SocietyCloaked in horror
Neighbours, police and social workers knew the Hudsons were trouble, but no one really suspected they would torture and kill. Julie Bindel on Britain's 'most dysfunctional family'On a cold morning in March 2003, a body police believed to be that of a boy aged between 10 and 15 was found in the grounds of Newstead Abbey in Nottinghamshire, ancestral home of the poet Lord Byron. The corpse was fully clothed, but on further examination by the pathologist it was discovered that it was female, and almost entirely covered in recent and old injuries.
The victim was identified three weeks later. Rachel Hudson was 20 when she died. She had suffered more than 60 injuries, including broken bones, deep cuts on the soles of her feet, cigarette burns, scalding, skin loss and deep bruising. She had a cut on her lip so severe that it had come away from her skull. Eleven ribs were fractured front and back, and her lung had been pierced. Rachel had died of blood clots, septicaemia and dehydration.
Last month, five members of the family Rachel had married into - Ronald Hudson Sr and his wife Trudi, their son Ronald Jr, Rachel's husband Craig, and Lizzie Hogg, girlfriend of another son, Shane - were convicted of her murder.
Cruelty and pain
Like the trial of Fred and Rosemary West, some of the hideous detail in this case is hard to come to terms with. Members of the press who covered the court case at the end of last year admitted they often felt physically sick as the story of the Hudson family unfurled, along with its themes of degradation, violence, cruelty and pain. Not for nothing were the jury warned by the defence, prosecution, and judge when summing up, that they would encounter the "most dysfunctional family in Britain".
At the head of the family is Ronald Hudson Sr. He came from a family of fairground workers, a tradition taken up sporadically by some of his sons. Both Trudi and Ronald Sr were from dysfunctional homes, abused and neglected by their parents. A local authority official who visited Trudi's home when she was a child recalls the chaos and mess in the house: "Trudi's mother was sitting in her filthy nightgown, eating cornflakes from a washing up bowl."
Trudi was 20 when she met Ronald (he was 24) while visiting a relative in a prison where Ronald was an inmate. On his release, they moved in together and immediately started a family. Social services were involved from the beginning, but both Ronald Sr and Trudi were aggressive to deal with and knew how to manipulate the system. A former friend of the family told me: "No official ever got in that house if they didn't want them to. Not gas, electricity or the council. The kids were told what to say when anyone came to the door."
It is not entirely clear how Rachel Manger became enmeshed with Craig Hudson. Shortly after giving birth to her first child (by another man), Rachel met Craig when he was working at a fairground and, within a month, the couple married. Soon afterwards they had a child. From then, her in-laws, Ronald Sr and Trudi, took control of her in the same way they had their 12 children and any outsiders who came to live in their home. Ronald Sr had subjected his wife Trudi and their children to a daily diet of fear and control.
Rachel's family thought she could have done better. Craig, 21, was described in court as "not the full shilling" and "backward" by members of his family, and "not exactly an oil painting" by his mother. Rachel's family described her as a "happy, cheerful and jolly girl".
She did not remain so after meeting the Hudsons. Initially chubby and red cheeked, Rachel's old friends, shopkeepers and neighbours began to notice the change in her. She lost vast amounts of weight and looked ill and bedraggled soon after moving into the Hudson household, a three-bedroom council property which was, at one stage, home to 23 people.
The Hudson family lived in more than 20 different locations throughout their marriage, and had 12 children. In 1995, Ronald Sr reached the finals of the UK Working Father of the Year contest. Trudi, who had nominated him, hoping to win the cash prize, described him at the time as "a superdad - one in a million." Ronald Sr failed to win, his claims having been exposed as lies by neighbours.
Soon afterwards, the Hudsons were evicted from their council property because of rent arrears and following complaints from neighbours of extreme anti-social behaviour. Their home was left in such a state that it cost £40,000 to clean and repair, according to local newspaper reports. More than 60 soiled nappies littered the lounge, and most of the furniture had been broken.
