ALTHOUGH a convicted criminal and widely regarded as a psychopath, Peter Manuel eluded the police to kill at least seven people in Glasgow and Lanarkshire over a two-year period. 

As a new drama based on the events of 1956-58 comes to television, we speak to four people on whom the murderous acts and brazen behaviour of the "Beast of Birkenshaw" have left an indelible mark. 

HARRY BENSON, PHOTOGRAPHER

WHEN Harry Benson first heard the name Peter Manuel spoken in hushed tones in a Glasgow pub, he had no idea how significant it would become, one that continues to send a chill through Lanarkshire communities 60 years later.

A rookie photographer, Benson had been dispatched to a murder scene on January 2, 1956. The body of 17-year-old Anne Kneilands had been found on an East Kilbride golf course. She had been bludgeoned to death with an iron bar.

People were horrified. Little did they know that the body count would soar – a two-year spree claiming at least eight lives – before the man dubbed the Beast of Birkenshaw was brought to justice.

The chilling events will be revisited in a three-part ITV drama, In Plain Sight, which begins this Wednesday. However, what Benson experienced in his dealings with one of Scotland’s most notorious serial killers is more surreal than any TV drama.

Benson, now 87, gained access while Manuel was in Barlinnie prison awaiting trial, and over “dozens of visits” spent hours talking to him. “Manuel was good looking in a corner boy way. You could see how a girl would be attracted and then realise that she was with a madman …”

As Benson’s voice drifts down the line from his New York home, the decades fall away and he is back in 1956, working for the Hamilton Advertiser and dreaming of Fleet Street. His moment came when the picture editor of London’s now defunct Daily Sketch called.

“They told me there had been a murder of a girl called Anne Kneilands and roughly gave me the address of a golf course,” he says. “I got there as quick as I could on my Vespa.

“When I arrived it was dark. The golf course was empty apart from the greenkeeper. He was a nice guy and told me the rest of the press had left. He pointed and said I needed to walk roughly 200 to 300 yards from the clubhouse.

“It was a windy, cold night but finally I came to the policeman who was guarding the murder spot. It didn’t seem much – just a bunch of bushes – and was like taking a picture in a garden. But it was the spot.”

The pictures ran in the Daily Sketch. “I was the only one who got that picture. The other photographers were kept miles away. It was my first scoop.”

Benson imagined the killer would soon be caught. He was wrong. Over the coming months, Benson would hear the name Peter Manuel time and again from his contacts in the Glasgow underworld.

“They all knew Manuel. They would use phrases like ‘he’s a bampot’ and ‘he’s crazy’. This wasn’t one or two people: it was every single person.”

The Herald: Photographer Harry Benson regularly visited Peter Manuel in prison. Picture: Gordon TerrisPhotographer Harry Benson regularly visited Peter Manuel in prison. Picture: Gordon Terris

Meanwhile, Manuel’s campaign of terror escalated when he killed three members of one family. Marion Watt, 45, her 16-year-old daughter Vivienne and her sister Margaret Brown, 41, were shot dead in their home in Burnside, Rutherglen, on September 17, 1956.

A series of police blunders and misidentification by the public saw Marion’s husband William arrested and held on remand in Barlinnie. He was released after 67 days.

On December 28, 1957, Isabelle Cooke, 17, disappeared after leaving her home in Mount Vernon, Glasgow, to attend a dance at Uddingston Grammar School. Manuel strangled her and buried her body in a field.

His next victims were Peter Smart, 45, his wife Doris, 42, and their 10-year-old son Michael, who were shot dead in their Uddingston home on January 1, 1958.

After the murders, Manuel stayed in the house for almost a week, eating leftovers from their Hogmanay meal and even feeding the cat.

Before leaving he stole a roll of banknotes: a move that would lead to his undoing after the serial numbers were traced to those used by Manuel to buy drinks in Glasgow’s east end.

