Predator. Predatory. Predatory behaviour. Listen in on any of my professional conversations or read any of my reports and you would know that these words feature in my work many times each day. They are associated with many different types of crime.

In recent times, the same words have been banded around across all forms of media and particularly in relation to sexual crime. I’m not sure what the words conjure up in the public mind but, I observed on much more than one occasion, the thinking that somehow the behaviour was not so bad, not so serious, not so criminal as sexual offences themselves. Maybe such minimisation is, as remains common in relation to sexual crime, reflecting a wish not to know. If that is so, then it is a highly dangerous and permission giving wish indeed.

Being a predator and engaging in predatory behaviour is a complex business. Like much about crime, it does not ‘just happen’. Predatory behaviour is always supported by predatory thinking and predatory feelings, intelligence, fantasy, rehearsal, practice, preparation, intent. It will relate to and play a particular part in the dynamics of entitlement, power, callousness, objectification and victimisation. To do it well will also involve time, commitment, planning and resourcing. All of this, without exception, resides within the predator and makes clear the level of the risk and dangerousness they pose to others.

For once, I want to use an example of a female predator. There is a not insignificant number of predatory women in the criminal justice system. They are of immense concern. But at least we know about those. There will of course be many others that we don’t know about and need to.

Ms Ghislaine Maxwell is a useful example and in my professional experience she is no exception. Her internal world no different in content than the cohort of her fellow male sexual offenders. It is disturbing then to note that some still seek to minimise her crimes, risk and dangerousness by reasoning of her gender and lessening of the specific role she played. Nothing could be so further from the truth. The chilling testimony of her victims leaves us in no doubt of the predatory process:

“She was really the mastermind of this whole pyramid system he had working. She would go to spa’s and hand out cards saying that she had a very wealthy benefactor who’s going to help you with your schooling, make you a model, all these promises.”

Promises are seductive and especially so when targeted at the girls whom Ghislaine preyed on. Those preyed on were homeless and some were addicted to drugs. She and Epstein did not victimise girls who were Olympic stars and Hollywood actresses. They like the majority of sexual offenders victimised people they thought nobody would ever listen to. The silencing of victims, the disbelief they meet with, the wish of others not to know and the need of others to deny were, as with all predators, were all part of the criminal process.

Whilst promises and seductive threats are controlling. Predatory behaviour will always make use of fear. Ms Maxwell and, had he lived, her co-defendant, employed this means of control.

Investigators observed that many of the victims expressed fears about what Epstein might do to them, claiming that either he or Ghislaine had warned them to stay quiet. The bodyguards and private investigators employed by Epstein would have been experienced as a display of power, purposefully inducing fear.

A reporter from the Miami Herald observed; “I think they were extremely dangerous. I mean we don’t know, really, the lengths that he went to, to intimidate people who tried to expose what he was doing. But we know that there were plenty of people who were afraid and who felt that he was capable of doing really bad things.”

There is another fact that feeds the wish not to know and supports a well-established culture of denial about women who commit predatory sexual crime. It is the problem of male sexualisation and its inherent disavowing of vulnerability. Still in 2025, men are not allowed to own vulnerability and certainly not their victim experiences at the hands of women.

Over several decades now I have conducted treatment groups for men who have committed sexual crimes. Literally hundreds of men have sat in front of me in the familiar therapeutic circle. Without exception, in every group at least 3 or 4 men when accounting their sexual histories describe older women having sex with them whilst they were still children. They tell of these occasions with bravado, rampant male ego, often asserting that no harm was done, a rite of passage. But there they are, in treatment for the sexual crimes they have committed.

Seldom, if ever, have any of these women sexual offenders been investigated or brought to justice. But they exist and in much greater numbers than we would care to believe. Sexual abuse of a child can never be considered a ‘rite of passage’. Mrs Maxwell is not alone or unusual. Fact is, she and they are immensely dangerous.

Female or male, the task of predatory behaviour is not just about the supply of victims. It is equally about ensuring silence and power. Once these factors are established the rest is enabled. Ms Maxwell, her thinking and behaviour as with other predators, are not ‘less than’ in their role of commissioning crime. Indeed, one could argue that without the role of an accomplished predator such crimes could not be commissioned at all.

Br Stephen Morris FCC

Friends and neighbours of Paul Doyle remain incredulous at the reality of his behaviour and from my experience, I think some professionals will be thinking the same.