Forced to return
Trudi left Ronald Sr numerous times due to his violence, but he would always find her, often kidnapping one of the children to force her to return. Trudi, for her part, ruled her children by greed and manipulation. She was adept at working the benefit system and made several fraudulent applications over the years, claiming that various of her children were, for example, going deaf or blind. She controlled the finances of her older children and would meet them at the post office on benefit day so they could hand over the money. When Ronald Jr was awarded £70,000 after injuring his arm on a fairground ride, Trudi put it in an account she had set up - and spent most of it herself.
A number of the children were subject to care orders over the years. As early as 1986, Ronald Jr, then aged four, was described as being a "grade 1" risk of serious abuse. A younger child was referred to social services when a doctor noticed bruising across his back that looked "as if he had been hit with a plank of wood". Some of the older children bullied and beat the younger ones, creating a pyramid of abuse. The few outsiders allowed into the Hudson home who gave evidence during the trial described the atmosphere as being tense and aggressive, with constant shouting and screaming. Many of the Hudson children were feared by neighbours, who avoided them whenever possible. "The boys were gross to women," one told me. "The disgusting sexual remarks they made are too filthy to repeat." One of the Hudson sons, Shane, has a conviction for a serious sexual assault on a teenage girl. Trudi would regularly threaten neighbours if anyone criticised her children. Ronald Sr was known to be out of control and "capable of anything".
Shortly after they were married, in November 2002, Craig and Rachel tried to get away by moving to temporary accommodation and applying for a council flat, but were turned down. They returned to the Hudson household three months before Rachel died. It was during that time that the violence and abuse towards her escalated. Craig was ordered by Ronald Sr not to "have eye contact [with Rachel], and sleep separately". Craig did as he was told and never lifted a finger to protect his wife against his family's brutality. Rachel was told she could leave, "but not with the babies". Trudi wanted control of them in order to take the child benefit.
Rachel's every move was monitored. She told her father during one of the last telephone conversations she had with him that her shoes had been hidden to stop her leaving the house, and that even when she went out with Craig they had a "minder".
In early 2004, Ronald Sr told Rachel's family that she had gone missing. Rachel's father reported her disappearance to the police, who called at the Hudson household. They were told the same story. Rachel was, in fact, being held prisoner. The family could not take the risk of her being seen with facial bruising and other visible injuries. Although everyone, including police, knew the Hudsons were a law unto themselves, no one suspected that their activities were spiralling into torture and murder.
After Rachel's death, the family loyalty between the Hudsons disappeared. During the plea and direction hearings before the start of the trial, a massive fight broke out when it became obvious that each family member had stitched up at least one other. Ronald Sr, who had blamed everyone but himself, sustained a broken wrist during a scuffle with Shane. Countless times during the trial one or more family member stood up shouting that "it is all lies", or "don't believe him".
In the witness box, when Ronald Sr was asked why he was blaming Ronald Jr for Rachel's death, he replied: "He split my marriage up three times. He is a piece of shit." Trudi said she believed that her son Ronald Jr was responsible for delivering the fatal blow to Rachel, telling the court: "God help me, I gave birth to a monster."
Those I spoke to who lived near the Hudsons expressed no surprise that a murder had been committed in the house. One neighbour said: "When I saw the police cars outside, I thought: 'They've done [killed] Trudi.' But when we all heard it was Rachel no one was that surprised. They were always playing loud music in that house, so I suppose we wouldn't have heard her scream."
The crown prosecution offered the jury no motive during the case, other than the Hudson family's clannish hatred of outsiders, affection for violence, and the obsessive need to control. The judge described their behaviour as "primitive pack solidarity".
Aggressive behaviour
It seems they operated in a way that made it almost impossible for the authorities to intervene. Social services and education staff had dealings with the Hudsons between 1998 and 2004, but after most visits employees reported verbal abuse, aggressive behaviour and threats.
Arguably, those brought up in the nightmare of the Hudson household understood violence and cruelty, and had been so damaged by it that it became normalised. As the judge, Mr Justice Hughes, said when sentencing: "The systematic abuse formed part of a cycle which was in the main led by Ronald Sr and Trudi."
The family were seen as beyond either help or redemption from the beginning, so the authorities and the family's neighbours practically stopped trying. Rachel was treated as subhuman by the Hudsons, as the Hudsons were by the rest of society. They fell through the net because they were too volatile, too irrational, too difficult to catch.
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