Ағылшын уланушы қылмыскер: Грэм Фредерик Янг өмірі мен қылмыстары

English serial killer

Graham Frederick Young (7 September 1947 – 1 August 1990), also known as the Teacup Poisoner, was an English serial killer who murdered his victims via poison. Obsessed with poisons from an early age, Young started poisoning the food and drink of relatives and school friends. He was caught when his teacher became suspicious and contacted the police. Young pleaded guilty to three non fatal poisonings and, at age 14, was detained at Broadmoor Hospital. He later took responsibility for the death of his stepmother, though this has not been proven. After being released in 1971, Young got a job in a factory in Bovingdon, Hertfordshire, where he began poisoning his colleagues, resulting in two fatalities and several critical illnesses. He was convicted on two counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder in 1972. Young served most of his life sentence at HM Prison Parkhurst, where he died of a heart attack in 1990. The Young case made headlines in the United Kingdom and led to a public debate over the release of mentally ill offenders. Within hours of his conviction, the British government announced two inquiries into the issues it raised. The Butler Committee led to widespread reforms in mental health services, while the passage of the 1972 Poisons Act put severe restrictions on the purchase of deadly poisons. Young's life story inspired the 1995 film The Young Poisoner's Handbook.

Graham Young was born on Sunday, 7 September 1947 to Frederick and Bessie Young in Neasden, Middlesex; he had an older sister, Winifred. After his mother died of tuberculosis when he was fourteen weeks old, Young was sent to live with an uncle and aunt while his sister went to live with their grandparents. In 1959, as he passed his eleven plus and went to grammar school, Young started to read books on advanced toxicology. In early 1961, Young acquired antimony from a local chemist, signing the poisons register in the name "M. E. Evans"; his knowledge of poisons and chemistry convinced the chemist that he was older than he appeared. The judge, Justice Melford Stevenson, ruled that Young was to be detained under Section 60 of the Mental Health Act at Broadmoor.

Young attended a storekeeping training course in Slough and stayed at a hostel in nearby Cippenham. He befriended 34 year old Trevor Sparkes, another resident of the hostel, and the two occasionally visited a pub together or shared a bottle of wine in Sparkes' room. Young would later confess to poisoning Sparkes with antimony sodium tartrate. On the night of February 10, Sparkes fell violently ill, exhibiting diarrhoea, pins and needles in his legs and pains in his testicles; earlier in the evening he had accepted a glass of water from Young. Sparkes' symptoms returned periodically over the following months. He felt so ill during a football match that he had to leave the pitch after a few minutes. Specialists were unable to pinpoint the cause, variously diagnosing it as a kidney infection, bowel infection, urinary tract infection or stomach infection. Sparkes left Slough in April 1971 and gradually recovered.

Young secured a job as assistant storekeeper at John Hadland Laboratories in Bovingdon, Hertfordshire, near his sister's home in Hemel Hempstead. The company manufactured thallium bromide iodide infrared lenses, which were used in military equipment. However, no thallium was stored on site, necessitating Young obtaining his supplies of the poison from a London chemist. On his application, Young falsely claimed that his lack of employment history was because he had suffered a nervous breakdown following the death of his mother in a car accident. His employers received references as part of his rehabilitation from Broadmoor, but were not informed that he was a convicted poisoner and a former Broadmoor patient. Young left Slough and rented a room in Maynard Road, Hemel Hempstead, at £4 per week. Young's new colleagues found him unpredictable; he could be surly and keep to himself, but on other days he could be more cheerful. During breaks he usually sat alone reading, invariably a book on one of his favourite subjects: war, chemistry, the Nazis or famous murderers. Young was not talkative unless one of his favourite topics was being discussed. His duties at Hadland included collecting drinks from the tea trolley in the corridor and bringing them to the storeroom. Each employee had their own mug, which made it easier for him to target specific individuals for poisoning. Soon after Young's arrival at Hadland, he started poisoning his co workers, focusing on his immediate colleagues in the storerooms. His modus operandi was to slip poison, usually antimony or thallium, into their tea or coffee. Victims would fall ill with symptoms that included vomiting, stomach pains, nausea and diarrhoea. Initially the mysterious illness was assumed to be a virus and was nicknamed the "Bovingdon Bug".

During Egle's absences, Young targeted his assistant Ron Hewitt, poisoning his tea with antimony. Hewitt had already accepted a job at another company and was working his notice (Young was specifically hired as his replacement). After leaving the company, he suffered no further symptoms. As a result of Egle's death and Hewitt's departure, Young was promoted to head storeman for a probationary period. For the next few months, his poisonings were limited to small doses of antimony in his co worker Diana Smart's tea, usually when she annoyed him. Young wrote in his diary: "Di [Diana Smart] irritated me yesterday so I packed her off home with an attack of sickness. I only gave her something to shake her up. I now regret that I didn't give her a larger dose, capable of laying her up for a few days."

