Triple nominated at the True Crime Awards and nominated Best British True-Crime Podcast at the British Podcast Awards, also hailed as 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Channel's Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
EPISODE THREE HUNDRED AND SIX: The tragic life of Annie Curtin is one that you will have never heard of before, and yet, it’s unnervingly familiar. She was an ordinary woman, a wife and a mother, living a regular life who deserved the right to live unharmed and unhurt. Frustratingly, there were laws put in place to protect her, but witnessing failure after failure after failure, many of those same laws are as unfit today as they’ve always been.
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UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Why didn’t the law save Annie Curtin from being murdered twice? Find out on Murder Mile. Today I’m standing outside of 11 Old Compton Street in Soho, W1; the same street as Edith McQuaid and the Black Cap Farce, Dutch Leah and the Soho Strangler, the same house as Susan Lattaney’s Stockholm Syndrome, and next door to a dirty doctor’s deadly dealings - coming soon to Murder Mile. On the ground floor is Chai Time, a bubble tea takeaway for fans of drinks which taste like frogspawn, but on the floor above sits Eyemazy, a little studio where they will photograph the iris of your eye; up-close, hi-res and in full glorious detail. Not for medical purposes (although I’m sure they could), not if it’s infected (although that’d be fab for Halloween) and it’s not where I went to when my eye ruptured (although now I wish I had), but for fun. What next? Arty colonoscopies, or celebrity ear wax? Hmm. And yet, it’s nice that this building has finally become a place of merriment and joy, as in its lifetime, it has been witness to some truly horrific crimes against women, and this case is no exception. The tragic life of Annie Curtin is one that you will have never heard of before, and yet, it’s unnervingly familiar. She was an ordinary woman, a wife and a mother, living a regular life who deserved the right to live unharmed and unhurt. Frustratingly, there were laws put in place to protect her, but witnessing failure after failure after failure, many of those same laws are as unfit today as they’ve always been. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 306: The Double Murder of Annie Curtin. Before I begin to tell you Annie’s story, I need to show you how it ended. Sunday the 10th of May 1931; two years since the Wall Street Crash, the Great Depression was slowly easing, Hitler was nothing more than a provincial annoyance somewhere in Germany, all women over 21 were allowed to vote on the same terms as men, and as a time of innovation, radio was king, but as John Logie Baird had displayed the ‘televisor’ (a system for transmitting images) five years before and one street away on Frith Street, television was just years away from becoming a household staple. Outside, being at the back of a bustling junction between Charing Cross Road and Shaftesbury Avenue, as it was early morning, a market was setting up on the corner of Old Compton Street and Moor Street. At an unspecified time prior to 8am, 27-year-old Annie Curtin entered the street door of her lodging at 11 Old Compton Street. It wasn’t a great area, but it was cheap. She dressed well, which belied her poverty. And having taken her 10 year old son to Sunday School so that he could continue to be raised as a good boy with decent morals, in her bag she carried the basics (bread, milk and cheese) and in her arms she cradled her 18-month old daughter, Margaret, who cried ceaselessly owing to the croup. As a recently separated single-mother of two, although educated and skilled, she had worked the night shift in a local factory to keep her family afloat and was heading home to hopefully catch a few hours of rest before she began her day-shift. She didn’t look 27 anymore, as the harshness of the last decade had etched pain across her face, as well as many bruises and cuts from the violence she had suffered. Inside, as she opened the communal door, she felt safe. As she ascended the stairs to the second floor, she passed her fellow lodgers who she liked and trusted. And as she pushed the unlocked door to her small room with a bed, a cot, a wash basin and little else, the sanctity of her own space was welcoming. As was her routine, she fed her toddler, bathed her, and (when she had settled) she laid her down to sleep. With tired hands she ate a morsel to sate her hunger, laid her modest wage on the table, she slipped off her overalls, popped on her nightdress and slunk into her bed, praying she’d be asleep fast. For several minutes, she lay there, savouring the silence from her hectic life… but Annie was not alone. Somewhere in the room something creaked. Somewhere close she heard breathing. Somewhere near a familiar smell made her stomach turn. And then knowing there was a man hiding under her bed, as she tentatively peeked over