Such was his arrogance, Manuel is said to have given a lift to a police officer investigating Isabelle Cooke’s disappearance, telling him he felt they were not looking in the right places.

Benson attended all of the murder scenes. Manuel was eventually arrested at home in Birkenshaw, near Uddingston, on January 14, 1958. The moment the news broke is ingrained in Benson’s memory.

“The press were gathered outside Uddingston police station,” he says. “A detective came out and said: ‘A man has been charged with the crimes of Uddingston.’ These were the actual words. Right away I knew who it was. Sure enough it was Peter Manuel.”

Many wondered why Manuel had not been caught sooner, as he was known to police. In 1946, he was jailed for nine years for housebreaking and a string of sexual assaults.

While Manuel was awaiting trial for the murders, Benson recalls lamenting to one of his contacts – a Glasgow bookmaker and boxing promoter – that nobody could get near him. “Who can’t get near him?” came the reply.

Three days later – clutching a visiting order – Benson walked through the gates of Barlinnie to meet Manuel for the first time.

Manuel, he says, knew Benson was a photographer. “We shook hands, had a conversation and he was no trouble. I went up again to visit him two days later – he knew exactly who I was. I think he liked the idea of talking to me.”

It was a fairly congenial relationship, but after a few weeks came the first rumblings of discontent. “I was up one day and Manuel complains to me. He said I had left him a magazine the last time I visited but he had sent me a letter three times asking about other magazines. Was there a problem?

“I discovered that my mother was getting the letters in Clarkston. She threw them in the fire because she didn’t like the idea of a murderer sending letters to our house.”

Benson was often accompanied to the prison by an acquaintance who after one visit remarked: “What Manuel is doing with you is testing the jury. He is a cunning bastard. He is looking for your reaction and whether you’re gullible enough to believe what he says.

“Manuel would give us some cockamamie story. He was constantly testing to see how we and, in turn, a jury might react.”

The Herald: The gun Peter Manuel used to kill Marion Watt, her daughter Vivienne and sister Margaret. Copyright: Newsquest Herald & TimesThe gun Peter Manuel used to kill Marion Watt, her daughter Vivienne and sister Margaret. Copyright: Newsquest Herald & Times

Then there was the day things turned nasty. “The trial had started. Manuel came in with two prison guards and said: ‘That was a terrible day …’ and one of the guards said: ‘You can’t discuss the case.’ Manuel said: ‘Who can’t discuss the f****** case?’

“He leaps across the bench and starts punching him. There is this big carry-on and I’m ushered out of the room. It was a bit of a shock because the fight was going on in about a yard square. We are all getting pushed about. It was a terrible scene.

“It was the first time I had seen him react like that. This was a violent man who simply didn’t care. He was being cautioned by authority and he didn’t like it.”

On another occasion, Manuel talked about wanting to take Benson out on the town. “He had women writing to him and he said: ‘When I get out, you and me will go and have a great time with the girls.’ Could you imagine that? Peter Manuel wanted me to go on a double date.”

As the trial neared conclusion, Benson recalls the moment Manuel realised the end was nigh. “He said: ‘My mother, what she told the cops …’ and then more or less told me that his mother broke his alibi. Manuel was very subdued. He knew he’d had it.”

Following a 16-day trial at the High Court in Glasgow, during which Manuel sacked his lawyers and conducted his own defence, he was convicted of seven murders on May 29, 1958.

The judge ruled that Manuel’s confession to the murder of Anne Kneilands was inadmissible.

Manuel was hanged on the Barlinnie gallows at 8.01am on July 11, aged 31. Benson was in London that day. “I didn’t feel anything. He was a bad man.”

The Glasgow-born photographer has gone on to become renowned for his pictures of the Queen, Sir Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King Jr, Muhammad Ali and Greta Garbo among others.

He travelled with the Beatles on their inaugural American tour in 1964, has photographed every US president since Dwight D Eisenhower and was standing next to Robert F Kennedy when he was assassinated in 1968.

