Maxwell/Michelle Confait
Age 2621 Apr 1972
Catford, South London (United Kingdom)
Strangled
TDoR list ref: tdor.info/21 Apr 1972/Maxwell Confait
Maxwell/Michelle was burned alive. Three teenagers were convicted of the crime, but freed on appeal.
Maxwell was found dead in his house on Doggett Road on April 22nd 1972. He was 26-years old, of dual heritage and gay. He often crossed-dressed and was also known as Michelle.
Maxwell was often seen drinking in The Black Bull and The Castle pubs in Lewisham.
The investigation into the murder led to a major review into how suspects are treated by the police, especially children and vulnerable people. A cause celebre, it came to be seen as a classic miscarriage of justice.
The Fire Brigade was called to 27 Doggett Road, Catford at 0121 hours on 22 April 1972. A body was found. It was that of Maxwell Confait a 26 year old mixed race man from the Seychelles. A gay (?) transgender (?) prostitute, Confait preferred to be called Michelle and was well-known in the local area. He frequented the Black Bull Pub (now Fox and Firkin) and the Castle (now Bar Nuvo). He had been strangled.
The police did not look very far. The first suspect was Winston Goode, the victim’s landlord and friend who lived at the same property with his wife Lillian and their children although the couple were separated. He denied any sexual relationship with Confait but admitted being jealous that Confait was planning to move out. Shortly afterwards he committed suicide by swallowing cyanide.
On 24 April there were three more fires: along the railway line near Catford Bridge Station; a sports hut on Ladywell Fields and 1 Nelgarde Road (the next street).The police arrested three youths. Colin Lattimore aged eighteen but with learning disabilities, Ronnie Leighton, aged 15 and Ahmet Salih aged 14. The three were questioned without another adult present. Lattimore admitted to the murder but Salih confessed only to observing it.
The case went to trial at the Old Bailey where it received national media coverage. Despite the boys all having alibis for the time of death and claiming that the police had been violent to them in custody, Lattimore was found guilty of manslaughter, detained indefinitely, and sent to Rampton Hospital. Leighton and Salih were found guilty of arson at Doggett Road and Ladywell Fields. Leighton was sent to Aylesbury Prison for life. Salih was sent to Royal Philanthropic School, Redhill for four years due to his age.
In July 1973, leave to appeal was refused despite disagreement between experts over the time of death. In 1975, the Home Secretary Roy Jenkins referred the case to the Court of Appeal. Following a high-level campaign led by Christopher Price, then local MP for Lewisham East, all three suspects were later found not guilty and freed by the Appeal Court. Lord Scarman criticised the original investigation for not emphasising the fact that there had been no struggle. This suggested that the victim knew his killer. He declared all three “innocent”. The Home Secretary then ordered a full enquiry by Sir Henry Fisher to look at the Judges Rules (i.e. how the police treat suspects, especially children and vulnerable people. Fisher made recommendations for reform but disagreed with Scarman finding two of the three defendants ” guilty on the balance of probability”. As a result, the report had to be published as a “return to the House of Commons” to make it exempt from libel. A Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure followed.
In 1972, a man called Maxwell Confait was murdered. Two children and a man with an intellectual disability were arrested and, based on their confessions, convicted. Several years later, forensic evidence showed that they were innocent. Their confessions had been false and were the combined result of their vulnerability and their treatment by police during detention and questioning.
Public concern over the Maxwell Confait case in 1972 led Parliament, via a public inquiry and then a Royal Commission, to pass the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and its Codes of Practice (PACE).
PACE set out the rules and safeguards for policing in England and Wales including role of the appropriate adult (AA). The principal intention was to reduce the risk of miscarriages of justice as a result of evidence being obtained from vulnerable suspects which, by virtue of their vulnerability, led to unsafe and unjust convictions
Maxwell/Michelle Confit’s murder remains unsolved.
Source: Radical Deviance, May 1997
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Maxwell_Confait
http://gaynewsarchive.org/tag/maxwell-confait/
https://lewishamheritage.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-maxwell-confait-murder.html
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1095508.pdf?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/report-of-an-inquiry-into-the-death-of-maxwell-confait
https://www.appropriateadult.org.uk/index.php/information/development/need/fair-justice/history
https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/files/qf85nb32r
http://students673.ucr.edu/docsserver/lgbt/trans_remembrance_display_posters.pdf
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10_JeZ7LEIRhvewTCoL5mVkH6MQJzf7fSXl4-P6QJ0v0/edit#gid=0