the side, she saw the unmistakable sight of her estranged husband William clambering out from underneath; his red eyes furiously glaring, a sharp razor balled-up in his fist, and with murderous intent on his mind, he uttered “I’m gonna finish you, finish you properly’… …only this wasn’t the first time he had tried to murder her. 80 years prior, a shake-up of the British legal system had begun, which should have protected Annie Curtin from the violence which had been inflicted upon her at the hands of her husband, William. In her grandparents era, before the 1850s, it was said that British women “had less rights than cattle”; as they primarily existed to raise children and support their husbands, a formal education was rare, they couldn’t vote or impact the laws, they often faced harsher conditions in factories and workplaces, and although their wedding marked the happiest day of their lives, they had less rights after marriage. Once a Miss became a Mrs, under the act of coverture, a wife's identity was absorbed by her husband's meaning their home was his, not hers, and she couldn’t own it until he was dead. As a husband, her refusal of sex was grounds for him to annul the marriage, he could beat and even rape his wife without prosecution, and if she tried to flee his abuse, separation was impractical as she relied on his income, divorce was impossible unless rich, and even if she achieved this, she had no right to her own children. But change was happening. The 1839 Custody of Infants Act granted mothers limited rights to their children. Women’s Suffrage had begun in 1832 when the first petition was issued to ouse of Parliament. And in 1853, the Act for the Better Prevention and Punishment of Aggravated Assaults upon Women and Children was passed, meaning a man who beats his wife or child can be imprisoned for up to 6 months. In that era, a man could be as violent to his wife as he chose to be, as she was his property by marriage. Several cases were raised in Parliament on the 10th of March 1853, as recorded in Hansard; “On the 8th of December 1852, Henry Bennett was charged at Bow Street Police Court for assaulting his wife… he struck her repeatedly with all his force on various parts of her body… and again he seized her by the hair, drew a knife from his pocket, and attempted to cut her throat. She endeavoured to prevent him doing so, and her fingers were severely cut. The magistrate fined the prisoner 5 shillings”. “On the 7th of January 1853, James Coghlan, a floorcloth-worker was charged with beating his wife, he came home drunk, he beat her with his fists, gave her two black eyes, and whipped her severely with iron tongs. Her screams were heard, a policeman saw the husband strike her, and took him into custody at the instance of the woman”. Only he too was fined just 5 shillings for his violent crimes. These weren’t unique cases, they were so commonplace that many weren’t reported in the papers. Yet with so many women being attacked and too often murdered by their own husbands with little or no recourse, Parliament had begun to examine the laws which were meant to protect the innocent. The early life of Annie Curtin began as perfectly as any life we could have wished for her. Alice Annie Hailey was born in the winter of 1903 as the middle child of four to Alice & Thomas Hailey. As a hard-working girl from a lower-middle-class upbringing, she had adopted her mother’s maternal instincts and her father shrewd business acumen, as although he was raised on the rough streets of Whitechapel in the 1880s, having worked as a servant in the well-to-do house Mr & Mrs Henry Beddington of Paddington, he rose up the ranks, earning well, until he became a businessman himself. Having married Alice in 1900, together as a couple, Thomas & Alice Hailey ran a successful newsagents shop - selling papers, tobacco and sweets to their middle-class customers on the neighbouring streets – at 11 Buckingham Street in Fitzrovia, living comfortably in the lodgings behind and one floor above. With their son Thomas born in 1901, Alice (known as Annie, so as not to be confused with her mother) in 1903, Lillian in 1905 and Ernest much later in 1913, this became their home for two decades, it gave them a good living, and it was held together by a tight family bond, as for Annie, family was everything. By 1921, although the Education Act of 1918 had raised the school-leaving age to 14, girls were still limited by what they could become; either a mother, a housewife, or a secretary. But being smart and personable, she started a career as a stenographer at W Watson & Sons at 313 High Holborn, a very reputable firm being the leading manufacturer of photographic, x-ray tubes and optical instruments. She had a loving family, a good career and a stable homelife. So, how did it all go wrong? His name was William Curtin. Born and raised half a mile south in Soho, William James Curtin was the third eldest of seven children to Catherine, a busy and exhausted mother, and William Senior, a labourer