The press
The wicked lady
Paul Johnson
One of the hazards of being murdered nowadays is that, at the subsequent trial, your character is likely to be posthumously assassinated by the defence in an attempt to get a lighter sentence for the killer. With hanging abolished, the chances are that, if the victim's reputation is sufficiently blackened in court, the con- victed murderer or manslaughterer will serve only a short time in prison and may even get a suspended sentence; in the last year at least three matrimonial killers have walked out of court free. In the past, crown pro- secutors took pains to emphasise the good character and innocence of the victim, where this was appropriate, in order to stress the atrocity of the crime. But they don't seem to bother nowadays.
The trial which followed the killing of Mrs Monika Telling was a particularly bad example of this decline in our judicial stan- dards. The Daily Telegraph reported last Saturday: 'Monika Telling was described by both the crown and defence as a drug- taking bisexual who taunted Telling about her wide sexual experience with lovers of both sexes. The only note of caution in the nine-day trial was sounded by the judge, Mr Justice Sheldon, who warned the jury in summing up to remember she was not alive to answer the claims and criticisms.'
The attacks on the late Mrs Telling in court were, of course, repeated and magnified by Fleet Street papers, popular and qualities alike. Mrs Telling's habits, wrote the Guardian, 'included carrying a gun and a vibrator in her handbag, drinking benedictine and orange at breakfast, and using cocaine, heroin and marijuana. She often joined naked party guests plunging into a whirlpool-bath on the lawn at her home, while her husband sat on the sidelines, drinking. She also boasted to him of her male and female lovers, and publicly decried his sexual powers.' The Times, apparently using the same agency copy, said she 'joined naked guests plunging in a whirlpool-bath on the lawn ... carried a gun and a vibrator in her handbag, drove a Pontiac Firebird car and enjoyed cocaine, heroin and marijuana ... [She] had a cruel streak. She boasted to her husband about her lovers, male and female, all over the world and taunted him about his sexual deficiencies.'
The women witnesses at the trial, who helped to destroy Mrs Telling's character, amplified their tales in the News of the World, under the headlines: 'Our Deadly Sex Game: Monika's 3-in-a-bed-girls say: We drove Vestey heir to kill her'. Julie Chamberlain, described as a 'gay student', was quoted as saying: 'I'll never forget the troubled look on his face when he caught me sneaking away from the house after sleeping in his bed with Monika.' Karen Mayers, a 'former lesbian', added: 'She invited me for the weekend, then spent the whole time trying to seduce me in front of him and making him look small .... She even dressed in sexy black underwear to ex- cite me and said, with a sneer: "This is what I wear to try to turn Michael on". It must have unhinged him.' A third woman Linda Blackstock, was quoted by the News of the World: 'Monika had made him into a wretch. She even trained her parrot Cocky
to say "P off, Michael" and peck him on the head every time he tried to kiss her.'
By way of being different, the Sunday Mirror chose to present a less reprehensible Monika Telling, though in a manner which again emphasised her promiscuity. Under the headline 'We Held Hands and Went to Bed', it printed an 'exclusive interview' with Joe Stennings, who was 'the last man to have an affair with her'. According to Stennings, Mrs Telling was 'a kind and sen- sitive woman — not at all like the drug- addicted lesbian she was painted at Telling's trial'. He said: 'She was a very innocent sort of girl really — not a wildcat in bed or anything like that.... There was no ques- tion of fancy underwear or gadgets'. All this sounds rather more likely than the Messalina-like creature described by Chamberlain, Mayers and Blackstock, though Stenning undermined his plausibili- ty in my estimation by claiming that Monika Telling predicted her murder, tel- ling him: 'When he blows my head off one day you will be able to tell the papers how Lord Vestey's cousin shot me.' I don't believe that Mrs Telling was accustomed to refer to her husband as 'Lord Vestey's cousin', reflecting as it does Fleet Street's obsession with the unfortunate Lord Vestey. Throughout the trial all the newspapers invariably described Telling as 'the second cousin of Lord Vestey', with the exception of the Telegraph which called him 'the undistinguished second cousin of Lord Vestey'. To be a second cousin is a fairly remote relationship and it is typical of Fleet Street's unfairness that Vestey, who had nothing to do with the trial and may never even have set eyes on Telling, had his name dragged into the business at every stage. And not only Vestey: the News of the World insisted on identifying Telling as 'second cousin of Prince Charles's polo pal Lord Vestey'. A case of guilt-by-chukkah.'
The Mail on Sunday, not content with the women who testified to Mrs Telling's depravity in court, ran a two-page spread about a friend of hers called Rosemary Stephens, who was not called to testify. Its confused account by no means fulfilled the promise of the headline: 'Rosemary's Story: The Headless Corpse Trial witness who was never called had amazing evidence of the Tellings' involvement in bizarre sex behind the respectable veneer of Royal Tunbridge Wells', but it served to confirm the impression that Mrs Telling was some kind of sexual monster.
It was left to the Daily Telegraph to make an attempt to redress the balance. Under the headline 'Parents Outraged at "False Allegations" ', it ran a 12-column-inch story, in which Mrs Telling's parents, Mr and Mrs Louis Zumsteg of Santa Rosa, California, endeavoured to refute the notion that their daughter was a wicked lady. According to Mr Zumsteg: 'The descriptions of Monika during the trial bear no resemblance whatever to the girl we and her friends knew. She was a loving, sen- sitive girl, with a lot of compassion for others. ... Everyone who knew her has been utterly shocked and outraged by the distortion and false allegations.' Her mother added: 'I had reservations to go to Britain for the trial but an inspector discouraged me saying it would just bring heartache. But if I had known what was going to be said, I would have been there to stand up for her.'
It should not be necessary for parents of a slaughtered girl to stand up for her at the trial. That is the job of the crown, which in the case of murder, the most serious of all crimes, represents the interests of the victim as well as those of society. Fleet Street has behaved exceedingly badly over this case, but so in my view has the law itself. I beg the Lord Chancellor, Lord Hailsham, to look into this trial and the issues it raises, and see whether there is not some way to prevent the victim of a killing from suffer- ing a second annihilation in court.
Previous page
