Introduction
On 14 July
1978, Dr Brenda Page was found dead in her flat at 13 Allan Street,
Aberdeen. She had been murdered. The police investigations, though extensive,
soon ran into the sand for, though they had a prime suspect for the crime, it
was judged at the time that there was insufficient evidence to charge him. The identity of the killer went unresolved
for 44 ½ years until the employment of modern forensic analytical techniques
provided sufficient new evidence to proceed with a trial, which took place in
late February and early March 2023. Dr
Page’s former husband, Christopher Harrisson (familiarly known as “Kit”) was then
convicted of her murder. He was
sentenced to life imprisonment, with a recommendation that he serve at least 20
years. At the time of his conviction,
Kit Harrisson was aged 83 and was therefore likely to spend his remaining span
behind prison bars.
This crime had
retained the public interest for almost half a century, due to its heady mix of
ingredients. A highly qualified young
scientist whose life and career were forcibly truncated; her emotionally
unstable husband / ex-husband who was widely known in Aberdeen to be a suspect
in the case, even though this was not officially acknowledged by the police;
the extreme violence of the attack which ended Brenda Page’s life; her
involvement in research into the potential of North Sea underwater activities
to inflict genetic damage in divers; the
concurrent employment of Brenda Page as an escort in an Aberdeen teeming
with money from the 1970s oil boom; and the seeming inability of the local
police force to solve the case.
Over the months
following the trial, there have been, and will be, accounts published by videographers,
journalists and other writers dealing with the tragedy of Dr Page’s death in
all its aspects. Also, the court
proceedings were videographed, and an edited version of the trial will appear for
public viewing in due course. In
anticipation of these circumstances, where Brenda’s story will be told and
retold, I first had to ask myself if I would be adding anything of value to the
compositions of other wordsmiths by publishing my own account of the tragedy. Some commentators have taken an interest in
this story for years and even decades, for example, I was contacted by a
reporter gathering information on the murder as long as 20 years ago, while I
was still Chief Executive of Southampton Science Park.
My conclusion is
that my efforts could be worthwhile for the following reasons. I was an employee of the University of
Aberdeen in its Genetics Department throughout Brenda Page’s tenure as head of
the Cytogenetics Laboratory and, as a result, I acquired information and
enjoyed a perspective that other writers did not. I was involved in the managerial oversight of
the Cytogenetics Laboratory and its clinical service, and I knew Brenda personally. Kit Harrisson was also an acquaintance, and
on one notable occasion I was on the receiving end of his aggressive
behaviour. Further, after Brenda’s
tragic death, I was asked to take over direction of the diving project for
which Brenda had attracted funding from the Department of Energy and to bring
it to a successful conclusion, and this desired outcome was achieved. Although I was not in daily contact with the main
actors in this tragedy, I was privy to relevant facts not presently in the
public domain. In an important sense, I
feel I have a duty to place what I know on record, while I still have the
capacity to act. But to achieve this end
in a useful and understandable form, it is necessary to report all the facts relevant to the case and to put the whole of this
tragedy in its historical context.
There are two other
introductory points that I wish to make.
Firstly, after spending 20 years as a research scientist in genetics, I
understand the bases of modern techniques of forensic DNA analysis. Also, in retirement I have published 47
significant studies, many biographical, in family and social history, including
five articles during calendar year 2022 and my blogsite has received over 110,000 page views since 2014 when it was
established. So, I am comfortable with
handling a large volume of data and distilling from this mass a factual, coherent
and balanced account of what happened concerning some event, or issue. My efforts are grounded in a reverence for
facts and for objective analysis, and shun journalistic sensationalism and storytelling. Further, my work is not undertaken for the
purpose of financial gain, which helps to ensure I take a measured approach to what I
write. Thus, I believe I also have the
tools at my disposal necessary to retail this narrative.
My second point
is that I quickly concluded that all the relevant facts relating to this case
have not been brought together for analysis anywhere. In particular, I realised that the evidence
presented to the court at the trial of Harrisson, while sufficient to convict
him, was far from comprehensive. As a
scientist by training, I found this discovery to be rather sobering. Thus, I have tried to be inclusive in
gathering and analysing facts relating to Brenda’s murder from any and every
source, and I think it will be seen that this approach took the writer, and
takes the reader, much further towards a holistic appreciation of this profound
tragedy.
Whether, or not,
I have succeeded in my aims will be for others to judge.
The
contrasting backgrounds of Brenda Page and Kit Harrisson
Brenda Page emerged from a modest social
background. Her father, Victor Edward
Page married Florence Adams in 1932 at Ipswich, Suffolk, where Brenda was born
in 1946, her full, given names being Brenda Marilyn. Victor Page was described in the 1939 England
and Wales Register as a first screensman in a flourmill. At that time and for many years after, the
family lived in Levington Road, Ipswich.
Brenda’s father was still in the same occupation in 1972 when she
married Kit Harrisson. Victor Page died
in 1974. Brenda had one sibling, sister
Rita, who was born in 1934.
Brenda showed
early signs of being bright, for example, she learned to read before starting
primary school. When her sister, Rita,
went to college she had to conduct a child assessment as a project and her
subject was her younger sister, then aged six.
Rita’s tutor found it difficult to believe how advanced Brenda appeared
to be. She gained entry to Northgate Grammar School
in Ipswich where she was in the A-stream and, unusually for a girl in those
days, studied science and ultimately achieved four A-level passes, two with
distinction. Brenda also possessed
practical abilities, such as being skilled at cooking, painting and needlework. She was a popular girl at school and had many
friends of both sexes.
After the
completion of her secondary education, Brenda matriculated at University
College, London (UCL), now, and then, one of the UK’s leading research-led
universities, to study for a degree in zoology.
She graduated B Sc (Bachelor of Science) with first class honours at a
time, prior to today’s rampant grade inflation in higher education, when such a
result was a true mark of academic excellence.
After studying at UCL, Brenda chose to work for a PhD (Doctor of
Philosophy) degree in the Department of Genetics, Glasgow University, within
the relatively new discipline of human cytogenetics. To gain such a qualification
required the production of a body of research results, their analysis and defence
at oral examination in front of an external examiner. The period of study for this higher degree typically
lasts for three years.
Dr Brenda Marilyn Page
In contrast to
Brenda’s social origins, Christopher Merlin Harnett (“Kit”) Harrisson was born
into, what might politely be called, “comfortable circumstances”. His father, William Rowland Damer Harrisson, first
saw the light of day in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1912, where Kit Harrisson’s
paternal grandfather, Geoffrey Harnett Harrisson, was an engineer working for
the Entre Rios Railways Co Ltd, Concordia.
WRD Harrisson, who served in the Royal Engineers during WW2, was
variously described during his working life as an estate agent, a chartered
surveyor and a rating valuation officer.
One newspaper report had his occupation as chartered accountant, but
that may have been a journalistic error. Further, an uncle of Kit Harrisson, Thomas
Harnett Harrisson (usually known as “Tom Harrisson”), was a famous explorer and
ethnologist, whose investigations mainly took place in the Far East.
WRD Harrisson
married Nancy Finch Richardson at Newcastle upon Tyne in 1936. Nancy Richardson was for some time a
registered physiotherapist or masseuse.
Her father, George Beith Richardson, a civil engineer, was a “Director
of Public Companies, chiefly, Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering”. The father of GB Richardson was John Wigham
Richardson, a Quaker who founded the Wigham Richardson shipyard with a loan of
£5,000 from his father. This yard later
merged with Swan Hunter to form Swan Hunter Wigham Richardson, in its time the
most advanced shipbuilder on the Tyne. The
final residence for both Kit Harrisson’s father, Bill, and his mother, Nancy,
was Buttery Flat, The Vyne, Sherborn St John, Basingstoke, Hampshire. The Vyne, originally a Tudor palace, is
currently in the ownership of the National Trust. Perhaps William Harrisson, with his property
background, appreciated the architectural style of this grand, historic
building? William R D Harrisson died in
1992, his wife having predeceased him by 13 years. Their personal estates were <£125,000 (<£253,000
in 2023 money) and £80,488 (about £364,000 in 2023 money), respectively.
Kit Harrisson had
a younger sister, Celia, born in 1948 who reported that from an early age her
brother Kit had “a great interest in bugs and beetles”, which she thought might
have been influenced by the leisure interests, birdwatching and fishing, of
their father. Later, Kit Harrisson
attended the Quaker-run Leighton Park school, a boarding establishment in
Reading.
About 1960, Kit
Harrisson gained entry to Queen’s College, Cambridge University, where he
graduated, like his future wife, with a degree (BA – Bachelor of Arts) in zoology. This was followed by an MA (Master of Arts)
two years later, but by right and not by further examination, an anomaly still
cherished by this ancient seat of learning.
After graduation, Kit Harrison’s first posting appears to have been as a
British Council scholar in Romania. This
sojourn behind the Iron Curtain was followed by a three-year stint of
employment as a scientific assistant at the National Institute of Oceanography,
then based at Wormley, Surrey. From 1967
to 1970, this wandering biologist was a research fellow at Harvard University,
Cambridge, Massachusetts, one of America's most prestigious universities. After his
trial was concluded in March 2023, the Scottish Sun newspaper revealed that
Harrisson had fathered a child with an American woman during his time in the
USA. He apparently did not tell his
family about this extra-marital conception, as his sister expressed complete
surprise when informed of the child’s existence. “None
of our family knew he had a child. We
had no idea, it came as a surprise to hear that”. The existence of this child was also a
surprise to Rita Ling, Brenda’s sister, which suggests that Brenda, too, may
not have known of the boy’s existence.
Kit Harrisson’s
period in the USA appears to have been followed by a brief spell at the Institute
of Animal Genetics, part of Edinburgh University, but by 1971 he had fetched up
at Glasgow University’s Institute of Virology.
Romance and
marriage
Fatefully, it
was while Brenda was a post-graduate student in Glasgow that she met her future
husband, then a researcher, though by some accounts not a popular one, at the
Institute of Virology, located adjacent to the Department of Genetics. They started a romantic relationship, which
quickly progressed to matrimony. Diane
Davey, a friend of Brenda’s from her school days, said that she had described
him as “wonderful” in an early letter. When
asked why Brenda was attracted to Kit, Diane said that Kit could be very kind
and generous and at those times Brenda enjoyed his company but, ominously, that
he could suddenly flip to being cruel and uncaring.
Kit and Brenda were
joined in matrimony on 6 May 1972, a bright and sunny day, at St Mary le Tower
church, Ipswich. This ecclesiastical
building is the nearest in status to a cathedral present in the East Anglian
town, its graveyard replete with the great and the good, such as Richard
Cobbold the writer and scion of a wealthy local family which had made its money
from brewing. How fitting that this aspirational
couple should be joined in matrimony there! On the marriage registration, Brenda gave her address as the parental home, 28 Levington Road, in Ipswich and Kit Harrisson's gave his abode as 46 West Savile Terrace, Edinburgh.
Celia Harrisson, Kit’s younger sister was a bridesmaid on this rather
grand occasion, with the bride in a traditional long white wedding dress, with
veil, and the groom in morning suit.
Brenda made her own, intricate bridal gown. The marriage registration recorded both
partners as being “research scientists”, which clearly represented their career aspirations. At the time, it must have
seemed to both the partners, their friends and relatives that this was a
promising combination, though there was a six-year difference in their ages.
Marriage of Kit Harrisson and Brenda Page
However, even
before the marriage there were indications that Kit’s personality could cause
problems in social situations. Although
it might have been expected that Kit would be on his best behaviour when he was
first introduced to Brenda’s family, his quirks made people ill at ease. Rita Ling, Brenda’s older sister found him
disquieting, though she admitted he could be charming, he had good looks and
out-topped her younger sister (“a big girl”) in height. But Rita also described him as “not my cup of
tea” and “too clever”. He made her feel
uncomfortable because there seemed to be no area of social discourse where
there was an overlap of interests and conversation could proceed. Rita said that Kit was not Brenda’s usual
kind of boyfriend. Diane Davey, who met
Kit for the first time at the wedding, found him to be very intellectual and
this made her feel inferior. She found
it difficult to communicate with him and she felt he lacked warmth. On his first visit to Ipswich, Kit Harrisson
also exhibited another odd side to his persona.
The story was relayed by Jessie Watt, Brenda’s PhD student, who
presumably heard it from Brenda. Kit bought a “good” (expensive?) bottle of wine,
perhaps to impress Brenda’s family. When
the wine was offered to her father, he declined it, being a beer drinker. At this, Kit, apparently miffed by what he
perceived as a rejection of his generosity, took the bottle of wine and poured
it down the kitchen sink.
The marriage reception was held at the Great White Horse, one of Ipswich’s best known, largest and
most historic hotels. Unfortunately, it
was also cup final day, when Leeds United beat Arsenal 1:0. Most of the male attendees gravitated to the
TV room to watch the match. That did not
include Kit Harrisson who had no interest in the game. There is no doubt that there was a social and
intellectual gulf between Kit and most of his new relatives and their friends
in Ipswich.
The
University of Aberdeen Genetics Department
In 1965, the
University of Aberdeen decided to create a new academic department, dealing
with biological inheritance. Henry John
Evans, known as “Henry” to his friends in Wales and as “John” to his new colleagues
in Aberdeen, was appointed as foundation professor in the Department of
Genetics. It was a completely new entity
and inherited neither staff, nor equipment and accommodation. Like many of the UK’s cytogeneticists of that
period, John Evans was an alumnus of the University College of Wales,
Aberystwyth, where he graduated BSc in 1952 and PhD in 1955. He was then appointed to the staff of the
Medical Research Council Radiobiology Research Unit located at Harwell, then the
UK’s premier site for all kinds of radiation research. While at Harwell, where he was based for ten
years, John Evans made significant discoveries concerning the mechanism of
production of chromosomal aberrations by ionising radiations, before removing
to the Aberdeen chair at the early age of 35.
I pursued my PhD research on X-ray induced aberrations in the
chromosomes of locust embryos at Birmingham University between 1963 and 1966
and was privileged to spend a month in John Evans’ laboratory at Harwell during
that period. I got to know him
well. He was a scientist that I both
liked and respected. When John was
populating his new department in Aberdeen, he invited me to join him with the
rank of Assistant Lecturer. I readily
agreed and moved north in September 1966.
One of the
innovations introduced at Aberdeen by John Evans was the creation of a Cytogenetics
Laboratory in the Medical School, located on the main hospital site at
Foresterhill, about a mile distant from the academic department, which was initially
accommodated at Marischal College but, from 1970, resided within the newly-built
Zoology Building on Tillydrone Avenue, Old Aberdeen. Bob Speed, another Welshman, was recruited to
head up this new laboratory and to bring it to operational efficiency. The principal role of the Foresterhill
Cytogenetics Laboratory was to provide a service to clinicians who suspected a
patient’s condition might be caused by a structural or numerical chromosome
abnormality, though various lines of research were also pursued. I recall accompanying Bob Speed on one
occasion when he went to collect bovine blood, almost by the bucketful, from
the abattoir on Hutcheon Street, Aberdeen, which was used as a source of test
material while the new techniques for producing mammalian lymphocyte chromosome
preparations were established. It was
these techniques, which involved mitotic spindle disruption, hypotonic
treatment to swell the cells, fixation while swollen and air-drying on
microscope slides, which had allowed human chromosomes to be studied routinely. Up to 1955, it was believed that the human
diploid number of chromosomes was 48 but in that year the number was
established definitively as 46.
HJ Evans did
not remain in post at Aberdeen for long.
In 1969 he was induced to move to Edinburgh as the director of the MRC
Clinical and Population Cytogenetics Unit based at the Western General Hospital. He was replaced, in 1970, as Professor of
Genetics at Aberdeen by Forbes William Robertson, principally a Drosophila
(fruit fly) geneticist. Bob Speed
departed as head of the Aberdeen Cytogenetics Laboratory about 1973, creating a
vacancy for a new leader for that service.
By 1973, Brenda Page had been awarded her PhD at Glasgow University and was
seeking employment. She applied for, and
was appointed to be, the new head of the Cytogenetics Laboratory in Aberdeen,
starting 1 October of that year. Brenda
was well-qualified for this new role. It
is thought that Brenda was being paid on the university lecturer scale but
shortly before he death she was promoted to the senior lecturer scale and her
title was changed to “Principal Cytogeneticist”.
Brenda Page's PhD graduation
Professor Forbes William Robertson
So, in 1973
Brenda Page (she retained her maiden name for professional purposes) relocated
from Edinburgh, where she and Kit were living, to Aberdeen, while her husband
pursued his research for a PhD degree in the Department of Physiology at the
University of Edinburgh. Obviously, this
was not an ideal arrangement for their domestic affairs and Kit Harrisson
immediately sought a position in the University of Aberdeen which matched his
qualifications and experience. In an
interview given in 1978, Hamish Keir, Professor of Biochemistry at Aberdeen
recounted being approached by Kit Harrisson in 1973 with an enquiry about the
availability of research positions within his department. Although none was immediately available,
Hamish was sufficiently impressed to agree to making a joint application with
Harrisson to the Medical Research Council for financial support to provide him
with a salary for three years. The
application was successful, and the new research fellow was co-located in a
large biochemistry laboratory, along with a group of other, though rather
younger, research workers. Harrisson remained
in Biochemistry between 1974 and 1977, his project involving some aspect of
cancer research. After the termination
of his research fellowship, Kit Harrisson was banned from entering University
of Aberdeen buildings, though I never discovered the reason for the
university’s unusual action.
