|
Killer without mercy:
Christine Sawbridge
Campbell:
Boyfriend
Ethel Cawood:
Stabbed
|
THE DISCIPLE OF DEATH
By David Jack.
Daily Express 13/3/85.
EVIL, Christine Sawbridge,
a 16-year-old Jehovah's Witness, was behind bars last night
after being convicted of murder.
Her victim was a woman of 84 whom she had befriended through the religious sect.
Sawbridge was led shaking and in tears from the dock at Stafford Crown Court.
She was ordered to be detained during Her Majesty's pleasure. This is the
equivalent of a life sentence because she is under 18. When she is 21 she
will be moved from a youth Custody Centre to a prison.
Her boyfriend, Trevor Campbell, 20, was also found guilty of murder. He was
jailed for life.
On the surface,
Sawbridge was a smiling friendly teenager who stood on doorsteps offering
the Jehovah's witness magazine Watchtower.
Below the surface, she was
a liar, cheat, self-confessed sneak thief and shoplifter.
At the age of 15, greed turned
her into a killer without mercy.
With Campbell she went to rob the home of old Mrs Ethel Cawood in Smethwick,
West Midlands.
Sawbridge struggled with Mrs Cawood then shouted:
"Come on Trev. What are you waiting for?" He smashed a milk bottle over Mrs
Cawood's head. There was a frenzied knife attack in which she was stabbed 19
times.
Sawbridge ignored the pitiful cries for help. "Oh Christine, Christine…O please
help me," pleaded Mrs Cawood as Campbell plunged a carving knife into her chest.
After the attack Sawbridge wiped the blood from her skirt and from her
boyfriend's hands.
Then she joined her parents at a pub "free 'n' easy" session, going on stage to
sing her mother's favourite song, Somewhere Over The Rainbow.
Next morning,
with Mrs Cawood's body still lying undiscovered, she joined the family for a
Sunday morning prayer meeting at their local Kingdom Hall in Smethwick.
That night Sawbridge and Campbell went back to the old woman's house to burn
it down and destroy the evidence.
But before the fire took hold, a motorist raised the alarm and Mrs Cawood's body
was discovered. In the witness box Sawbridge claimed she had been "an innocent
bystander" rooted to the spot as her boyfriend made his frenzied attack.
The prosecution said that was a lie. Campbell, the court heard, was telling the
truth when he told detectives: "It was Christine's idea. She said if we did the
old lady's, we could probably get £100 or maybe more."
Innocent
In the weeks that followed
the murder Sawbridge was questioned five times by detectives, always
maintaining she was innocent. Even when her brother, Neil, was taken in
as a suspect she did not crack.
Mrs Cawood was only 5ft tall, weighing 7st. She had attended weekly Bible study
sessions at the Sawbridge family home in Sabell Road, Smethwick.
Sawbridge's parents are devout members of the sect.
Christine and brother Neil, three years older, were both brought up in the
faith. But when she was 14 Sawbridge rebelled and "started doing her own thing."
She began to prey on elderly members of the church. Sawbridge
helped her father to distribute the magazines Watchtower and Awake to members.
Twice she used the opportunity to steal money from old women she called on
while their backs were turned.
Confessed
|
|
Elders of the church
confronted Sawbridge and she confessed. They warned the congregation to turn her
away from the doorstep or watch closely if they invited her in.
Last spring Sawbridge,
started going out with Campbell, a West Indian. Her mother, Thelma said:
"Normally Jehovah's Witnesses associate together. She should have had a
boyfriend who was a Witness but Christine thought a lot of Trevor."
Sawbridge confided in a friend about a house she knew with cash and silver, and
said she was going to get her boyfriend to "do it." It was the home of Mrs
Cawood.
Last night sect leaders refused to talk about the case "There
has been enough adverse publicity already," said one official. |