David Beech died from smoking cigarettes.
In one of the most heart-wrenching stories of Exclusive Brethren legalism and harsh punishment, ‘fun-loving’ David Beech was brought to a place of complete despair by the Exclusive Brethren and died horrifically at his own hand … because he was a secret smoker.
David had enjoyed the occasional cigarette for many years. One day, his wife Diana discovered a half-empty pack in a closet and asked David whether they belonged to him. David, realising that his 20-year secret had been possibly uncovered, initially lied and said that the cigarettes did not belong to him.
As this sad story of psychological abuse by the Exclusive Brethren unfolds, it becomes clear that perhaps not only cigarettes deserve a Government Health Warning. It is becoming clear to many that breaking an Exclusive Brethren edict can kill you.
David Beech, 48, had been furtively smoking for 20 years, despite the habit being banned by the Brethren’s rules.
When his wife found a packet of cigarettes in the airing cupboard at home, she reported him to the cult’s leaders.
As punishment, the couple and their three children were temporarily banned from the sect’s close-knit social life. Friendship with ‘outsiders’ was forbidden by the Brethren, and the Beeches’ exile led to the breakdown of their marriage.
Beech left his home in Cheadle, near Manchester, to stay with two former sect members, David Shoto [sic] and his wife Eunice.
- Daily Mail Jan 12, 1999
Another Press article of the time:
The sin that drove him to suicide was . . . smoking cigarettes, an inquest heard yesterday at Stockport, Greater Manchester.
Smoking is strictly against the rules of the Brethren and in the nights before his death, Mr Beech constantly reread a passage from one of their books. It said: ‘Smoking brings in what smoke is, darkness and blackness; it is filthy. It affects the breath; it is against the spirit of God.’
Mr Beech had been a secret smoker for 20 years when his wife, Diana, found a packet of cigarettes in the airing cupboard of her home in Marrick Close, Cheadle.
She reported him to the Brethren’s leaders, who decided that the family should be barred from the cult’s closeknit social life and daily meetings for two weeks.
The pain of being apart from the religious community which forbids any friendships with ‘outsiders’ led Mr Beech to leave his family so they could return to the only friends they knew.
While his 45-year –old wife and their children, Simon, Bobby, and Gilly, were welcomed back, he went to stay with a friend and former member of the brethren, Mr David Shorto, at his home in Abingdon Road, Bramhall.
Mr Shorto’s wife Eunice, also an exile from the Brethren, said Mr Beech spent ‘night after night’ reading the passage about smoking. ‘He said how wicked he was and how he wished he had never smoked. The poor man was driven to desperation.’
- ‘Brother David’s secret sin’
by Andrew Russell
The Shortos describe the gradual advent of depression in Davids’ life as he increasingly missed his wife and three children.
He came to live with us and was tolerably happy on and off, but pined for his wife and three children. When he contacted the priests to say he was truly sorry and to express full repentance they replied that they hadn’t in mind to review his case at present. This went on for months and Dave became more and more depressed; they had been such a happy and united family, very musical and full of fun.
Eventually he tried to end his own life by taking an overdose of medication. This attempt had a mildly amusing ending as my wife Eunicé went to wake him up, having missed him. He peered groggily at her and didn’t seem to know who she was. Later he confided that he thought he had died and that she was an angel, so Eunicé commiserated with him that he must have been terribly disappointed that it was only her after all!
Dave was taken to hospital and recovered for a while but was held in the psychiatric ward which he found very humiliating.
- The Shortos
David, prior to these events, had been known as a happy man, ‘full of life’. The inquest was told that David Beech had once been a “witty, lively man who liked performing George Formby songs to entertain his friends”.
Later, the Inquest was also told how he read and reread an Exclusive Brethren text on the evils of smoking by former Brethren leader James Taylor. This stated that smoking “… brings in what smoke is — darkness and blackness. It is filthy and against the spirit of God”.
“He said how wicked he was and how he wished he had never smoked. The poor man was driven to desperation.”
- The Shortos
Eventually his mounting depression became too much:
“… late one night he drove to the railway line behind his old home in Gatley where he and his wife had raised their children and laid his head on the rail.”
The note he left in his car directed the police to us and I had to identify his battered body.”
- The Shortos
David Beech took his own life by laying his head on a railway line. The Death Certificate records:
Death Certificate of David Etchello Beech
Registered: Stockport
Date and place of death: December 1st, 1983, Railway line, Gatley
Cause of death: Traumatic decapitation – Suicide.
The Stockport, UK inquest followed a familiar theme used time and again at Exclusive Brethren suicide inquests with the Coroner being forced to warn members of the jury:
“It is not your duty to examine other people’s beliefs. Our country allows people to practise their religion as they think best.”
Reports at the time include:
Members of the Exclusive Brethren crowded the courtroom yesterday as Mrs Beech told coroner Mr Peter Revington how her husband became ‘deceitful’ in July 1982. “One of the things he did was smoke secretly”.
“He left the sect entirely of his own accord, without pressure from me or anyone. He said he wanted to be with God.”
Mrs Beech, who did not take the oath but affirmed her evidence, said her husband wrote to her from hospital after taking an overdose of tablets, but she did not go to see him.
“Some members of our meeting told me they would go. They were supervisors who thought they could help him.”
- ‘Brother David’s secret sin’
by Andrew Russell
Diana Beech, whose discovery of a half-empty pack of cigarettes eventually led to her husbands suicide, followed the official Exclusive Brethren position at the inquest:
Beechs’ wife Diana denied that it was pressure from the sect which led to his suicide. “He simply felt that he had been deceitful and could not continue.”
The Shortos who spent so much time with David toward the end of his life offer a stark and realistic summary:
“This was clearly a case of cruelty by the Manchester Exclusive Brethren at this time. He had committed no great crime, was sorry for his deception and should have been allowed to rejoin his family. They showed little remorse though, and behaved in an unfeeling way at his burial.”
“Dave Beech is yet another person who suffered so badly from EB practices that he committed suicide.”
I would have liked to have known David Beech. He was, by all accounts, a really funny and happy man and was incredibly well liked by all who knew him. His only “sin” was in enjoying an occasional cigarette, which he kept to himself.
I am haunted by his shy smile… and the manner in which he sought to end the pain caused him by being separated from everyone and everything that he held dear. Rest in peace, David.