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05/09/01 - Killer's bid for blood money
by Lindsay Jennings
Taken from The
Northern Echo
CHILD killer Shaun Armstrong is to use taxpayers' money to sue
the man who helped put him behind bars, The Northern Echo can
reveal. News that the murderer of three-year-old Rosie Palmer
is using public funds to fight for up to £15,000 damages
has been greeted with horror in the Hartlepool community where
she lived.
Armstrong, 39, claims that private letters detailing his crime
were obtained under false pretences and his privacy was breached
when they were later handed to police. In a crime which horrified
the nation, Rosie was murdered in 1994 after being abducted
when she went to buy an ice lolly, yards from her home in Henrietta
Street, Hartlepool.
Her battered and sexually abused body was found in a bin liner
in Armstrong's first-floor flat in nearby Frederic Street. The
killer confessed to murdering the girl just before his trial
at Leeds Crown Court in 1995, and is serving a life sentence
at top security Frankland Prison, in Durham.
But it is believed he only changed his plea to guilty after
author Bernard O'Mahoney, 41, extracted a confession from him
in letters he wrote while on remand. Mr O'Mahoney wrote to Armstrong
pretending to be a woman, and over the course of 11 months was
told horrific details of the murder.
In a letter he received shortly before the trial, he says Armstrong
wrote: "Yes I'm responsible for the crime, but please don't
tell anybody." Mr O'Mahoney gave the letters to the police,
but Armstrong is now suing the Cambridgeshire author for breach
of confidence, claiming he obtained the 80 letters by deception.
Armstrong's Liverpool solicitor, Elkan Abrahamson, said: "The
claim is not purely about the damages, more about the fact that
he wants the letters back and he doesn't want a book written
about him. "I'd say he is fairly confident he will succeed.
They're his letters after all, and this guy pretended to be
a woman to get them and shouldn't have."
Speaking to The Northern Echo last night, Mr O'Mahoney said
he would "rather cut his own throat" than hand over
a penny to the convicted killer. "It's obscene that he
can do this," he said. "As soon as he confessed, I
gave the letters to the police and when he was confronted with
them on the morning of his trial he changed his plea to guilty.
"He's just a sick pervert. I think he's trying to sue me
because he's concerned that if the truth gets out about his
own views on the crime it may damage his chance of parole."
Mr O'Mahoney said that the letters, which also include details
about Armstrong's childhood, were extremely shocking, most noticeably
for the callous way he talked about the killing.
He said he had planned to write a book but intended to donate
all profits to charity. The writ, which was served yesterday,
alleges that Mr O'Mahoney has breached Armstrong's right to
confidentiality and violated his right to respect for his private
life. Armstrong claims he is entitled to damages or a share
of the profits gained by using any of the material in the letters.
Rosie's mother, Beverley Palmer, has spent years trying to come
to terms with the tragedy. Hartlepool councillor Kevin Kelly,
a former member of the Rosie Palmer Foundation, said Armstrong's
legal bid was "reopening the wound" and like committing
a second crime. "It's abhorrent that such a vile piece
of trash like him is being allowed to sue a man who has assisted
in putting this evil creature away," he said "The
fact that he is going to use public money is disgusting."
June Richardson, whose four-year-old son Martin Brown was a
victim of killer Mary Bell, demanded that the Government take
action to stop criminals "abusing the system". "They
don't know what these people are doing to the families having
it brought up again and again - it destroys people," said
Mrs Richardson. "Our law is such that criminals can use
tax payers' money to do something like this. It's always the
victims' families who end up paying." |
| Contact : bernard.omahoney@bernardomahoney.com |
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