I’ve never met the man, but I cannot and never did for one moment doubt the murderous intent he acted out on that day in Liverpool. Given my experience of assessing and working with men and women who have behaved in similar ways to Paul, it comes as no surprise to me that in his history there is evidence of previous concerning violence, some of it extreme. This known and documented history had seemingly faded from awareness. To the wider world he was no longer defined as the once violent person he was. The impression was that he was ‘sound’, ‘friendly’, ‘kind’, ‘helpful’, a’ diamond’. Whilst Paul showed to the world around him this impression, it was just that, an ‘impression’. It was absolutely not the whole picture.

My clinical froensic and criminal justice training, much like Paul’s violence, happened many decades ago and it’s has never left me, much like Paul’s violence. It is deeply grounded in my psyche and has informed all the encounters I have had with men like Paul. It was a training that held as a basic principle, a tenant of truth, an all-encompassing wisdom, that early histories of violence need to be considered when assessing risk and dangerousness, no matter how long ago they may have occurred. The passing of time cannot be and should not be used to interpret that the risk of repetition is over.

The risk of repeating past violence is increased of course if the initial violence has never been worked with, its causal factors explored and, its often many meanings made conscious. In the absence of consciousness history has revealed to us, times over, will repeat. Paul, the most recent example among many indeed.

Highlighting the risk of a violent presenting past is not a popular thing to do and especially so in the context of the current police, prison and probation services. Frighteningly, in these services risk has become a dirty word. Risk means more resources are needed. Risk means that skilled practitioners are called for, and risk means accountability. All of these things are in very short supply indeed.  To be the messenger of risk, to be the one who names it and speaks out about it makes you a very unpopular person indeed. Times over in the last few years I found my assessment of risk was being called into question, often by managers who had never actually worked with highly dangerous individuals, who relied on manualised risk assessment and were more concerned about there spreadsheets than the reality of protecting the public. On occasions and along with other policing colleagues who shared my view, we were even barred from case discussions, not allowed into meetings. The presenting past, they did not want to know about.

I can understand why neighbours and friends of Paul are shocked to discover the full picture of the dangerous man he has always been, they knew no other. For professionals in the criminal justice system to minimise factors that contribute to risk and choose to ignore them, there is no excuse. Those who refused to take into account my, always thorough, risk assessments often referred to me as being ‘risk adverse’ an insulting term when used to minimise and disregard my sound clinical knowledge, judgement and experience.

But less of me ….  important to return to this latest lesson and reminder of risk. It’s not only Paul’s history that is cause for concern but the comments he first made when still at the scene of his crimes also reveal much. “I’ve ruined the lives of my family”. In the face of the hundreds of lives he had just ruined his words communicate an immense callousness, self-concern and narcissism. Like his past his words also reveal much about him and his thinking. This too would not escape my assessment.

The passing of time did not make any difference to the risk held within Paul. It was, and always has been, a matter or time.

Br Stephen Morris FCC

Being a victim does not make someone a safe person. Fact is that being a victim, can make someone very dangerous indeed. The wife of the sadistic predator John Smyth is no exception; she is indeed a chilling example.

The excellent documentary, ‘See No Evil’ makes very clear the manifest evil that was John Smyth an Anglican evangelical. His perversion of morality just as disturbing as his barbaric sadism, I actually found this case more disturbing than some of the satanic abuse cases I have worked on. I exaggerate not!

Smyths reign of terror created many young male victims over many years. Lives damaged forever. Smyth escaped justice for two reasons. One, the bastard had a heart attack and died before anything was done and two, those around his colluded with and covered up all his perverted criminal behaviour.

Collusion and cover up can sound slightly removed from the criminal act, making it crucial to remember that those engaging in such behaviours are in fact playing a very active part in the commission of offences. It is they who are enabling, giving permission and must thereby be considered totally complicit. In the case of Smyth, Mrs Smyth, in particular, stands out as an individual who did just that.

There appears not to have been a time when Mrs Smyth was not aware of the sadistic abuse occurring in her garden and in her home. Her role, cleaning up the boy’s blood as it seeped from the wounds inflicted by the beatings, some of which lasted for 12 hours. Mrs Smyth washed the cushions she put on the chairs to make sitting more comfortable for them. She also brought and gave them ointment. She did this, not once or twice but many hundreds of times. In addition, when Mr Smyth took groups of boys, for hours on end, to the garden shed, his torture chamber, she never once ventured there herself. No, what Mrs Smyth did was to never mention any of this to anyone. Mrs Smyth stayed silent. It takes some special kind of mind to know what she knew and not do anything to stop it. It’s a mind not unlike the mind of a sadist.