Jessie Watt was
born in Shetland in 1951. Like many
young people from those islands, she looked to Aberdeen for her university
education and was the first student to enrol in the new Genetics honours degree offered
at the University of Aberdeen. It was
obvious to those on the academic staff who taught her that Jessie was a very
bright student. She graduated with first
class honours in June 1974 and at the start of the following academic year she
began her studies for a PhD degree on cancer cytogenetics under the supervision
of Dr Brenda Page at the Cytogenetics Laboratory, Foresterhill. Brenda was successful in obtaining a grant to
support Jessie’s research work. Her
doctoral degree was completed about 1978, the year that Brenda was
murdered. During her PhD studies, Jessie
was also involved in the routine diagnostic work of the laboratory.
Jessie and
Brenda got to know each other very well, both professionally and socially and
Jessie’s observations on her supervisor are thus important, and their accuracy
can be relied upon in this critical period of Brenda’s brief life. The two women became good friends. Jessie found Brenda to be both professional
and ambitious, not only for herself but also for her research student. Jessie would, on occasions, look after
Brenda’s cats. But, being an intimate of Brenda, Jessie soon realised that Brenda’s marriage to Kit Harrisson was rocky. After Brenda’s divorce and her move to her
own flat, Jessie became closer to her, feeling Brenda needed more support and Jessie
then saw her more often outside the context of work.
After his move
to Aberdeen, Forbes Robertson established a small committee to oversee the work
of the Cytogenetics Laboratory and he asked me, being a cytogeneticist, albeit
one mostly working with insects, to become a member of that body. It met monthly at the Foresterhill laboratory
to receive a report from Brenda on the conduct of business there. Soon it was clear that she was
administratively competent as well as being an accomplished scientist. Forbes and I never had any doubts about
Brenda’s managerial abilities. At one stage Brenda took on an overseas PhD
student to work on human female meiosis. The abilities of such students who come from
afar can be difficult to determine at a distance and it proved to be so in this
case. Brenda came to the conclusion, I
think after one year of research, that this candidate was not up to the pursuit
of PhD level studies in human cytogenetics.
The easy decision would have been to let the person continue struggling only to
fail later. Brenda took the line that it
would be more honest and compassionate to immediately terminate the work,
though this would be a great personal blow to the student, and that is the
action that was agreed. Thus, Brenda
demonstrated her ability to take difficult managerial decisions.
I recall on one
occasion when I was at the Cytogenetics Laboratory Brenda showing me some
preparations of the chromosomes of locust cells (one of my main experimental
materials) which were brilliantly distinct.
They had been produced by her using an adaptation of the standard
technique for mammalian cells. I was
impressed by Brenda’s technical expertise.
This was also a
time when I got to know Brenda as a person rather better, though we mainly met
as colleagues and only rarely in a social setting. She struck me as being outgoing, quite
strong-minded, very intelligent and with firm opinions. Brenda was certainly able to hold her own in
any discussion. Others were impressed by
Brenda, too. Hamish Keir met Brenda at
Biochemistry Department parties and found her to be highly intelligent and a delightful
person with whom to converse. One social
meeting that my wife and I had with Brenda, accompanied by husband, Kit, was at
a Genetics Department Christmas party, organised by Forbes Robertson and his
wife Katherine and held in the common room in the Zoology Building. I am unsure of the year, but I believe it
could have been Christmas 1973, soon after Brenda arrived in Aberdeen. To get the people from the two departmental sites,
Foresterhill and Old Aberdeen, mixing and chatting, Forbes and Katherine
introduced a game where each person, or couple, had to communicate the name of
a film or play, etc, with a drawing. The
consequential task of everyone was to go round and inspect the graphical
efforts of others in an attempt to guess the title of the production
portrayed. It was a very effective
activity for breaking the ice and conversation flowed freely as a result. The Harrissons, perhaps wishing to
demonstrate their cleverness and sophistication, produced a string of drawings
of 1. the capital letter “U”, 2. a pair of trousers, 3. a drawing of an egg,
and 4. a bird’s nest with an arrow pointing from the egg to the nest. Needless to say, everyone else was befuddled
by this representation, until we were let into its cryptic identity – Eugene
Onegin! (U-jean-one-egg-in), a novel by
the Russian author, Alexander Pushkin, which can also be performed as a ballet or
as an opera.
The problems
in the Harrissons’ marriage
After their
marriage, Kit Harrisson and Brenda Page initially lived in Edinburgh, with
Brenda travelling through to Glasgow for her research work. Brenda’s school friend, Diane Davey visited
her while she was living in Edinburgh.
Brenda told Diane that even on her honeymoon she realised that she had
made a mistake in marrying Kit. The
honeymoon had been held in Alderney. Although
the third largest of the Channel Islands, it has an area of only three square
miles. This choice was made at Kit’s suggestion, perhaps because he wanted to
indulge his passion for fossil hunting.
Apparently, Kit had a green duffle bag, with drawstrings, which he used
to carry the petrified animals and plants recovered on his expeditions. This bag would later achieve notoriety.
During her
visit to the Scottish capital, Diane witnessed another disturbing interaction
between Brenda and Kit. She had made him
a cup of tea, but it was apparently too cold, and he threw it over her. Brenda
seemed just to accept the situation, as though it had happened before. Diane also found it strange that Brenda and
Kit never took her out together, it was always her and Brenda, without Kit, as
though he had his own life and was not going to make concessions for her
friends.
At some time
during late 1973, the Harrissons set up home together at 12 Mile End Place in
Aberdeen’s West End. The financial
arrangements concerning the purchase of this property, a 2-storey house, have
not been discovered but it seems likely that it was bought by Kit Harrisson
since he appeared to have private means and he retained the property after Brenda moved
out. Indeed, he still occupied the house in 2023 at the time of his trial for murder. However, Jessie Watt claimed that Brenda had
invested some money in the house. This
is curious since, if Brenda owned a share of the equity, she should have been
in a position to force a sale after she departed (see below).
12 Mile End Place, Aberdeen
Brenda’s sister,
Rita, said that after the move to Aberdeen the marriage seemed to run smoothly
for a while and Brenda made some very good friends in the Scottish oil
capital. However, difficulties started
to emerge, though Rita found Brenda to be rather private at this time and she did
not tell her big sister a lot about the state of the marriage. Diane Davey and her family paid a visit to
Aberdeen while the Harrissons were still living together at 12 Mile End
Place. However, it was not a comfortable
sojourn for Brenda’s school friend from Ipswich. Brenda had a nicely furnished sitting room upstairs,
but Diane and her small boys were more or less confined to that room by Kit who
did not want his wife’s guests wandering around the rest of the house. Another point of friction concerned the
construction of a hen coop, as Kit Harrisson wanted to keep chickens. Diane’s husband was commissioned to build
this avian habitation but was thwarted by Harrisson because the materials Diane’s
spouse obtained were not of sufficient quality, for example, Harrisson insisted
that the screws employed must be of brass.
This attitude to his gratuitous labour, not surprisingly, did not endear
Harrisson to Diane’s partner. Also, in
relation to the completed chicken quarters, forensic scientist Eric Jensen
noted on visiting 12 Mile End Place after Brenda’s murder that the chicken run
extended into the kitchen, so that the birds could be observed closely by their
human owners. Harrison seemed to be
obsessed with his avian pets.
Jessie Watt
recounted that after she had started her PhD and become friendly socially with
Brenda that the two couples, Brenda and Kit, and Jessie and her husband Allan,
would socialise together. Jessie also
noticed that her supervisor and her spouse would hold hands. But the relationship was not always
harmonious. On another occasion, Jessie
gave the opinion that the marriage had its ups and downs, “red hot and then
fighting like cats and dogs”.
The Harrissons
appeared to be carrying out some DIY modifications to their newly acquired
house at 12 Mile End Place, but Kit’s unusual personality even intruded on this
activity. He had a set of tools, but Brenda was not allowed to use them. She had to acquire her own collection.
Clearly, right
from its inception, the Harrissons’ marriage was turbulent, though for one or
two years after Brenda arrived in Aberdeen, I was quite unaware of this circumstance,
and I believe that Forbes Robertson was in a similar state of ignorance. Gradually, stories started to filter back to
me of rows between the pair and even physical violence, but the information was
always second or third hand. Similarly,
rumours about Kit Harrisson exhibiting odd behaviours were also abroad
elsewhere in the university, though I do not recall any details of these anecdotes
after almost half a century. At Kit
Harrisson’s trial which began in February 2023, evidence was presented bearing
on this marital turbulence derived mainly, but not exclusively, from the
statements of witnesses in whom Brenda had confided, and in letters written by
Brenda to her solicitor. These items
thus predominantly represent the perceptions of one party in the marriage, but
collectively they portrayed a relationship in crisis.
One of
Brenda’s confidants was her older sister, Rita Ling, to whom she was close and
with whom she had always maintained telephone and letter contact, in addition
to occasional visits to Ipswich. Another
intimate was Brenda’s school friend, Diane Davey, with whom she kept up a
correspondence and who visited Brenda in Aberdeen in 1977, when her friend took
her to visit Balmoral Castle. On
one occasion when Brenda was staying with her sister, Rita noticed that
Brenda’s hair was not parted on the usual side.
When questioned about this, Brenda drew her hair back to reveal a gash. Kit, she said, had hit her with a
book.
The
general impression that Brenda left with her friends was one of fear of
Harrisson and anxiety about what he might do next. A further witness at Harrisson’s trial was
Mrs Anne-Louise Lemon, another friend of Brenda’s. Mrs Lemon was told by Brenda that on one
occasion she had been physically ejected from the marital home and had received
bruises on her legs. She also said that
Brenda feared she would be killed if she returned to the Mile End Place house. Brenda had even taken refuge in a nearby
police station on Midstocket Road after one incident, but the constabulary
seemed disinclined to get involved in an altercation they probably saw as a
domestic quarrel. That was the attitude
of the police to violence between husband and wife at the time. Most worrying of all was Brenda Page’s fear
that her husband might kill her, either by direct violence, a fear conveyed to
Mrs Lemon, or surreptitiously. "Brenda
asked me to tell the police if anything had happened to her in unusual
circumstances that her husband was responsible, and I told them that". A further friend, George Narro relayed a
similar story. “She was worried he might
injure or kill her – she said if it looked like suicide then it would not be
suicide”. Perhaps the most compelling
evidence establishing that Brenda’s fear of harm was real was an envelope she
left with her sister marked "To be opened only after my death". Rita Ling respected Brenda’s instruction,
only opening the package and examining its contents after Brenda’s demise in
July 1978. It proved to contain her will,
leaving all her personal effects to her sister. Another
telling recollection by Rita Ling was that Brenda was perplexed by Kit
Harrisson’s moods and attitudes. “She
would often say she didn’t know what she’d done wrong”.
Brenda
Page moves house
By late 1975, the
violence being perpetrated by Harrisson and the fear of further aggression
caused Brenda Page to leave the marital home and buy her own property, a flat within
13 Allan Street, with the help of a mortgage.
According to an anonymous interviewee, she left Mile End Place with only
the clothes she was wearing. It was also
reported by a neighbour in that street that as Brenda left the property she
said, “Don’t have anything to do with
him – he’ll murder someone one day”.
13 Allan Street, Aberdeen
Allan Street is
a typical Aberdeen domestic road, consisting of solid, granite-built tenements
with three floors and two flats per floor, although the purchase of this flat
seems to have caused Brenda some financial stress. Her sister, Rita Ling, recounted, “I think
she was quite hard up”. The
circumstances of the 1970s probably also contributed to Brenda’s impecunious
state. She had not been in academic employment
for long and had had little opportunity to accumulate savings. Also, as pointed out by Alec Kemp, Professor
of Petroleum Economics at Aberdeen University, there was serious inflation
during the 1970s and UK university staff failed to be fully compensated for the
fall in value of their salaries.
On a visit to
Ipswich, Brenda told her sister and her mother that she was decorating her new
flat herself. Brenda had remarked that
the windows had long been painted over so that they would not open and that she
took comfort from this fact from a security point of view, as her flat was on
the ground floor. However, her friend,
Jessie Watt, said that she kept a small window at the back of her flat open to
allow ingress and egress of her cats. It
seems possible that this was the same window by which her attacker (see below) may
have entered the property and might account for a table being placed close to
the window.
An older lady,
a widow, Mrs Elizabeth Gordon also lived “across the hall” on the ground floor
at 13 Allan Street and she and Brenda struck up a friendship, similar in nature
to a mother-daughter relationship. Mrs Gordon
was entrusted with keeping a spare key to Brenda’s flat and she did favours for
her younger friend by feeding her three cats on some occasions when she was
away, and also taking messages for her.
Brenda seems to have had a soft spot for cats. On one occasion she found four very young,
abandoned kittens, took them in and raised them, being prepared to get up
during the night to feed the diminutive strays.
The origin
of the diving project
The importance
of the North Sea oil industry to the UK in the early 1970s could hardly be
over-stated. At the start of the decade,
Britain was a major importer of oil and petroleum products, so the development
of crude oil production on home territory could potentially cut import costs
and bolstered security of supply. This latter
factor was emphasised by the outbreak of the Arab – Israeli war of October
1973, which mainly involved Egypt and Syria on one side and Israel on the
other. The Arab-dominated Organisation
of Petroleum Exporting States (OPEC) responded with a major cut in crude oil production
which, in turn, led to a quadrupling of the price of the product. Thus, the British Government was keen to see
the new oil province in the North Sea come on stream as fast as possible and
any threat to that development would have been treated with great concern. Aberdeen became the major base for incoming
companies, many American, which were keen to invest in the economic activity needed
to develop the oil fields discovered off its coast.
In the early
1970s, when there was pressure to advance development projects with all speed,
the safety of North Sea divers appeared not to have been a major concern and
there were many accidents, some fatal, involving divers. These sub-sea workers were induced to put up
with the risks involved in their work by the offer of very high financial
rewards, typically about £7,000 (about £79,000 in 2023 momey) for a month offshore. Construction work in the North Sea often took
place at a depth of about 300 ft, which required the employment of the
relatively new and incompletely understood technique of saturation diving,
where a gas mixture of helium and oxygen was breathed under pressure for a
period of about a month in a chamber on a support ship and daily
excursions were made from this location, still under pressure, in a diving bell to the sub-sea work site, where divers would
lock out from the bell for periods of several hours at a time. The return to normal atmospheric pressure at the end of a work period
extended over many days and could not be rushed if decompression sickness was
to be avoided. In addition to the dangers
arising from breathing gas mixtures under pressure, the work was physically hard and the
workplace extremely cold and unforgiving, if mistakes were made.
Dr Jim Douglas graduated
from Aberdeen’s medical school and during 1977 he was employed as a research
assistant in the Institute of Environmental and Offshore Medicine, headed by
Professor John Nelson Norman, a surgeon and noted expert on the body’s
responses to extreme environmental conditions, including those experienced
during saturation diving. The developing
North Sea oil industry was a major employer of such personnel. Jim Douglas first met Brenda Page when he was
called to a meeting between his boss, Nelson Norman and Brenda at the Medical
School in early 1977 at which the worries about a possible increase in abnormalities
in the offspring of divers were discussed.
A decision was then taken to seek research funding for an investigation
into the possible genetic effects of diving upon the participants. There existed some anecdotal evidence that diving
might be causing abnormalities in the children of divers, such as triploidy
(three chromosome sets instead of the normal two), miscarriage, an altered sex
ratio and chromosomal abnormalities. A
successful application by Brenda Page was subsequently made to the Department
of Energy in London, where Nelson Norman was well-connected, for financial
support for a project comparing chromosomal aberrations in T-lymphocytes
derived from the venous blood of divers and appropriately matched non-diving
controls employed within the oil industry.
An initial contract for £78,753 (~£428,385 in 2023 money) was awarded. Brenda then established a research team and
was developing experimental protocols for the project when she met her untimely
end.
Following their
meeting in the Medical School, Jim Doulas and Brenda Page bumped into each
other in Allan Street and they then realised that they were neighbours, as well
as intending research collaborators. Jim
and his wife lived at No 11, the next tenement building to the south of
Brenda’s abode, number 13. Dr Douglas
and his wife lived in Allan Street between 1976 and 1979.
An
unpleasant interaction with Kit Harrison
I had a direct
and personal experience of Kit Harrisson’s aggressive behaviour early in 1976
involving a dispute over an abstruse issue in cytogenetics. This confrontation started at the Molecular
Biology Club meeting held in the Department of Biochemistry on Saturday 17
January. Bill Harris, then a lecturer in
Biochemistry had recently attended a symposium in London on the subject of
“Meiosis”, the special type of cell division which both recombines genes and
halves the chromosome number in the formation of egg and sperm cells in higher
animals. Bill gave a talk on the major
findings that had caught his attention during the symposium. I was present since, as a cytogeneticist,
meiosis was one on my specialities and a topic on which I possessed substantial
background information. Kit Harrisson
was also present. In the discussion
which followed the talk, I corrected a statement made by Bill Harris, which
then led to Harrisson denying the veracity of my position. I tried to persuade him that he was wrong in
his claim which he would not concede. In
frustration I told Kit Harrisson he was talking “rubbish”, which abruptly terminated
the exchange. I wondered if he would
return to his discussion with me at the close of the meeting, but he did not,
which led me to conclude, wrongly as it turned out, that the matter was closed. It is quite normal for scientists to disagree
in robust terms. In order to make
progress in science it is essential for participants to question the
conclusions of others.