Yet something niggles. “It’s something I have often thought about: how to present Peter Manuel and the characters surrounding the story. It has troubled me that I haven’t put it all together.

“Of all the people I have photographed, one of my biggest regrets is I didn’t photograph Peter Manuel, as cameras were not allowed inside Barlinnie.”

DONALD FINDLAY, QC

AS a seven-year-old boy in Fife, Donald Findlay was influenced by two starkly different men: one was Michael Denison, star of television legal drama Boyd QC; the other was Peter Manuel.

When New York-born Manuel stood trial at the High Court in Glasgow, a young Findlay devoured every word at his Glenrothes home. Much to the chagrin of his father, he was able to recite the charges and names of victims as other youngsters would rattle off nursery rhymes.

“I’m not saying I understood it in any great depth but I was drawn to it and knew it was something unique,” says Findlay.

Each day he would scour the newspaper. “In those days, big trials were reported almost verbatim. Even when I started off big trials were covered in detail. Whereas now they get three lines next to the Milton Keynes dogs.”

Around the same time a relatively new TV show called Boyd QC captured his imagination. “Michael Denison played this barrister who was for the underdog and against the establishment. That was the first thing that attracted me to the law.”

Findlay, 65, has served as a defence lawyer in many high-profile cases including the Jodi Jones, Mark Scott and Kriss Donald murder trials. He represented Peter Tobin, who was convicted of murdering Polish student Angelika Kluk at a church in Glasgow in 2006.

He says Manuel remains one of the few true serial killers to have come through the Scottish legal system. “Peter Manuel, certainly in my lifetime, is the only genuine serial killer that we have ever had,” he says. “People have killed more than once, perhaps even more than twice, but that doesn’t necessarily make them serial killers.”

The Herald: As a seven-year-old Donald Findlay QC was obsessed with Peter Manuel's trial. Picture: Craig Williamson/SNS GroupAs a seven-year-old Donald Findlay QC was obsessed with Peter Manuel's trial. Picture: Craig Williamson/SNS Group

The term psychopath, says Findlay, is another that is often bandied about. “Manuel was a psychopath and arguably the only genuine psychopath that has featured in the criminal justice system. Others have perhaps been borderline but Manuel was a genuine psychopath. Put all that together and you have something quite unique.”

Findlay doesn’t believe Tobin, who is serving three life sentences for murdering Kluk, Falkirk schoolgirl Vicky Hamilton and Essex teenager Dinah McNicol, can be labelled a serial killer.

“There is no evidence of Tobin being a serial killer. He is someone who, according to convictions, has killed more than once, but that doesn’t make you a serial killer.”

Nor is he convinced that Grangemouth-born Robert Black, who was convicted of the kidnap, rape, sexual assault and murder of four girls during the 1980s, falls into that category.

“Black perhaps approaches it, but I’m not convinced he is a serial killer. The problem with Black is that he had a thing for kids – serial killers don’t have a thing for anybody. They just kill almost for the sake of it.

“Jack the Ripper was a man who killed a lot of prostitutes. Does that make him a serial killer? Not in my book. It makes him a prostitute killer. Black killed kids. That makes him a child killer.

“Whereas Manuel killed old women, young women, men, families. The only explanation you could give was because he could. He didn’t get any financial gain. There is no real evidence that he got a sexual kick because raping people didn’t feature in Manuel’s makeup.

“He was someone who killed because he could. It gave him power and control. The ultimate power is whether I’m in a position to decide whether you live or die.”

If Findlay could have met Manuel, what would he have asked him? “Waste of time,” he says. “He would tell you one thing and change it later because the true psychopath would see it as a power struggle.

“If he tells you the truth, then he loses his power. He would take you up and down endless blind alleys. It would be fascinating to watch him playing you, that game of cat and mouse. The skill would be trying to turn yourself into the cat and him into the mouse.”

It does not seem that the macabre fascination with Manuel will wane soon.