at the local theatre. Raised in a cramped and squalid lodging house at 8-11 Bateman’s Buildings, this was little more than a dark urine-soaked alley crammed between several pubs and brothels, and a place they would never escape. Like his father, William was tough and rough, burly and bad-tempered, and although his grandfather was a tailor, liking the life of a scene-shifter – moving sets on and off a stage, and getting pissed before and after the show – he followed in his father’s footsteps, even though the pay was poor and irregular. How and why they met was never recorded, and neither do we know what drew them together? What is known is that with Annie just 17 and William only 18 – still only children themselves – with their first child, Victor William born in winter 1921, around the same time, this happy couple were married at St Martin in the Fields church off Trafalgar Square, although oddly in the Census, Annie’s listed as single. As a wife, the Married Women’s Property Act of 1882 (40 years earlier) had given Annie the same legal rights as unmarried woman and widows “to control their own money and property”, but again, it only really served the wealthy, as most working class women were denied a decent living wage, almost all jobs, and unable to open a bank account of their own until 1975, many 20th century women lived a very similar existence to their mid-Victorian forebearers, except with better rights, but only on paper. The horror of Annie’s married life can only be glimpsed at by the court records which reported it. Over the 15 years they were married, having sustained mental, physical and emotional abuse, maybe sexual assaults and coercive abuse at the hands of the man who had sworn to love her, these were just the tip of the pain she endured, as only when it got so bad did she risk everything to report it. Each of his attacks followed a familiar trail; unwarranted jealousy from him, a denial from her, and an unprovoked attack by him using his fists, feet, a belt, a knife, or whatever came to hand. Not even a year into their marriage, on the 23rd of January 1922, William Curtin was charged with her assault at Marlborough Street Police Court, she was still only 17 and she was carrying their 7-month old child. In his defence, he said “she spoke to a man in the street”, and believing she was unfaithful to him, he attacked her, leaving her bruised, bloodied and swollen. His solicitor stated that it wasn’t her fault, “she was too young to appreciate what she was doing” (putting the blame on her), and although the 1853 law stated “a man who beats his wife can be imprisoned up to 6 months” – with this being his first recorded offence – he was bound over for a year, and walked free. He wasn’t even fined a shilling. The old laws designed to protect her were as good as useless, even the 1878 Matrimonial Causes Act gave women who had experienced domestic violence in their marriage the right to obtain separation orders, and in 1923, finally the right to divorce their husbands on equal grounds of adultery, but how could she divorce or separate from him, when society decreed that a wife be reliant on her husband? The law didn’t take domestic violence seriously as Annie’s assault was tried in a magistrates court, but on the 20th of June 1922, as a drunk who supplemented his wages with theft, William was tried at the highest court, the Old Bailey and sentenced to 9 months hard labour for stealing goods from a shop. During his time inside, it was Annie who struggled, as Pentonville Prison had provided him with a bed, clothes and three meals a day, whereas without his income, she had to fund their dreadful little fleapit at 16 Greese Street in Marylebone, and although it only a few streets away from the newsagents she grew up in, as a rancid back alley bathed in industrial waste, it was a world away from her dreams. She kept their family alive, and yet, when he returned, fuelled by drink and jealousy, he attacked her again. On 27th of June 1923, William was tried at Marlborough Street Police Court, and again, on the charge of assaulting his wife, a wealth of evidence found him guilty and he was sentenced to 11 days in prison. Not 6 months as an established law had decreed, but less time than it took to process the paperwork. It was a vicious circle of poverty and abuse, because as Annie was terrified of living with him, even with her parent’s help, she knew that she couldn’t afford to leave him for the sake of her child. She was trapped by the same laws and lawmakers who had proclaimed to protect her from his abuse… …and then, three years later, he tried to murder her. On the 12th of April 1926, five years into Annie’s own imprisonment being married to William, having “spoke to another man” (maybe the coal merchant, the milkman, or the butcher), he beat Annie so viciously she was hospitalised for three days, with broken ribs and a suspected fractured eye socket. Neighbours intervened before his fists could pummel her face into an unrecognisable pulp, a passing