After the
meeting I went home. I do not recall if
Kit Harrisson then phoned me to ask if he could come round to my house or if he
simply showed up, but at 1.20pm I spotted a familiar green Mini Countryman, LVA
426E, with moss adhering to the margins of its rear windows, pull up outside my
house and a grim-faced Harrisson emerge.
The confrontation which followed was brief, shocking and caused me to
write a minute of the event immediately after he departed only five minutes
later. This account was used to compose
a letter to Hamish Keir, Kit Harrisson’s head of department, the following
Monday, 19 January. I have appended the
text of that letter in full, minus the rather technical appendix backing up my
scientific position.
“Dear Hamish, You will recall that at
the Molecular Biology Group meeting last Saturday, 17th January,
during the discussion following Bill Harris’ talk, there was a disagreement
between Kit Harrison and myself (I obviously did not know at that stage that
his name was spelled with two “s”s).
In the past I have ignored Harrison’s anti-social behaviour, accounting
various incidents as the thoughtless acts of an eccentric. (I cannot now remember what was the nature
of these incidents.) However,
Harrison’s behaviour subsequent to this disagreement has been very insulting
and I feel bound to acquaint you with the facts in the hope that you can
influence him to spare others such insults in the future.
The cause of the dispute was a point
that I raised during the discussion concerning the distribution of chiasmata at
meiosis. Contrary to Bill Harris’ claim
that they are random, I pointed out that they are not but are subject to
considerable genetic control as to their position. As an example of non-random chiasma formation
I quoted the need to form at least one chiasma per bivalent, otherwise normal
disjunction of homologous chromosomes at the first meiotic division is
disrupted. Harrison disagreed saying
that chiasmata are not necessary for normal disjunction. I replied that what he was claiming was only
true for a small number of specialised cases and that there were volumes of
evidence showing that for the majority of organisms my contention was correct. It is also true that I said his claim was
rubbish.
Obviously an argument about facts can be
settled readily by the production of the relevant facts. Since Harrison made no attempt to discuss the
matter further with me when the meeting dispersed, I assumed that it would rest
there. Subsequent events have proved me
wrong and so it is necessary for me to show that my contention is perfectly
accurate, and this I have done in an appendix to this letter.
At 1.20 p.m. on Saturday, Harrison
visited my home. The following account
of what happened was written immediately after he left at 1.25 p.m.
Harrison asked if he could have a few
words with me. I agreed and asked him to
come in and sit down. My children were
in the room but at that point my wife was not.
He immediately became very agitated, saying that I had insulted him in
his own department in front of other people and that he objected to being told
that what he said was rubbish. He then
asked me to produce my volumes of evidence which I agreed to do but he then
retorted that it was the quality of the evidence that was important and not the
quantity. By this time he was shouting
loudly with the result that my wife came into the room to see what was happening. I told him that he should not take my
criticisms as a personal attack and repeatedly asked him to calm down. This had no effect for he then resorted to
calling me “a pain in the ass” in the presence of my family. (I omitted to say that at this point my
wife told me to “Throw him out”.) I
could then see that rational argument was impossible and asked him to
leave. He then demanded a written
apology and threatened that if this was not forthcoming, he would take the
matter further with Forbes Robertson (Professor of Genetics and my head of
department). My requests for him to
leave had to be repeated several more times, to the accompaniment of insults
including further references to me as “a pain in the ass” before he finally
left the house. Even then he stood in
the drive arguing loudly, within hearing of several neighbours, before
departing.
I do not object to anyone questioning a
claim that I might make. However, if
they do doubt my statements the onus is on them to produce evidence to the
contrary. Equally, I am always prepared
to back up my claims with facts, as I have done in this case. While my use of the word “rubbish” may have
been a bit strong it was nonetheless accurate as you will see from the contents
of the appendix. Even making allowance
for this, Harrison’s behaviour in abusing my hospitality by insulting me with
such intemperate language in my own home and in the presence of my family, is
quite unjustified.
I hope you will raise this matter with
Harrison and point out to him the desirability of conducting scientific
discourse rationally and at an appropriate time and place if he is to maintain
his credibility with and the goodwill of the scientific community in
Aberdeen. Considering the insults made
to me by Harrison and his threat to involve Forbes Robertson in the matter I
have also felt it necessary to pass a copy of this letter to him.
Yours sincerely,
Don.
PS.
I enclose a copy of a letter subsequently received from Harrison”.
The following Monday, 19 January, I
received a letter from Harrisson, dated 17 January, under the Department of
Biochemistry letterhead. From its
contents, it was clear it was written immediately after he had left my
house. He was still indignant and
convinced he was right, though he was chasing a red herring, having mistaken a
rare special case for a general principle in a subject where he had no special
expertise. The text of Kit Harrison’s
missive follows.
“Dear Don,
You have a reputation for rudeness which
seems well founded. As you have failed
to substantiate your claim about chiasmata being required for successful
meiosis, (there are cases where not only chiasmata, but synaptonemal complexes
are absent in fertile achiasmate arthropod males), I am not prepared to accept
your behaviour either. You refuse me the
satisfaction of an apology, so I shall take up the questions of your arrogance
insolence and misinformation with Professor Robertson instead.
Yours sincerely,
Kit.
CMH Harrisson”.
I did not receive a reply from Hamish
Keir, nor did he ever discuss the matter informally. Similarly, I do not recall ever discussing
Harrisson’s intemperate behaviour with Forbes Robertson, nor did Brenda Page
ever mention it to me. I was interviewed
by the police on 1 August 1978 about two weeks after Brenda’s death, though I
was never told who had informed them about my dispute with Harrisson. The aspect of my confrontation with Harrisson
which made the most enduring impression was the instant and extreme change in
his demeanour when he began his verbal assault on me inside my home. It was as though a switch had been thrown
inside his head as he plunged into a state marked by a complete absence of
control over his emotions.
Kit Harrisson and the courts
There were two
other occasions, not related to his interactions with Brenda Page, on which Kit
Harrisson came to the notice of the public via the courts. The first such instance involved his vehicle,
the rather old and unkempt, green Mini Countryman, LVA 426E, which had moss
growing in the rear window surrounds. On
2 July 1977 he was observed by the police driving his car erratically on the
Aberdeen to Ellon road near Wester Hatton when he caused another motorist to
brake to avoid a collision. It took four
appearances in court before the charge of reckless driving, or alternatively
careless driving, could be considered.
On the first occasion a police officer was unavailable to give evidence,
on the second date, Harrisson was abroad and the third time, Harrisson claimed
that he had been given late notification, insufficient to prepare his case (he
represented himself). At the final
iteration on 19 October 1978, Harrisson changed his not guilty plea to guilty
of careless driving. This was accepted
and he was fined £25 (~£126 in 2023 money).
Given his ultimate guilty plea, it would have been sensible and less wasteful
of both the court’s time and his own if Harrisson had made his admission of culpability
much sooner.
Kit Harrisson
made a second appearance in court in Aberdeen in 1978, his case first being heard
on 22 June and then decided on 27 July. Harrisson again represented himself. Between the two court appearances,
Brenda Page met her gruesome end. This
was a civil case brought by George Jolly, bookbinders, of 52 Guild Street, for non-payment of a bill. This company was well-known to generations of Aberdeen University research students, who took their theses there to be bound. Harrisson took
two copies of this PhD thesis to Jolly’s for binding, prior to their submission
to Edinburgh University. George
Robertson, an experienced craftsman was assigned to the work, but Harrisson
thought he knew better than this skilled operative and insisted that Robertson approach
the job in a way specified by himself. After
completion of the job, Harrisson failed to pay the £16 due, because he claimed the
volumes had not been bound according to his instructions and described the
result as a “horrible, damaged copy”.
Further, he alleged that the state of the bound theses would render them
unacceptable to Edinburgh University He
entered a counterclaim for £494!
Meantime, the thesis was submitted and successfully defended, with
Harrisson’s doctorate being awarded on 28 June 1978. Harrisson failed to lead any evidence supporting his allegation that the bound theses
could not be submitted. How could he in
the circumstances? Harrisson’s
counter-claim was dismissed, the sheriff ruling that Jollys were due £10.40
and Harrisson was due £5 for the defects in the binding. These consisted of the typescript being
slightly askew and some page numbers being damaged, though the sheriff pointed
out that the thesis copies could be read without difficulty. He also expressed amazement that a dispute
over such a trivial sum should end up occupying the time of his court. But
this event typified Harrisson’s warped perception, where a minor injury to his
interests became transformed in his mind into a major insult. I had, of course, been exposed to a similar
Harrisson over-reaction two years previously.
Brenda Page
is granted a divorce and an interdict preventing Kit Harrisson from approaching
her
After moving to
Allan Street, Brenda only returned to Mile End Place to feed her three cats,
until they too moved to 13 Allan Street. She took two further actions in relation to
Kit Harrisson and his violent and oppressive behaviour. She started divorce proceedings, and she
sought an interdict to prevent him approaching her. The divorce was granted on 27 October 1977.
The submission
for interdict listed four alleged incidents of Harrisson’s aggressive and
coercive behaviour. About a year before
Brenda’s murder, Harrisson went to her laboratory where she was preparing
materials for an open event. There he
was threatening and abusive towards her in the presence of visitors and refused
to leave the premises when requested to do so.
About 6.00pm on the day that the divorce was granted, Kit Harrisson went
round to Brenda’s flat in Allan Street, was verbally abusive, poured tea down
the kitchen curtains, smashed crockery and threatened to kill her. A month later he repeated his visit to 13
Allan Street where he was again abusive and threatened Brenda with violence. Despite being banned from Aberdeen University
premises, he turned up at Brenda’s place of work the following day and repeated
his performance.
Harrisson did
not oppose the granting of the interdict, which is surprising since at his
trial in 2023 he claimed that he had never shown Brenda any violence. The interdict was granted in December
1977. In spite of this legal instrument
requiring Harrisson to keep away from Brenda he still visited Allan Street and
even her flat. Despite the action by the
University banning him from its premises, Harrisson frequently ignored this
instruction, too. A porter at
Foresterhill, Thomas Gray, reported Harrisson’s visitations there to his
employer, with the result that Harrisson went round to the unfortunate
functionary’s house and screamed abuse at him.
According to Jessie Watt, even after the interdict Harrisson followed
Brenda everywhere in his car, openly stalking her, which she found very
upsetting. Perhaps Brenda was left with feelings
of paranoia due to this treatment, but she also suspected that someone was
entering her house when she was not there, as she would find that food items
had gone missing.
After Jim
Douglas and Brenda Page discovered that they were neighbours, Brenda invited
Jim to a party where he met her then boyfriend, an engineer from
Edinburgh. Brenda also told Jim that she
had left her abusive marriage to Kit Harrisson and that she was fearful of him. About two weeks before Brenda’s murder, ie
about the end of June 1978, Dr Jim Douglas had a chance encounter with
Harrisson in the street outside number 11 Allan Street. Jim was working under his car, which was
raised up on a jack, when he perceived a tall figure looming over him. Jim realised it was Harrisson and knew that
he should not be there. Jim tried to
avoid getting into conversation with Brenda’s ex-husband but particularly
noticed that Harrisson was wearing black leather gloves, which seemed rather
strange since it was early summer. But there
was a further, rather odd interaction with Harrisson the following
weekend. Jim’s wife was visited at the
Douglas home by Harrisson and asked if she would like a kitten. She declined this strange offer, but she,
too, noticed that Harrisson was wearing black leather gloves.
The lawyer
acting for Brenda was Nicol Hosie and letters in his possession from Brenda
recounted many instances of violence such as “head injuries”, “hair tugged and
ripped out” and a specific death threat “he promised to kill me if I did not
go”. In one letter to Nicol Hosie,
Brenda claimed that Harrisson repeatedly punched her in the face when she
suggested he pack a tie to wear on holiday.
Another telling quotation was “If I depart
this earth rather suddenly, do make sure that I get a good postmortem and my sister,
and her boys get benefit.” The divorce
was finally granted on 27 October 1977, two years after the couple had
separated, on the grounds of Harrisson’s unreasonable behaviour. Subsequently, his then agent, David Burnside,
would say it was his understanding, ie his client told him, that Brenda saw
Harrisson “of her own free will” after the divorce was granted. This appears to have been true but what it
does not mean is that the relationship between the two was in any way normal. Brenda wrote to Harrisson at one stage after
the divorce saying she wanted “no part of the dishonesty with which you
surround your life”. “Just get out of
my life and stay out”.
Even after the
divorce Harrisson felt the need, or perhaps believed he had a right, to control
Brenda. He was hoping to win her back. Did he, in his twisted way, see coercion as
the only way to achieve this end? Or did
he, with his warped perception, view Brenda as having made a mistake and that
she needed to be shown the error of her ways?
Brenda’s employment
with Capital Escorts
One claim made
by Brenda which illustrated a marked difference between the respective
personalities of Kit and herself was that her husband wanted to lead a “hermit
lifestyle”, which she clearly did not.
When she had, at least partially, escaped from the violent, coercive and
controlling behaviour of her husband, Brenda sought to rebuild her social life,
including with members of the opposite sex.
She had seen an advertisement in a local paper in 1976 from Capital
Escorts, based in Edinburgh. This
company was founded and owned by Bill Austin, a man with a chequered commercial
past and a conviction for a sexual offence acquired when he ran an aromatherapy
business. Brenda and her colleague, Jessie
Watt, joked with each other about going for interview with Capital Escorts because
each was hard up at the time, but only Brenda, unknown to Jessie, decided to
approach the company. It sought women to
act as evening escorts to businessmen staying in Aberdeen, usually in
connection with the oil industry, then in a very active development phase. The cost of a girl’s company for an evening
was £20 (about £128 in 2023 money) of which Bill Austin got £10 and the escort the
other half. It was the responsibility of
the escort promptly to send Bill Austin’s share of the money to him by
post. The deal was for the escort to go
out with the customer for the evening until midnight. She could show him around the city and dine
with him. The users of the service were
men in Aberdeen on business, predominantly in oil-related activities. Bill Austin interviewed prospective escorts
and gave them advice before engaging them.
It was not overtly a sexual service, but Bill Austin admitted that he
could not control the activities of his escorts when out on engagements. The only control that he exercised was access
of his girls to assignments. Brenda was
always punctual in forwarding Bill Austin’s share of the escorting fee.
Advertisement for Capital Escorts
Austin said
that Brenda was typical of the women that he engaged, who had often suffered a
traumatic experience in their personal lives.
Only a few days before she met her end, Brenda had dinner with Bill
Austin in Aberdeen and told him of her fears concerning her former
husband. Austin said he relayed her
concerns to the police. Brenda worked
for the agency for two years and was described by Austin as being very cheerful
and good in the escort role. Typically,
her work involved spending evenings at the Treetops Hotel in the company of oil
industry executives. The policy of the
agency was that an escort could not meet the same client more than three times,
presumably to guard against a romantic relationship developing. However, in one known instance, in 1977,
Brenda did meet a client outwith arrangements made by the agency and had sex
with him at the Allen Street flat. Small, personal advertisements appeared daily
in the Aberdeen Evening Express proffering Capital Escorts’ services to
clients, though no separate insertion has been found aimed at recruiting new escorts.
The two men
whom Brenda entertained on the night of her murder had phoned Bill Austin from
their car during the evening. In those
days a car telephone was extremely rare and an indicator of wealth, so he had
been happy to accept their booking and Brenda was the obvious choice of
escort. The men had only requested one
companion. Austin never heard from them
again after that night.
For Brenda,
this novel work, so different from her daytime employment, probably fulfilled
two needs: it gave her a second and much needed income to help finance her
mortgage and it gave her back a social life.
Several witnesses, including her sister, Rita Ling and her work colleague
Dr Jessie Watt described the pay from this agency as being “good money”, though
some confidants expressed concern that there would be a price to pay for the fine dining,
in terms of sexual favours granted. Rita
Ling told Brenda not to be so stupid, but she dismissed such concerns, telling
her older sister, “You’re so old fashioned”.
Although her work as an escort was not widely known – I did not learn
about this activity until after Brenda’s death – she was not totally secretive
about the role, though she did call herself “Brenda Adams” (her mother’s maiden
surname) while fulfilling escort assignments, which must have been intended to obscure
her true identity from her clients.
However, the
portrayal of Brenda as a furtive prostitute in some media outlets (she was
referred to as a “call girl”) seems wide of the mark. Rather, she was paid to be an engaging and
sophisticated companion, while having a good time at someone else’s expense and,
in line with the social mores of the time, she was not averse to a limited sexual
liaison if the client appealed to her.
This is known to have been the outcome of appointments on at least two
occasions, once at the Allen Street flat and a second time at a hotel.
The assessment
of Brenda’s escorting as essentially a social opportunity with extra income is
born out by a statement from her sister, Rita Ling. Rita thought she recalled (she was in her 80s
at the time) that Brenda had brought one oil client down to Suffolk. Rita thought he may have invited her to the
USA. The American was a “nice guy” and
Brenda affectionately described him as her “oil man”.
Kit
Harrisson’s personality
What can be
said of Harrisson’s personality?
Although he was often described as being very bright, for example,
Professor Hamish Keir said “Dr Harrisson was a brilliant scientist although I
found him to be rather intense. He was
almost totally devoted to science and learning and was very dedicated”. Further, he was “a very agreeable fellow who
was quite stimulating and entertaining with a highly original mind”. But Keir also noted that Harrisson kept to
himself and did not interact much with the other research students and staff in
the department. In spite of his alleged intelligence, he could
not be said to have been an achiever, in marked contrast to his wife. His employment all seems to have been
temporary in nature, which, according to Hamish Keir, did not seem to concern
him, perhaps because he had personal means.
