Tredget, Peter

Peter Tredget (then known as Bruce Lee) pleaded guilty at Leeds Crown Court to 11 counts of arson and 26 related counts of manslaughter on the basis of diminished responsibility. The charges related to eleven fires in Hull in the 1970s.

The prosecution case was that, between June 1973 and December 1979, Mr Tredget had set fire to 11 houses in and around the city of Hull, killing a total of 26 people.

At the times of the fires, fire investigations and inquests concluded that all but one of the fires (the fatal fire at Selby Street) had started accidentally.

The prosecution relied principally on confessions made by Mr Tredget who initially confessed to starting the fire at Selby Street and went on to confess to starting ten other fires that caused death and serious injury.

He also confessed to starting a further 14 non-fatal fires at a range of premises including shops, warehouses and lodging houses but was not prosecuted for those.

Mr Tredget pleaded guilty at court and on 20th January 1981 he was sentenced to detention without limit of time in a secure mental hospital.

Mr Tredget appealed. The Court of Appeal upheld most of his convictions but, on 9th December 1983, quashed his conviction on one count of arson and 11 counts of manslaughter relating to a fire at Wensley Lodge old people’s home in Hessle, near Hull, in 1977. He applied to the CCRC in November 2011.

The CCRC conducted a detailed and extensive investigation into Mr Tredget’s remaining convictions and the circumstances surrounding them.

The CCRC decided to refer the case for appeal because it believed that new evidence identified in the course of its investigation raised a real possibility that the Court of Appeal would quash Mr Tredget’s convictions.

The referral was based on a number of grounds including:

• Expert evidence obtained from a psychologist and a forensic linguist relating to the veracity of Mr Tredget’s confessions.
• Expert evidence from a specialist document examiner relating to written confessions.
• Non-compliance with the Judges’ Rules and with the requirements of the Police and Crime Evidence Act 1984 in relation to interviews with Mr Tredget.
• New expert evidence relating to the causes of the fires.

The new expert fire analysis evidence suggested a number of the fires did not occur in the way outlined by Mr Tredget in his confession.

The new “Electrostatic Detective Apparatus” (ESDA) evidence also concluded that the confession statements were not recorded in the way described on oath by the interviewing police officer, namely that the statements were contemporaneous records written at Mr Tredget’s dictation.

New psychiatric reports concluded that Mr Tredget had psychological vulnerabilities at the time of his admissions which made him suggestible and compliant.

The cumulative effect of these findings was to call into question the reliability of the confession evidence, and the CCRC referred the conviction in May 2019.

The Court of Appeal quashed two counts of arson and three counts of manslaughter in February 2022. The remaining convictions were upheld.