The Case of The Tortured Teenager

 Notorious murder case re-opened in 2016

Who really tortured and killed this 14-year-old lad in 1979?

The case of Alan Livesey was re-opened by Lancashire Police in 2016 despite his mother Margaret having been convicted of torturing and murdering him at their home in Bamber Bridge, Lancashire UK on February 22nd 1979.

The teenager was found stabbed and bound at his home in The Crescent but the truth about who was really responsible for his torturous death has been shrouded by suspicion and debated widely ever since.

Margaret Livesey was convicted of murder at Preston Crown Court in July 1979 and was sentenced to life imprisonment but maintained her innocence until her death from throat cancer in 2001, aged 64. Margaret was released from HM Prison Styal in 1989 with a lifetime licence to The Probation Service and went to live near to her daughter Janet in Surrey.

Neither Margaret nor the family ever gave up the fight for the truth to be told about Alan, she even left a clause in her will that her solicitors were to continue to try to prove her innocence and find the true killer of her teenage son Alan. 

She returned to live in sheltered accommodation in Walton-Le-Dale, Lancashire in 2000, this was just a few minutes away from the murder scene, sadly she died a few months later aged just 64.

Margaret Livesey died from throat cancer in 2001, she always maintained her innocence to her dying day

On the night of the murder, Alan Livesey had been grounded by his parents after he was accused of driving a stolen car and crashing it as a protest for not being allowed to attend a disco with his pals. His father worked nights at Leyland Motors and his mother was a care assistant in a local retirement home.

On the night in question, Alan Livesey's dad left for work as usual and quite soon after his mum also went out to meet a friend for a drink at a local public house, The Queens Hotel. It was later discovered that Margaret Livesey was also meeting her secret lover, this left 14-year-old, Alan, alone in the end-terrace family home. 

According to Margaret's lover, he dropped her off at the end of the Crescent at about 11pm that night. She then apparently knocked a local friend's door who had invited her for a drink and a chat, whilst she was there she asked her friend's 18-year-old son Lesley Mathews to "nip up to her house and see if his brother was there with Alan". 

The scene that met the 18-year-old was pretty horrific; he found Alan face down in front of the gas fire, wearing his best army cadet uniform, he had been stabbed at least 10 times and bound with his hands tied behind his back. He also had knife wounds on his face and eyelids and a red football sock tied around his neck, indicating that he had suffered a period of torture. 

In the early days of the police investigation, a neighbour said that they had heard boys voices coming from within the Livesey family home on the night in question and had witnessed a boy leaving the house at 10pm, whilst the other neighbours told police that they had heard nothing.

Interestingly, just a few days later two female neighbours went to the police and made statements to say that they had heard a violent argument between Alan Livesey and his mother on the night of February 22nd, it was this statement that led to Margaret Livesey being arrested.

The end-terrace murder scene in The Crescent, Bamber Bridge

During a tense four hour interview with Lancashire Police, Margaret Livesey confessed to killing her son but retracted the statement just a few days later, claiming that she had been forced to confess by the police whilst under intense interrogation.

There are several factors in regard to the conviction being unsafe including one of the most important; The forensic reports suggest that based on the state of rigor mortis and food digestion the time of death was no later than 10pm, a time when Margaret was in the pub surrounded by witnesses. 

10pm was the time when the unidentified boy was seen leaving the Livesey house, (despite appeals he has never come forward), There were three packets of cigarettes found in the house, one was of a brand nobody in that house ever smoked. Of course, with regard to the cigarettes, there is always the possibility that Margaret could have planted them as what we in the business call "a blind", a thing to throw detectives off a trail.

These points were never presented at trial and I feel that it should be possible to raise this in a posthumous appeal, the only difficulty is that the cost of such a trial is rare and expensive but, if Margaret was not guilty of her son's murder then someone is out there who killed a teenager.

Now one or two very interesting points from criminologists that really do make me question if Margaret Livesey had anything to do with her son's murder.

After viewing the scene of crime photographs for the first time, Professor Cameron said "This is a homosexual bondage case" when asked why he thought this he pointed to the small knife prick marks on Alan's eyelids and said "these were not made by an angry mother, someone has sat on this boy's body and tortured him with a knife"

The knots in the tie used to bind his wrists were not a common knot and once again the professor believed that this kind of specialist knot wouldn't be used by an angry mother who was killing her son during a fit of rage.

A team from an organisation called 'Rough Justice' made a documentary on the case to campaign for Margaret Livesey but I think the timing of broadcast by the BBC may have been a bit off-kilter. Judges accused them of "TV trickery" which probably made things a bit more uncomfortable for the appeal judges.

Lancashire Police said "This force does not want to substitute trial by TV for trial by judge and jury", Whilst I can understand the police's reluctance in the case of too much TV input in some ways, I also understand their true reasoning as they feared their underhand ways may be revealed. 

Unfortunately TV and now in more modern times, social media can really harm an investigation as people make up their own theories and broadcast them. By way of example in very recent times, I spent time on social media discussing the case of Claudia Lawrence and there was a very wide range of theories put forward so from that point of view it isn't always a good idea to start suggesting names in a "whodunnit" kind of way on TV.

The first series of Rough Justice programmes were broadcast in the days when we only had three mainstream TV channels in England but at its peak, the show attracted a regular 10 million viewers. 

Suddenly the public were being shown that miscarriages of justice were real and were happening in their local police stations, courts and prisons, evidence was shown to a big chunk of everyday people demonstrating that innocent people truly were being wrongly convicted and that left a bad taste in the mouths of the judiciary.

After broadcasting a second programme on the Margaret Livesey miscarriage of justice case, the team at Rough Justice were delighted when the then Home Secretary Douglas Hurd, referred the case back to The Court of Appeal in 1985.

Sadly a year later in December 1986, The Court of Appeal returned the verdict that the conviction was safe and should not be overturned, the judges said: "We have carefully considered all these matters and we are not of the view that this conviction was in any way unsafe or unsatisfactory. The more information that was adduced before us, the more we became convinced that the verdict of the jury was correct. The appeal is dismissed".

I am a little confused as to why Margaret Livesey would admit to killing her own son if she didn't do it and knew that she had an alibi. Nonetheless, the evidence does show it is quite unlikely that Alan was murdered by his mother and the case remains something of an enigma. 

Margaret's other son Derek is one of several people that remain absolutely convinced of his mother's innocence whilst Detective Superintendent Ian Hunter who was the OIC in the case remains absolutely sure that he got the right woman when Margaret was sent to jail for the murder of Alan Livesey.

The case is certainly something of an enigma in the world of criminology and certainly in the minds of the locals of Bamber Bridge, Lancashire. I would love to know your thoughts on this one. I will be back with another case in the coming days, probably something connected with my "crimes within cults"research so see you all soon.

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