by Robert Green
The most sensational revelation was a five-page affidavit by Trina Guthrie. She had first visited Hilda as a child with her mother, the widely respected anthropologist Ursula Graham-Bower, who became firm friends with Hilda after meeting her on holiday in the Highlands of Scotland in the early 1950s. Ursula was renowned for her work helping the Naga tribe in northeastern India, who acclaimed her as their ‘White Queen’. Trina maintained her family’s ties with the tribe, and was duly named a ‘White Princess’.
Trained as a botanist, Trina’s other passion was preserving Britain’s natural environment. This led to work at a nature reserve near Shrewsbury and more regular contact with Hilda, who treated her as an adopted niece. Hilda took her and her boyfriend Malcolm Leel in her car on holiday in Anglesey in July 1983. After Hilda’s murder, Trina moved to Lincoln, but maintained a close interest in the case through me and her Shrewsbury friends.
She had never been inside a prison until she heard about an inmate who had studied the political struggles of the Nagas. After she wrote to him, he allowed her to visit him. On his release they met again, which was when their discussions led to Hilda’s murder. He had heard of it during conversations with a fellow inmate, who claimed he knew who had killed Hilda.
Trina gained permission from this long-term prisoner to visit him. He told her Hilda had died at the hands of a team despatched to search for copies of secret signals relating to the Belgrano sinking, which I had been suspected of leaving with her for safekeeping. He had shared a cell in a prison near York with another inmate serving 15 years for armed robbery, who claimed to have led a team of three men and a woman hired by a ‘secret intelligence department’ to do freelance work. The team leader allegedly reported to the Cabinet Office via an MI5 liaison officer. He used the codename Ceres – the Roman goddess of agriculture – for the team, and Demeter, the Greek equivalent of Ceres, as his own codename.
The team apparently entered Ravenscroft on Wednesday 21 March 1984, believing Hilda was on her way to her lunch appointment. When she returned home from shopping, one of the men panicked, threatened her with a knife and masturbated over her. Trina’s informant knew about the wet sheets found in the kitchen. To my knowledge, no media coverage had mentioned this.
What Trina was told was so sickening that she left it out of her affidavit. She later told Kate that the sheets were used to torture Hilda to make her talk, draped over her head and soaked to make her feel she was slowly drowning. One of the thugs then attempted to perform oral sex on her.
The female team member, wearing Hilda’s hat and old coat, was driven in her car by one of the other men through town and out to Hunkington as a decoy. Meanwhile Hilda was taken to a safe house in an area called Little America, where she was subjected to further interrogation under torture with a knife. Two nights later she was dumped in Moat Copse and left to die.
Apparently, one of the men had since died; another was in a secure psychiatric hospital. The team leader was insisting he had been ‘fitted up’ with his armed robbery conviction. The woman had disappeared.
Trina first contacted me with some of this information in 1991. I immediately realised that, if true, it placed her in great danger. Feeling way out of my depth, I put her in touch with Murray.
He found that the nearest former US military base – an airfield for the 31st Fighter Group in 1942 – was now called Atcham Industrial Estate, on the eastern edge of Attingham Park. Known locally as Little America, it was less than five miles by discreet back lanes from Moat Copse. He also unearthed the following hearsay information about the team members:
The leader, Peter Sanderson, had done a deal in exchange for his silence.
Malcolm Tyerman, serving 16 years for armed robbery, was being treated for depression in Rampton.
David Gricewith, a violent professional criminal, had died after ‘accidentally shooting himself’ in a police chase after an armed robbery.
‘Helga’, Gricewith’s girlfriend, had vanished without trace.
Their controller, a former police officer, was an MI5 agent.
The only one of these Murray managed to interview was Tyerman – being treated in the same ward at Rampton as David McKenzie. A senior psychiatric nurse was present during the meeting, which went calmly until Murray produced a large photograph of Hilda. The man immediately became agitated and turned away saying: ‘I’ve said too much already, that’s why I’m in here.’ He vehemently denied ever being in the Shrewsbury area, adding it was only a matter of time before he would be dead.
