On 18 December 1992, 16-year-old Suzanne Capper died at Withington Hospital from multiple organ failure after being set on fire. She had been kidnapped, beaten and tortured for several days by fellow teens she considered friends.
A quiet girl without many friends, Suzanne Capper was described as gentle and easily influenced. Her own mother described her as being very forgiving to a fault.
When the group burned Suzanne after dousing her in petrol, they believed she was dead and went back to their home at Langworthy Road, in Moston. Suzanne’s body had sustained 75% burns, but she was still alive. She managed to get out of the woods and stagger to a main road, where a few workmen spotted her.
She was taken to the Withington Hospital Burn unit. Before being put in a medical coma, Suzanne was able to tell police officers what had happened and name all of her attackers. She died a few days later.
Suzanne Capper’s Background
Suzanne Cooper was born in 1975 in Manchester, England. She had a troubled childhood filled with neglect and inconsistent care.
Her father was absent from her life, and her mother, Elizabeth Capper, remarried when she was very young. When Suzanne was 14 years old, her mother left her and her sister after separating from the stepfather.
This led to a period of instability soon after, where Suzanne moved between different homes. Suzanne also began to skip classes at Moston Brook High School. She also began spending more time at the Powell residence.
Unbeknownst to Suzanne, this was the beginning of her end. Jean Powell became more of an authority figure for Suzanne than a friend. Suzanne would also babysit Jean’s children for free and skip school to be at her house.
Hanging out with the Wrong Crowd
Jean Powell was previously Suzanne’s babysitter, but re-entered her life through her younger brother, Clifford Pook. Clifford, who was the same age as Suzanne, was sitting by himself, upset over problems with his girlfriend. Suzanne came over to see if he was okay, which led to a friendship that included home visits. She then gravitated more towards Jean.
She would often spend the night at Jean’s house, and instead of going to school the next day, Suzanne would go to work with Jean. Bernadette McNeilly, who was 23, also moved in with Jean. Bernadette had three children, so the household now had six children.
Glynn Powell, who was Jean’s husband, and Anthony Dobson were already regular occupants at the home. Suzanne’s family apparently all knew how dangerous Jean and Bernadette were together and warned her to stay away.
The house dynamic was chaotic as they were dealing drugs, handling stolen goods and had frequent fights with the neighbours. Suzanne was also frequently bullied by the household members.
At the time, Elizabeth Dunbar was working at the Calderwood day centre. Suzanne often visited her mother to spend time with her there. A few weeks before she died, Suzanne visited her mother with bruises on her face.
“She came to where I worked, and I noticed a bruise on her face. I said something like ‘been fighting over boys then?’ but she just shrugged her shoulders. She then told me she wanted to move in with me. I’d just moved into a new flat that very day, and I told her to give me a couple of weeks to get her room ready. She was supposed to move in on Christmas Eve.”
Suzanne told her old neighbours that she had been tied up and held for four days, but they did not believe her. Jean confessed in an interview later that she assaulted Suzanne that day because she encouraged her to have sexual relations with one of their friends.
However, Jean and Bernadette were having casual sex with drug addicts and delinquents who frequented the house. When the four, including Anthony Dudson and Glyn Powell, contracted pubic lice, Bernadette and Jean blamed Suzanne.
Bernadette claimed that Suzanne sometimes slept in the downstairs bed and convinced them to exact revenge on the unaware teen.
Kidnapping and Torture
Suzanne was officially living with her stepfather, John Capper, at Bewey Walk. On 7 December 1992, Jean and Bernadette came to the door. They led Suzanne back to their house.
Anthony and Glyn were there waiting for her. They grabbed Suzanne and took her to the kitchen. There, they shaved off her hair and eyebrows. The four made her clean up the hair on the floor and beat her for hours.
They assaulted her with belts and wooden ornaments, also suffocating her with a plastic bag. That night, Suzanne was locked in a cupboard. The next day, the group transferred her to Bernadette’s previous house because her screams were upsetting the children.
At Bernadette’s flat, the torture ramped up because the group was largely unmonitored. They tied Suzanne to an upturned bed and did with her as they pleased. The four injected Suzanne with amphetamines.
Bernadette took drugs to the point that she began referring to herself in the third person as ‘Chucky’, the doll from the famous horror film, Child’s Play. She would begin each torture session with the phrase, “Chucky’s coming to play”.
Suzanne was burned with cigarettes and blasted with rave music. She was not given bathroom privileges, so she would regularly soil herself. Jeffery Leigh and Clifford Pook once visited the house that week. They claimed to have seen Suzanne blindfolded and gagged.
