On November 3, 1884, in Exeter, Devonshire, England, the trial of three sailors who killed and ate their comrade began. The hall was full. Chief Justice Baron John Huddleston understood what a difficult trial he faced, because, although the elements of the crime (premeditated murder) were present, everyone in the hall (including himself) most of all wanted an acquittal for the accused.
YACHT "REZEDA"
In 1883, Australian lawyer John Wont arrived in the UK. The successful lawyer wanted to buy himself a decent yacht. He found a suitable vessel with a displacement of 19.5 tons and 16 meters in length in Southampton, the yacht was called "Reseda" ("Mignonette"). The buyer and the seller agreed on a price, shook hands. Remained sheer nonsense - to overtake the ship to Australia, to Sydney.
Soon a team was found: Captain Tom Dudley, his faithful assistant Edwin Stevens and sailor Edmund Brooks. At the last moment, cabin boy Richard Parker joined them. This was his first voyage. The 17-year-old boy, having heard the stories of his older brother, a sailor, ran away from home to become a sea wolf. The first voyage will be his last.
Now it is difficult to say why, but the captain decided not to go through the Suez Canal, but to go around Africa. War? Epidemic? Not quite clean documents for the ship? However, a longer and more dangerous route was chosen. May 19, 1884 "Reseda" with a team of four left Southampton. Ahead lay 2,400 kilometers and two oceans.
The coastal waters of West Africa were swarming with pirates. When meeting with them, the small crew had no chance to come out victorious from the battle, so Dudley decided to go at a considerable distance from the coast. Of course, the yacht is not the kind of vessel on which they sail on the high seas, but the captain hoped for his experience and his crew.
KILLER WAVE
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It always appears suddenly - a giant single wave 20-30, and sometimes more than meters high. For a long time, the existence of killer waves was considered an invention of sailors. Indeed, there were only a few who saw her and survived after that. It was such a wave that covered Reseda on July 5.
The wave swept away the bulwark, water began to pour into the hold. The captain immediately realized that the yacht was doomed and gave the command to leave the ship immediately. He was more than right - "Reseda" sank in less than 5 minutes, the sailors barely had time to lower the boat. Dudley, as befits a captain, left the ship last, taking with him the logbook and navigational instruments.
When the yacht disappeared under water, he ordered an audit of everything in the boat. It turned out that the sailors had only two cans of canned turnips (a type of turnip) from the food. And not a drop of water.
FOUR IN THE OCEAN
Reseda crashed northwest of the Cape of Good Hope. The nearest land was 1,100 kilometers, and it was impossible to reach it on our own. All that was left was to hope by chance, that sooner or later they would meet a ship passing by.
On July 7, the first can of turnips was opened. On July 9, Brooks managed to catch a sea turtle, the sailors quenched their thirst with its blood, each got almost 1.5 kilograms of meat, and even ate bones. On July 15, they ate the second can of turnips, and people started drinking their urine. On July 20, the words "Sea Law" were first heard in the boat.
THE CUSTOM OF THE SEA
When a person steps on board a ship, he finds himself in another world: here his own language, his own orders and his own laws. The Criminal Code and all other legislative acts remained on land, the maritime law reigns at sea - nowhere and not written down by anyone, but honored by every sailor.
Nowhere is it written that the captain should be the last to leave the ship - this is the law of the sea. And The Custom of the Sea of the 19th century said: after a shipwreck, in the event of a threat of starvation, one of the survivors must sacrifice his life to save everyone else. The sacrifice was determined by lot. All the sailors knew about it.
On July 21, they started talking about the law of the sea again. Brooks and Parker were opposed, the decision was postponed. On the 23rd, Parker, who, despite the captain's categorical prohibition, secretly drank sea water at night, fell into oblivion. He was dying. The captain said, "Well, the Lord made the choice for us."
The sailors could have awaited the young man's natural death, but in that case his blood would not have been suitable for human consumption. On the morning of the 25th, Stevens collapsed on Parker's legs, and Dudley cut the boy's jugular vein.
For four days the sailors drank the youth's blood and ate his meat. On the morning of the 29th they saw a sail on the horizon. It was the German barque Moctezuma on its way to Hamburg. Three exhausted sailors were lifted aboard. In the boat the German sailors found Parker's half-eaten body. Dudley, Stevens and Brooks did not hide anything and told about the fate of the unfortunate young man.
On September 6, the remnants of the Reseda's crew were handed over to the British authorities at Falmouth port. On September 11, the trial began.
DIFFICULT BUSINESS
All signs of a crime (premeditated murder) were evident - the German sailors recorded the discovery of Parker's remains in the boat, and the sailors themselves did not deny the fact of murder and cannibalism. But in the port of Falmouth, where every inhabitant was somehow connected with the sea, everyone knew about the law of the sea, everyone could tell a heartbreaking story about how sailors pulled straws in a boat lost at sea: the shortest is the victim, the longest is the executioner.
At the trial, the defendants did not renounce the previously given confessions. The honest performance of Tom Dudley made a strong impression on everyone: “The decision was made by the authority of the captain, and I am responsible for it. It was a terrible decision, but it was imperative. I lost one team member, otherwise everyone would have died. All my life I will pray to God to forgive me."
The elder brother of the murdered cabin boy, who was present at the meeting, got up, went up to the accused and shook hands with the captain, and then his comrades. The sailor himself, the elder Parker, recognized Tom Dudley's harsh decision as correct. It all boiled down to the fact that all three would be acquitted, since the murder was committed out of absolute necessity - saving their own lives - and is not subject to punishment. But Home Secretary Sir William Harcourt himself intervened.
BATTLE FOR HUMANITY
The shrewd Harcourt looked deeper: “Realizing the exceptional nature of this case, we cannot create a precedent to justify premeditated murder and cannibalism. In the future, all murderers and cannibals will demand an acquittal for themselves, based on the "case of the murder of Richard Parker." In the name of the triumph of the law and the future of humanity, the murderers must be condemned.
The case was referred to the highest court - the Court of the Queen's Bench. On November 3, he began his work in Exeter. A wave of protests swept across the UK. The sailors and their families organized a charitable foundation and raised significant funds, which hired one of the best lawyers in the country, Arthur Collins.
The whole country was divided into two unequal parts: on one side of the barrier stood the entire British public, demanding to acquit the sailors, on the other - a small group of professional lawyers, albeit sympathetic to the accused, but who understood the importance of passing a conviction.
UNUSUAL JUDGMENT
On December 12, the Court of Queen's Bench ruled: Brooks, who initially protested against the murder and did not participate in it, to acquit, Dudley and Stevens were found guilty of first-degree murder. In those days, this meant hanging.
But the judges themselves did not want the death of the two unfortunates. The verdict ended with an appeal by the judges (!) To the queen with a request to mitigate the punishment. The queen didn't mind. The lawyers spent several more weeks in academic discussions and finally found an article according to which Dudley and Stevens were sentenced to 6 months in prison, taking into account the time spent under investigation and trial. In early spring, Dudley and Stevens were released.
In 1884, the Court of the Queen's Bench with honor came out of a difficult situation and legislatively consolidated the postulate in British jurisprudence that even extreme necessity is not an excuse for killing a person. And today, the struggle for human life is considered to be the fight for human life, and a committed murder is a crime, regardless of any extreme circumstances.
Klim PODKOVA, “Steps. Secrets and Mysteries , №19 September 2016