Towards the end of the documentary the focus shifts to Mrs Smyth. Her role in the crimes become frighteningly clear, including also the horrendous and equally sadistic treatment of her two children. We see them sitting by her struggling to make sense of her and then horrifically falling into the trap of once again becoming victims of their father and indeed victims of their mother. Like so many, they fail to see that as well as their mother being a victim, she is also an enabler of sadistic abuse. Her own victimisation does not absolve at all her responsibility for what she did by not doing.

Victims of a whole variety of abuses hurt others all the time. Not all victims, but many. Such repetition cannot be excused just because it is repetition. It can be understood as a causal factor, but it does not change the fact that someone who is hurt has also hurt another and in so doing is guilty of a crime and needs to face justice.

We in criminal justice do not always get things right, but what we do very well indeed is to work and think in a way that enables us to accept the fact that someone who has experienced danger can also be very dangerous indeed. That someone who has been hurt can also hurt others. That pain so often becomes violence. Just like Mrs Smyth. Is she deserving of punishment? Yes. Is she deserving of treatment and healing? Yes. For a true experience of justice, both are crucial. One or the other? NO! that is not justice.

At some point in the documentary one of the male victims describes how following a beating by Smyth, Smyth, naked, would lay over the boy across the bench on which the boy had been beaten and caress him in his arms and kiss him on the neck. Later, towards the end of the documentary, Mrs Smyth is asked if she would like to say anything to the victims? ‘Yes’, she says, ‘I would like to hold you tight in my arms and kiss you’…… In that instant a number of people came into my mind and further told me all I need to know about Mr and Mrs Smyth; …. Myra Hindley and Ian Brady, Fred and Rose West, Ian Huntley and Maxine Carr, Marc Dutroux and Michelle Martin, to name a few.

Br Stephen Morris FCC

Outrage can achieve many things one of which it would seem is to prevent intelligent thinking. Look no further than the front page of the daily papers. They are often full of outrage in relation to the latest murder or threat to life.

Along with such headlines, comes calls for a whole variety of measures to be taken. These measures can range from replacing key figures within criminal justice, building bigger prisons and if this Government is in power for much longer Braverman and her like will be calling for the return of the death penalty. Fact is, such suggestions are nonsensical for the very fact that they are informed by delusion and a distorted belief that the world is a safe place .

The buy in, to the delusional belief that the world is a safe place and, on the occasions when it is not, that we can make it safe is delusional in the extreme. Such, has never been possible and never will be possible. Of course, as with many delusions its seductive, it sounds nice and many buy into big time.

‘See it, Say it, Sort it’ has been brainwashed into our thinking every time we board any form of public transport. In the face of occasions when we are reminded that mass murder can and does happen, ‘See it, Say it, Sort it’ quickly becomes delusion in action. Its purpose, to have us all seduced quickly back into the sense that we were still in control and safe. It does not require much intelligence to recognise that in the face of seemingly random bombing, backed up by a belief system and carried out by those sacrificing their own lives, safety is not possible and we are most certainly not in control. The delusion would, at best, last until the next bomb goes off, as indeed they do and will. The mantra is now so frequent that I doubt if anyone really hears it anymore and given that intelligence gets suspended so readily, they may also have well forgotten what it’s all about.

The expressions of outrage no matter who they are about are so without insight that if applied, then no one, absolutely no one is to be ever trusted again. How mad is that!

There is no analysis in the news headlines of today, just emotive re-action. No invitation to consider how or why people come to be a threat, arrive at being dangerous, and present to the world as high risk. Also fact is, murderousness and other dangerous actions fit totally within the range of the human condition, that also includes you and I.

To refer to recent examples, Lucy Letby and Benjamin Field are not unique or alone. Allitt, Dr Chapman and others all went before and others will be, as I write, engaged in similar behaviour, just not yet known about. Within noble professions the esteemed or in positions deemed less professional odd jobbers like Fred West , will be at it right now…. prepare to once more be outraged.