On 8 October 1971, Young put thallium acetate in David Tilson's tea. Tilson found the tea too sweet for his liking (Young had added sugar to disguise any unusual taste from the thallium) and therefore did not drink it all. Young administered a second dose of thallium a week later. Tilson was admitted to hospital with numb legs, breathing difficulties and chest pains. His skin was so tender he could not endure the weight of the bedsheets, and all his hair fell out. Young had a back up plan to visit Tilson in hospital and offer him a bottle of brandy laced with more thallium. Subsequently, Tilson recovered, though he was left permanently impotent by the poisoning. At the same time he was poisoning Tilson, Young also began poisoning another Hadland employee, Jethro Batt. Batt had become friendly with Young and would give him a ride home to Hemel Hempstead. Young admitted to administering 4 g of thallium to Batt in two doses, enough to kill him. However, Batt found the coffee Young had made for him too strong and did not drink it all. Nevertheless, Batt was admitted to hospital with stomach and chest pains, and his hair fell out. The poisoning made him suicidal. Batt ultimately recovered, but like Tilson he was also left impotent. Young apparently felt some remorse for poisoning Batt, writing in his diary: "I feel rather ashamed in my action in harming J [Batt]."

Fred Biggs, a 56 year old local councillor and part time employee at Hadland, was poisoned by Young with antimony, prompting the typical "Bovingdon Bug" symptoms. Then, on 30 October 1971, Young put three doses of thallium acetate in Biggs' tea. By the following day, Biggs had developed chest pains and had trouble walking. Within days, he was admitted to Hemel Hempstead General Hospital, then transferred to the Whittington Hospital in North London, followed by the London National Hospital for Nervous Diseases (now part of the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery). His central nervous system deteriorated to the point that he could not speak and had trouble breathing, and his skin began to peel off. Young expressed concern for Biggs' condition, continually telephoning Biggs' wife and the hospital directly to make enquiries. Biggs finally died on 19 November 1971. He pleaded not guilty, which made it difficult to find a barrister willing to represent him; the trial date had to be postponed several times. Eventually, Sir Arthur Irvine QC agreed to defend Young. John Leonard QC led the prosecution for the Crown. The judge was Mr Justice Eveleigh. The trial was held at St Albans Crown Court and started on 19 June 1972. Due to safeguards protecting defendants, the jury could not be told of Young's previous convictions for poisoning. Young retracted his earlier confession to the police, claiming he had only made it in order to get some rest. Nevertheless, the evidence against him was strong. The prosecution called 75 witnesses to give testimony; Young himself was the only witness in his defence. Excerpts from Young's diary were read out in court; he claimed the diary was a fantasy for a novel. Examination of Biggs' internal organs found thallium in his intestines, kidneys, muscles, bones and brain tissue. The cremated remains of Bob Egle, which had not yet been scattered, were also analysed and found to contain 9 mg of thallium. The latter was the first instance of cremated ashes being used as evidence in a murder conviction. On 29 June 1972, after one hour and 38 minutes of deliberation, the jury found Young guilty of two counts of murder (Egle and Biggs), two counts of attempted murder (Batt and Tilson) and two counts of administering poison with intent to injure (Smart and Hewitt). Elsewhere Brady stated that "it was difficult not to empathise with Graham Young." Young died in his cell at HM Prison Parkhurst on the evening of 1 August 1990, one month before his 43rd birthday. The cause of death was listed as myocardial infarction. As Young had no history of heart disease, it has been speculated that he either committed suicide or was murdered by prisoners or prison staff who did not feel safe around him.

On 29 June 1972, the day Young's trial ended, Home Secretary Reginald Maudling gave a statement in the House of Commons about the issues raised by the case. He confirmed that more safeguards were to be introduced governing the release of mentally ill offenders. Henceforth, no patient at a special hospital was to be discharged without two concurring recommendations from psychiatrists. Supervision of released patients was also to be improved. Maudling also announced an inquiry to review the management of mentally ill offenders in the criminal justice system, to be chaired by Lord Butler. Following Young's conviction, reports of copycat poisonings appeared in the British press. In April 1973, Howard Grodnow of Ealing committed suicide, having become convinced that he had been poisoned by Young after reading about the case. For the previous eighteen months he had suffered from severe chest pains, which he traced back to an encounter, in a Hemel Hempstead pub, with a young man obsessed with poisons and chemicals. In November 2005, a 16 year old Japanese schoolgirl was arrested for poisoning her mother with thallium. She claimed to be fascinated by Young and kept an online blog, similar to Young's diary, recording dosage and reactions. The Poisons Act 1972 was created to restrict and control the sale of poisons after Young's court case concluded.

A 1995 film called The Young Poisoner's Handbook is loosely based on Young's life. Young was the subject of an episode of the ITV series Crime Story, entitled "Terrible Coldness". It was broadcast on 6 October 1993. Young was portrayed by Mark Womack. During his trial, Young expressed his hope that his waxwork would appear in Madame Tussauds' Chamber of Horrors. He later got his wish and his likeness appeared in the exhibit near those of Hawley Harvey Crippen and John Haigh. In 2009, a painting of the Kray twins by Young was sold at an auction in Andover for £2,700. Young's sister wrote a book published by Robert Hale on the 18th January 1973 called Obsessive Poisoner: The Strange Story of Graham Young by his sister Winifred Young. In 2021, Carol Ann Lee released a true crime book titled A Passion for Poison: Serial Killer. Poisoner. Schoolboy. published by John Blake (English journalist).