31 Facts About Neville Heath

Neville George Clevely Heath was an English murderer who killed two young women in the summer of 1946.

Neville Heath was executed in Pentonville Prison, London, in October 1946.

Neville Heath was later caught obtaining credit by fraud, and six months later was sent to a borstal for housebreaking and forgery.

Neville Heath used a number of aliases, including Lord Dudley and Lieutenant-Colonel Armstrong.

At the beginning of the Second World War, Neville Heath joined the Royal Army Service Corps and was posted to the Middle East.

Neville Heath married and had a son, but at the end of the war his wife divorced him on grounds of desertion.

Neville Heath was court martialled for wearing medals to which he was not entitled.

Scottish actress Molly Weir later reported that Neville Heath had tried to chat her up at a department store in Bournemouth in July 1946.

On Sunday 16 June 1946, Neville Heath took a room at the Pembridge Court Hotel in Notting Hill Gate in London.

Neville Heath used his real name but added the rank of lieutenant-colonel.

Neville Heath was accompanied by a woman, Yvonne Symonds, who he said was his wife; in fact they had only just met.

Neville Heath had promised to marry Symonds, so she spent the night with him and returned home the next day.

On 20 June 1946, Neville Heath spent the evening with Margery Gardner, a trained artist and occasional film extra.

Neville Heath's ankles were bound and marks showed that her wrists had been as well but the restraints had been removed.

Neville Heath went to Worthing and spent a few days with Symonds.

Neville Heath's parents were impressed with the supposed lieutenant-colonel, but he left when his name appeared in the newspapers in relation to Gardner's murder.

Neville Heath then went to Bournemouth and took a room at the Tollard Royal Hotel under the name "Group Captain Rupert Brook", an alias inspired by the war poet Rupert Brooke.

Neville Heath had served in the Women's Royal Naval Service during the war and had been discharged on 27 June 1946.

Marshall spent the afternoon with Neville Heath and, feeling lonely in Bournemouth, she accepted his further invitation to dine with him that evening.

Neville Heath cancelled the taxi and offered to walk her home.

Neville Heath contacted the manager of the Tollard Royal, knowing that she had dined there on the night she disappeared.

Neville Heath went to the police station and from a photograph identified Marshall as the woman he had been with, but claimed he had left her in the gardens in central Bournemouth.

Neville Heath had received blows to her head, her wrists and ankles had been tied, one nipple had been bitten off, and her throat had been slashed.

Neville Heath had a large gash that ran from the inside of her thigh up to her mutilated breast.

Neville Heath originally told his counsel, JD Casswell KC, to plead guilty, but when Casswell questioned this, he said, "All right, put me down as not guilty, old boy".

Casswell chose not to call Neville Heath to give evidence and relied on the defence of insanity, calling William Henry de Bargue Hubert, an experienced criminal psychiatrist, to testify as an expert witness.

Hubert testified that he believed Neville Heath knew what he was doing but not that it was morally wrong, but the prosecution easily destroyed Hubert's argument; unknown to Casswell, Hubert was a drug addict and was under the influence of morphine as he testified in the witness box.

Neville Heath was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging by Mr Justice Morris.

Neville Heath was executed by Albert Pierrepoint on 16 October 1946 at Pentonville Prison.

Neville Heath replied, "While you're about it, sir, you might make that a double".

Producer Sean O'Connor suggests that Neville Heath barely knew Margery Gardner, and that they had never spent the night together before the night he killed her.