It is not just the fact that the world is a dangerous place that we are constantly invited to deny. We are also invited to deny the full reality of those who murder. This is especially so when those who murder come into conflict with idealisations and saintly archetypes held within us.

Just because someone is an enforcer of the law, a nurse, a priest, a doctor, a mother, does not mean there are without the capacity and motivation to murder. Some do and some will. Experience tells me also that it is many who are never discovered, that being because our upheld belief which goes something like ‘they could just not’. In terms of permission giving, that is a gift.

A delusion of ‘safety’ rather than connection with reality is not the only investment such denial invites us to make. We are also told to think that those who murder are ‘monsters’. To sight another case, how quickly was the identity of ‘police officer’ removed from Wayne Cousens and replaced by ‘Monster’. You could almost feel the collective relief, with the application of just one word, he was no longer one of us, he was no longer like me. Another lie. Another delusion.

The truth remains that Wayne may have done something monstrous and criminal, but that does not make him a monster. He remains, as you and I, deeply human and with all that implies. I don’t know if I will meet him in the coming years, but I know for certain that, if so, he will sit opposite me in his entirety, the full picture and I will listen to that full story, albeit too late.

The human condition is raw and primitive. Combinations of factors, conscious and unconscious come together in the immediacy of murder and other behaviours. All of us are vulnerable to this. These are the dynamics and features that do not get talked about and for which the media headlines like those of today and no doubt tomorrow do not allow. But the dynamics of murder can be much closer to home that many would like to acknowledge.

Failure to be able to embrace this truth is the greatest danger we face. Such failure gives rise to the delusional thinking writ large in the headlines today. Delusion stops our capacity to see, hear and to discern. We buy into it at our peril and the stories when they need to be told then remain untold, unheard and in time honoured fashion are then tragically acted out.

Br. Stephen Morris FCC

‘The Fall’ is one of those TV dramas that many revisit and of course it’s invitation to have murder in mind. …..

James Dornan, the immensely talented Irish actor, will forever sit in the mind of many as a serial killer. A lasting impact I guess, of the unrelenting intensity he conveyed in his portrayal of Paul Spector via the awesome production of ‘The Fall’.

Just as the books about ‘Fred and Rose’ flew off the shelves in their millions, so too does the darkness of ‘The Fall’ appeal to a society which still struggles to really comprehend the capacity of the human condition for the vilest of offences. The only way it seems that we can get our heads around the fact that the human condition can be murderous is to convert it into entertainment.

As long as we place the dark capacity of the human condition into a book, painting, play, poem, dance or TV series, especially one as good as ‘The Fall’, then we can keep all our primitive darkness, murderousness, perverse desires, violence’s, rages and destructiveness separate, away from us, unintegrated and, just as dangerous as the serial killer does, ‘split off’.

Evidence of our need to ‘split off’ our capacity for primitive violence is also expressed by many who conveyed their surprise at how handsome, sexy and good looking was Paul Spector. Such comments, and they were many, reminded me of the very first group therapy I facilitated for men who, like Paul Spector, had raped and murdered.

In the weeks leading up to starting the group myself and my co-clinician met with about fourteen referred men to carry out individual assessments to see if they were ready and suitable for intervention. We needed a group of no more than eight. Over several weeks we divided up the men and conducted the assessments on a one to one basis. My co-clinician and I shared an office. I remember well him returning after conducting one assessment looking red in the face, slightly energised and unsettled but grinning all over his face. He noticed my immediate curiosity, sat down and said to me “Oh my God! that one was absolutely gorgeous”, We laughed long and loud.

Murderers, rapists and especially serial rapists are not meant to be ‘gorgeous’ and certainly not sexy. The fact of course is, that there is absolutely no reason why they should not be and, having met many, I can evidence that many are indeed ‘gorgeous’. The issue for the forensic setting, for the wider community and my co-therapist, is not that they cannot be ‘gorgeous’ but that we should not be seduced by it. Gorgeousness and dangerousness are not as incompatible as we like to think.

I loved the fact that Paul Spector was not only sexy, he was also a bereavement counsellor. What a great role for us and for him to fulfil the task of ‘splitting off’. Both, accurately fly in the face of the monster we need him and other men and women like him to be.

My business is public protection, working with the human condition to make our world a safer place. The biggest challenge to achieving this is not the Paul Spector’s I meet; the real dangerousness and risk is in the minds of those who need monsters to look and sound like monsters. It is in the mindset that can entertain Fred and Rose when they dwell in the chapters of a book but not if they are living next door.