Also, his publication record was rather sparse. Dr Jim Douglas surveyed the literature for
contributions by Kit Harrisson and found that only four publications had
appeared between 1962 and 2000, a decidedly modest donation to the fount of human
knowledge for a scientist who had worked in some of the UK’s leading research-led
universities.
Harrisson had a
deep interest in books, especially antiquarian books and this was noticed by a
number of people. Elsa Christie,
Harrisson’s Edinburgh friend, a retired teacher and former lawyer, said that
the friendship with Kit Harrisson had developed out of a common interest in
antiquarian books between her husband and Kit.
One of Eric Jensen’s lasting
impressions of 12 Mile End Place was the number of books there. Kit Harrisson is also known to have been a
frequent, though not a polite, user of the Botany library in the University of
Aberdeen, which possessed a number of rare volumes. Diane Davey noticed on her visit to Edinburgh,
before the Harrissons moved to Aberdeen, that their home was full of books and
there was a suggestion that Kit Harrisson may have been dealing in antiquarian tomes. Certainly, he did not seem to go out to work
and Diane was puzzled about what he was doing during the day.
Jessie Watt had many opportunities to observe Kit Harrisson’s behaviour
at close quarters. She described him as
eccentric, intellectual and rather quiet.
Kit Harrisson
continued to be exercised about Brenda, even after she moved out of the marital
home. Brenda’s colleague, Jessie Watt
said he was “a bit obsessive about her”.
He followed Brenda everywhere and repeatedly checked up on her by
telephone. Jessie also said, “In many
ways he was the complete opposite of Brenda”.
“He struck me as an absent-minded professor type. He was very eccentric. He did not mix well”. Kit Harrisson knew about Brenda’s escort work,
and it did not sit comfortably with him.
He referred to it as “her whoring”.
The content of a telephone conversation between Harrisson and his
Edinburgh friend, Elsa Christie, on 13 July 1978, just a day before Brenda’s
death, is particularly revealing about Harrisson’s state of mind at the
time. She said he was depressed and
seeking sympathy. He told her he was
going to kill his former wife, to which Mrs Christie responded with a request
for him to calm down. Perhaps she
thought he was making a cry for help rather than a serious threat? Harrisson also claimed that Brenda had stolen
some of his research results and Mrs Christie again appealed to him not to be
vindictive. It seems improbable that
Brenda, with 16 scientific papers to her credit by the time of her death in
1978, would ever consider stooping to such an act of scientific immorality. What is more likely is that Harrisson was
suffering from paranoid feelings and this possibility was supported by another
witness, Brenda’s friend, Sarah McIntyre.
Brenda was in the habit of going to concerts with a further female
friend and on the basis of this social companionship, Kit Harrisson accused the
two women of conducting “a lesbian affair”.
Sarah McIntyre also observed that Harrisson could get “very angry”, was
“very jealous” and “could not bear the thought of another man being with
her”. Even after the interim interdict came into force in January 1978, Kit Harrisson persisted in harassing
Brenda. She believed he continued to monitor
her movements, and she never knew when he might turn up to gate-crash a dinner
party or a scientific conference. He
even followed her abroad to a conference in Mexico, though its topic was in an
area of science of no direct concern to him.
Kit Harrisson
also had other quirks of personality which might be looked upon as bizarre but
harmless, such as his habit of taking three baths each day and wearing many
layers of woolly clothing around his house.
However, he had other oddities of character which rendered him
potentially dangerous. His threats of
violence and actual assaults on Brenda were the most marked of these traits,
but there were other instances of loss of control which were more annoying or
embarrassing than menacing, such as his repeated use of insults to me at my
home in January 1976.
Several
accounts portrayed Kit Harrisson as a loner.
Although Celia Harrisson had been a bridesmaid at the wedding of brother
Kit and Brenda, he never really kept contact with her either before or after
the wedding. After the death of his
ex-wife, Kit Harrisson’s remoteness became worse. In 2023, Celia reported that the last time
she had spoken to her brother was in 1992 at their father’s funeral, 31 years
previously. Jessie Watt and Hamish Keir
also reported isolationist tendencies in Harrisson and reporter Isla Traquair,
a long-standing investigator of this case, described him as “aloof, eccentric, monotone, emotionless”.
A love-hate
relationship
The
relationship between Brenda Page and Kit Harrisson was complex and cannot be fairly
portrayed simply as one between a jealous and controlling spouse / ex-spouse and
an abused and terrified wife / former partner. It appeared to have elements of both love and
hate right from the early days of the relationship almost to its termination
and in spite of the interim interdict imposed on Kit Harrisson which was conveniently
ignored on occasions by both Brenda and her erstwhile husband. In April 1973, 11 months after their wedding,
Brenda had attended Edinburgh Royal Infirmary’s A&E department with an
injury apparently caused by Harrisson. A
pattern of sporadic violence interspersed with occasional gestures of affection
then developed and continued, even after Brenda moved out of the marital home. One instance of this ambivalence consisted of
Brenda trusting Kit with a key to her flat on one occasion, so that he could
enter to feed her three cats while she was away. Harrisson stated that on completion of this
chore, he locked the flat door and posted the key through the letterbox. Brenda’s birthday in 1978 (23 February, 4 ½
months before her death) brought forth a gesture of affection from Kit
Harrisson when he delivered a basket of homemade bread to the Cytogenetics
Laboratory for Brenda. Jessie Watt took
the birthday gift to her boss, who was taking coffee with the laboratory staff
at the time. Brenda was, by then, deeply
suspicious of Kit Harrisson’s intentions and refused to eat his baking effort,
remarking that it was probably poisoned.
Jessie, perhaps rather boldly, said she would eat some as did other
colleagues and did so without ill-effect. It was
at this point that Brenda made the stunning and unforgettable remark to Jessie,
“If I die suddenly and it looks like suicide, don’t believe it”.
Dr Jessie Watt also
recalled a conference, under the auspices of the European Society of Human
Genetics, held in Vienna in early May 1978, which epitomised the tangled web of
emotions which existed between the two former life partners. Jessie and Brenda were each presenting a
paper at this scientific meeting. Both
attended, accompanied by their partners, which in Brenda’s case was remarkable
since this meeting occurred after the divorce and after the granting of an
interim interdict restraining Harrisson from approaching Brenda. She and Harrisson shared a hotel room. Jessie’s observation was that they “outwardly
appeared to get on”, but an element of control was still apparent. Brenda exhibited some anxiety and told Jessie
to “agree with anything” Harrisson had asked them to do whilst on the trip, and
she had done so “to please Brenda”.
“They (Kit and Brenda) wanted to hire a car for a trip up the
mountains. I didn’t want to go - I was pregnant. He was very demanding.” Kit Harrisson also insisted that the four of
them go out to a catfish restaurant.
Jessie felt obliged to attend even though she felt unwell and, in any
case, hated catfish. The trip to Vienna
was the last occasion on which Jessie saw Brenda and Harrisson together as a
couple.
There was a
sequel to the conference visit to Vienna which illustrated Kit Harrisson’s
warped sense of humour. At the time of
the conference, Jessie Watt and her husband Allan had very little money and
could not afford to accompany Kit and Brenda when they ate at “fancy” restaurants.
Jessie and Allan resorted to eating on the street as cheaply as possible. To this end, Allan bought a knife with which
to cut up food that they had purchased. The
knife was kept in a bag but protruded from the top, which caused the police to
stop the couple and ask them to account for the potential weapon. Some months later, Jessie received a phone
call from a picture framer in Aberdeen asking her to go and collect her picture
which had been lying in his shop for some time.
This puzzled Jessie as she had not asked for a picture to be
framed. However, her husband went to
collect the picture which proved to be a black and white depiction of the
character Mackie Messer (Mack the Knife) from the music drama “The Threepenny
Opera”, written by Bertold Brecht. Mackie was a knife-wielding London criminal,
and the picture contained a portrayal of him carrying a bag with a knife
protruding and dripping with blood.
Jessie found the picture upsetting and threw it away. She assumed it had been sent to the picture
framer by Kit Harrisson and was indicative of his twisted disposition in
likening Allan to Mack the Knife. Jessie
told the police about the incident.
This appeasement
of Harrisson was consistent with the opinion Rita Ling, Brenda’s sister, formed
of Harrisson. She described Brenda’s
relationship with Harrisson as "like walking on eggshells" - "he
was unpredictable, could be very nice or very nasty". The weekend before Brenda met her tragic end,
she had visited her relatives in Ipswich and told her sister, Rita, that she
did not want to go back to Aberdeen because she feared Harrisson would still be
pestering her. Brenda’s mother offered
to accompany her daughter, presumably to give her moral support but Brenda
declined the offer because her mother would soon need to return south to
participate in a family holiday. Brenda
went back to Aberdeen alone, assuring her family that she would be fine.
The report in
the Scottish Sun in March 2023 concerning Harrisson’s American love-child also
made the claim that Brenda was planning to attend Harrisson’s graduation
ceremony in Edinburgh in 1978 but that she withdrew when she heard that the
love-child and his American mother had also been invited by Harrisson. If so, Harrisson must have maintained contact
with his former lover and their offspring, even while married to Brenda. It would also indicate that Brenda and Kit
Harrisson still had a significant degree of contact in the weeks before Brenda
was killed. The same article also
reported that a neighbour in Allan Street had seen the pair picnicking together
in the garden at 13 Allan Street about May 1978.
Was Harrisson
mentally ill? No one interested in the case,
except perhaps Brenda herself (see below), seems to have suggested that this
was the case. However, Harrisson’s complex of emotional characteristics,
especially his unduly negative perceptions of the actions of others and his
uncontrolled violence, both physical and verbal, were certainly unusual. His odd personality would seem to have been
at least an outlier on the spectrum of human normality. Interestingly, the full quotation from the
letter in which Harrisson admitted to suffering from “rages” is
instructive. “It is that conflict – between the need to tell and be healed in a lover’s
arms, and the shame which makes me keep my failures to myself – that causes
those rages of which you are afraid, soothed and whole, I should be very even
tempered”. Kit Harrisson, in his periods
of calm and control, clearly loved Brenda but emotional conflicts in his mind
and perhaps a sense of inadequacy, or failure, caused him to lash out both
verbally and physically in an exaggerated way.
Had he been able to openly acknowledge the danger he posed to Brenda at
that stage, through seeking medical help, she might have survived to fulfil her
potential. With hindsight, it seems possible
that Brenda made a mistake by trying to appease Harrisson, rather than taking a
no-tolerance approach and contacting the police at each transgression by her
former husband? Undoubtedly, Kit
Harrisson was a very difficult person with whom to interact, but particularly
for Brenda.
It is clear
from observations made by Jessie Watt that Brenda herself was concerned that
Kit Harrisson was suffering from a mental illness. Apparently, Brenda kept a file on
schizophrenia in the top drawer of her desk at the laboratory, from which
Jessie concluded that Brenda was trying to work out what was wrong with her husband
and suspected a mental condition. To the
present author, it seems unlikely that Harrisson was suffering specifically
from schizophrenia, but perhaps Brenda was being influenced by the then popular
name for the condition, “split personality”?
There were two
occasions when a highly emotional Harrisson pleaded with friends of Brenda to
intercede on his behalf with her, in an attempt to win her back. Sarah McIntyre, a friend of Brenda’s
recounted an insightful incident from early 1978 when Harrisson visited her
(Sarah’s) flat and pleaded with her to contact Brenda on his behalf as he still
loved her, and Sarah eventually agreed to carry out this task. On another occasion, Kit Harrisson phoned
Jessie Watt in a highly emotional state because he wanted to resume the
relationship with Brenda. Jessie said
that he was almost crying, and she felt sorry for him. Kit said
he was trying to get a job and he had cleaned up the home, but Brenda would
still would not come back, which suggests that Brenda had been criticising his failure
to gain employment with prospects for the future and also commenting upon his
lack of domestic pride. He asked to come
over to talk to Jessie, perhaps hoping she would intercede with Brenda on his
behalf. Kit Harrisson picked up Jessie
in his car from the Medical School and drove erratically down to the Aberdeen
beach for them to talk.
Jessie also remarked that he was volatile and also jealous of Brenda’s
academic success. In 1976 Brenda and
Kit, together with Hamish Keir, Kit’s head of department, published a paper in
Nature on the potential use of mescaline, a naturally-occurring alkaloid with psychodelic
or hallucinogenic properties, as a spindle inhibitor in the preparation of
dividing human lymphocytes for the examination of their chromosomes. It was based on a solid piece of research but
hardly of major significance. Perhaps
this was an attempt by Kit to ride on the research coat tails of Brenda?
The murder
On the evening
of Thursday 13 July 1978, Brenda Page left the Cytogenetics Laboratory at
Foresterhill about 6.00pm and made the journey of less than two miles to her
home in Allan Street in her seven-year-old, beige Mini saloon, HMT 595K. Her neighbour, Mrs Gordon, did not see her
that evening, though she had spotted her friend the previous day. Before 9.00pm, Brenda received a telephone
call from Capital Escorts offering her an assignment that evening at the
Treetops Hotel. She accepted and arrived
at the venue at 10.00pm to keep the company of two men. The Treetops opened in 1965 and during the
Aberdeen oil boom of the 1970s it was probably Aberdeen’s most famous
hotel. It was almost synonymous with the
excesses of that period when oil money gushed in the hospitality venues of the
city. Brenda left the Treetops and drove
herself home about 2.30am the following morning, Friday 14th
July. She was last seen alive at the
hotel about that time.
Treetops Hotel, Aberdeen (after renaming)
Brenda did not
show up at work on Friday 14th July, though she would usually arrive
by 8.30am and had been expected to attend.
This caused some concern to Gordon Stephen, the chief technician at the
laboratory, and to Jessie Watt because some papers, possibly related to the
diving research contract, required Brenda’s urgent signature. Jessie and Gordon decided to take the
documents round to Brenda’s flat together.
According to Jessie Watt, they left the Medical School and arrived at
Brenda’s flat about 11.00am, though evidence given in court suggests that the
time was about 3.00pm. They observed Brenda’s Mini parked in the street, which
was unusual for that time of day. The colleagues knocked on the locked door of Brenda’s ground floor left flat but got no
response. Mrs Elizabeth Gordon, who
lived in the other ground floor flat at 13 Allan Street, heard the noise and
came into the hallway. She told Gordon
and Jessie that she had a key to Brenda’s flat.
Mrs Gordon thought that Brenda was asleep but agreed to wake her
neighbour. Gordon Stephen, perhaps
sensing that something was amiss, suggested to Jessie, who was heavily pregnant,
that she should go and sit in the car, which she did. Mrs Gordon let herself into Brenda’s flat,
leaving Gordon Stephen at the door.
It is difficult
to imagine the shock that Elizabeth Gordon must have suffered when she entered
Brenda’s bedroom. “I saw nothing but
blood and hair. She was cuddled up in
bed”, was Mrs Gordon’s later account of her horrific discovery. She immediately went out to the waiting
Gordon. “Would you go in and see if I am
right? I think there is something awful”,
she said. It must have been immediately
obvious to Gordon that his boss, Brenda, was dead and that her life had
apparently been ended by extreme violence.
He took Mrs Gordon back to her flat and promptly telephoned the police. It was some time before Gordon went back to
the car where the waiting Jessie Watt observed that he was ashen-faced and that
he sat for some time before he could tell her what had happened. By Gordon’s prescience, Jessie had been
spared the sight of her dead friend and PhD supervisor. Gordon and Jessie then drove back to the
laboratory.
PC Eric Grant
was on patrol in a police car when he received a message over the radio to
attend at 13 Allan Street. He was met by
Gordon Stephen and Elizabeth Gordon, the latter clutching a glass of
whisky. Her hands must have been shaking
as she was spilling more of her drink than she was consuming. Eric Grant, entered Brenda’s flat, passing
through a kitchen/sitting area, with several items strewn on the floor, before
reaching the main bedroom. He found
Brenda wearing a nightdress and lying face up on the bed, her feet on the floor
and with one foot caught around the cable of an electric blanket. Her hands were lifted towards her face,
apparently in a defensive posture.
"She was obviously dead and had suffered head injuries," Grant
said. "She'd had a violent death". Detective Constable Brian Kennedy,
along with colleague Detective Constable Alan McKechnie were also directed to
attend, arrived at the flat and reported that Brenda had been “brutally
attacked”. It was also observed that the
bedclothes had been disturbed, suggesting that Brenda had risen up either before or after the
attack started.
There was a
period of evidence collection before Brenda’s body could be removed to Grampian
Police Headquarters for a postmortem examination. Detective Sergeant Eric Jensen, the Grampian Police
forensic scientist, was a member of the team which arrived at Brenda’s flat
about 4.00pm on 14th July. He
secured a series of items from in and around the periphery of the flat for
further examination.
Dr Jim Douglas
arrived home from work in the late afternoon of 14 July 1978 and was surprised
to find a police officer standing in the street outside no 13 Allan
Street. He then saw Dr William Hendry a
pathologist, whom he knew, emerge from the building. It was then that Jim discovered that his neighbour,
Brenda Page, had been found dead, apparently murdered. Hendry then asked Jim if he could identify
the body to him, which Jim did. It was a
very difficult task for Jim, since he knew Brenda as both a friend and a
colleague. "I was absolutely horrified.
