The Twist of a Knife

Trevor and Annabel had never been popular and had become even less so when their son had taken one of Moxham’s own. I have described how they had fought to move a centuries-old footpath simply because it afforded a view of their swanky new swimming pool. How the village fête that had always taken place on the sacred turf of Moxham meadow had found itself turfed out, redirected to the Waitrose car park. We have seen how, from the day they arrived, they had seemed to deliberately search out reasons to antagonise the long-suffering villagers.

Well, the flowers may have spelled out some sort of apology, just as other wreaths spelled out BROTHER, SOLDIER and ADIOS. But even as the old soldier was being sent on his final pack drill, serious manoeuvres were going on behind the scenes. The Longhursts had assembled, at enormous cost, a team of London’s most aggressive and unsparing lawyers in what they had decided would be a fight to the death, determined that the death for which their son was partly responsible should be seen as unfortunate, accidental and definitely something for which he did not need to be punished.

I have spoken to a junior barrister at Blackwood Chambers who worked on the case. Speaking in the strictest confidence and with total anonymity, he told me that this was the agreed strategy. ‘We had to separate the two boys. Wayne Howard was the older of the two. He didn’t even live in Moxham Heath, but on the nearby Sheldon Estate, which was part of Chippenham. His father had been arrested for drug offences. He was physically larger, on the edge of puberty. It was evident from the start that he was a Machiavellian figure, even though he was only eleven, and that Stephen had been in thrall to him from the day they’d met. Our task was to make the judge see this, to prove the psychological manipulation which the older boy had exerted over the younger. Put simply, we set out to represent Stephen Longhurst as the victim he undoubtedly was.’

It helped that Stephen was physically small, with a voice that had not broken and baby blue eyes. Although it has never been proved, several reports have suggested that when his trial began (by video link), he was dressed in a set of Red Button clothes that had been specially created for him, but which were originally designed for seven-year-olds. He was clutching a copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, his favourite book. The aim was to make him look as sweet and innocent as possible.

As we have seen, this was only half the truth. There are the memories of Rosemary Alden, who helped at Moxham Heath Primary School and knew both boys, and the testimony of Stephen’s nanny, Lisa Carr, who still carries the scars of her time with him. There’s the evidence given by Police Constable Brownlow, who first encountered the two boys following the village allotment incident. And what does it all add up to? Simply this. That Stephen Longhurst was the archetypal spoilt brat, entitled, rude to the staff and cruel to animals. The best that can be said of him is that he was an innocent, waiting to be led astray. If Wayne Howard hadn’t come stumbling into his life, it might have been someone else. And whose fault was all this?

Step forward, Trevor and Annabel Longhurst.

They had always made it abundantly clear that their second son was an afterthought, the unwanted child – and how do you think it affected Stephen, hearing this? Oh yes, they showered him with material wealth – the quad bikes, the computer games, his own horse before he was even nine – but they were never actually there, too focused on their investment portfolio, their business in America and their fashionable charity projects. Their home might be in Wiltshire, but their hearts were in London and New York. The ten-year-old had no relationship with his teenaged, self-centred brother who had spent the past five years at a top public school and was about to disappear on a ‘charity’ trip around Africa. Martin Longhurst really didn’t need a gap year. The gap between him and his brother could hardly be more apparent.

Lonely and alone, surrounded by paid staff rather than people who loved him, Stephen Longhurst was the perfect target for a boy like Wayne Howard. Oliver Twist had found his Artful Dodger … in this instance, a young lout who had been born, quite literally, into a life of crime – slumbering in a pram that had been stolen from John Lewis. Wayne must have thought he had struck gold when he first set foot in Moxham Hall.

The two of them found common ground in vandalism and delinquency. They had set off on a road that could only lead to disaster. A violent and unnecessary death was just a few breaths away.