Fred and Rose did not do what they did once we knew about them, it all happened when they were just neighbours. Paul Spector did what he did at the same time when he was busy being a; bereavement counsellor, a loving father, a boring husband and of course, being gorgeous.

If we can bear to think what ‘The Fall’ invites us to, it could well be the biggest public protection crime prevention campaign we have ever known. We, and the unintegrated monster in us, needs it.

Br Stephen Morris FCC

She Said Nothing, So I Killed Her ….

….then nothing was said ..

A murderer once said to me … “She said nothing … so I killed her, so nothing was said”. This statement made me think about the power of silence and how we experience it. Here are my thoughts:

“The dumb silence of apathy, the sober silence of solemnity, the fertile silence of awareness, the active silence of perception, the baffled silence of confusion, the uneasy silence of impasse, the muzzled silence of outrage, the expectant silence of waiting, the reproachful silence of censure, the tacit silence of approval, the vituperative silence of accusation, the eloquent silence of awe, the unnerving silence of menace, the peaceful silence of communion and the irrevocable silence of death Illustrate by their unspoken response to speech that experiences exist for which we lack the word”. – Leslie Kane (1984)

For me, the sacredness of silence, I have come to recognise, has more often than not been experienced away from and outside of the environments commonly associated with prayer, contemplation, adoration and reflection. Yes, I love the early first hours of each new day, the closing hours of darkness and daily visits to the Blessed Sacrament, but these occasions are relatively short to what unfolds hour by hour in my daily work.

For the majority of each day I am in constant dialogue and relationship with others. The context of a Police station, a court room, probation office and a prison wing, is one of immense business, the noises of distress, internal and external conflicts, negotiations, relief and … the list goes on. I guess the same can be said about many different working environments including yours.

But of course, sacredness and its many manifestations of silence is to be found in all of these places, experiences and contexts and is not limited to the cloister, church or chapel.

My awareness that silence and its sacred contents did not come from known holy saints, priests or spiritual directors. My eyes and heart were opened to silence by the very first prisoners and offenders I met and by others who worked with them.

In the early days of my forensic training, I was privileged to be taught by Consultant Psychotherapist, Dr Murray Cox. Murray was also a Shakespearian scholar and integrated his immense knowledge fully into his clinical thinking at Broadmoor. He inspired me as no other, to understand silence as one of the most meaningful communications and introduced me to the work of Kane as quoted above.

Murray died many years ago now. I continue to be reminded of him daily as I now consult to younger clinicians, police and probation officers helping them to develop ways of being with people who often no other wants to be with. When seeking to support them in this challenging task, it is not unusual for them to express relief and delight because their client is talking about his or her offence with great ease “He’s doing very well Stephen, he talks about his offence all the time”. My response is seldom one of joy. In this situation I am only too mindful of one client who declared; “She said nothing….. So, I killed her, then nothing was said”.

This powerful statement on silence enabled me to recognise that when a client, tells their story easily, this usually signifies that it is not the part of the story that needs to be told. Casual telling, always indicates that there is story, a much earlier story, that the client may not be able to bear to tell at all. It is this story that needs to be told and it is this story, if no more people are to be killed, that needs to be heard.

We all have stories that need to be told and we all need silence in which to tell them. Silence alone can take us beyond our initial telling. Beyond the story what we first tell ourselves, others and God. It is this story that needs silence to emerge in its fullness, no matter what it sounds like and no matter what it holds. Even our untold stories can have a murderous effect.

The importance of allowing and staying with silence is not only crucial for my forensic clients but is also crucial for us all. We can all move through the day being more aware of the many communications within silence. Not only we will start to hear the important untold in our own stories, but a myriad of other communications will also open up to us in the lives of others. The sacredness of this process can of course happen in all the places we have been conditioned to consider ‘holy’ and in many other places, equally ‘holy’, but outside of our conditioning. Perhaps, even more often than we allow ourselves to notice, the sacredness of silence happens and is happening in the groundedness of our untold stories, in the fullness of life and in all its glorious noisy mess and messy places …

But first I guess we have to learn to shut the fuck up!

