Here I am outside Wakefield Prison where "The Gay
Slayer" Colin Ireland died. Oddly it's walls which hold in iridescent evil
are on Love Lane. I knew it was a big prison but thought it might be in the
countryside. However while sat at a red light on a busy road the Sat-Nav said I was 400 metres away from my destination. I
turned a corner and high walls rose up. This was Wakefield Prison - or the
entrance anyway. Shoppers were walking by carrying ASDA and Matalan bags as
though the prison was a shopping centre.
In 1993 Ireland strangled five
men in three months (four within fifteen days.) Whether he was born a
psychopath is unknown but being born into a severely dysfunctional family can’t
have helped. Before he’d grown whiskers he was thieving and blackmailing and
from 16 spent time behind bars. He tried but failed to join the French Foreign
Legion and returned to the UK. He liked dressing in army gear and did survival
training (often camping out on the Essex moors.) Why he chose to murder
homosexuals is unknown as he said he was heterosexual and had married twice. He
wanted to "become somebody” and on 1st January 1993 his New
Year’s Resolution was to become a serial killer.
While living in Southend
in London he started frequenting The Coleherne pub in
Brompton Road in West London (men wore colour-coded handkerchiefs to indicate
their sexual proclivities; Ireland posed as a ‘top’ - a master in an S&M
sex.) He sought out passive men who didn’t mind being tied up. They fell into
his trap easily and he went back to the flats of five men and strangled them
while they were in submissive roles.
He knew exactly what he was doing, carrying a “murder
kit” of gloves, knife, rope and handcuffs and a change of clothes to each flat.
On the night of the first murder in March 1993 he got invited back to the flat
of Peter Walker, a theatre director. Ireland tied Walker to his bed, beat him,
whipped him, strangled him and burnt his pubes. Angry that Walker hadn’t
initially confessed he was HIV positive he stuffed knotted condoms into the
corpse’s mouth and nostrils and placed two teddv
bears in a "69" position on the bed. Walker was only found two days
later when Ireland felt sorry for Walker’s hungry dogs and informed The Sun
newspaper. Ireland had cleaned the murder scene so the police had little to go
on and wondered if the victim had died in a sex game.
Ireland returned to pub and selected his next
victim. When police found the bound up gagged corpse and no clues they thought
it may be a sex “accident". A vexed Ireland started taunting the police,
calling them to ask why they hadn’t linked the two murders. He also called them
after strangling an American businessman, telling them "I did the
American.” The police found Ireland had left a plastic doll on top of the
victim posed in a sex act. Again he made an anonymous call to police, taunting
them to hunt him. "Are you still
interested in the death of Peter Walker?" he asked. "Why have you stopped the investigation? Doesn't the death of a homosexual man mean
anything? I will do another.”
Very soon Ireland strangled again, also
strangling the victim’s cat and left it on top of the corpse with its mouth
fastened on the corpse's dick. This time Ireland had left a fingerprint on a
window frame. Shortly after Ireland murdered a Maltese chef and then spent the
night watching television and eating whatever was in the fridge. He set fire to
the apartment but when the flames went out he telephoned the police, "Have
you found the body in southeast London yet - and the fire?"
Police admitted they had a serial killer out
there and launched a publicity campaign. Success: Ireland had gone back to a
victim’s flat on a train and a security camera had recorded him. Blurry
photographs were published and Ireland approached his solicitor, admitting he
was the man in the photograph. Interviewed by the police he crumbled and
confessed to all five murders. He was jailed for life for the murders in
December 1993.
He died here in the healthcare centre of the
prison aged 57. There was no obvious reason but a post-mortem later said it was
pulmonary fibrosis - a build-up of scar tissue on the lungs often contracted by
sandblasters, coal miners or workers who've absorbed asbestos. I’ve since read
that Ireland was in another prison and strangled his cell-mate who was a
convicted child-killer. It was kept quiet as Ireland was already to condemned
to die in prison (two weeks after the murder he moved here to Wakefield Prison.)
I parked on double
yellow lines that surrounded the prison entrance. I sprinted down nearby streets
taking photos. Stupidly I did a pose of me holding a pretend remote control box
for a drone. Later I would doctor this photo to show me flying a pretend drone dropping
drugs over the wall (see photo). Bad move as when I got back to the car a prison
van hemmed me in. A uniformed man stepped out and I put the window down. Bum.
“Hello Sunbeam?” he said dryly.
“Hello, how’re tricks?”
“Turn your engine off for a minute will you?
Do you mind telling me what you’re doing here?” the man asked in a manner but
with a friendly twinkle in his eye.
My mind was spinning.
“Just
have a looking at the prison. I lived near Harold Shipman and knew he’d killed
hung himself here.” This was....is true.
“Oh, wonderful. Where are you going?”
“I’m on the way to Scarborough for the
weekend but I’m interested in death stuff to do with infamous people, where
they’ve died or their graves. Bit of a geek.”
He didn’t look convinced.
I got out my phone and showed him my
website. With a slightly shaking finger I whizzed up and down the screen showing
people whose graves and death locations I'd visited. He didn’t look convinced
but I doubt he could read the screen without glasses.
“Bit of a nerd about these things,” I said.
“Is this your car?” I could hear his brain
spinning.
“Yes – I doubt I’d nick a car like this.”
“Can I take your name?”
“John Halley – like the comet,” I said but
he didn’t write it down.
Pause.
“It’s probably best if you move on,” he said
neutrally. He had the demeanour of a man who was about to retire soon and couldn't
be bothered with this.
“Okay.”
“Someone might want to catch up with you
later if it’s classed as suspicious.”
“Okay.”
“You’re lucky we’re outward bound or we
might have asked you to come in for a chat." Bum.
The van drove
off and I don't mind telling you I was relieved to get away, too. There's a
book called "The Gay Slayer" if you'd like to read more about this
weirdo.
Yeah….I could get a cocaine-laden
drone into the prison. Here goes…