at Glasgow's Western Infirmary when evidence of Manuel's epilepsy was uncovered by electroencephalogram (EEG) tests following his arrest.
But the documents relating to the EEG tests, Dr Goldberg claimed, were among a number of files relating to the Manuel case that remain sealed in Scotland's national archives.
Dr Goldberg said: "My suspicion is that the issue may have been suppressed. Why is it that, 50 years after the death of the most notorious killer Scotland has ever known, when you try and get information out of the files they are closed? I find that quite astonishing.
"I believe that if the evidence about the EEG had been presented at Manuel's trial it is possible that a verdict of diminished responsibility could have been returned by the jury. It could have been enough to justify a verdict of culpable homicide."
Dr Goldberg said his father, who died last September, first told him 30 years ago of the doubts about Manuel's mental state.
He explained: "Manuel was examined on 16 February, 1958, by my father's close colleague, Dr John Gaylor, a consultant neurologist."
But when Dr Gaylor was waiting to give evidence at the Manuel trial as a witnesses for the defence, in support of a diminished responsibility plea, Manuel sacked his counsel and decided to conduct his own defence. Dr Gaylor was never called.
Dr Goldberg also believes that possible evidence of a cover-up about Manuel's mental state is contained in one of the documents he has traced in the national archives.
A report by medical commissioners submitted shortly before Manuel's hanging states: "Neurological examinations (including electroencephalography) were carried out on more than one occasion by Dr JB Gaylor, consultant neurologist, who was of the opinion that the results of the examination did not indicate an epileptic or other pathological state of the brain or any morbid neurological condition."
Dr Goldberg said: "That is completely at odds with what Dr Gaylor told my father. When I saw the file about there being no evidence of epilepsy I was in a state of shock."
He stressed: "I am not saying Manuel was innocent, but he may have been the victim of a miscarriage of justice. There was pressure, I think, on the people at the time to get him hanged."
A Crown Office spokesman said: "The documents concerning any psychiatric examinations would have been the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Scotland and therefore we can't release them."
Horrific murder spree that ended on the gallowsPETER Manuel was 31 when he was executed on seven counts of murder in 1958. But he was suspected of at least eight other killings in his adopted Scotland.
Born in the United States, Manuel arrived in Britain at the age of six when his family first settled in England. He had already served jail sentences for rape and sexual assault before he arrived in Glasgow in 1953.
He began his killing spree three years later. In 1956 he was questioned about the murder of Anna Knielands, a 17-year-old who had been battered to death with an iron bar before her body was dumped on East Kilbride golf course. Manuel was released without charge, free to kill another six times.
On 17 September, 1956, he murdered three members of a family at their home in Burnside, Glasgow. Marion Watt, 45, her 16-year-old daughter, Vivienne, and Mrs Watt's sister, Margaret Brown, were all shot at close range.
After a brief spell in prison for housebreaking, Manuel returned to murder in December 1957
, killing another 17-year-old girl, Isabelle Cooke, whose body was found buried in the Mount Vernon area of Glasgow.
Then on 1 January, 1958, Manuel shot Peter Smart, his wife, Doris, and their ten-year-old son, Michael, at their home in Uddingston.
On the day of his execution, 11 July, 1958, Manuel told the hangman: "Turn up the radio and I'll go quietly."
The full article contains 859 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
