' Bell appeared to her 'nothing so much as a horribly confused child to whom something dreadful had at some time been done'. She writes about the 'sharp unease' she felt about the 11-year-old when she witnessed her in court: 'It was the younger child's straight back, the blankness in her face, and that awful self-control. Here, Sereny first set eyes on the remarkably beautiful little girl and became compelled by her. Sereny takes us chronologically: from the day in May when Martin Brown was killed, through the terrible weeks that followed, through the death of Brian Howe, into the trial itself. Objectivity and subjectivity plait with each other, the decorous lucidity of reportage winding itself about the broken voice of faltering and appalled memory. Sereny weaves her account of past events (much of it culled from her 1972 book about the trial) into Bell's extensive and often tormented recollections.

If the hope now seems hopelessly naive, that should tell us as much about us as about Sereny.

We, as well as Bell, are on trial in Cries Unheard.Ĭoming to it after all the din of outrage, self-righteousness and hypocrisy, it becomes the calm eye of the frenzied storm an intelligent and heartfelt book telling a sorry tale with as much dignity and hope as it can muster. With a now-blasted optimism, Sereny wrote the book appearing to believe that we are enlightened citizens, and that once we have all the facts in front of us we will reconsider Bell's case that we will cease to name her 'evil' and start to see her as another victim in the whole dread cycle of abuse that we will turn our accusatory gaze back upon ourselves and confront our own guilt. Mary Bell speaks from the dock once more so the chief witness is recalled, no longer a small, bewildered child, but an adult with the long and sorrowful vision of hindsight. She acts as defence lawyer, passionate advocate of the accused we are the jury. Thirty years ago, there was a trial of Mary Bell which Sereny sees as a shameful miscarriage of real justice now, in this book, she conducts another trial. At the start of Cries Unheard, Gitta Sereny quotes Ben Johnson: 'Pray thee take care, that tak'st my book in hand,/To reade it well: that is to understand.' In her introduction, she appeals directly to our judiciousness, our readerly responsibility.

The Case of Mary Bell by Gitta Sereny