Crime writer seeks answers over great aunt's sealed papers murder

Martha Giles, a mother of five children, worked as a nurse on a psychiatric ward at Wolverhampton's New Cross Hospital.

On 12 February 1959, the 45-year-old was found murdered in the grounds of the hospital.

One person was charged but later acquitted due to circumstantial evidence. Nearly seven decades later, her family still do not know what happened to her and why.

Papers relating to the case have been sealed and cannot be opened until 2055.

"She was found brutally wounded. She had been stabbed and her clothes had been put back together again," her great niece, crime writer Pauline Rowson, told the BBC.

"So the killer had opened her clothes, stabbed her, and put her clothes back together again. And her body had been moved, she wasn't killed where she was found.

"There's just so many questions about this case. I've looked into it and I got so far then unfortunately hit a brick wall and couldn't get any further."

Her family's search for justice has been hampered by the fact the case papers were sealed for 75 years and more recently were sealed for a further 20 years.

Rowson said she was told they had been sealed to protect those involved in the case from unnecessary distress.

"I said well what kind of distress have you caused the relatives by sealing them?," she said.

Last month MP Sir Gavin Williamson called for the government to unseal the papers.

"The only things that would be sealed up for this length of time were state secrets, not something like this," the Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge MP said.

"This is something you would be sealing up for this length of time if it was a nuclear programme, if it was to do with very sensitive intelligence, high levels of secrecy - not a criminal case.

"This is why it's so illogical, what's the justification, is there something they're trying to hide?"

Rowson has her own theories as to why the papers have been sealed for so long.

"They do not seal files for this long for a murder case," she said.

"I think that Martha was a whistleblower, I think she was about to blow the whistle on something happening there, or she was very uncomfortable with something happening [at the psychiatric unit].

"You might say that's your crime fiction mind going on this, but having heard Sir Gavin, he's come to the same conclusion.

"I think Martha knew what was going on, something was going on, and she didn't like it, and she was silenced as a result of it."

Rowson is in touch with Giles's daughter, Edwina, now 90 years old.

"She's come to accept she'll never find the truth in her lifetime and there's nothing more she can do about it," she said.

"In crime fiction, which I write, you always get a result, justice is done, that's part of the structure.

"But when I looked at this, justice has never been done and there's just a complete wall of silence."

Policing and crime minister Sarah Jones has said decisions surrounding the opening or closing of National Archives records were a matter for the Metropolitan Police.

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