Bedlam

The arrest

The sounds pierced the thick night fog as it swirled in from the river, voices raised in anger, a shrill scream, a police whistle, a scuffle.

“You’re coming with me, you mongrel dog.” The burly bobby growled as he snapped manacles on to his captor.

“Get off of me! You’ve got the wrong man, I wasn’t doing anything wrong,” the disheveled man struggled to get free.

“This good woman saw you. You were ogling her through her window!” The policeman replied, keeping a firm hold. He nodded to a woman shivering on the doorstep of her terraced house, clad only in a thin nightdress, three small children clinging to her legs.

She spat on the accused man. “You’ve been lookin’ in folk’s windows, others have seen ya! Hoping to catch a glimpse was ya? You’re nothin but a filthy Peepin’ Tom. Sick in the ‘ead, that’s what you are. I hope they lock you up forever!”

“You’re safe now, Mrs Cook.” The policeman calmed the woman, then turned to the prisoner. “Come on, you sick bastard, let’s be having you down the station, you've got a date with Judge Mellors in the morning.”




“William John Lewis, the court finds you guilty of the crime of gross indecency. I hereby sentence you to incarceration at the Bethlehem Hospital for the Insane. You will remain there at the Queens Pleasure.”

“I’m innocent, your Honour,” William cried out as he struggled against the two bailiffs taking him down into his cell.


William had no family to speak of, at least no one who cared enough to get him released from the mental institution. Familiar with the Bethlehem Hospital’s reputation, he trembled with fear at the prospect of spending years in a place synonymous with chaos and madness. Bedlam.

He was soon about to discover the rumours of torture and starvation had been true, a place where so called Psychiatrists practiced their skills, or lack of, on patients with impunity, knowing no one cared about these forgotten souls.
William shook and cried out, as they escorted him past two giant statues, named Melancholy and Madness, placed either side of the iron gates. Will I ever walk out through these gates a free man? He wondered.

The incarceration

Several others shared his cramped, filthy quarters. Water streamed down the blackened walls each time it rained. The stench of unwashed bodies in close confinement and human waste overpowered him. From his narrow iron bed William could hear screams of other inmates as they endured so called therapeutic treatments, often returning to the ward in a catatonic state.

The doctors forced him to wear a strait waistcoat, unable to move, his legs bound at the ankles. He’d endured ice baths, and a treatment his so-called therapist favoured, that of being raised high into the air and spun around, sometimes for hours.


Food was scarce, often spoiled, rotten meat and mouldy bread. He and his fellow patients would often catch one of the many rats which infested the place and eat them raw, such was their hunger.
This place truly was hell on earth, the stench, the screams and moans from the inmates unceasing.

One day I’ll get out of here, I’ll make them pay. Thoughts of revenge and retribution raced through his mind as he tried to come up with a means of escape.

Each day an old crone would unlock the room to empty the buckets of human waste. Never looking at anyone or speaking, she’d shuffle in, dressed in a ragged cloak and hood which covered her ravaged face and mad crazed eyes. The rumours told that her family had sent her to Bedlam as a young girl, leaving her there to rot forever.

William knew it would only be a matter of time before he too would succumb to a complete mental breakdown.

The escape

As the months dragged on, William grew more desperate to escape from Bedlam. The so-called treatments and lack of food were weakening him. His grip on reality was slipping, only the thought of getting out and wreaking revenge on those who’d brought him to this, kept him going.

Each day he looked for an opportunity, a time when he was alone with the old crone.
He observed her movements over several weeks through the tiny barred window as she emptied the slop buckets into a waiting night cart and hatched a crazy plan.

The day arrived when he was alone in the room. As for his roommates, two had died of dysentery and the other enduring a revolutionary treatment. This entailied electrodes being attached to his head and a surge of power administered.
William worried his doctor had the same treatment planned for him, which furthered his resolve to escape by any means.

The sound of a key being turned in the lock alerted William to the crone’s entrance. The heavy steel door opened and the clatter of buckets and sound of her boots on the ground heralded her presence.
William lay still on the pile of filthy rags which passed for bedding, feigning sleep.

As she neared the bed, every fibre in his body tensed ready to spring into action. At last he threw himself upon the bag of bones. They both fell to the ground.
The woman, too surprised and weak to call out, didn’t put up much of a fight as he squeezed the life out of her.

William had never been a big man, now, after all the months of abuse and food deprivation, he was barely bigger than the woman. He ripped off her ragged dress and cloak, threw her on his bed and covered her.
Dressed in her clothing, he picked up the buckets of waste and left the room, locking the door behind him.

Fortune was on his side as he made his way outside, no one stopped him, his disguise fooling the few that saw him.
The night cart was in its usual spot outside in the courtyard at the rear of the hospital. The driver was nowhere to be seen, his horse munching contentedly on his feedbag filled with oats.
William slipped silently under the axle, praying he’d be able to bear the discomfort long enough to escape.

An hour passed. Others emptied human waste into the cart, the stench causing William to retch. Excrement dripped through the wooden boards, covering him with the putrid liquid.
Yet still he clung on, knowing if they caught him he was a dead man.

At last the cart began to move.
“Come on Girl, let’s get going. Move on!” The voice of the driver urged the old horse.
William held his breath. The pain from being in his precarious position was nearly unbearable.

He waited for the opportunity to slip unnoticed from his position without being run over by the huge steel wheels. At last the cart pulled into a cobbled yard, William fell exhausted to the ground. After feeling returned to his limbs, he crawled away out of sight.

The climax

By nightfall, William was in a sorry state. He was starving, destitute, dressed in a dead woman’s attire and stinking of shit and piss.

Being a cunning fellow, he managed to clean himself up in the River Thames and find his way back to his former lodgings in Whitechapel.


The ill treatment and deprivation had caused William irreparable mental damage. He became obsessed with nefarious, dark thoughts, often finding himself on the street where Mrs Cook, his accuser, lived. He’d watch her secretly. Her coarse laugh, wanton ways and uncouth manner, caused him to want her dead.

One night when there was no moon to cast light upon his dark figure, he entered the premises of this poor, unsuspecting woman. She was about to meet a terrible fate. A fate which was to befall so many other over the next few months.

The whole of Whitechapel became the hunting ground of this crazed killer and he became known as Jack, Jack the Ripper.

Word count 1364