My problem was to assess this information. I knew Trina was a highly intelligent woman of great integrity who had been close to Hilda. She had undoubtedly, therefore, written as truthful an account as possible.
Another misgiving was that Murray had ignored Don Arnott’s link with Hilda, because until 1956 he was in the Communist Party. MI5 prejudice against Communists was deep-seated and their information was frequently dismissed as unreliable. If Hilda’s contact with Don was enough to cause concern, any suspicion that she was being passed other information, and that another nuclear mole was on the loose, would have caused huge alarm and prompted action.
The Belgrano connection served two other important purposes. If anything had gone wrong – or one of the team had ‘squealed’, as now seemed to have transpired – the overriding priority would have been to conceal the nuclear industry’s involvement. Also, the team would have been well motivated after being told that Hilda and I were traitors, hell-bent on bringing down Thatcher over the Belgrano.
In late February 1994, Murray and I attended a packed West Mercia Police press conference in Shrewsbury police station. Assistant Chief Constable David Thursfield, flanked by DCI Peter Herbert and veteran of the case, DC Partridge, explained that they wanted to report on the outcome of their investigations into allegations in Murray’s book. It proved to be another difficult public relations exercise.
Thursfield began with a surprising admission. ‘Over these ten years, and in more recent enquiries, we have been afforded every facility by the Security Service, military intelligence, and Special Branch of course…’ He quickly invited scepticism by adding: ‘I can say categorically, there has never been any record of Hilda Murrell in any Special Branch file whatsoever.’ Turning to Trina’s allegations, he said they had interviewed all the cited individuals. ‘We are satisfied beyond any doubt that … they are not the perpetrators of this crime. They do not now say that they are responsible. In fact, the key player says that he was prompted by a rather detailed article in the press, and wished by making such allegations to draw attention to his own plight, which is an alleged wrongful conviction.’ Was this another example of the ease with which vulnerable prisoners could be controlled?
When Thursfield invited questions, they soon became searching and critical. Was his MI5 contact in a senior position? This question was ‘out of order’. Had the police been given unrestricted access to files? No, but they had seen the files that would have contained the relevant information – if there had been any. Scoffs of derision broke out across the room. Thursfield protested it was preposterous to suggest vital information might have been destroyed or removed. Murray pointed out that Hilda must have been on file because of her nephew’s security vetting. Thursfield replied: ‘It would be interesting if Naval Intelligence recorded the details of the aunts of all their staff.’ No one laughed.
I was not only Hilda’s nephew; I was her next of kin. Also, I had specifically mentioned her name in 1980 during the vetting procedure for my job as Staff Officer (Intelligence) to Commander-in-Chief Fleet. When Murray raised these facts, he was told the police could not say if Hilda’s name appeared in anyone else’s files.
One journalist recalled the last police press conference on the case, nearly nine years ago in June 1985. ‘You have had an inquiry, the Northumbria Report – which you in fact refused to publish… This is, as far as you’re concerned, an ordinary murder by a walk-in burglar, which you still persist in holding to.
The problem is that you are not believed … because what you say is incredible.’
A week before the tenth anniversary, the heading of Paul Foot’s Guardian column read: ‘Jury is still out on the doctor and the detective’. I was stunned to learn Cole and Acland had published a book, The Detective and the Doctor: A Murder Casebook, with the first chapter devoted to Hilda’s case. Foot panned it as a ‘pathetic little book about a crack crime-busting partnership, which starts with a case they never solved’.
