Files released on women killers

Most women were spared the noose

Several long-hidden official files into murders by women in the early 20th Century are being released.

Files on about 17 murderesses have been published by the National Archives at Kew, including prison records and pictures never previously made public.

They give new insights into what drove women to kill their partners or babies.

The Open Government Initiative relaxed the laws on releasing Home Office files so they are no longer held back for 100 years in serious criminal cases.

Scissors stabbing

Among the 17 cases is the 1921 story of Annie Neath, a single woman in domestic service at Halifax in Yorkshire.

She concealed her pregnancy from her employer and secretly delivered the infant, a seven-pound boy, alone in her room.

Then she stabbed him to death with scissors and went downstairs to start her working day.

The tiny corpse was found under her bed when she collapsed.

Miss Neath, 18, was sentenced to hang but reprieved, like most other women who killed.

Only one, Dorothea Waddingham, a nurse from Nottingham, was hanged, in 1936 for murdering an elderly widow and her disabled daughter.

She was one of only 12 women in England to be hanged for their crimes in the last century.

Hammer blow

The remaining 16 had their death sentences commuted to life imprisonment, on the direction of the home secretary.

In another case, an Irishwoman, Elizabeth Rhodes, was driven close to madness by her violent husband and period pains.

She shattered his skull with a single massive blow from a hammer at their Yorkshire farmhouse.

After being reprieved and spending only three years in jail, she was released on parole.

One of the most disturbing cases was that of Edith Proctor, who starved her partner's child to death over a prolonged period.

She forced seven-year-old Nellie to spend most of her time in a small back bedroom and deliberately gave her little to eat.

The youngster died weighing just 18lbs and a photograph of her emaciated corpse is included in the file.

Proctor's death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment because she was pregnant at the time.

The cases were originally subject to closure for 100 years because they contained medical and domestic details that could not be released during the lifetime of the prisoners and, in some cases, their immediate family.