Br. Stephen Morris FCC

It’s not unusual for me to have been the first person to inform a man who has committed a sexual crime that he is to be placed on the sex offender register. At the start of a court assessment, it’s one of the first things I’ve learned to check out. The many other criminal justice professionals dealing with the individual before me may well have avoided the issue. I get that. The responses are varied; tears, sobbing, shouting, screaming, laughing and perhaps the most common “fuck off you cunt”. It’s usually a substantial wait before some resemblance of calm is restored.

I’m good at waiting.

Bewilderment often accompanied with incredulous laughter is nearly always the response I witness in men who have committed the specific crimes of sexual assault, exposure, outraging public decency. It is these men who often say to me “I just don’t see it”, “I just don’t get it”, “I don’t understand it”. In terms of justice, how they perceive their behaviour doesn’t matter of course. How it sits in their mind; ‘groping’, ‘flashing’, ‘grabbing’, ‘having a bit of fun’ ‘trying it on’ ‘drunken tomfoolery’ whatever they call it does not stop it from being a serious sexual crime. After all, it’s why they’ve ended up talking to me.

These men (and sometimes women) literally think they have done no wrong. Neither do they acknowledge that they have, by their behaviour, created a victim. They struggle to comprehend that someone has been violated and caused all the psychological consequences that defines being a victim.

As I explain, “it is likely you will be placed on the sex offenders register”, I usually follow it up with a question “can you tell me why you think that may be?” Few are able to answer.

Month by the month the media is not short of examples of men, notable men, famous men, men often literally in the spotlight, powerful men who, even in the face of immense evidence, still claim they have done no wrong and cannot allow themselves to answer such a question. Just look at the statements of denial they make in an often-pathetic attempt to defend themselves. “It was just a bit of fun”.

The response to these predatory men by those who often rush to support them (the list is varied but predictable, Government ministers, fellow celebrities, naïve partners, fellow predators, those also invested in collusion, etc) gives us an indication as to why the men I work with struggle to take responsibility for the crime(s) they have committed and the victim(s) they have created. Stark truth is, in relation to sexual crime, it can at times be difficult to find anyone willing to name predatory behaviour for what it actually is..

Some find it possible to joke about ‘groping’. Much like exposure, exhibitionism or outraging public decency these crimes are often reduced to a music hall style humour of having a titter about flashing etc. In this process of minimisation, the denial of the fact that a victim has been created gets writ large.

Let’s be clear groping, ‘flashing’ pinching or touching a bottom / breast, crotch etc is a sexual crime. These behaviours are sexual assaults. It does not become anything less just because the individual doing it had ‘had too much too drink’ or ‘embarrassed himself’. No, it is a sexual crime because it is a transgression, an invasion of personal boundary. It is a sexual crime because it is lacking in consent, and it is a sexual crime because it is an abuse of power.

In such cases, it is not for a government committee’s, a management board, an internal private investigation etc, to investigate, that is the responsibility of the Police.

No matter how much some may titter and no matter how much these men protest about their self-concern, it does not change the fact that they have created victims. Minimisation and all the denial in the world cannot, should not allow for a hierarchy of offences. All sexual crimes have victims. Neither should we think that their behaviour would have occurred in isolation, no, my experience tells me that there would have been other occasions and they will have other victims.

It’s not fun telling a man that he is to be placed on the sex offender register. The implications of such are massive, life changing. But when there is such little regard for what constitutes a sexual offence, when some men think that because they get a bit pissed, that its ok to have a bit of a laugh … a bit of a grope or, as in many of these cases, that it’s all about them, then such a register, such holding to account is needed and is right. The victims of powerful, famous and well known men, as with all others, are deserving of this justice.

As for those who seek to defend them, they too must be held to account, even when they have or are living their lives in the spotlight. Their silence, collusion and acceptance of these crimes can only be considered as permission giving. Sexual offenders the world over depend on exactly the likes of all those that, like the offender themselves, cannot bear to face the horrific truth.

Br. Stephen Morris fcc

Father’s Day in prison always prompts much reflection, sadness, rage and questioning all in equal measure. For fathers in prison, it is a time when the experience of separation can no longer be met with denial, its pain seems to break through even the hardest defences. Evidence I guess of an experience, an identity and a connection which sits deeply in the human spirit of every father.

All this has been brought to me over the years in the days and weeks following Father’s Day by those courageous men who seek out therapy whilst in prison, many do.

