Mary Bell

This violent behaviour made many children reluctant to socialise with Mary, who would frequently spend her free time with Norma Joyce Bell (1955–1989), the 13-year-old daughter of a next door neighbour, with whom she had become acquainted in early 1967.

Although the girls shared the same surname, they were not related.

Mary Flora Bell (born 26 May 1957) is an English woman who, as a juvenile, killed two preschool-age boys in Scotswood, an inner suburb of Newcastle upon Tyne, in 1968.

Bell committed her first killing when she was ten years old.

In both instances, Bell informed her victim that he had a sore throat, which she would massage before proceeding to strangle him.

On one occasion in about 1960, Betty dropped her daughter from a first-floor window; on another occasion, she plied her daughter with sleeping pills.

She is also known to have once sold Mary to a mentally unstable woman who was unable to have children of her own, resulting in her older sister, Catherine, having to travel alone across Newcastle to reclaim Mary from this individual and return the child to her mother's home on Whitehouse Road.

Despite her negligence and abuse of her child, Betty refused repeated offers from her family to take custody of Mary, whom she—as a dominatrix—is alleged to have begun allowing and/or encouraging several of her clients to sexually abuse in sadomasochistic sessions by the mid-1960s.

Mary's mother actively participated in several of these sessions, including several in which she blindfolded her daughter with a stocking before restraining her hands behind her back and forcing her to perform oral sex upon her clients.

Both at home and at school, Mary exhibited numerous signs of disturbed and unpredictable behaviour, including sudden mood swings and chronic bed wetting.

She is known to have frequently fought with other children—both boys and girls—and to have attempted to strangle or suffocate her classmates or playmates on several occasions.

On one occasion, she is known to have attempted to block the trachea of a young girl with sand.

In the 1960s, Newcastle upon Tyne experienced a significant urban renewal project.

Many inner boroughs of the city saw Victorian-era terraced slums demolished in order that modern houses and flats could be constructed, although several families resided in buildings earmarked for demolition as they awaited rehousing by the council.

Bell was convicted of manslaughter in relation to both killings in December 1968, in a trial held at Newcastle Assizes when she was 11 years old, and in which her actions were judged to have been committed under diminished responsibility.

She is Britain's youngest female killer and was diagnosed with a psychopathic personality disorder prior to her trial.

Her alleged accomplice in at least one of the killings, 13-year-old Norma Joyce Bell (no relation), was acquitted of all charges.

According to one classmate at Delaval Road Junior School, by 1968, she and her peers had become accustomed to the sudden and marked changes in Mary's behaviour, and when she began exhibiting distressful mannerisms—including shaking her head and forming a steely gaze—her peers instinctively knew she was to become violent, with the focus of her stare being the individual she would attack.

On Saturday 11 May 1968, a three-year-old boy was discovered wandering dazed and bleeding in the vicinity of St. Margaret's Road, Scotswood.

The child later informed police he had been playing with Mary Bell and Norma Bell atop a disused air raid shelter when he had been pushed 7 ft from the roof to the ground, inflicting a severe laceration to his head.

He was unsure of which one of the girls had actually pushed him.

The same evening, the parents of three small girls contacted police to complain that both Mary and Norma had attempted to strangle their children as they played in a sandpit.

That evening, both girls were interviewed about these incidents.

Both girls denied any culpability for the air raid shelter incident, claiming they had simply discovered the boy, bleeding heavily from a head wound, after he had fallen.

Further questioned about the attempted strangulation of the three young girls, Mary denied any knowledge of the incident.

However, Norma admitted Mary had tried to "throttle" each of the girls, stating:

"Mary went to one of the girls and said, 'What happens if you choke someone; do they die?' Then Mary put both hands 'round the girl's throat and squeezed. The girl started to go purple. I told Mary to stop, but she wouldn't. Then she put her hands around Pauline's throat and she started going purple as well ... another girl, Susan Cornish, came up and Mary did the same thing to her."

Police notified the local authority of the incidents and of Mary's violent nature, but due to their age, both girls were simply given a warning.

No further action was taken.

Bell was released from custody in 1980, at the age of 23.

A lifelong court order granted her anonymity, which has since been extended to protect the identity of her daughter and granddaughter.

She has since lived under a series of pseudonyms.

Mary Bell's mother, Elizabeth "Betty" Bell (née McCrickett), was a well-known local prostitute who was often absent from the family home, frequently travelling to Glasgow to work, and simply leaving her children in the care of their father—if he was present.

Mary was her second child, born when Betty was 17 years old.

The identity of Mary's biological father is unknown.

For most of her life, Mary believed her father to be William "Billy" Bell, a violent alcoholic and habitual criminal with an arrest record for crimes including armed robbery.

However, she was a baby when William Bell married her mother, and it is unknown if he is her actual biological father.

Mary was an unwanted and neglected child.

According to her aunt, Isa McCrickett, within minutes of Mary's birth, her mother had resented hospital staff attempting to place her daughter in her arms, shouting: "Take the thing away from me!"

As a baby, toddler, and young child, Mary frequently suffered injuries in household accidents while alone with her mother, which led her family to believe that either her mother was deliberately negligent, or intentionally attempting to harm or kill her daughter.