She was placed in a bath with disinfectant and scrubbed with a brush with enough force to peel the skin. Pook then used pliers to remove two of Suzanne’s teeth, which were later found at this house.
Missed opportunities for Rescue
David Hill, aged 18, a friend of Glyn Powell, came to visit them that week. He was asked to sit in and heard Anthony shouting in the back room. When he heard the commotion and asked what was going on
Leigh showed him that Suzanne and David could see evidence that she had been tortured. They left David alone with Suzanne, but he did not raise any alarm. In his testimony, David said that she asked if he could help. He told her he couldn’t.
David asked her who she was, and she told him her name was Suzanne. Suzanne asked if David could untie her, but he said he could not intervene. He told the authorities, “I thought they would batter me. If I’d said anything, they’d all have got me, wouldn’t they? I didn’t know what to do.”
Anthony and Jeffrey also helped Paul Barrow, who was Suzanne’s sister’s fiancé, to fix his car. At the time, Suzanne was being tortured in the house.
Paul would later state that all they had to say was she was in trouble, and he would have kicked the door down. He was not aware they were capable of something so savage.
When the four heard that Suzanne’s family was officially going to report her as missing, they decided to kill her and dispose of the body. They forced Suzanne into the boot of a stolen Fiat Panda and drove her to a secluded area.
Bernadette pushed Suzanne down an embankment and doused her in petrol. They tried to set her alight, but it was unsuccessful at first. Glynn used a lighter he had borrowed from Pook on Suzanne’s naked back, and she caught fire.
Arrest and Murder Trial
Detective Inspector Peter Wall sent police officers to 97 Langworthy Road, and they arrested everyone they found there. Jean and Bernadette were allegedly laughing as they were being taken in.
Wall emphasised his shock as the details of the murder became apparent. He kept asking himself how one human being could do this to another person.
Leonard Gorodkin of the Manchester Coroner’s court opened an inquest. Dr William Lawler testified in court that Suzanne had suffered up to 80 per cent burns, consistent with petrol being thrown on her body.
Gorodkin said, “It is clear that this young girl must have suffered tremendously. She must have suffered a great deal of pain and a lot of suffering, and she had no chance of survival.” Her death was due to complications from the burns.
The trial began on 16 November 1993 and lasted 22 days. All six suspects were charged with the murder of Suzanne Capper, and they pleaded not guilty.
Each of them started downplaying their role in the torture and murder of the girl.
Elizabeth Dunbar was not allowed to attend the first day of the trial because they were going over the gory details of what they had done. “When I did go, I was with my son. He’d recently been in an accident and had metal scaffolding on his leg, but as soon as he saw them in the dock, he started to unscrew it. He wanted to use the metal to smash through the glass they were hiding behind.”
In the end, she could not cope with the trial and stopped attending the sessions. Elizabeth did go for the conviction and sentencing.
Clifford Pook, aged 18, was cleared of murder at the direction of Mr Justice Potts. The jury took almost ten hours to reach their verdicts. Bernadette McNeilly, aged 24, was sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum of 25 years.
Jean Powell, aged 26, was also given a life imprisonment sentence with a minimum of 25 years. Glyn Powell, aged 29, was also given a life in prison sentence. Anthony Dudson, aged 16, was detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure with a minimum tariff of 18 years.
Clifford Pook did plead guilty to conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm and was sentenced to 15 years. Jeffrey Leigh, aged 27, pleaded guilty to false imprisonment and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Appeals and Releases
Despite their harsh sentences, all members of the gang are currently free. Jeffrey Leigh appealed his sentence, which was reduced to nine years. He was released in 1998 on license. Clifford Pook was released in 2001, also on license.
Anthony Dudson’s minimum tariff was cut to 16 years. He appealed, arguing that the reduction was insufficient and that the Lord Chief Justice did not regard his welfare. This was rejected, and he was moved to an open prison in 2009. Anthony was finally released in 2013.
Bernadette was let out on parole in 2015 after the minimum sentence was cut by a year. Jean Powell was released in 2017, and Glyn was released on license in May 2023.
Graham Stringer, the Member of Parliament for Blackley and Broughton, stated he could not understand the parole board’s decision, especially regarding Bernadette. She had her sentence reduced because the judge said she was a model prisoner.
While she was in prison, it was uncovered that Bernadette had been having an affair with the prisoner governor, Mike Martin. He resigned from the role before disciplinary action could be taken.