It's stayed with me for 45 years”, he said.
The post-mortem
examination was carried out by Hendry at the mortuary about 7.30pm the same
evening. DS Jensen and a photographer
were also in attendance. The pathologist
asked Jensen to remove a ring from one of Brenda’s fingers and a small fragment
of wood, which was then secured, came away with the item of jewellery. Later Eric Jensen examined the wood fragment
under the microscope and pronounced it indistinguishable from the wood of the
window frame through which the killer was thought to have gained entry to
Brenda’s flat. Dr Hendry concluded that Brenda
had died because of a violent assault.
Dr Marjorie Turner, a forensic pathologist was asked to review the
results of the original examination prior to the trial of Kit Harrisson in
2023. She concluded that Brenda Page had
died as a result of “blunt force trauma” and that she had been hit at least 20
times on the top and back of the head and to the face with one, or possibly
more, weapons which were “blunt with an edge component”. Brenda had also suffered extensive bruising
to her hands and a dislocated finger, which Dr Turner identified as “classical
defensive injuries”. The actual cause of
death was inhalation of blood.
Late on July 14th,
Eric Jensen also attended 12 Mile End Place, the home of Kit Harrisson. There he examined Harrisson’s Mini Coutryman
before driving it to Grampian Police Headquarters for further investigation. The day after Brenda’s killing, 15 July, the
CID passed on further items that they removed from Harrisson’s home and Jensen
again visited the property. Brenda’s
Mini was also removed to Grampian Police Headquarters and Eric Jensen examined
it, too, on 16 July.
The murder
investigation gets underway
Generally,
Aberdeen is not a city marked by high levels of violence and Grampian Police
did not often have to deal with cases of homicide. However, when Brenda Page, a prominent member
of the Aberdeen academic community, was murdered, the police clearly felt the
need to get on top of this crime quickly.
Very rapidly, 35 detectives and 50 members of the uniformed branch were
assigned to the case and 5,000 posters seeking information were distributed
around the area. In the first part of
the investigation 550 enquiries were made, and 200 witness statements recorded. Chief Inspector James Ritchie was in charge
of this phase of the inquiry.
Murders rarely
occur at random. In the majority of
cases, the murderer is known to the victim.
Indeed, the relationship is often that of spouses or partners, with a
markedly asymmetry, many more women being killed by men than vice versa. This is especially so when violence is
involved. Further, murderers almost
always have a motive. Experienced
detectives are well aware of these trends, and it did not take them long to
latch upon a male, related suspect with a motive in the case of Dr Page. The two men who had kept Brenda’s company on
the night of 13/14 July were quickly identified and easily eliminated from the
potential list of suspects but, even before that had been accomplished, the
boys and girls in blue had paid a visit to 12 Mile End Place. Detective Constables Brian Kennedy and Alan
McKechnie attended at the address “sometime later” on the day of the murder but
received no reply at the door. They
waited until Harrisson returned home, inevitably driving his scruffy, green
Mini Countryman. When told that his ex-wife
had died the officers found his reaction to be rather strange. He was unemotional and, in a matter-of-fact
way, simply said, “Oh my god, how awful” but he exhibited no curiosity to know
the circumstances of her death. He was then
cautioned and arrested and his only request before being taken away for
interview was to be allowed to feed his chickens.
At Grampian
Police Headquarters Harrisson was interviewed and medically examined by a
police doctor, who took various samples from the suspect, which were passed on
to Eric Jensen. It was observed by
Jensen that Harrisson’s demeanour was both smug and aloof. He had just been interviewed by an
experienced police officer who had got nowhere with his questioning of this
wily adversary, which Jensen suspected accounted for Harrisson’s frame of mind.
Further personal items and clothing from
Harrisson were transferred from the CID to Jensen on 18 July.
Kit Harrisson under arrest in 1978
At this time, I
knew a reporter in Aberdeen whose name I have since forgotten. He told me that, after his arrest, Harrisson
was put on the charge sheet to appear at the court in Aberdeen but that his
name was then struck out, apparently because the Procurator Fiscal had
concluded that the police did not yet have enough evidence for him to be
confident of a conviction.
The unkempt
state of Harrisson’s car made it easily recognisable to those who knew him, and
it is interesting that one of Harrisson’s neighbours in Mile End Place reported
that on the evening of the murder, 13 July 1978, Harrisson’s car was away from
his house for some hours, which would have been consistent with him being at the cinema (see below) or involved at or near the scene of the crime. Detective Constable Kennedy also noticed at the time
of Harrisson’s arrest that he was wearing a pair of shoes which were so new that
the soles had barely been marked. On
searching his house another curious discovery was made. The accounts of the trial by various media outlets described a watch strap (pale gree and of synthetic material) which was discovered in the fireplace of a
bedroom as being “charred”. Those reports
were in error as this item had never been subjected to heat. However, it was grubby indicating that it had
been worn regularly. Later, examination
of this item resulted in the discovery of two very small blood spots,
insufficient at the time to do more than test if the sample was animal or human
blood or, alternatively, what its ABO blood group was. Normally, both tests would have been
performed sequentially, animal test first and blood group second. Grampian Police sent a CID officer down to
London with the watch strap for the Metropolitan Police laboratory to analyse
the blood spots but with an instruction to omit the animal blood test. Crucially, Brenda Page and her former husband
were known to possess different ABO blood groups. These blood markers are invariate and
genetically determined. Whoever was
responsible for the assault on Brenda would be likely to have had blood
spatters on their skin, clothing, shoes, hair and any watch that they might
have been wearing. Unfortunately, the
Metropolitan Police laboratory which carried out the investigation did not omit
the animal blood test, which meant that the ABO blood group test could not be
performed. Had the ABO blood group
proved to be Brenda’s that would have linked Kit Harrisson to the murder with a
computable probability.
It did not take
the press long to uncover who the police suspected of being responsible for
Brenda’s death, especially since in those days the police would speak to
members of the press off the record. A
reporter went to Kit Harrisson’s house at 12 Mile End Place on Sunday evening,
16 July. The door was answered by a
friend of Harrisson, who said he was at home but, “He has nothing to say”. He subsequently went to stay with friends in
the country, perhaps to avoid further unwanted press attention.
By 20 July,
Brenda’s body had been released to her relatives and her funeral was arranged
for 27 July. She was buried at St
Andrew's parish church, just outside Ipswich.
Mrs Florence Page died in 1992, without seeing the perpetrator of her
daughter’s murder brought to justice. Mrs
Page was interred in the same grave as her deceased offspring.
The grave of Brenda Page and her mother, Florence
Kit
Harrisson’s unemotional response to Brenda’s killing
Harrisson’s
aloofness continued. It was six days
after the murder before he released a formal statement on his feelings
following his former wife’s death and this went out through his agent, David
Burnside, rather than being delivered personally. “Dr Harrisson has asked me to state publicly
the sincere and heartfelt grief which he feels at the tragic and untimely death
of his former wife and the hope that the person or persons responsible will
soon be apprehended. For his own part he
has co-operated fully with the police inquiries and has given a full account of
his movements. As the matter of Dr
Page’s death is still subject to police inquiry, he feels that it would be
improper for him to make any further comment to the Press meantime and
expresses the hope that he will now be granted some privacy”. The words sound as though they were composed
by an experienced lawyer, not a distraught former husband. A similar flavour attached to Harrisson’s
response to the announcement of the arrangements for Brenda’s funeral. He released a statement saying he would have
liked to attend the funeral but understood it was private and that he had not
been invited, so it would be inappropriate for him to be there. Some of Brenda’s colleagues did, however,
make the journey down to Ipswich and there were discussions about holding a
memorial service in Aberdeen. The
omission of an invitation to Harrisson was unsurprising. Much later, Rita Ling said that the family
had always believed that he had killed Brenda.
Harrisson’s
anomalous behaviour following Brenda’s death was also reflected in his complete
failure to contact any of Brenda’s friends and relatives in Ipswich with
expressions of grief or condolence. No
cards, no flowers, nothing. The same was
true of the friends and colleagues of Brenda in Aberdeen. They did not hear from Harrisson ever
again. Apparently, it did not seem to
occur to Kit Harrisson that such a silence would be interpreted by those close
to Brenda as being not just unusual but also an indicator of his likely
complicity in her death. Further, over the years foolowing Brenda's murder Kit Harrisson declined to grant an interview to any media representative.
Kit
Harrisson’s journey to Edinburgh
The police
quickly discovered that Harrisson had driven his car to Stonehaven early on the
morning of Friday 14 July where he joined the 6.27am train from Aberdeen to the
Scottish capital. This information was apparently derived from Harrisson's interrogation by the police. Although Harrisson said he drove to the county town of Kincardineshire because he feared he would be late for the train in Aberdeen, the Grampian force wondered if there was an alternative explanation for why he had not simply
caught the train from his nearest station.
He had been carrying his green duffle bag when he made this journey, but
it was not in his possession when he returned north later the same day. The journey time from Aberdeen to Edinburgh
was about three hours, so Harrisson would have arrived in Edinburgh about
9.30am, five and a half hours before the crime scene in the Granite City was
discovered. Enquiries in Edinburgh revealed
that a “tall thin man” had bought a Timex watch at a shop in Teviot Row at
11.20am on 14th July.
Harrisson was indeed a “tall thin man” in those days. According to DI Gary Winter, Harrisson bought a new pair of shoes in the Scottish capital and went to the University, with which he was thoroughly familiar. The same source also reported that Harrisson had bought a new watch strap at Stonehaven on his return journey on the afternoon of 14 July.
The forensic
examination of Brenda’s flat
Eric Jensen was the police forensic
expert who, in 1978, examined Brenda’s flat, inside and out, the cars of both
Brenda and Kit Harrisson and the items removed from Harrisson’s person and his
property at 12 Mile End Place.
Inspection of the periphery of Brenda’s
flat soon established a possible mode of entry by the killer. There was a small window at the rear of the
property which led into the spare bedroom.
This window had two components, only the upper one of which was designed
to be opened, with hinges on its upper edge. It had been prized apart on its lower edge in
a deliberate and methodical way using an instrument with a chisel-like tip. Further, Eric Jensen found fibres adhering to
the edge of this opening, though he was unable to determine their origin. However, there was no indication that a climbing
aid, such as a stepladder, had been used to aid entry.
The front door from Allan Street opened
into a common hallway with stairs to the upper floors. The two ground floor flats had doors leading
off from the hallway, Brenda’s to the left and Mrs Gordon’s to the right. This common area also had access to a rear
garden via a second external door.
Inside Brenda’s flat was a kitchen/living area, a door to the main
bedroom and the bathroom. The small,
spare rear bedroom opened off the main sleeping room.
Eric Jensen carried out an extensive examination of the interior of
Brenda’s flat and the common areas on the ground floor. Inside the flat, blood was found on the main
bedroom door handle, the bathroom light switch and on the front door of the flat. No blood was found on the handles of the two
external doors.
Examination of
the spare bedroom from the inside showed that it contained a table with a towel
on it, placed up against the back wall with the window. Jensen first carefully folded the towel in on
itself and stored it securely to avoid contamination. He then moved the table, which had been
covered by the towel, so it did not need special treatment. Using the same filter on his vacuum apparatus,
he then sampled three areas to the width of the window, the windowsill, the top
of the skirting and the carpet from the wall to the edge of a rug which
extended to about 12 – 15 ins from the skirting board. This was the area where any items, such as
dust, fragments or fibres dislodged from the intruder would be likely to have
fallen. It was in this pooled sample
that a small green paint fragment with four layers was found. Inside the same bedroom was a full height,
fitted wardrobe. It contained many
suspended but empty clothes hangers.
In the bathroom
there was a linen basket containing soiled clothes, with a pair of ladies’
pants on top. There were dilute
bloodstains on the pants. Jensen sampled
the trap on the drain from the wash hand basin in the bathroom with a long
tube. The first sample was positive for
blood, the second sample from deeper in the trap was negative.
Vacuumed samples were also taken from various locations in Harrisson’s
car including the driver’s footwell. In the
sample from this latter location a green paint fragment with four layers was
found which appeared identical to the sliver found under the rear bedroom
window inside the flat.
No unusual fingerprints were found around Brenda’s flat suggesting that
the killer was gloved throughout his or her time within the property. Outwith the forensic investigation, there
were also two reports of lights being on at Brenda’s flat on the night of the
murder, after the time that Brenda had left for the Treetops but before the estimated
time of her return. One of these reports was by a neighbour who lived with his wife on the floor above Brenda's flat.
The police
search unsuccessfully for the murder weapon and the clothing of the perpetrator
Although Kit
Harrisson was never formally named as a suspect, it was clear from the actions
and statements of the police, for example the speed with which they attended 12
Mile End Place on the day Brenda’s body was discovered, that he was their prime
subject of interest from the very start of the investigation. The police soon announced that they had
examined an Inter-City railway carriage and eliminated it from their enquiries. By 24 July, the local force put out a much
more specific call for help from the public.
They were now seeking to recover a green duffle bag which might contain
clues to the identity of Brenda’s killer, such as blood-stained clothing and
the murder weapon, though they did not announce the basis on which their new
appeal rested. The police also appealed for more passengers who took the 6.27am
train to Edinburgh on 14 July to come forward.
Extensive searches were mounted along the route a car might have taken
from the West End of Aberdeen to the Kincardineshire county town. Police divers searched the river Dee directly
under the King George VI bridge in Aberdeen, the foreshore at Stonehaven was
given the once-over, along with the River Cowie within Stonehaven and even one
of the town’s scaffie wagons (local name for a dustcart) was searched. Also, the verges of the main route between
the two settlements were scrutinised by police officers on foot. The railway track from Aberdeen to Edinburgh
was also examined but the investigation was starting to assume an air of frustration. The mysterious green duffle bag and its
assumed contents had not been found and there was a distinct lack of evidence
and especially no murder weapon establishing a direct link between Kit
Harrisson (or anyone else) and the murder of Brenda Page. The Grampian Police investigation was running
into the sand. Even so, the police
remained convinced that Harrisson was their man. At some time in the 1990s, a colleague of
mine, Dr Bob Ralph, received a visit from two Grampian Police officers on an
unrelated matter, Bob’s possession of a licensed shotgun. The policemen were checking that the weapon
was being kept securely in a locked metal cabinet. In conversation, they found that Bob was a
member of staff in the Zoology Department at the university and asked if he
knew Kit Harrisson. Bob confirmed that
he was aware of whom this individual was, and a response came back to the
effect that Harrisson was very lucky still to be walking the streets. After the murder, Kit Harrisson moved abroad,
it is thought initially to Switzerland and then to The Netherlands. In 2003 he is known to have been working at
the University of Leiden, where a Grampian TV reporter, Isla Traquair attempted
to interview him. Her questioning was
blunt and to the point. “Why in the
twenty-five years since her murder have you not once been in touch with the
police to ask how the inquiry was going, seeing as you were so clearly in love
with her and obsessed by her?” and “Why
aren’t you taking this moment to protest your innocence Mr Harrisson?” Harrisson refused to answer and walked away
as quickly as he could. This response
was part of a pattern which has been maintained over the years, as Harrisson has
consistently refused to talk about the death of his late wife. In 1996 the law firm which handled the
sale of his house said that they had not heard from him for about six
years. He appeared to be keeping a low
profile. Kit Harrisson finally returned to Aberdeen
from The Netherlands in 2015 and resumed residence at his house in Mile End
Place.
Police search the Aberdeen to Stonehaven roadside verges
The response
of Capital Escorts to Brenda’s murderThe murder of
Brenda Page brought unwanted attention to Capital Escorts and the nature of
their business. In response the owner,
Bill Austin, cancelled all his company’s Aberdeen appointments, he said as a
mark of respect for Brenda. He also
informed the press that some of his girls had resigned, perhaps fearing that
Brenda had met her attacker through her work for the agency. However, Bill Austin’s self-imposed abstinence
from earning money off the Aberdeen oil industry was short lived. On 1 August 1978, two weeks after Brenda’s
murder, the company announced that it was resuming its service in Aberdeen,
“ready to cope with a burst of demand”.
At the time there were thought to be seven women working for the agency
in the Granite City.
Brenda’s
mother and sister visit the scene of the crime
Brenda’s
mother, Mrs Florence Page, and her sister, Mrs Rita Ling, travelled to Aberdeen
and visited Brenda’s flat on Wednesday 19 July, which must have been a very
difficult occasion for them, imagining the horrific experience to which Brenda had
been exposed only five days previously. The
police asked Rita Ling to check if anything was missing, which might indicate
that a burglary had taken place. It was
not obvious that anything was missing.
Brenda’s watch and jewellery were lying on a table as though she had
discarded them there when she returned from the Treetops. Rita would subsequently retain her sister's personal belongings, including her intricate wedding dress, which she stored in
her loft.
Brenda’s
friend, Elizabeth Gordon had offered to accommodate the visitors from Ipswich,
but the police intervened and took them to stay at an unspecified address in
Ellon. Mrs Gordon was so badly affected
by her experience that she never returned to her flat at 13 Allan Street. The shock of discovering Brenda’s mutilated
and lifeless body was considerable, and Mrs Gordon required continuing medical
help. She subsequently went to live in
the Bridge of Don district of Aberdeen and died some years later.