Constable arrested him before his hands could throttle the life out of her wailing lungs, and as he was carted away to the cells, he hollered “next time Annie, I’ll finish you off, as I should’ve done before”. So serious was her assault, that he was charged with “wounding with intent to murder and to do her grievous bodily harm”. In short, wounding involves the breaking the skin, grievous bodily harm having inflicted deep cuts, stab wounds, broken bones or requiring significant medical treatment, and intent to murder meaning he had “specifically intended to kill her through the act of wounding or GBH”. It was so serious, a magistrate couldn’t preside, so it was escalated to the Old Bailey. In a 3-day trial from the 14th of May 1926, William Curtin – a thief, a burglar and a drunk with a history of domestic violence – risked 5 to 10 years in prison, and if found guilty Annie could be granted a justifiable divorce. On the 17th of May, the jury returned their verdict. (Judge) “On the charge of intent to murder, how do you find him?” (Jury) “Not guilty”. “On the charge of intent to do grievous bodily harm?” “Not guilty”. “And on the charge of wounding?” “Guilty”. William was sentenced to two months for trying to murder his wife, but having been held on remand, he was out in two weeks, and returned home. They had been married five years, and then, four years later, another child was born. The birth of Margaret must have fuelled a fire in Annie, and with her son being witness to his violence, she made the brave step, she sought out a separation order and moved out taking her kids. But she couldn’t escape him, as when she moved to a second floor room at 11 Old Compton Street, his parent’s house was just one street north off Bateman Street, he had moved a few streets west to 6 Livionia Street, and he now worked with his father at the new Prince of Wales theatre on Old Compton Street. When she walked the streets, he followed her. Any man she spoke to, he noted. From his workplace, he could see her through the window of her room. And as the theatre’s performance of ‘Nippy’ ended its run, with no shows to occupy his time, he began to drink, think and fume about his cheating wife… …until William Curtin decided to end her life. Sunday the 10th of May 1931, before 8am, William would have known that that Annie was out, as on Sunday’s, after her nightshift, she took their son to Sunday School, and he’d have watched her leave. No-one spotted anything suspicious as this local man walked the streets he had lived on all of his life, crossed the market as the stallholders set up shop, and entered the unlocked communal door of her lodging house. No-one heard him climb the stairs, enter her room, or close the door and silently wait. Before the hour struck, Annie’s exhausted frame hobbled into view; a bag of groceries in one arm, and her 18-month old daughter in the other, ceaselessly crying because of the croup. Annie’s only thought being whether she could catch an hour’s sleep before the day-shift and not whether she would survive. Having been separated from William for a few months, she had settled into a hard but reliable routine which left her shattered and numb, but although life was hard, at least she was no longer numb owing to her face being so swollen, and broken, and bleeding that the swift jab of his punches no longer hurt. Inside her pitiful lodging, feeling drained, Annie went about her duties; feeding Margaret, bathing her, and calming her cries, as - all the while, from behind the door - William later admitted “I watched her”. He watched her put their baby into its crib, he watched as Annie’s tired hands struggled to eat a paltry meal of bread and cheese, he watched her as she removed the make-up which disguised a decade of pain and broken promises, and as she went to the basement for a jug of water, he hid under her bed. In court, he claimed “I did it under terrible provocation” by casting cruel aspersions against her morals and accusing her of cheating, when all she wanted was to raise her babies without fear. He watched her get undressed, and get into bed, the springs sunk just inches of his head, no idea that he was there. At first, somewhere in the room something creaked, something big. Somewhere near, the putrid smell of bad breath, stale sweat and porter stout made her stomach turn, as every night since her marriage she had smelled that stench which made her sick with fear. And hearing the familiar rasping of a man’s breathing right underneath her, she knew who it was, where he was, and she knew why he was here. Tentatively she peeked over the mattress. Later (from the hospital, with a weakening breath) she said “after a few minutes, I heard something move. I saw my husband come from the under the bed” rising up like a dark brooding cloud; his bloodshot eyes fixed and wide, a cutthroat razor balled-up in his fist, and with her refusing to come home, he growled “I am going to finish you Annie, finish you properly”. Grabbing her by the hair and pinning her to the