Who is Mary Bell? Everything You Need to Know

Quick Facts

British Celebrities Born In May

Also Known As: Mary Flora Bell, The Tyneside Strangler

Age: 67 Years, 67 Year Old Females

Family:

mother: Betty McCrickett

Murderers British Women

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1

What crimes was Mary Bell convicted of?

Mary Bell was convicted of the manslaughter of two young boys in 1968.
2

How old was Mary Bell when she committed the crimes?

Mary Bell was 11 years old when she committed the crimes.
3

What was the motivation behind Mary Bell's crimes?

Mary Bell's troubled childhood and experiences of abuse were believed to have influenced her actions.
4

What happened to Mary Bell after she served her sentence?

After serving her sentence, Mary Bell was granted anonymity and given a new identity to protect her privacy.
5

How did the case of Mary Bell impact laws regarding juvenile offenders?

The case of Mary Bell led to changes in laws regarding the treatment and sentencing of juvenile offenders in the UK.

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Childhood & Early Life

Mary Flora Bell was born on May 26, 1957, to Betty (née McCrickett). The identity of Mary’s biological father is not known. However, for most of her life, she accepted Billy Bell as her father. Billy was a seasoned criminal who was later detained for armed burglary.

Mary had a troubled childhood because of her mother’s profession and her regular absence from the family home. She often traveled to Glasgow for work and gave birth to Mary, her first child, when she was 17.

According to the opinions of close friends and family members, little Mary was abused badly by her own mother. As described by an eye-witness, Betty once even tried to kill her by throwing her from a window and by making her consume sleeping pills. Additionally, at the tender age of 4 or 5, Mary was subjected to sexual assaults by her mother’s clients.

Mary sustained severe brain damage after her fall from the window. However, it has not been specified whether the damage was due to the fall or the abuses she had experienced. The prefrontal cortex of her brain, the area that is related to controlled activities and the capacity of decision-making, was damaged.

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British Murderers

Career

On May 25, 1968, Mary Bell smothered a 4-year-old boy named Martin Brown in a deserted house. It is generally believed that she had committed the crime alone. On July 31 the same year, Mary, along with her friend Norma Joyce Bell (who was 13 years old at that time), committed another crime. They strangled a 3-year-old boy named Brian Howe in an uninhabited region of Scotswood.

It is said that after the first crime, Mary and Norma had entered and damaged a garden center in Scotswood. They had left notes there, asserting that they were responsible for the killing. However, the incident was disregarded by the police as a hoax. Later, investigations proved that Mary had returned to the corpse of the victim of her second crime, only to etch an “M” into the boy’s belly and mutilate parts of his body using a pair of scissors.

On December 17, 1968, the final verdict of the case was announced at the court of assizes in Newcastle. Norma was acquitted, and Mary Bell was convicted of manslaughter. The psychiatrists appointed by the court found that Mary showed symptoms of psychopathy. Thus, the conviction sentence was made on the grounds of diminished responsibility, a type of case where the level of criminal offense is reduced from murder to manslaughter.

She was described as posing a “very grave risk to other children” by the judge, Justice Cusack, and was sentenced to 12 years of imprisonment. Initially, she was taken to the ‘Red Bank’ secure unit in Newton-Le-Willows, Lancashire.

Mary Bell remained the center of public attention even after her imprisonment. Her mother also tried to grab attention by selling her daughter’s stories and a few notes that she claimed were written by her daughter.

In 1976, Mary was transferred from a young offender’s institution to the ‘Moor Court’ open prison for adults. A year later, she made an unsuccessful attempt to escape from there and made headlines again. As a result, she lost her prison privileges for 28 days.

Mary Bell was released from ‘HM Prison Askham Grange’ in 1980, when she was 23 years old. She was granted anonymity and was allowed to make use of a new name for the sake of living a trouble-free life.

The anonymity of her daughter was previously protected under the condition that it would be annulled when her daughter would turn 18. However, Mary had both her and her daughter’s anonymity extended for life, after winning a ‘High Court’ case on May 21, 2003.

Major Works

The crimes committed by Mary Bell and the consequences were the subject of the book ‘The Case of Mary Bell’ (1972) by Gitta Sereny.

In 1998, Sereny released a second book on Mary Bell, ‘Cries Unheard: the Story of Mary Bell.’ It was a detailed biography, full of her interviews with Bell and her relatives and close friends. The book was the first to feature her (Bell's) description of the cruelty and ill-treatment meted out to her by her mother and her mother's clients.

The publication of the second book gave rise to a lot of controversy, as Bell had reportedly received a portion of the profit from the sales of the book. Her critics claimed it was unethical to allow a convict to make any profit from his/her own crime. However, the protests and the subsequent attempt to cease the publication of the book turned out to be unsuccessful.

Family & Personal Life

Mary Bell’s daughter was born on May 25, 1984. The date matches the date when she had committed her first crime 16 years earlier. Her daughter was not informed about the past events of her mother’s life. In 1998, everything was revealed when reporters found out Mary’s location. Following this, the mother–daughter duo had to leave the house they were living in until then.

Facts About Mary Bell

Mary Bell was known for her artistic talent and was praised for her drawings and paintings during her time in prison.

Despite her troubled past, Mary Bell has shown remorse for her actions and has worked to educate others on the consequences of violence.

Mary Bell has expressed a desire to help at-risk youth and has participated in programs aimed at preventing similar tragedies.

In interviews, Mary Bell has shared insights into her difficult childhood and the challenges she faced growing up.

Mary Bell has worked towards rehabilitation and personal growth, demonstrating a commitment to positive change.

Mary Bell Biography

You wanted to know

What crimes was Mary Bell convicted of?

How old was Mary Bell when she committed the crimes?

What was the motivation behind Mary Bell's crimes?

What happened to Mary Bell after she served her sentence?

How did the case of Mary Bell impact laws regarding juvenile offenders?