The pain of a father in prison is not the only emotion. It is nearly always accompanied by anxiety. I honour and respect those men who recognise this vulnerability and name it for what it is. It’s often expressed as a question “Am I turning into my father?”, “Will I be like my father?”, “Can you stop me becoming my father?”, “How do I stop being like my father?”.

The same questions are also asked on a regular basis by the fathers I work with in my private practice outside of prison. They too will be prompted, following another Father’s Day, to ask me in hope and in despair for an answer.

For many fathers in prison and out of prison, Father’s Day is not an occasion to be celebrated. Such a day is a reminder of an experience of fathering defined by tyranny, by violence, by violent misogyny, by homophobia, by absence, by hatred, by toxic masculinity, by a father unworthy of celebration no matter what day.

Such anxious questions emerging from these experiences of human failure, far from being hopeless and cause for despair, are I have come to realise, questions of hope. Such questions even before the answer emerges make conscious all that has previously not been said. Such questions make conscious the deepest fears and vulnerabilities which have often, for generations, remained unasked and therefore only communicated in horror after horror.

The fact that a man, a father, can ask such questions is the first indicator that a cycle, a history, a legacy is being broken and need not be repeated. It is the first indication that a happy Father’s Day can be possible.

Br. Stephen Morris fcc

Murder it appears, is very much on our minds. The accounted escapades of Fred and Rose sit on the bookshelves of millions the world over. This not so cosy couple are joined of course by many hundreds if not thousands of others. Add to this the latest Netflix serial killer drama or another remake in the ancient tradition of Agatha Christie and it is more than clear, murder is popular. We can’t get enough of it.

On occasions and in sharp contrast, the very people who can and do recount with glee the antics of Ted Bundy, also take to the streets in their hundreds to mourn and weep over a murderer’s victim that they have never even met. When the murderer’s victim also happens to be young, white, professional and living in an affluent area, as was Sarah Everard, even the usually silent middle classes leave their comfort zones to express abject horror. In media interviews they utter her name ‘Sarah’ as if they knew her intimately, they didn’t.

Later of course they return to the next instalment of Bundy and will, I have no doubt, be amongst the first to purchase the paperback version of ‘The Killing of Sarah’ – the title won’t matter much, the seduction has already occurred.

Yes, murder is most certainly on our minds and in a way, which is so at odds with itself, so split in its manifestation and so contradictory that it is very difficult to know where to begin to make any sense of our paradoxical love hate relationship with it. This paradox exists within us all including those who murder.

Murder, always begins in the mind. Most murder occurs concretely only after it has been committed many times previously in daydreams, nightmares and fantasy. Much effort has usually been made to keep it confined to these realms, but it is usually a sudden internal change that occurs and the deed is carried out. Most of us in fact will have experienced the initial phases of this process. Therein is our sameness with those who kill. Media and public interest in the act of murder usually stops at this point and quickly moves to revenge and punishment. Failure to think beyond this point does not serve us well. It is this non-thinking that is most certainly a contributing factor to repetition and missed opportunities for public protection. In moving so quickly to punishment, we must ask who is it really, we are wishing to punish? The answer of course lies much closer to home.

Most men and women I have met who have killed are, contrary to what the media would have us believe, eager to exercise revenge and punishment on themselves. They have morally injured themselves and are therefore often more than willing to except justice.

In the distorted public frenzy that accompanied the murder of the young, blonde, professional middle-class women called Sarah and indeed the significant number since who were, for whatever reason not so popular. Something significant, although reported, got missed or dismissed.

The person charged with the murder of Sarah appeared in court with an obvious head wound sustained in custody and had, on two separate occasions, required hospital intervention. Such reports invite speculation. I however do not find it difficult to be confident that, on both occasions, the injury was self- inflicted. My confidence of this assertion is based on listening to people who have killed and learning from them, not so much of how they have behaved, but of their story and how what they have done impacts on them.

The full story of the victim in this case is not known. She was reduced to a moral crusade. The story of the man charged with her murder has been reported on endlessly. But fact remains, we do not know him at all. He, was reduced to a piece of print. The full story does however reside in his head and is fully known to him. It’s beginning would have started many years ago and each chapter will hold horrors to varying degrees culminating to the point where it could be contained no longer. Only now is the final chapter writ large in his mind and with such force that all he can do to manage it is to try to knock it out. Self-inflicted smashing of a head into the wall of a cell I have witnessed many times.

