Certain Admissions (Gideon Haigh, Viking)

One evening in December 1949, young Beth Williams accepted an invitation to dinner from John Bryan Kerr, a former radio star she originally met in her native Tasmania. Later that night she was murdered on Melbourne’s Middle Park Beach. Kerr was subsequently arrested and put on trial for her murder. A well-educated young man who had had many opportunities to break into commercial radio, he had been dismissed several times due to poor attitude and occasional violent outbursts. He protested his innocence throughout his incarceration in Pentridge Prison after three celebrated trials. On his release in 1962 he changed his name and enjoyed a quietly successful life until his death in 2001. In 2012 another man confessed on his deathbed to Beth’s murder. Gideon Haigh has examined the original police files concerning the Beth Williams investigation, which contained a detailed handwritten but unsigned confession, supposedly composed by one of the investigating detectives. He describes the police culture of the times, which preferred confession to conviction by scientific evidence, and details the arguments in the trials that finally convicted Kerr. Certain Admissions is a fascinating look at post-war Melbourne, the operation of its legal system and the prevailing social attitudes.

Chris Harrington is the co-owner of Books in Print in Melbourne