The
continuation of the diving project
At the time of
Brenda Page’s murder, my wife, children and I were away from Aberdeen staying
with my widowed mother-in-law in Newcastle upon Tyne. On Sunday 16 July, I was shocked to read a
brief report of Brenda’s demise in one of the broadsheet newspapers, possibly
the Sunday Times. In consequence and
being unable to return north immediately, I wrote to Forbes Robertson
expressing my profound sorrow at this tragic loss of a valued colleague and
offering my help in any way that Forbes thought might be appropriate.
Commander
Jackie Warner, the official responsible for diving at the Department of Energy
was asked what the fate of the diving project would be following Brenda’s death. “We hope it is not an unacceptable
set-back. She (Brenda) was the
leader of a team, and the research will continue”, was his response. Warner and the Department of Energy were keen
to see the project brought to a successful conclusion. Formally, the contract for the research project was transferred to Forbes Robertson, though Forbes, not being a cytogeneticist, asked me
to assume control of the scientific work, which I did.
The successful
completion of the project depended heavily upon the help of Dr Jim Douglas (Jim
was himself a sub-aqua enthusiast) in sourcing divers and controls from various
locations and settings, and the laboratory work of two members of staff
recruited by Brenda Page, Dr Thelma Brown and Mrs Irene Bullock. My role was mainly involved in collecting
blood samples (some from overseas), in experimental design, the analysis of
experimental results and the preparation of the work for publication. A separate in vitro experimental
programme, using a small laboratory pressure vessel that was designed and built
using Department of Energy funds, was undertaken by Anne Whitehead, a PhD
student working under my supervision.
It was observed
that chromosomal mutations only occurred at a low level in all experimental and
control groups and the general conclusion reached was that there was no reason
to be concerned that diving in the North Sea, using either air or mixed-gas for
breathing, was likely to be creating genetic problems for the divers themselves,
or for their descendants. This finding
was welcomed in the Department of Energy.
There was one possible exception to this generalisation. A small number of cells was discovered which
had high levels of chromosome-type aberrations (a class of damage affecting
both chromatids equally and indicating that it was present in the individual before his
lymphocytes were stimulated to replicate and divide) and these cells were more frequent in divers
than controls, though with the small numbers involved it was difficult to be
confident that the results were not the product of sampling error. Such cells have been found in other
circumstances by other cytogeneticists and their general significance is
unknown, though the level of damage observed makes the survival of these
abnormal cells in the body rather unlikely, once cell division occurs.
In total, the
Department of Energy provided funding in four tranches between 1978 and 1984 of
£169,000. The work was published in a
report to the Department of Energy (“The cytogenetic consequences of diving”. DP Fox and FW Robertson 1982) and two papers
in the regular scientific literature (“Chromosome aberrations in divers”. DP Fox, FW Roberson, T Brown, AR Whitehead
and JDM Douglas. Undersea Biomedical
Research 11 (1984) and “Chromosome changes in divers”. Progress in Underwater Science 11
(1986)). No restriction was placed upon
publication by the Department of Energy. In the second of these three papers, we paid
tribute to the originator of the work.
“We wish to acknowledge the scientific acumen of the late Dr Brenda Page
who initiated this project”.
Some reports on
Brenda’s murder saw potential significance in the diving project as a factor in
her death. Was she killed because she
was about to reveal that deep diving was associated with significant,
unsuspected risks to the divers and their families and therefore posed a risk to
the development of the North Sea industry?
In July 2018, the Scottish Daily Express tried to make a connection
between Brenda’s research work and claimed suspicious deaths in Norway
associated with alleged corruption in the Norwegian Oil Industry. Similarly, Ruth Warrander in her series of podcasts
on Brenda’s death examined the hypothesis that the diving research was a
significant factor but concluded, largely on the opinion of Dr Jim Douglas,
that there was no connection between Brenda’s research work and her death. All I can add is that I, too, saw no evidence
while leading the diving project that any of these claims had even a hint of
truth in them.
The work of
the Cytogenetics Laboratory continues
Brenda Page’s
death left a big deficit in the capacity of the Cytogenetics Laboratory to
provide a vital clinical diagnostic service.
However, the staff, and especially Jessie Watt, rallied round and made
the necessary extra effort. This was
very demanding for Jessie as she was about seven months pregnant, and she had
just lost her boss, supervisor and friend in a brutal attack. But Jessie Watt coped. After a weekend’s rest she returned to the
laboratory and assumed Brenda’s diagnostic responsibilities. In early August 1978, Dr Jessie Watt, was
appointed as Brenda’s replacement and Dr David Couzin, who had studied for his
PhD under my supervision, was also recruited to the Cytogenetics Laboratory. Jessie undertook her new responsibilities
successfully and by 1980 she was receiving research grants in her own name.
In October 1978
an appeal was launched to establish a fund to the memory of Brenda Page. It was closed when it reached a sum of £500
the following February. For some years a
Brenda Page Memorial Prize was awarded to the best student in the Genetics
Honours class. However, there is no
longer any mention of such a prize on the Aberdeen University website. Perhaps the capital in the fund has now been
exhausted? About June 1979, Brenda’s
flat at 13 Allan Street was sold.
Not all
evidence pointed to Kit Harrisson as the murderer
Contrary to the
pet hypothesis of the police, not all the evidence that they had uncovered was
consistent with the identity of the killer being Kit Harrisson. When Harrisson’s car was examined for blood,
none was found, yet the killer must have been extensively spattered with blood
and the interior of a car, especially one so poorly valeted as Harrisson’s,
would be nigh impossible to sanitise, particularly with only a short time being
available before the vehicle was needed for the journey to Stonehaven. So, is it possible that Kit Harrisson was not
the killer, or that he avoided using his own car to travel away from the crime
scene, or that he was able to clean himself up before using his car? A further piece of evidence that was particularly difficult to accommodate was the sighting by a milkman of a man leaving 13
Allan Street at 4.30am on 14 July, when it would have been light. This person was described as being 5ft 5in to
5ft 8in tall, of stocky build with dark, tidy medium length hair which was
combed to the left. He had a moustache
and wore slightly faded jeans and a dark jacket. Without doubt, he was a person of interest
from the timing of his departure from the property but, despite repeated
appeals by the police, he never came forward and, to this day, he has never
been identified, though he might have been innocent but trying to avoid
identification due to some personal indiscretion. It seems highly unlikely that this person was
Harrisson, who was slim, over 6ft tall and clean shaven. Another visitor to 13 Allan Street heard a
noise like a scream and a door banging at about 12.30am as he was leaving the
property. However, it is difficult to
see any significance in this evidence since Brenda was observed at the Treetops
hotel, alive and well, about two hours later.
The
investigation into Brenda’s murder is shelved
By 1980, the
Police had classified Brenda’s murder as “unsolved” and active work on the
resolution of the case ceased.
When the case
was closed, snide comments about the alleged level of competence of the
detectives in the local force would often be heard, relating to the outstanding
Brenda Page case, where many in the town thought they knew the identity of the
perpetrator. Why then could the Grampian
force not find the necessary evidence? However, I think that police incompetence is a
facile conclusion to reach. My own
conversations with retired police officers involved in the case suggest that
procedures were scrupulously applied during evidence collection to avoid cross
contamination. As time would show, Grampian
Police got one thing absolutely right and that was the preservation of evidential
items collected and carefully stored in the original investigation of Brenda’s
murder, which would later prove to be susceptible to DNA STR (short tandem
repeats, or mini-satellite) analysis. These
included swabs taken from the victim’s body.
The main impediment to the investigation was the approximately 12 hour
interval between the time of the murder and its discovery, which allowed
crucial evidence to be securely secreted or destroyed.
Advances in
DNA analysis
Although the
general structure of DNA, the molecule which carries genetic information from
cell to cell and generation to generation, had been known since 1953, it was
only in 1984 that Alec Jeffries at the University of Leicester discovered
so-called minisatellites, short tandem repeat (STR) sequences of nucleotides in
human DNA which exist at many sites in the chromosomes. STRs are highly variable in composition, are
inherited and can be used to identify the DNA of individuals and their genetic
relatives with high probability. Another
invention in DNA technology, the work of American, Kary Mullis, which was also
important, was the development of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in
1983. This allowed the amplification of
a small DNA sample millions to billions of times in order to generate enough
material on which to carry out other tests.
A revolution in forensic science was about to take place and by the
early 1990s, DNA profiling was being used to analyse forensic samples and to
convict murderers and rapists. In 1995 a
standardised National DNA Database for the UK was established, generally using
information from 16 mini-satellites plus a further specific sequence for sex
determination. Since 2014 in Scotland, a
more stringent standard of 21 STRs, plus two Y-chromosome markers and a gender
identifier have been in use. By 2023
about 10% of the UK population had been entered on the National DNA Database.
The
investigation of Brenda Page’s murder is reactivated
The case was
briefly reopened in 2001 but no significant new evidence was found at that
time. However, by 2015, new forensic
technologies had become so sophisticated that a formal process for
re-evaluating unsolved murder cases from the past was instituted in Scotland. In that year, the Lord Advocate, Frank
Mulholland, instructed Police Scotland to re-evaluate the Brenda Page case,
which was then added to the list of reactivated investigations. Police Scotland telephoned Brenda’s sister,
Rita Ling, to tell her this welcome news.
I had first
been interviewed by the police at the beginning of August 1978 concerning my
confrontation with Kit Harrisson and I was re-interviewed in July 2015, 37
years after Brenda died, and asked to recall the events of 17 January 1976 when
Kit Harrisson visited my home. Perhaps
unsurprisingly, since I had not seen my written account of the events of the
day at all over the intervening period, my memory was not perfect. Compared with my first statement, I had
forgotten that Bill Harris had been giving the talk at the Molecular Biology
Club, rather than me, I also did not recall that Harrisson had written a letter
to me demanding an apology and that he had telephoned to ask if he could visit
me before arriving at my door. There was
a third, remote interview with police officers using Microsoft Teams on 26 July
2021, essentially repeating the second interview but this evidence was not, as
far as I am aware, used in court. However,
I have no doubt that my letter to Hamish Keir describing the events of 17 January
1976 is a highly accurate account of my altercation with Harrisson.
The new
evidence relating to Brenda Page’s murder
Evidential
items from the Brenda Page case were recovered from storage by Police Scotland,
which had been formed by the merger of all eight of the regional police forces
in Scotland in 2013, when the case was reactivated in 2015. The services of forensic scientist, Andrew
Gibb, a DNA analysis expert employed by the Scottish Police Authority, were then
used. His examination of the duvet cover
and bed sheet from Brenda Page’s bed provided crucial new evidence. There were obvious semen stains on the
bedding. Two partial DNA samples,
extracted from within these contained sequences which matched those in Harrisson’s
DNA with probabilities of 1:590,000,000 and 1:28,000 respectively against each
having come from an unrelated male. In
the late 1970s the population of the UK was about 56,000,000, only a fraction
of whom would be male and credible potential suspects – telling statistics. That Harrisson’s semen was on the bedding in
use on the fateful night of 14 July 1978 is of such a high probability that for
practical purposes it can be considered a certainty. There was another crucial finding, too. The semen stain was not accompanied by
vaginal secretions and so had been deposited there through masturbation, not
heterosexual intercourse.
The arrest
and trial of Kit Harrisson for the murder of Brenda Page
By 2020,
Police Scotland were confident that they had sufficient evidence, derived from
the 1978 and the post-2015 investigations, to charge Kit Harrisson with the
murder of Brenda Page. On 17 March 2020, Detective
Sergeant Vanessa Rennie and Detective Constable Thomas Gordon went to 12 Mile
End Place to arrest Harrisson. After
being cautioned and charged with the murder he said, “I did not murder Brenda
Page”. It was while he was under arrest
that a tissue sample was taken from Kit Harrisson for DNA analysis. Also, he was interviewed the same day and the
questioning session was videotaped. One
of his remarks during interrogation was that it was “tragic” that Brenda had
died “because she had a brilliant career in front of her”. Further, after being told he had been
arrested on suspicion of domestic assault, murder and attempting to defeat the
ends of justice, he said, "I had no involvement whatsoever in the death of
Brenda Page. I loved Brenda Page very much.”
The
charges, in detail, against Harrisson were as follows. Assaulting Brenda Page on various
occasions and in various locations between 1972 and 1976. Breach of the
peace by threatening violence to her and placing her in a state of fear and
alarm for her safety, including at the Genetics Department of the University of
Aberdeen Medical School. Breach of
the peace between 1976 and 1978 by threatening to kill her and keeping
track of her movements. Murder by forcing entry to her flat in Allan
Street on 14 July 1978 and repeatedly striking her on the head and body with a
blunt implement. Attempting to defeat
the ends of justice by disposing of a watch, and a bag and contents
including a pair of shoes, with the intent to destroy forensic evidence and to
avoid detection and prosecution.
The case first
came to trial in late August 2022, under the presidency of Lord Richardson. Harrisson pleaded "not guilry" to all charges. However, after only two days the trial had to be halted when Harrisson’s defence lawyer withdrew from the case, due
to a disagreement with his client. This
was yet another example of Harrisson falling out with someone, even an
individual who was trying to help him!
It was not until late February 2023 that another KC, Brian McConnachie, could
be engaged to defend Harrisson and had been given sufficient time to prepare
his defence. The papers relating to
Brenda’s death were, by this time, voluminous and DI Gary Winter of Police Scotland reported that since 1978 4,000 people had been spoken to in relation to the case and 100 key witnesses, many elderly, had been reinterviewed after 2015 and their responses videotaped for possibe use as evidence in court.
Kit Harrisson’s plea was again “not guilty” to all charges, including the
murder charge, on the basis of alibi.
During the course of the trial, the prosecution withdrew all charges
against Harrisson, except that of murder.
Perhaps retaining these lesser offences would have made the case more
complex and less clear-cut for the jury of eight men and seven women, when the
murder charge was the matter overwhelmingly in need of a simple decision. Also, the prosecution may have struggled to
prove that Harrisson had disposed of evidence, except in the case of the
watch. Not only had the murder weapon
not been recovered but the green duffle bag, allegedly containing Harrisson’s clothes
and shoes could not be located either. The case had a heavy dependence on
circumstantial evidence. Lord Richardson
acquitted Harrisson of the lesser allegations.
Modern jury
trials are managed affairs where restrictions of time and money, supplemented
by pressure of backlogs in the court system, limit the quantity of evidence
which can be presented to a jury. That
was clearly so in the case of the trial of Kit Harrisson for the murder of
Brenda Page. Prosecution and defence
counsel had therefore to make judgements in their selection of evidence to
present, so as best to optimise their respective cases operating under
practical limitations. One curious
omission from the prosecution evidence was the failure to show the jury
photographs of the murder victim’s injuries.
Another omission which I personally found puzzling was the failure to
use the evidence of Harrisson’s violent and unstable personality in my letter written
to Hamish Keir in 1976. The trial began
on Monday 20 February 2023 and was expected to last for up to three weeks. It ended on Tuesday 7 March.
In his summing
up, the prosecution counsel, Alex Prentice, KC, portrayed Harrisson as a
“monster” and a “Jekyl and Hyde” character prone to aggression and violence,
which he, of course denied, claiming that he was unaware that Brenda had been
telling her friends that he was violent and that she was afraid of him. His denial was essentially a series of assertions
to the contrary with no witnesses called to give testimony to that effect. Harrisson’s own counsel, Brian McConnachie,
KC, took the opposite line, claiming that Brenda was making up stories to
blacken Harrisson’s character and thus fabricate grounds for a divorce. McConnachie did, quite fairly, point out the
lack of direct evidence linking Harrisson to the murder and appealed to the
jury not to convict on what he called, with a daub of hyperbole, “fake
news”.
The jury of
eight men and seven women, after considering the evidence for two and a half
hours, returned a verdict of “guilty” to the charge of murder, though by a
majority. Thus, at least one juror was
persuaded that the case against Kit Harrisson was not sufficiently strong to
convict. The judge, Lord Richardson
imposed a life sentence on an unemotional Harrisson, with a recommendation that
he serve at least 20 years before being eligible for parole. He left the court in handcuffs.
In considering
the case against Harrisson I have not confined myself to the evidence presented
in court but have included information from any source, provided I had confidence
that it was both accurate and potentially significant. My justification for this approach, which some
might see as a mark of arrogance, is that in a rational analysis of any set of
events or scientific phenomena, omission of relevant facts could be viewed as
selecting the data.
The justice
system and the concept of probability
It is said that
nothing in life is certain, except death and taxes. That claim could be debated, but the issue
that the aphorism is highlighting is that almost no conclusion has a
probability of 0 or 1, ie, something absolutely didn’t happen, or it certainly occurred. So, although the decision of a jury in a
criminal court to convict is taken as having a probability of 1 that the
decision is definitely correct, the reality is that the probability of guilt,
or alternatively, innocence will be >0 and <1. Miscarriages of justice do occasionally
occur. The best we can hope for, us
citizens sheltering under the perception of the infallibility of the legal
process, is that a court decision has a high probability of being correct, perhaps
at least 1,000 :1 against error (probability of error <0.001). However, our adversarial system of justice
does not necessarily help in the search for truth, where very clever minds seek
to impose on a jury one interpretation of an evidential set of facts over a contrary,
alternative explanation. No one would
dream of conducting a scientific inquiry by this methodology. In very few cases is it possible to compute a
numerical value for probability in forensic science. The use of DNA STR analysis combined with
reference to population frequencies of individual STR variants is one of the few instances
where such calculations can be made.
With these thoughts in mind, what evidence can be adduced to link Kit
Harrisson to the murder of Brenda Page and what were his alternative explanations,
which formed part of his defence of alibi?
