Alan Reeve was fifteen years old when, in 1964, he killed a fellow teenager. He was found to have diminished responsibility and was ordered to be held for an indefinite period in Broadmoor Special Hospital. In 1981 he left Broadmoor, went to the Netherlands, and was jailed there after the death in Amsterdam of a man named Jacob Honingh. He was to spend most of the next decade and more in Dutch custody, and the first year after his eventual release became the subject of a Dutch documentary film.
Reeve was born in England; his date of birth is not on record. In 1964, at the age of fifteen, he killed another teenager, whose name is not on record. He was found to have diminished responsibility and was locked up for an indefinite period in Broadmoor Special Hospital.
A finding of diminished responsibility is not a verdict of murder, and no murder conviction for this killing is on record.
Reeve remained in Broadmoor until 1981. There he became a campaigner against abuses in the hospital. A second death at Broadmoor has been attributed to him as a suspected killing. No charge, trial or finding for that death is on record, and it stands as an allegation only.
He also wrote. His memoir, Notes from a Waiting-Room, was published by Heretic Books in May 1983, and the London Review of Books reviewed it that November as a confused and anguished account of a short and troubled life. The reviewer described Reeve as held for three killings, two of which he admitted. That figure is a critic's description of a memoir, not a legal finding, and it does not match the outcome on record for 1964.
Reeve left Broadmoor without authority in 1981 (the year is also given as 1980). Two patients escaped from the hospital that summer, in July and in August 1981. An inquiry into both escapes found that procedures and arrangements needed to be improved or reviewed, and found no basis for disciplinary action against any individual member of staff. The minister Kenneth Clarke gave that account to the House of Commons in a written answer on April 28, 1983, naming the Reeve case. The day on which Reeve left Broadmoor is not on record.
From England Reeve went to Amsterdam, where he lived underground. In 1981 Jacob Honingh died in the city in events in which Reeve was involved, and Reeve was jailed in the Netherlands for killing him. The Dutch court, the date of the judgment, the Dutch legal wording of the offence and the length of the sentence are not on record.
In 1982 he was awaiting sentence in the Netherlands and declared that he would fight any action taken against him by the British legal system. On September 27, 1982, a London radio station broadcast an interview with the mother of the woman he planned to marry in Utrecht. By November 1983 he was being held in solitary confinement in a Dutch prison.
Reeve served his Dutch sentence in a prison in the northern Netherlands. There he studied political science, acted as an advisor to fellow prisoners and won appeals about his own treatment. The Dutch documentary maker Joost Seelen came to know him in 1986.
Seelen's film Jaar een: Alan Reeve na dertig jaar opsluiting (Year One: Alan Reeve after thirty years of confinement), ninety-one minutes long, was shown at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam in 1993 and at the Netherlands Film Festival in 1994. It follows Reeve through his first year of freedom after some thirty years in custody, from Broadmoor to the Dutch prisons, as he tried to rebuild his life and fought a legal battle against being sent back to England. The outcome of that battle, the date of his release and any later return to England are not on record.
Established in outline: the 1964 killing of a fellow teenager at the age of fifteen, a finding of diminished responsibility and indefinite detention in Broadmoor, and a Dutch prison term after the death of Jacob Honingh in Amsterdam in 1981.
Not settled: the court, date and exact wording of the 1964 order; the Dutch charge, court, date and sentence; and the number of killings attributed to him, given as two, with a suspected third death at Broadmoor, and also as three. No court record of a death at Broadmoor and no confession to one is on record.
The year in which he left Broadmoor is given as 1981 and also as 1980.
1964: aged fifteen, Alan Reeve kills a fellow teenager; he is found to have diminished responsibility and is detained for an indefinite period in Broadmoor Special Hospital.
July or August 1981 (also given as 1980): Reeve leaves Broadmoor.
1981: Jacob Honingh dies in Amsterdam; Reeve is jailed in the Netherlands.
1982: Reeve awaits sentence in the Netherlands and plans to marry in Utrecht.
April 28, 1983: written answer in the House of Commons on the 1981 Broadmoor escapes.
May 1983: his memoir Notes from a Waiting-Room is published.
November 1983: he is in solitary confinement in a Dutch prison.
1986: the documentary maker Joost Seelen comes to know him.
1993 and 1994: the documentary Jaar een is shown at the Amsterdam documentary festival and the Netherlands Film Festival.