bed, he started slashing at her screaming face, the fast and frenzied blade hacking at her skin, as he wasn’t trying to disfigured her so that no-one could love her, but so she would never live nothing day, regardless that their children would be left as orphans. Later taking her bedside statement, a Constable recalled in court, Annie stated “I screamed the whole time. I was exhausted and collapsed on the floor”, leaving thick pools of blood where she fell and lay. William wanted to kill Annie, and this time he would succeed… …but as her screams alerted the lodgers, a bigger man rushed the room, and like a coward, William had only one way to escape – out of the second floor window. Grabbing the drainpipe, he clung on as the lodger made a grab for him, but from 35 feet up, with his only way out being down, on the cobbled road below, a crowd of stallholders was forming, and being told what he had done, they looked angry. Good people do good things, whereas bad people get their comeuppance. As they surged, he jumped from the first floor, twisting his ankle, and with this baying mob on all sides looming closer, he put his hand in his pocket like a wannabe gangster shouting “stay back or I’ll shoot”, but nobody bought it. He didn’t have a gun, he never owned a gun, and against a man, he was too scared to use his knife. He was alone, frightened, hurt, and as he tried to run, they rushed him; knocking him down, pinning him to the floor, and holding the squirming wife-beater until a passing police officer could arrest him. Pale, bloody and barely conscious, Annie was transferred to Charing Cross Hospital. Initially classed as in a serious condition owing to the wounds to her face and throat, miraculously every slash and stab had missed her veins and arteries, and after two days and just eleven stitches, she was discharged. On the 18th of June 1931, at The Old Bailey, William Curtin was again tried on the charges of wounding with intent to cause GBH and murder. He pleaded innocent, and although Annie testified with her scarred face as evidence of his violence, his defence counsel (Mr S T James) laid the blame on her; “do you associate with men?” implying an affair, “no sir”, “do you associate with bad women?” implying prostitution, “no sir”, “did you recently cut his head open with a teapot?”, “yes, but in self-defence”, “therefore you are a rather violent lady, are you not?”, “no sir”, and with it suggested “was it not you who attacked him?”, William was found ‘not guilty’ of the attempted murder his wife a second time… …but again found guilty of wounding. (End) Issuing a harsher punishment for this violent and jealous man, Mr Justice Swift sentenced William to 20 months hard labour, but released early for good behaviour, he returned home to his wife. I would like to tell you that he learned his lesson, and that the rest of Annie & William‘s marriage was a joy. But I can’t. Just after the law let him walk free, on the 18th of January 1933 at Marylebone Police Court, William Curtin had a warrant issued for his arrest having threatened to kill his wife. Convicted, he was again given a woefully pitiful sentence, and again, Annie would never be able to escape his violence… …until fate took a strange twist. After years of hard drinking and bad living, on the 15th of April 1934, 31-year-old William Curtin died of a heart attack at Pentonville Prison. If released, he would have tried to kill her a third time, and maybe succeeded, and although the laws which had been enacted almost 80 years earlier were meant to protect her, the only way she could escape him was when he was dead. This case is not unique or uncommon, it’s all too tragically familiar and for many it happens every day. Sadly, our law (decided by our elected and unelected officials) is woefully slow to react to the domestic violence which effects so many. It was only in 1956 that rape was first legally defined in the UK. It was still legal to rape your spouse in 1991. In 1993, violence against women and girls was finally recognised as a human rights violation. And with the introduction of occupation and non-molestation orders in 1997, perpetrators could be removed from the home, rather than the victim being forced to leave. But with the law being reactive rather than proactive, it wasn’t until the murder of Clare Wood in 2014 that a loophole in the Data Protection Act meant that abused parties had the right to ask about their partner’s violent history, in 2015 coercive control was finally made illegal, and it was only in 2021 that the Domestic Abuse Act become law and made non-fatal strangulation a criminal offence - 90 years after the first attempted murder of Annie Curtin, and a full century after William first attacked her. The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of.
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AuthorMichael J Buchanan-Dunne is a crime writer, podcaster of Murder Mile UK True Crime and creator of true-crime TV series. 
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