The evidence
implicating Kit Harrisson in the murder of Brenda Page and his refutations
Throughout this
account, many instances have been cited of Harrisson’s behavioural
characteristics, which were usually noted by others because of their quirky,
inept, shocking or alarming nature.
Patterns can be discerned in Harrisson’s actions which allow a measure
of generalisation.
Kit Harrisson
had a passionate interest in the natural world from an early age which was
maintained through to his pursuit of a career in biological research and to
adult leisure interests, such as keeping chickens and hunting for fossils. A similar obsession was his passion for
antiquarian books. In contrast with this
fascination with things, he did not enjoy a similar level of comfort with
people. He had some friends, such as Elsa Christie and her husband who shared
his interest in antiquarian books, and he had some unidentified friends who
sheltered him from press intrusion in the aftermath of Brenda’s murder but
generally he did not find creating friendships easy, for example within the
Biochemistry Department at Aberdeen University.
Similarly, he could not converse comfortably with people of a lower
social or intellectual level than himself and he was socially inept. However, where there was a coincidence of
interest with one of his intellectual enthusiasms, for example biochemical
research, he could be a stimulating and original conversationalist. He clearly had a strong, even excessive,
belief in his own diverse abilities, whether it was representing himself in
court, or conducting an argument in an area of science with which he was not
deeply familiar.
Another
generalisation which can be made about Kit Harrisson’s personality was his
asymmetrical perception of the actions of others in comparison with his own
behaviour. A slight criticism of his doings
or a small intrusion on his interests would be inordinately magnified in his
mind, whereas a major insult by him to others would be viewed by Harrisson as
normal and justified. Two examples have
been chosen to illustrate this contrast, though many other instances could have
been employed. In Edinburgh, Harrisson threw
tea over Brenda because it was too cold, which contrasts with his extreme verbal
abuse of Thomas Gray simply for doing his job in reporting Harrisson’s
disregard for the University’s ban from its premises. Excessive protection of his own property, for
example in refusing to let Brenda use his tools, was probably part of the same
phenomenon.
Kit Harrisson
was not consistently disagreeable. At
times he was a congenial companion and could be both loving and generous. However, his alter ego was deeply
unpleasant. What was particularly
remarkable about Kit Harrisson was the instant nature of the switch from polite
and civil to verbally or physically violent, which I personally experienced in
1976. He was described at his trial as a
Jekyl and Hyde character by the prosecution counsel and this categorisation
seems both accurate and fair.
But Harrisson’s
interactions with Brenda herself were of most significance in relation to the
charge of murder. Physical violence
towards her was evident throughout the marriage, engendering fear in her about
how far that violence might progress. It
was so extreme that she confided her anxieties to several different people that
he might kill her, though she suspected that he would do so surreptitiously
rather than directly. However, the
telephone conversation between Kit Harrisson and Elsa Christie a day before
Brenda’s death seems deeply significant as he actually told Mrs Christie that
he was going to kill Brenda.
Perhaps it will
seem remarkable to many readers, but it is clear that Kit Harrisson loved
Brenda deeply and was desperate to get back together with her, appealing to her
friends to intercede on his behalf. It
is also true that Brenda had found his attention congenial at times and still
kept his company periodically even after moving out of the marital home, after
the divorce and after the granting of an interim interdict forbidding Harrisson from approaching her. But it is unclear if
this concession by Brenda was more of an appeasement to ameliorate the extremes
of Harrisson’s behaviour, rather than a positive desire for his company.
The statistical
association between murderers and their victims has been pointed out
above. Most murderers are known to, or are
even relatives of, the victim, most murderers are male, and victim and
perpetrator have frequently had a previous close relationship. It is not surprising that the police should
quickly reach the conclusion that Kit Harrisson was a highly significant
suspect. What of motive, since most
murderers have a motive in committing their crime? What motive can be perceived for Harrisson to
have wanted to kill Brenda Page? He yearned to get back together with his
former wife. He felt the need to check
up on her movements, probably out of jealousy.
But she had finally had enough of his threats and violence. She had told him bluntly in writing that she
wanted him out of her life. He knew she
was seeing other men and Harrisson probably suspected she was having sexual
relations with them. Perhaps he finally
realised that she was never going to come back and that he had lost her
forever. In a clearly depressed state,
he phoned Mrs Christie and told her he was going to kill Brenda and perhaps
this was his only way out of what for him was an intolerable situation. He may have felt a need to punish Brenda for
rejecting him and to deprive anyone else of her affections.
In court,
Harrisson had examples of his violent behaviour laid before him. He claimed that he had never been “physically
violent” towards her, but that “she started making up stories” about him to get
a divorce. This defence looks
unsustainable in the face of so many independent statements to the
contrary. And Harrisson himself
admitted, in writing, to suffering rages which frightened Brenda His explanation for Brenda’s visit to
A&E in Edinburgh, less than a year after their marriage? She had “stumbled over a suitcase” after
having a “dizzy spell”. He said: “I thought maybe she was pregnant, she did
sometimes have dizzy spells”. Was there
any medical evidence that she had “dizzy spells”? It appears that the question was not asked
during the investigation. Harrisson’s
explanation for Brenda wanting a divorce?
His “failure to provide children”, though his KC would later claim that
the reason was the need to generate “false news” to create grounds for a
divorce. Was Brenda keen to become
pregnant? Was she using contraception in
the early part of the marriage? No
evidence was provided on these points, but it is likely the answers were “no”
and “yes”. She had just been appointed
to a significant position, she was very career-orientated and unlikely to want
to take a break from career progression for some time. And Harrisson’s claim that she might have
been pregnant in April 1973 at the end of her PhD studies but before she had
gained employment? That suggestion looks
inherently unlikely.
Harrisson came
up with explanations for other incidents that seemed improbable but not outright
impossible. The scar on Brenda’s forehead due, she said, to Harrisson
throwing a book at her was rejected by her former husband. Harrisson claimed that he had “never thrown a
book at anybody in my entire life” and he explained the scar as being due to “adult
measles”. Again, the veracity of this
claim could have been tested by reference to Brenda’s medical records. Harrison’s Edinburgh friend Elsa Christie
reported that in a telephone conversation held shortly before Brenda’s death,
Kit Harrisson said he was going to kill Brenda.
It is important to stress that Elsa Christie was his friend and
not Brenda’s. Harrisson’s
response to the claim? "Completely
untrue". He did not carry out the fatal attack. But his explanation would have required even
his friend to be conspiring with a deception organised by Brenda to blacken
Harrisson’s character.
Kit Harrisson
claimed in court to have been a “kind and considerate man” and this assertion was
occasionally true, such as when he delivered a gift of home-made bread to the
Cytogenetics Laboratory on Brenda’s birthday in 1978, but there seems little
doubt that his general demeanour could not be summed up with that phrase. My own experience of his actions was
indicative more of a volatile man consumed by his own righteousness and liable
in an instant to lose control of his emotions, if aroused. However, it is important to emphasise that in
his confrontation with me in 1976, he employed only verbal violence and not the
physical alternative.
Quite
separately from his refutation of the accusation of violence towards Brenda,
Kit Harrisson portrayed himself in court as a victim of her aggression. On the day she moved out of the house in Mile
End Place in June 1976, when she was probably anxious to get away from his
influence as quickly as possible, he claimed that she “pulled me out of bed by
my feet” and that he had fled “downstairs to lock myself in my study”. Further,
she was “violent and angry” and he “could not understand what was going
on”. Harrisson then said that Brenda had
been “kicking the door” of his study. “I
think she was annoyed that I had not brought her breakfast in bed - she
flaunted (Did he mean to say “flounced” or was this a mis-transcription by a
press reporter?) out of the house and left”. Such an account seems fantastical and
completely at odds with the testimony of several of Brenda’s friends on his
violence towards her, even if his assertion that they had an amicable
relationship after the separation is accepted.
For his explanation to have been true, it would have required not only
Brenda to have been inventing stories but for her friends to have been in
cahoots with her deception, too.
Harrisson’s
stalking of Brenda
There seems
little doubt that Harrisson stalked Brenda in the period after she moved out of
the marital home at 12 Mile End Place.
Jessie Watt’s testimony is compelling on that point, that Harrisson
checked up on Brenda’s whereabouts by telephone and by following her in his
car. Further he clearly knew about her
activities as an escort. In court he was
accused of having followed Brenda to the Treetops hotel on the evening before
her murder, which he rejected with a difficult to believe explanation. “I did not. I had never even heard of the
Treetops Hotel until it was knocked down last year.” Harrison had resided in the city from 1974 to
about 1978, at the height of the oil boom, and again from 2015 until after the
closure of the hotel on 1 February 2020.
It truly beggars belief that he had never even heard of the place until
its demise, such was its fame. It must
have been mentioned in the Aberdeen papers at least weekly, it was located on a
prominent road, Springfield Road, close to Anderson Drive, Aberdeen’s inner
ring road and it was less than two miles distant from his home in Mile End
Place. Further, given the frequency with
which Brenda met clients at the Treetops and Harrisson’s stalking of Brenda, it
seems improbable that he never ended up following her to that famous venue.
Evidence
possibly linking Kit Harrisson directly to the scene of the crime
To demonstrate
with high probability that Harrisson was the killer of Brenda Page it would
have been necessary to show that he was in the flat at 13 Allan Street at the
time of the murder. Two pieces of
forensic evidence, one from 1978 and one from post-2015 are candidates for
such evidence.
A paint
fleck close to the window of the spare bedroom inside Brenda’s flat. The
four-layered green paint fleck found in the pooled, vacuumed sample taken from
the floor, windowsill and skirting adjacent to this window appeared on
microscopic examination to be identical in colour, texture and layer structure to a sliver found in the
driver’s footwell of Kit Harrisson’s car.
Since Kit Harrisson appeared to be the only driver of his car, this
evidence potentially links Harrisson to near the scene of the crime and the
possible route of entry to the flat but gives no information on the time of
deposition of the fragment in the spare bedroom other than that it was on or before
the date of Brenda’s murder. The reports of the case in the various
media outlets consistently misreported this evidence. They assumed that the matching paint
fragments from the car and the flat were from the car’s own paintwork. This was not so; the fragments were certainly not from this source but were of otherwise unknown origin. This misinterpretation of the paint evidence extended to Harrisson too, and possibly to the police involved in his 2020 interview. The male police officer, referred to the paint fragment found inside the flat, said "one of which matched the control taken from your car". This phrase is ambiguous, "taken from your car" could be interprested to mean "taken from inside your car" or "taken from the paint of your car". In his response, Harrisson suggested that the police could have inadvertently contaminated
the vehicle or even planted evidence, since they were in possession of his
vehicle and could have scratched it, implying that he thought the fragments were from his car's paint. He said he would not put anything past the police. However, Harrisson's comments can now be disregarded as irrelevant. Further, having talked extensively to
Eric Jensen, this suggestion by Harrisson of possible evidence tampering seems to me utterly improbable. Jensen is clearly a man of great experience
and the highest integrity and would, in my opinion, not be a party to either careless contamination or subterfuge. In court, Harrisson had a
different explanation for the presence of the paint fleck in the flat. He had given his ex-wife a lift two weeks
before her death, implying that she might have carried the fleck into the
property. But that explanation cannot account for why a similar fleck was only found in the driver’s footwell and not on
the passenger’s side of the vehicle.
A limitation on
the value of this evidence is the lack of knowledge about the paint fragment’s
origin. If, for example, it turned out
to be present in the street outside the property, perhaps from someone
preparing a gate for repainting, it could have been carried in by anyone
walking down the street before entering Brenda’s flat. Similarly, Harrisson could have collected such a sample from the street on his shoes and he is known to have been there shortly before Brenda's death. If information on the presence of other such
paint fragments elsewhere in the flat had been available, then the significance
of the paint fleck inside the flat might have been clearer. Had it been unique, the probability of a link
to Harrisson’s car would have been boosted, but had it been one of several
identical items from around the flat, the probability of a link to Harrisson
would have been diminished.
A further
complication relates to the time of deposition.
Harrisson claimed he had been inside the Allan Street flat on two
occasions since Brenda moved there once to feed her cats and once when she took
pity on him over his unkempt appearance and gave him a haircut, though there is
a suspicion that he may have been there on other occasions since he had
opportunity to copy her house key. Only
if the spare bedroom paint fragment were to be unique would the probability of
a link to Harrisson on the night of the murder be bolstered.
A semen
stain which contained Harrisson’s DNA on the bedding in use when Brenda was
murdered. As already discussed, this can be taken as a
statement of fact, but the outstanding questions relate to how and when it got
there. Harrisson’s suggested explanation
was that it had been in place for over two years since he and Brenda shared a
marital home, because they had not had sexual intercourse since the separation,
claiming that they had previously had "marital relations on a variety of
sheets". For this to have been the
route by which Harrisson’s semen ended up on the bed linen in Brenda’s flat on
the night of her murder would have required several improbable events to have
occurred. The relevant item of linen
would have had to have been removed from the Mile End Place property without
having been laundered, stored and then used again two years later at 13
Allan Street, probably without having been washed in the meantime. Although it was conceded in court by a
forensic expert that sperm cells could potentially survive the washing process,
one round of washing would have removed any visibly obvious semen stains and each
subsequent round of washing would have progressively removed any remaining DNA
and proteins from the linen and increasingly denatured any surviving molecules
with each cycle of exposure to heat and washing chemicals, so that its ability
to be analysed would inevitably be rapidly degraded. Harrisson’s explanation for a possible
failure to wash linen over a long period?
She had a lot of linen. Harrisson’s
explanation is also at odds with the finding by Andrew Gibb that the semen
stain was not accompanied by vaginal secretions, so was not produced through
heterosexual intercourse. Would Brenda
have used bed linen displaying obvious semen stains on 13/14 July 1978,
especially if she might have anticipated entertaining a male guest that night? That looks vanishingly improbable, which suggests
that Harrisson very likely was present at the time and place of the murder and
ejaculated onto the bed containing the mutilated body of Brenda Page. In court when asked directly about sexual
activity by him inside 13 Allan Street, Harrisson replied, “I certainly never
left semen on any part in Allan Street”.
He effectively gave the same answer when asked directly if he had ever
ejaculated at the Allan Street flat, when he replied, “No, we have had that one
already”. Harrisson’s denial looks
implausible. The DNA analytical results
are, without doubt, the strongest evidence implicating Kit Harrisson in the
murder of Brenda Page.
The
movements and actions of Kit Harrisson on 13 and 14 July 1978
Kit Harrisson
claimed, as part of his alibi, that he had attended a film in Aberdeen on the
night of Brenda’s murder, returning home at 10.30pm. This was consistent with the claim by a
neighbour in Mile End Place that Harrisson’s car had been absent from the
street for several hours on the evening of 13 July. Equally, the observation was consistent with
Harrisson being involved in stalking or other activities. And the title of the film Harrisson claimed
to have watched? “A dreadful film” – he
could not remember the title. A few
pointed questions about the plot, venue, actors and where he parked his car might
have helped in testing this rather limited response, though after more than 40
years, it is doubtful how penetrating such an inquisition could have been.
Early on the
morning of 14 July 1978, Kit Harrisson made an utterly bizarre journey to
Edinburgh. He drove his car to
Stonehaven and caught the train to the Scottish capital. The origin of the rail service was Aberdeen
at 6.27am, so why take the car to Stonehaven, especially since in those days,
if my memory serves me correctly, one could park a car without payment on the
station forecourt at Aberdeen? In
Edinburgh, Kit Harrisson is known to have bought a new Timex watch at a shop in
Teviot Row. It is known that Harrisson
also bought a new pair of shoes in Edinburgh, though that has not been proved independently of his own testimony. The police sought information
on his journey and especially on the whereabouts of Harrisson’s green duffle
bag which it is presumed the police had evidence of him carrying when he left
Aberdeen. They clearly thought that
Harrisson was concealing his outer clothing and possibly the murder weapon in
his duffle bag. The journey between
Aberdeen and Edinburgh would have taken about three hours. He reached home on his return journey in the
late afternoon, which meant that he had perhaps four and a half hours in the
Scottish capital. When asked the purpose
of his journey, he replied that he had just finished his PhD, which was true,
and he was returning books to various libraries. But if he was carrying several books, in what
were they contained? His duffle
bag? Because of the withdrawal of all
charges other than murder, it is likely that much interesting evidence in the
possession of the police was not presented to the court and the claim to have
visited several libraries in Edinburgh was not probed, though again the lapse
of more than 40 years would probably limited the value of critical questioning. What a pity!
The police
clearly thought that the duffle bag contained evidential items and that the
timing and curious pattern of the journey to Edinburgh was undertaken to
facilitate disposal of the bag. But the
potential search area was enormous and not surprisingly nothing was found. In any case Harrisson was a smart individual
quite capable of hatching an effective scheme for permanent concealment or
disposal.
The finding of
the worn watchstrap bearing two small bloodstains in the firegrate of an
upstairs bedroom at 12 Mile End Place is another curious observation. It was almost as though Harrisson had
intended to burn the item but had been in a rush to leave the house and omitted
to complete this task. When asked to
account for this finding, Harrisson seemed to lose the use of his capacity for
creative explanations. All he could
answer was “It is simply nonsense” and “highly unlikely”.