Their account of how they investigated Hilda’s murder contained several surprising errors. It was nonetheless useful, as it revealed their thinking and some new information. Acland rashly described his unusual circumstances when asked by Cole to conduct the autopsy. Recently placed on the Home Office list of pathologists, he had been ordered by his Professor at Birmingham University not to accept any more criminal cases, as he was being paid purely as a lecturer in pathology. By agreeing to Cole’s urgent request when no other Home Office pathologist was available, Acland defied his university superior and was forced to ‘freelance’ for the police. This explained why he let himself become their spokesman in his unwise letter to The Times in January 1985.
Cole described how the funeral directors – a father and son team – needed help to carry Hilda’s body out of the copse and across the field to Hunkington Lane. He wrote flippantly:
Their van could not get nearer than the road some four hundred yards away and they experienced difficulty negotiating the undergrowth and ditch which led out of the copse… Much to the amusement of police officers standing near the road, Acland took over and, although he considered himself still comparatively fit, the shared weight began to tell as they staggered across the field.
Later, when theories emerged and speculation increased about how and when Hilda ended up in the copse, he remembered the difficulties of that walk.
Apart from demonstrating their insensitivity and the police behaviour, Cole and Acland had provided circumstantial evidence supporting Don’s and my assessment that it had taken more than a lone petty burglar to get Hilda into the copse.
In a separate media interview, Acland described what he thought was the easiest way into the copse from Funeral Field. ‘It was a little narrow track leading into the copse, about a foot wide … where we climbed over the wire fence there were shrubbery and bushes either side…’ In fact, it was barbed wire across an overgrown gateway. If alone, Hilda would have had to climb over or crawl under it with her broken collarbone to get into the copse. Or, drugged and already half-dead from torture, had she been lifted over by a team?
To mark the tenth anniversary, Marnie and Colin Sweet had done much more than organise, for the seventh time, a memorial walk up to the quartz cairn where we had scattered Hilda’s ashes in the Berwyn Mountains. An economist who had advised the National Union of Mineworkers, Colin’s name was among those under surveillance by Zeus at the Sizewell Inquiry. He and Marnie had donated a section of steep hillside above their cottage near Llanrhaiadr for a wonderful project: the planting of a birch grove in Hilda’s memory. More than 20 volunteers spent a morning planting 50 birch whips, while three photographers and BBC Radio Wales recorded their efforts. After lunch, I joined 25 walkers up to the cairn in calm spring sunshine.
That evening, I took part in an extraordinary public meeting organised by the indefatigable Laurens Otter. The Right Rev John Davies, Bishop of Shrewsbury, chaired a panel comprising ACC Thursfield, DCI Herbert, Don Arnott and myself to discuss the case. The undiminished interest in the case was reflected in the packed mock-Tudor Morris Hall in Shrewsbury town centre. The audience included Trina Guthrie, Gladys Bury and John Stalker, the former Deputy Chief Constable of Manchester turned TV sleuth.
Earlier that day, Stalker had made a bizarre announcement. He had opened an office in town from which he was launching his own investigation into the case. He hoped people with new information who had not gone to the police would feel they could come forward to him. Stalker undertook to reveal the findings of his quest for the truth in a documentary produced by Central Television. Of course, CTV had already made a programme five years earlier, which had been pulled because it may have got too close to the truth.
Thursfield, a surprise last-minute panellist, began promisingly. ‘I have never known or even heard of, in a case of an undetected murder, such an open and involved debate as we propose to have here this evening. This is history in the making for the police in this country.’
However, he then claimed disingenuously that those who had information were frightened to come forward, because of the wild speculation over political conspiracies. This was why ‘we have only today negotiated a reward on behalf of Crimestoppers, an organisation which arranges for people to receive payments anonymously to achieve the objective of solving the crime.’ As usual, it was the first I knew of this. Clearly linked to Stalker’s intervention, the £10,000 was never claimed.
After Don and I had outlined our concerns about the case, I read out a statement from Gary Murray, who was unable to attend. Regarding MI5’s assurance that Hilda was unknown to them before her death,
I understand that the only evidence of this is a statement of an MI5 official in London; in which case I respectfully suggest that West Mercia Police remember the case of the Deputy Chief Constable of Manchester, John Stalker, whose unpleasant experiences with British Intelligence are well documented.
