Warning: this article contains details some readers may find very distressing.

A parole hearing to decide if a Harrogate killer can be moved to an open prison is due to be held on Thursday (June 12). 

Martin Bell, who brutally killed 23-year-old Gemma Simpson in 2000, was sentenced to life imprisonment for manslaughter with diminished responsibility at Leeds Crown Court in December 2014.

Justice Peter Collier KC ordered Bell to serve a minimum of 12 years behind bars. 

But little more than a decade later, the prospect of Bell’s freedom is now more tangible than ever.

A panel will decide if Bell is eligible to be transferred to a category D prison. 

Category D prisons are the lowest security prisons and allow inmates to spend most of their day away from the prison on licence.

Only prisoners who have been risk-assessed and deemed suitable for open conditions are eligible, but the Gemma's sister previously told the Stray Ferret her family has never been shown any evidence of Bell’s reform.

The killing

Gemma’s sister, Krista, said Bell was fascinated by Gemma.

The pair met when Gemma was a young teenager and Bell was seven years her senior. He even sent her roses on her 16th birthday.

“Nowadays, it would be seen as grooming”, Krista said.

Krista described her late younger sister, who lived in the Harehills area of Leeds, as a livewire.

“She was so witty and so beautiful. She was just a character”, Krista told us. 

Bell invited Gemma to his flat in Harrogate on May 5, 2000, some six weeks after he had been released from psychiatric care.

Justice Collier said Bell had described arguing with Gemma on that fated night.

Bell claimed Gemma asked where his children lived during the argument, which he “interpreted as a threat to his children”, before repeatedly striking her over the head with a hammer.

Fearing Gemma would regain consciousness, he then stabbed her in the back and the back of the head – but Gemma was still alive.

Bell dragged her into a bath, laid her face down, tied her hands behind her back and filled the bath with water.

He left Gemma in the bath for several days, before dismembering her body.

Bell put her remains in a sleeping bag and buried them at Brimham Rocks in Nidderdale.

The court found Bell returned to the burial site on numerous occasions in the years following to check it had not been disturbed. 

‘You never get closure’

Gemma was considered a missing person for the next 14 years.

Krista was incredibly contained and coherent when speaking to the Stray Ferret last September, despite recounting the torture both Gemma and her family endured.

When asked how the Simpson family coped in the years following, Krista said:

The family believed all contact had been cut between Gemma and Bell, particularly after he was placed in psychiatric care, so their suspicions were never directed towards him.

But Krista said West Yorkshire Police never told the family Bell was in fact the last person Gemma had spoken to, having recently had a home phone installed. 

Bell confesses

Fourteen years later, Bell walked into Scarborough Police Station and confessed to the killing.

Justice Collier said it was Bell’s mother’s death that prompted his confession on July 8, 2014, but Krista believes his girlfriend at the time had persuaded him to come clean.

Bell was originally charged with murder, and his first court appearance indicated it would not be the killing that was contested, but instead Bell’s responsibility. 

Justice Collier said psychiatrists agreed Bell fit the requirements of a manslaughter with diminished responsibility charge. 

Bell took drugs and became involved in “occult practices” when he was younger, which ultimately led to him suffering from delusions.

He had been sectioned for nine months in 1999 after suffering from a “psychotic illness and serious delusional beliefs". The judge cited comments made by Dr Kent, a forensic psychiatrist, who said Bell had a “highly unusual personality structure amounting to a personality disorder”.

Bell displayed antisocial traits, as well as "schizotypal abnormalities which mark him out as somewhat of a loner and eccentric", Dr Kent found.

The defendant was handed a life sentence with a minimum term of 12 years behind bars. Bell spent 160 days on remand before the sentencing, which were deducted from his final sentence, meaning the overall minimum term to spend was 11 years and 205 days.

This was 10-and-half years ago.

Krista today told the Stray Ferret she and her family are "waiting with dread that this man could soon be walking the streets". 

Parole Board’s response 

The Stray Ferret has followed the case closely since last September, when Bell’s parole hearing was due to be held but suddenly cancelled.

We asked the Parole Board at the time if Bell’s hearing came as part of Labour’s early release prison scheme, which was launched that month.

A spokesperson said the two were not connected, and prisoners eligible for early release under the scheme were released automatically and without a Parole Board review.

The spokesperson added at the time HM Prison and Probation service conducts a “pre-tariff sift of indeterminate sentenced prisoners a few years before their tariff expires and some of them are referred to the Parole Board for a parole review”.

Krista previously told the Stray Ferret she would not only fear for her family’s safety if Bell is moved to open prison, but also the safety of the general public.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council and College of Policing declared violence against women and girls a national emergency last year, and Krista believes Bell would only add to the threat.

“If he was moved to an open prison anywhere in the north, really, I could walk down the street and see my sister’s killer”, Krista said at the time. 

The Stray Ferret asked the Parole Board last September if it acknowledged the potential threat Bell could pose to Gemma’s family and the wider community should he be integrated into society prematurely.

A spokesperson said:

We will publish the outcome of the parole hearing, which will likely be held in private, when it becomes available.

You can find our full interview with Krista here.