Perhaps most
curious of all Harrisson’s actions on 13/14 July and over subsequent days, was
actually an omission to do something. He
did not question the police who were waiting for him on his return about how
Brenda had died or how the investigations were proceeding. This air of detachment continued with his
failure to express commiserations to Brenda’s family and friends in Ipswich and
Aberdeen. These do not look like the
actions of an innocent former spouse still in love with his ex-wife, though it
must always be born in mind that Harrisson had an odd and highly unusual
personality, so for him normality is difficult to define.
A plausible
scenario for the actions of the murderer on 13 and 14 July 1978
A scenario has
been constructed for the events leading up to, during and after the murder of
Brenda Page, taking account of the known evidence and showing how Kit
Harrisson’s behaviour and actions are consistent with him being the perpetrator
of the crime. This reconstruction does
not prove that this hypothetical sequence is what definitely happened, but it
is plausible.
Although he
hoped to reunite with Brenda Page, during early summer 1978 Kit Harrisson came to realise that there was no prospect of a reconciliation. It has been reported that Brenda had planned to attend Kit Harrisson's PhD graduation ceremony in Edinburgh on 28 June 1978 but that she withdrew when she learned that Harrisson's former American girlfriend and their son had also been invited to be present. Perhaps this matter was being referenced by Brenda when she wrote to Harrisson accusing him of surrounding his life with lies and told him in direct terms to get out of her life and to stay out. It has also been reported that on the day before her murder Harrisson went round to 13 Allan Street and asked her to come back. She allegedly refused. Was this the point at which Harrisson finally accepted that the relationship was over and would not be revived? DI Gary Winter made an important and relevant point regarding the improved understanding by the police (and other professionals in society) of the characteristics and significance of domestic violence since 1978, the year of Brenda's murder. In cases of domestic violence, it is now realised that the final rejection of the perpetrator by the victim is often the most dangerous time. Did this outcome have a severely depressing effect upon this emotionally
disturbed and violent man, who then decided that he was going to kill his
former wife as an act of revenge for rejecting him and/or to deprive any other man
of the pleasures of her company? It is likely that at this crucucial moment he set
out to hatch a plan for Brenda's destruction which involved checking on her movements to identify an
opportune moment to attack her, though it is unlikely that he did so entirely in
a cold and calculating way. At some
stage in the implementation of his scheme his raw emotions probably took over,
causing him to extemporise subsequently in his attempt to avoid detection. It has been reported that on the evening of 13 July 1978, when Harrisson visited 13 Allan Street that Brenda told him that she would be out that evening. Whether this was the case or not, he probably followed
Brenda when she left her flat in Allan Street and found that she was
undertaking an escort assignment at the Treetops hotel. What he did not know was how long it would be
before Brenda returned home, though it was likely to be several hours, and
whether she would be accompanied. He probably drove back to the Allan Street area from the Treetops hotel and parked his car some distance away from
Brenda’s flat, since he was known to some of her neighbours. Although he probably had a key to Brenda’s
front door, he apparently decided to break in via the small opening window in her spare
bedroom, which was less likely to lead to him being observed and might also
give the appearance that a burglary had taken place. He likely waited until it was almost dark, so that
he had sufficient light to see what he was doing but was less likely to be
observed by local residents.
Harrisson wore
gloves, perhaps his black leather gloves, to avoid leaving fingerprint
evidence around or within 13 Allan Street. The window was prised open
using a tool with a chisel-like tip, perhaps a jemmy or a tyre lever, which he had
secreted in his green duffle bag. He systematically
working his way along the lower edge of the window levering it until the
fastening gave way and the window sprang open.
The tool was probably old, marked by blemishes and perhaps rust and had
collected fragments of wood from the window frame as a result. Harrisson then attempted to climb in by first
standing on the windowsill and holding the window open while he tested out how
to get through. Two possible methods of
entry have been suggested, firstly one leg in, then body, then other leg. The second possible technique was to slide in
headfirst and land on his hands on top of the small table inside the spare
bedroom. Neither technique would be easy
even for a fit and agile man of Harrisson’s physique – he was over 6ft in
height and of slim build. However,
Harrisson in not known to have been either fit or athletic. It may be that having opened the window, he
was unable to gain entry and had to resort to the alternative of going in
through the front door from Allan Street.
After dark he could well have managed to enter from the street without
being observed. A neighbour of Brenda's did later report that he had seen the shadow of someone in Brenda's flat on the evening of 13 July, while Brenda was absent. However he gained entry
to Brenda’s flat, Harrisson would then have needed to prepare for his actions
once Brenda returned. He would have
needed to observe Allan Street from the front of the flat to spot Brenda’s car on its return and to check if she was accompanied. Had
she had a male companion with her, Harrisson would have then needed to make a
quick exit via the ground floor door to the rear of the property, where he was
unlikely to be seen and could make his way back to his car unobserved.
Brenda returned
to her flat about 2.30am, which triggered Harrisson’s retreat to the spare
bedroom where he hid in the built-in, full height wardrobe. He was still carrying the implement he had
used to prize open the rear window and he took up a sitting position to avoid
jangling the suspended clothes hangers.
He would also have left the door of the wardrobe open a small chink so
that he could monitor when Brenda retired to bed by the light showing under her
bedroom door. When that light went out,
he would have known that Brenda was in bed and in the process of going to
sleep. Sometime later, he then emerged
from the wardrobe, being careful to avoid making a noise, burst through the
joining door to Brenda’s bedroom and attacked her, raining down repeated blows
to her head and face. Brenda may have
been asleep when Harrisson entered her bedroom, or she may have been lying down
but still awake. When the attack started,
she managed to sit up in bed and raise her arms to defend herself but she was
soon overcome with the number, at least 20, and severity of the blows. It was at this time that a fragment of wood
adhering to the weapon became lodged behind the ring Brenda was wearing. If she was able to scream or call out, no one
in the building heard her. She quickly
lost consciousness and died from asphyxiation, due to blood pouring into her
lungs. It is likely that Harrisson would
then have had to put on the lights in the bedroom and must have found his
achievement in terminating the unattainable object of his desire sexually
stimulating and he ejaculated over the bed containing the corpse of his
ex-wife. This was hardly the act of a
cool and calculating individual and it is likely that Harrisson was in one of
his violent, emotional rages during and after his attack. A cool, thinking Harrisson would have
abstained from leaving any of his biological fluids at the murder scene. Had he acted differently, he may then not have been tried
for this crime without the DNA evidence linking him to the crime scene.
Harrisson’s
clothes, gloved hands, shoes and watch would have been spattered with blood,
hair and tissue. He then had to make his
escape undetected and also to cover his tracks.
Harrisson first went into the bathroom, leaving blood on the light
switch from his gloved hands and first wiped his hands on the pair of pants on
top of the pile of soiled clothes in the laundry basket. He then sought to remove blood from elsewhere
on his person, perhaps his face or his gloves, before taking off his outer
layer of clothing and stuffing it in his duffle bag along with the murder weapon. He opened the door from the flat to the
ground floor lobby, still wearing his gloves contaminated with Brenda’s blood
and left some of the material on the door handle. Harrisson then closed and locked the door of the
flat and left the building by the rear door off the lobby. He could then make his way back to his
car and return to 12 Mile End Place, where he could partake of a shower and put
on a change of clothing. He was probably
still wearing the same shoes that he had worn during the attack and also the watch. Realising that his watch might be
contaminated with blood he took it off and planned to burn it but in his haste,
he omitted to complete the task. He then
needed to plan how to get rid of the items which might on forensic analysis
provide evidence linking him to the crime scene. They had to be destroyed or secreted where
they were unlikely ever to be found. He
decided to travel to Edinburgh which he knew well and hatched a plan, perhaps
while he was still on his journey. He
drove to Stonehaven, possibly hoping that his journey south would be less
likely to be observed than if he caught the train in Aberdeen. Or, perhaps he was looking out on the journey
for a suitable disposal point but did not find one. The train journey south from Stonehaven might also have presented
opportunities to get rid of some or all of the incriminating articles in his
duffle bag, especially crossing the Tay and Forth bridges when he might have
managed to throw the heavy murder weapon from a train window into the water. In Edinburgh, he bought a new watch and a new pair of shoes, perhaps changing into the new footwear and
putting the old shoes into his duffle bag.
Now what he needed to do was to get rid of the duffle bag and its
contents. It is possible that
Harrisson’s main destination in Edinburgh was King’s Buildings, the
University’s science campus with which Harrisson was already familiar. If he was able to gain access to an
incinerator or boiler room there he could have cast the remaining incriminating
items to oblivion. Task completed
Harrisson retraced his steps to Aberdeen, secure in the knowledge that he had
been largely successful in his aim of destroying potential forensic
evidence. It can have been no surprise
to him when he arrived back at 12 Mile End Place to find Detective Constables
Brian Kennedy and Alan McKechnie waiting for him. Nor would it have been unexpected when he was
cautioned and arrested, but his hubris probably made him confident that he
could outwit those whose task it now was to crack open his alibi.
The impact of the murder on the families
of Brenda Page and Kit Harrisson
In instances of
murder, especially if the perpetrator is not quickly arraigned, there are often
press comments on the emotional turmoil through which the victim’s relatives
must be passing until some sense of closure is granted by a successful
prosecution. This was especially so in
Brenda Page’s case, where a period of more than 44 years elapsed before the
forces of law and order caught up with Kit Harrisson. Another factor in Brenda’s case, which added
to the agony of the family, was knowing the identity of the only significant
suspect, someone who had been welcomed into their home environment, was still
walking the streets and conducting his life freely. Poor Mrs Florence Page not only suffered the
agony of seeing the place where her daughter, in whom she held such pride, had
been brutally killed only a few days previously but also lived the remainder of
her life without seeing the conclusion of the legal process, or knowing there would
be an end to the seemingly interminable uncertainty surrounding Brenda’s
death. At least that small relief was
not denied to her sister Rita though, at the age of 88, she will have scant
time remaining to experience the calm and satisfaction of knowing that justice
has at last been done.
But the
Harrisson family members too have suffered.
Their distress was expressed most eloquently by Kit Harrisson’s sister,
Celia. She, her mother and father were
all aware that Kit was the prime suspect as the murderer of Brenda Page from
soon after the killing in 1978. How
should the family treat this remote and suspect son? They did what most families would do and
welcomed him when he elected to visit them, but they were haunted by the
enduring thought that their offspring might have brutally murdered their treasured
daughter-in-law. Celia likened the
situation to a dark cloud hanging over the family and becoming more lowering
each time there was a revived interest in the case, which happened repeatedly
for over 40 years. “My parents felt
deeply for Brenda’s parents. Brenda came
to stay with them quite often and my mother and Brenda exchanged quite a lot of
letters together. I know they loved her
very much”. “My mother died a year after
her (Brenda’s) death but it really haunted my father for the rest of his
life”. Celia expressed the hope that the
conviction of Kit would bring some closure for the Page family. She also made a telling remark about her
brother. When asked by a reporter if the
descriptions given of Kit in the court chimed with her own impressions, she
first declined to comment but then added, “All I could say is I’m not
surprised. No, it didn’t surprise me at
all”. Were Kit Harrisson’s defects of
personality already apparent to his younger sister while he was still living at
home?
Although
sympathy for Kit Harrisson will surely now be in short supply, it is valid to
point out that he not only truncated Brenda’s life and left her potential
unrealised, but he also did exactly the same thing to himself. By failing (or
being unable) to recognise his own defects through his overweening hubris, he limited
his own scientific career through the need to keep a low profile outside of the
UK . Although he worked for some time at
the University of Leiden, many of his days and years since the murder of Brenda
must have been spent looking over his shoulder lest the boys and girls in blue
were about to feel his collar again. For
a man allegedly dedicated to science that was probably akin to another life
sentence.
Some
reflections on the case
In my opinion
there is no single piece of evidence which, in isolation, irrefutably labels
Kit Harrisson as the killer of Brenda Page but undoubtedly the strongest
evidence pointing to Harrisson as the likely murderer of Brenda Page is the
existence of a semen stain containing, with near certainty, Harrisson’s DNA on
the bedclothes of the bed where Brenda was found dead. If Harrisson was the killer and the semen
stain originated, as seems likely, on the night of the crime it suggested he
deposited it there immediately after Brenda’s death, perhaps in a ghoulish act
of revenge for unfaithfulness. However,
improbable as it may seem, Harrisson’s alternative explanation for how the
semen stain got there cannot with certainty be dismissed. It is just plausible, but unlikely, that it
had been there for at least two years since the two of them shared a marital
home together.
The failure to
find the implement, which was used to prise open the rear window, the murder
weapon (possibly the same object), the shoes and clothing worn by the killer
and the duffle bag containing these evidential items undoubtedly weakened the
case against Harrisson. If Harrisson was
the killer, all or any one of these items might have provided that direct and
irrefutable link that the case lacked.
And it should be born in mind that the police were working almost on the
assumption that Harrisson was the killer and that tracing his movements was the
key to solving the case. Were the police
blinded to the possibility someone other than Harrisson was the culprit? It should not be forgotten that a young male
was seen by a milkman at 4.30am leaving 13 Allan Street. His description bore no resemblance to
Harrisson, yet the mystery man was placed near the scene of the crime at a
crucial time, but he never came forward to be eliminated from the investigation
and he was never identified.
If the direct
evidence of Harrisson’s culpability for this crime is slightly less that
conclusive, the circumstantial evidence for his responsibility is strong, even
very strong. His repeated violence to
Brenda can be taken as fact with high probability and appears to have been
present from the earliest days of the marriage.
There were too many independent witnesses testifying to this effect to
take Harrisson’s assertions, not corroborated by any witness as to his
character that he was not violent, as a true statement.
I earlier ruminated
on whether Harrisson was suffering from some mental illness or if he existed
somewhere in that grey continuum between normality and frank mental abnormality
which is now described by the term Borderline Personality Disorder. This portmanteau term appears to contain a
subtly variable rag-bag of difficult-to-define conditions. A generalised summary of these
characteristics suggests it may contain the following elements. 1. Emotional instability, such as rage. 2.
Disturbed patterns of thinking or perception. 3. Impulsive
behaviour. 4. Intense but unstable relationships with
others. I have no special knowledge of
human personality, but Harrisson at times exhibited behaviours which fall into
all these sub-divisions, interspersed with periods of relative normality. If he was the murderer, he exhibited two
utterly contrasting sets of behaviour only two days apart, the open admission
to a friend that he intended to kill Brenda, followed by elaborate attempts to
cover his tracks by disposing of evidence of his guilt.
It is said that
telling one lie generates the need to tell further lies in order to sustain the
initial untruth. Harrisson’s defence of
alibi was thus either a set of claims approximating to his conduct on the 13/14
July 1978 or a web of lies generated to support the initial untruth, “I had no
involvement whatsoever in the death of Brenda Page”. But if the latter were to be the case, then
it should be relatively easy to uncover at least some of a string of
deceptions. Harrisson’s plea of alibi
was apparently only made at the start of the case which seems to have limited
the opportunity of the police to investigate the elements of the alibi. However, Harrisson may still have left clues
behind which bear upon his veracity in his account of his movements in the crucial
time interval. If he went to the cinema
on the evening of 13 July and could not recall the name of the film, though he
remembered that it was a “dreadful film”, he must surely have been able to give
some facts concerning plot, actors, locations, story line, name or location of
the cinema, etc? Was he ever asked? As Robert Burns declared, “Facts are chiels
that winna ding and downa be disputed”. Was
Harrisson’s failure to give more than a vague generalisation of his movements
the evening before Brenda’s death indicative of him possessing no facts about
the film he alleged that he viewed?
There is
another aspect of Harrisson’s alibi which seems perverse. It occurs to me that while his account of his
behaviour and movements was in one respect vague, in others it was
over-elaborate, as though it was a series of positions thought out by an
intelligent mind in advance. This
generalisation particularly applies to his denial of violent, coercive and
controlling behaviour. The evidence that
he displayed all these elements is overwhelming. But, instead of admitting that
he could be violent he had an elaborate alternative explanation for each
incident, such as the mark on Brenda’s forehead with his claim that she fell
over a suitcase. An admission of the
truth, or a statement like “I don’t know”, might have been more plausible.
Was Kit
Harrison rightly found guilty of the murder of Brenda Page? I think so, and with a high degree of
probability, when all the evidence is taken in the round. For Harrison’s version of events to be true
would have required a whole series of improbable events to coincide and the
overall probability of this being the case would be obtained by multiplying
together the individual probabilities, if we could estimate them, making the
combined probability likely to be vanishingly small.
Kit Harrisson in 2023
How ironic that
the clever biochemist, Kit Harrisson’s involvement in this crime should have
been implicated by developments in clever biochemistry. He had apparently not been clever enough to
anticipate that DNA sequence analysis might one day ensnare him.
Don Fox
20230708
donaldpfox@gmail.com
I am greatly
indebted to several retired Grampian Police officers for their willingness to
talk to me during my research for this paper, but especially to former
Detective Chief Inspector Eric Jensen who was responsible for the forensic
investigation in 1978 and who has shared his ideas on this case unstintingly.
Postscript
As this article was
being finalised, it was reported that Kit Harrisson had submitted an intimation
of intention to appeal both his conviction and his sentence. To a follower of this saga, this was not a
surprising development. It was in line
with Kit Harrisson’s hubris, never admitting to being wrong about anything. However, the date by which an appeal had to
be submitted, 6 June 2023, came and went with no movement from Harrisson’s
legal representatives. Unless some
dramatic new evidence emerges relating to the case, it seems unlikely that
Harrisson will be able to mount a significant legal challenge to his conviction.
