Sep 11, 20215 min read

Mark Corner

Updated: Oct 14, 2021

Two Women were dismembered in a bathtub because “mistakes were made” in the treatment (or lack thereof) of a paranoid schizophrenic, with, you guessed it, an obsession with dead and dismembered women.

Photo by Adrian Swancar on Unsplash

On Sunday, 20th July 2003, Merseyside Police would make a grim discovery in their search for 25-year-old Pauline Stephen, who at this point, had been missing for 9 days. They had located Pauline's abandoned car, a white Ford Escort, on Friday 18th July and were in the process of conducting a search of the immediate area. In an alleyway just off of St Domingo Vale in the Everton district of Liverpool, England, they came across bin liners containing various dismembered body parts.

The partial remains were so badly mutilated that police would have to use a variety of forensic methods including dental records, fingerprints & distinguishing features, in their efforts to identify the victim.

These forensic examinations would confirm that the bags did contain some of Pauline's remains, but also, shockingly, they contained the remains of another woman, 19-year-old Hanane Parry.

Hanane

Hanane was originally from Broughton, Wales. Her father was Libyan and she suffered racist abuse throughout her childhood because of this. At 16 years old she had moved out of the family home and into a hostel, where she would be introduced to heroin. By 19 she was undertaking sex work in the Netherfield Road area of Liverpool, in order to fund this addiction.

She went out working at 2pm on Friday, July 11 and failed to return but police were not notified of her disappearance at that stage.

The last time Hanane had spoken to her mum was over the phone, 2 weeks before her murder.

Sadly, no one appeared to notice something was wrong until her remains were discovered.

Pauline

Pauline from Skelmersdale, Lancashire, was a mum to a little boy who she idolised. She had only been a sex worker for a year and was known to be street smart and above all, safety-conscious. Like Hanane, she also worked in the Netherfield Road area. Despite this, there was no evidence to suggest that the victims were known to each other.

In the days before Pauline’s remains were found, her mother, Pat Brown, told the press that Pauline would not just pick up and leave without her son, especially for so long and without contact.

Little Risk Police got their break when Ian Corner, informed officers at a police station in Crosby, that his 26-year-old brother Mark, who had suffered from mental health problems from the age of 12 and who had been known to psychiatric authorities since he was 17 years old, had confessed to the killings.

In the ensuing raid of Marks flat, traces of blood would be found in the bathroom along with tools that had been used in the murders & the mutilation of Hanane and Pauline.

Investigators would also find more body parts inside of Marks freezer, who had been described as little risk to the public when he had been discharged from hospital, less than a year earlier.

Subsequent searches of nearby Stanley Park, uncovered more of the two women's body parts, not far from Anfield Football Stadium.

Mark was apprehended when Ian alerted them to the fact he was at their parents' house in Walton, Liverpool. Corner had met police at the door holding a kitchen knife and he had to be talked down before officers were able to arrest him.

24 Hours It was established that Corner had committed two offences in 24 hours and in an almost identical fashion.

He had solicited the women for sex before murdering them. He had dragged the bodies to his bathroom before dumping them in the bathtub where he dismembered them. He had used a kitchen knife to dismember Hanane but he paid a visit to a DIY store before murdering Pauline, where he bought, amongst other tools, a saw.

He then placed part of the women's remains into bin bags before dumping them in the alleyway and attempting to conceal them underneath more rubbish.

Trial In October 2003, Corner pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Hanane and Pauline on the grounds of diminished responsibility. He denied murdering the women.

The court heard that Corner, who believed he was on a mission to kill prostitutes, suffered hallucinations, was delusional and had violent and sadistic thoughts.

It was concluded that Corner had been in the throes of untreated schizophrenia, when he committed the offences.

'He took the lives of two women and there would certainly have been others if we had not got to him.'

He was detained indefinitely at Ashworth high-security Hospital, in Maghull on 10th December 2003 under the Mental Health Act.

Ashworth is one of only three high-security hospitals in the UK and has previously housed Ian Brady.

Mistakes In April 2008, the General Medical Council would hear the case against Dr Eric Birchall, a consultant psychiatrist, who was facing misconduct charges and accusations that he had failed to devise an adequate care plan for Mark Corner and to ensure that he was properly monitored whilst out in the community.

The fitness for practice panel heard how Corner was sectioned in August 2002 after threatening to stab a female neighbour for "talking about him."

They would also hear that:

Dr. Birchall agreed to discharge Corner from the Ferndale mental health unit in Liverpool less than a month later, telling his GP the risk to others was low.

Corner attempted suicide by taking an overdose of paracetamol less than 2 weeks later and admitted to his doctors that he was going against their advice and smoking weed, drinking heavily and not taking his prescription medication.

Despite this, and his father's pleas for him to be detained, Corner was discharged yet again.

He would go on to miss his outpatient appointments, pop ecstasy pills like they were tic-tacs, and begin to hear voices again. Corner would only see his GP once, in the months leading to the murders.

An inquiry said Dr Birchall had committed "grave errors of judgment" when he discharged Corner. His claim that the risk was "low" was "inaccurate and misleading".

The hearing, in Manchester, lasted 7 days and Birchall was found not guilty of gross misconduct and would not receive a warning or be struck off.

The panel ruled that:

“All human beings make mistakes from time to time. Doctors are no different.”

Whilst this is true, the fact of the matter is that Hanane and Pauline were murdered, dismembered and dumped like rubbish. They were Human Beings and not merely the unfortunate consequences of a series of mistakes. One cannot help but wonder, had the women been school teachers or shop workers, would the mistakes still have been taken so lightly?

Coverage Sadly and inevitably, the fact that Hanane and Pauline were sex workers, received a considerable amount of coverage in the media.

Often they were referred to as simply “prostitutes” or "Vice Girls" if the journalist was feeling a bit fancy that day.

Hanane's mum says it best:

'Prostitutes don't have names," says Dianne Parry. "When my daughter got involved in selling sex she was no longer Hanane, she became just another prostitute."