With murder done two things remain; the story that we think we know and the full story that has never usually been told. In relation to the later, there are usually many clues along the way. Many assume that the most awful thing about a murder scene in the murder itself, the dead body and signs of the deadly act. Not so. The most disturbing aspect of a murder scene or in fact most crimes scenes is their context.

So saturated are our minds with the stuff of crime drama that we are conditioned to expect crimes and crime scenes to unfold as they do on the screen. Even when art replicates real life, the horror is seldom at the point or location we expect it to be.

Murder and other crimes take place in the context of the ordinary. In the context of routines daily life and more importantly, in the stories of life that have been unfolding day by day across years. For me, and for many a person who has killed, the horror is in the whole story and not in the final chapter.

The very first crime scene I witnessed in the course of my work has stayed in my mind’s eye over several decades and is as vivid as it was at the actual time. But it is not of the dead women, laying on the floor in front of her sofa, the deep wound where an axe had almost split her head in two, that I see so clearly. It is her television set, her tea cup where she last placed it on a side table, magazines in a rack, coal in a brass bucket, a plate of uneaten sandwiches and the kitchen door slightly ajar. These ordinary things convey the horror of the extraordinary that had happened and in doing so connect me to the full story.

Listening to men and women who have killed, I am never left in any doubt as to the images that remain in their minds. A murder scene is what it is and is seldom lacking in clarity. Unlike the proceeding story, it can be made sense of, reported and told in its stark reality. For those who have killed the stark reality is much more than the murder scene. They will often have a life time of scenes, of chapters all leading to the final one. For those of us who work with them, our task is to learn, know and understand – the full story.

John had strangled his partners lover, who also was John’s closest and lifelong friend. I had seen close up photographs of the victims’ neck and the victim’s body in situ. But many months later, in a prison consulting room I was viewing a different set of photographs. John, with some pride, had brought a set of family holiday photographs to show me. All the characters of the tragic story were present John, his wife, their three children, the now dead lover and friend. They were all standing at the helm of a boat as it cut though the waves. They were setting out on a family holiday laughing and smiling. This photograph captured an earlier chapter in the story. The story of lies, deceit, betrayal, hurt, rage, it was all there but as the smiles indicated, it was a story that had not been told. Again, I experienced horror, not in comprehending the murder scene, but in the knowing of the earlier story and indeed its denial.

More recently in my role as Chemsex Crime Lead for London, I went to view evidence and discuss a case of rape with the chief investigating officer. The rape of unconscious men in the chemsex context is tragically not uncommon. This particular rape had been filmed. Yes, it was deeply disturbing to watch. For expert witness purposes, I had to watch it many times. But, as previously experienced, the true experience of horror was in witnessing the wider picture, the fuller story. Also, in the room with the unconscious man were six other males. Each man was scrolling through endless Grindr profiles on their mobile devices. They would glance occasionally at the sadistic crime unfolding before them but they did not intervene and neither did they express horror. This part of the story was familiar to them, they had witnessed it before and given the condoning lack of response this part of the story was acceptable to them. These men were not psychopaths, all were capable of feeling, reflection and ability to connect with another. But at that moment in time the wider story was not being permitted in their mind. It had been suspended and disconnected from. It could not bear to be known. I cite this as a powerful example of how the full horror only occurs when the full story is not only known but is also allowed.

There are rich lessons to be learned in all murder and crime stories, but we must be willing to hear the whole story and not just the final chapter. It was Jung who first called our attention to this fact when he stated in one of his letters to Freud that “The reason for evil in this world is that people are not able to tell their stories” I agree. But here is the rub; there is no point in telling your story if there is no one to pay witness to it. Worse still. if the witness is only interested in the final exciting chapter and disavows the rest .

As the illustrations I have used indicate, working with the real horror of murder and other crimes requires bearing witness to the whole story. Founded in solid Kleinian theory, every aspect of a crime, of an offence, is a communication. This truth, as a mantra, sits at the centre of my work. Actions and behaviour time and time again invite us all to ask what is being communicated?

In some ways by the time I and my colleagues are asking that question, it is too late. Would I and my colleagues still have a job if such a question was asked of all of us and more readily when we witness a communication? Would Jung’s assertion serve us all well if we noticed, listened to and witnessed the crucially important stories we all have and need to share?

Br Stephen Morris fcc