Hanged for the Word If: The Murder of Lily Volpert and the Execution of Mahmood Hussein MattanIn 1952 a shopkeeper named Lily Volpert was murdered in the docks district of Cardiff, known as Tiger Bay. A Somali former merchant seaman, Mahmood Hussein Mattan, was charged with the murder, convicted and hanged. But 46 years later he became the first person in British history to have a murder conviction overturned after being executed. "Hanged for the Word If" is the first book in English about this historic case. Drawing on all the available documentary evidence, including the surviving records held by the police, it tells the story of the crime, the investigation, the trial and the execution. It traces the later history of some of the people involved, and relates how another murder and an attempted murder raised doubts about Mattan's guilt. It describes the campaign to reopen the case in the 1990s and the appeal that overturned his conviction. And finally it tries to answer the question of who really killed Lily Volpert in 1952. |
Contents
3 | |
11 | |
18 | |
4 The Scene of the Crime | 26 |
5 A Somali Seen near the Shop | 32 |
6 More Witnesses | 36 |
7 An Identification | 40 |
8 No Stone Unturned | 46 |
Evidence about the Murder | 160 |
Mattans Movements | 168 |
Mattans Vices | 177 |
Mattans Evidence | 187 |
Last Day | 191 |
36 Refused Leave to Appeal | 201 |
37 Execution | 206 |
38 Tahir Gass | 215 |
9 Mahmood Hussein Mattan | 53 |
10 Antecedents | 59 |
11 Questioned about his Movements | 65 |
12 Mattans Routine | 70 |
13 No Alibi | 73 |
14 Interrogation | 78 |
15 Clothes | 85 |
16 May Gray | 89 |
17 Mary Tolley | 93 |
18 Charged with Murder | 99 |
19 Building a Case | 105 |
20 Offensive Weapons | 108 |
21 The Dog Track and the Poker Game | 111 |
22 Movements on the Day of the Murder | 115 |
23 The Police Theory | 121 |
24 On Remand | 128 |
25 Brown Suede Shoes | 130 |
26 The Razor under the Washing | 135 |
27 Committal | 137 |
28 Notice of Further Evidence | 145 |
29 Awaiting Trial | 150 |
Opening Gambits | 156 |
39 The Murder of Granville Jenkins | 222 |
40 The Trial of Tahir Gass | 228 |
41 Wounded Tiger | 235 |
42 Harold Cover | 238 |
43 The Attempted Murder of Elaina Smith | 243 |
44 Investigation by The People | 245 |
45 No New Grounds to Reopen the Case | 250 |
46 Campaign | 259 |
47 Appeal | 264 |
48 Aftermath | 271 |
49 Dahir Awalhi | 277 |
50 Six Feet Tall | 283 |
51 The Evidence | 289 |
52 Mahmood Hussein Mattan? | 295 |
53 Harold Cover? | 299 |
54 Tahir Gass? | 303 |
55 Someone Else? | 306 |
The Sequence of Events | 311 |
Note on Sources | 319 |
323 | |
325 | |
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Common terms and phrases
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