“Life is very strange, is it not, that an evil ned from Lanarkshire kills people, is hanged and should have disappeared and yet here we are, 60 years on, making a television programme about him?

“If you are looking for a bizarre immortality, then that is the way to achieve it.”

MARTIN COMPSTON, ACTOR

IN years to come when Martin Compston flicks through his wedding album, it wouldn’t be surprising if a fleeting thought of Peter Manuel flits into his mind.

The 32-year-old plays Manuel in ITV drama In Plain Sight, which charts the two-year murder spree that claimed at least seven lives between 1956 and 1958.

Getting into character meant looking the part. “The barnet is pretty incredible,” says Compston. “I got married the day before we started filming. Manuel had this bouffant so I wasn’t allowed to cut my hair.

“There was that thing of having to say to my wife: ‘Look darling, we are not going on honeymoon and I’m going to have shocking hair …’ “It took 40 minutes to have it blow dried and styled. But as soon as it’s up and the jacket is on, you feel like you are him.”

The Herald: Martin Compston as Peter Manuel in ITV drama In Plain Sight. Copyright: ITVMartin Compston as Peter Manuel in ITV drama In Plain Sight. Copyright: ITV

Filmed on location in Glasgow, the three-part series focuses on the pursuit of Manuel by detective William Muncie, played by Douglas Henshall. Manuel reportedly went to great lengths to taunt the police, leaving clues and even sending birthday cards.

“People accused Muncie of being obsessed because they thought Manuel was a fantasist,” says Compston. “That was one of the reasons he got away with it for so long. The script is not really about the murders, but more about how Manuel was taken down.”

What is it like to get inside the mind of a serial killer? “It has been difficult because he was so evil. If we didn’t put ‘based on true events’, you wouldn’t believe it happened.

“It isn’t until you read up on the depth of his crimes that you realise just how violent in nature Manuel was. The guy was a psychopath. That word gets thrown about, but he had no empathy.”

DENISE MINA, CRIME AUTHOR

DENISE Mina has written about all manner of gory acts yet delving into the world of Peter Manuel may eclipse all that. It was some years ago that the idea first took root.

“I was in a cafe and an old lady told me she was doing a tour of all the murder sites. She asked if I had heard about Manuel and started telling me about him. I found it such an amazing story.”

In 2013, Mina wrote Peter Manuel: Meet Me, which was shown at A Play, a Pie and a Pint at Oran Mor in Glasgow. It focused on a meeting between Manuel and William Watt, the man whose wife, daughter and sister-in-law Manuel had murdered.

Watt was arrested and held for 67 days before the case against him was dropped. “When William Watt got out he started investigating the crime,” says Mina. “One of the people who contacted him was Peter Manuel.”

The Herald: Denise Mina has written about Peter Manuel in her forthcoming novel The Long Drop. Picture: Colin MearnsDenise Mina has written about Peter Manuel in her forthcoming novel The Long Drop. Picture: Colin Mearns

Manuel claimed he could get hold of the gun which had been used to kill Watt’s family, so on a December night in 1957, the pair met.

“They did a grand tour of 1950s Glasgow – they were in the Gorbals, a restaurant and went to William Watt’s brother’s house at 2am and had a fry-up. Then there was two or three hours missing.”

Mina used her imagination to fill in the blanks. That intriguing encounter is explored in greater depth in her forthcoming novel, The Long Drop.

“I found out what happened on their night together by reading the court transcripts. There are two threads: that night intercut with the court case.

“The next time they met Peter Manuel was representing himself in court and called William Watt as a witness to ask him about that night. It was bizarre.”

The author of the Garnethill trilogy spent hours retracing Manuel and Watt’s steps.

“It was really, really immersive. One of the great things was rebuilding the city because most of the places where it happened aren’t there any more. I could feel the city growing up around me.”

In Plain Sight begins on STV, Wednesday, at 9pm. The Long Drop by Denise Mina is published by Harvill Secker on March 2