This point was perfectly timed. Two years before Hilda’s murder, Stalker had led an investigation into the deaths of six men in Northern Ireland. He got too close to the truth: that the Royal Ulster Constabulary had a secret but official ‘shoot to kill’ policy against suspected members of the IRA. He learned that a barn where the men were assassinated had been bugged, and that MI5 had taped the ambush. When he approached them for a copy, he was led on an endless run-around. As Stalker described in his subsequent memoirs, Sir John Hermon, Chief Constable of the RUC, told him the tape had been destroyed and refused to give him a copy of the transcript. He then demanded that Stalker sign a Special Branch gagging order. Stalker refused. He was later hounded out of the police on trumped-up corruption allegations.
An hour and a half of comments and questions from the floor followed. Trina was first. Echoing Con Purser’s experience, she said: ‘Having come forward with information, I feel pretty bruised by the experience … I suggest there should be an opportunity for further discussion on the [police] findings as a result of their investigation into Gary’s book.’
Thursfield retorted coldly: ‘You came forward in an interesting manner. It wasn’t coming forward to the police as a witness to offer information; it came via this unusual source.’
Herbert went further and accused her of withholding information about her sources.
Trina stood her ground. ‘You come into possession of extraordinary information – some very, very heavy stuff. What the hell do you do with it? There’s a feeling of concern about the way the police investigation has been carried out in the past. So we don’t rush with this information. It was chewed over for two years, because of our fear of things being brushed under the carpet. We wanted to give this information as public a hearing as possible. That’s why we didn’t come to you to start with.’
A local peace campaigner, Pat Dymond, boldly pressed Thursfield about what he would ask MI5 if he did find evidence of involvement.
Thursfield replied: ‘Somewhere along the line, you look them in the eye and form a judgement. If things have been destroyed ten years ago, we can go no further. You may say: “We believe these highly trained James Bond people will run rings around us out here in the sticks, the police are out of their depth” … If we had been hoodwinked and bamboozled from the beginning, I wouldn’t want to be up here in front of you talking like I am.’
Dymond replied calmly: ‘It sounds as if you are agreeing with some of the points we have said. You said if the files have gone, there is nothing we can do about it.’
Thursfield did not
respond.
Herbert, pressed about Don’s role in the case, declared: ‘Dr Arnott presented these findings at the Hinkley C Inquiry in 1989. It did not have any mind-blowing repercussions – Dr Arnott is still sitting with us. So I would suggest it was of no real consequence. Indeed, the nuclear electric [sic] industry tell me that is not a fundamental flaw. It is something they are well aware of and it has been debated on many occasions.’
Don and I were dumbfounded. Herbert had missed the point. The danger for Don, and Hilda by association, had been before the reactor control rod problem had become public knowledge, and when Sizewell B had yet to receive planning approval.
Tony Ward of BBC Radio took up the point. ‘I would like to hear what Ed Radford from America has to say on that – and Don Arnott.’
Having helped Don raise the control rod problem in 1989 at the second public inquiry into a pressurised water reactor at Hinkley Point in Somerset, I had alerted the Three Mile Island Public Health Scientific Advisory Board about the issue. This US body was established to follow up unresolved health issues arising from the 1979 accident in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I had recently discovered that the Board’s chairman, an American physician and expert on radiation health effects named Dr Edward Radford, was living in Surrey, married to an Englishwoman. I briefed him on the control rod issue.
Radford consulted his Board colleagues, enclosing a copy of a summary of the Hilda case by me. One of them wrote back to him how ‘we’re all concerned’ that this was the first they knew of the control rod alloy’s low melting point, and asked: ‘What do we do now?’ On the Hilda case, he commented: ‘It’s a hell of a story! I could believe it, after my experiences around Rocky Flats.’