The Perfect Crime

by Roger Forsdyke

  One of the officers in charge of searching, Inspector Malcom Bevington, who had worked on the case since the search of Bathpool Park said, “What’s in there?”

  Irene Neilson looked blank. “That’s his room. I’m not allowed in there.”

  “Keys?”

  She shrugged. They forced the door. There was too much to take in. Leaving a constable to guard the scene, they left for the night. Early the following morning, the search party returned with another van, more scenes of crime detectives and personnel from the RCS. For the next eight and a half hours, they trudged up and downstairs, emptying the attic. There were combat jackets, holdalls and ammunition pouches. Survival gear, Ordnance Survey maps and press cuttings about the Black Panther’s activities and a do-it-yourself car registration plate assembly kit. The room was nearly empty now, but one detective spotted a piece of hardboard against the wall under the skylight. Idly he gave it a tug. It fell to the floor, revealing a small hatchway into the roof void. Inside they found even more evidence of the Panther’s murderous exploits and intent. An up and over double barrelled sawn off, fitted with a home-made silencer. A biscuit tin containing several hundred rounds of ammunition of various calibres. In all, they recovered over one thousand rounds of ammunition – as well as two crossbows and a haversack containing more than eight hundred vehicle ignition keys. Under the floor, they found jemmies, coshes and a .22 repeater rifle with a sawn off barrel and silencer. Under the attic floor, they recovered a dozen steel bit pieces, all carefully labelled, which they later proved to have been used in the ‘brace and bit’ burglaries.

  The ammunition was sent to the forensic science lab in Nottingham, where Geoffrey Brunt, one of the Home Office ballistics experts examined the hoard. He found it included two spent .22 cases and several misfires which he used as comparisons with firing pin and ejector marks found at other crime scenes. He was able to adduce conclusive evidence that those from the house had been fired from the gun used at Accrington, Langley and Dudley. It was vital evidence that linked Neilson with all three incidents.

  As the Grangefield Avenue address was being searched, Neilson was confronted by DCI Wally Boreham, Commander Morrison’s right hand man from the Yard. Boreham told him that he was to be taken elsewhere for further questioning. Then under heavy guard he was handcuffed, a blanket draped over his head and driven to Kidsgrove. There, in Mr Morrison’s office at two forty five a.m., he sat with his wrists handcuffed to the arms of a chair. The Yard man and the Staffordshire head of CID, Harold Wright prepared to interrogate him, whilst DCI Boreham would take notes.

  In his preamble, Mr Morrison told Neilson that he thought he could help them with their enquiries into Lesley Whittle’s death.

  Neilson mulled this over for fifteen minutes before answering. “No sir. Not me sir. Not Lesley Whittle.”

  They had been warned about the inordinately long pauses between questions and answer by their counterparts at Mansfield, but Mr Morrison was still puzzled. He said, “Do you feel all right? Quite fit? Or would you prefer a rest?”

  Neilson regarded the grey haired Scot, then replied, “No thank you sir. I am wide awake, but you look a bit tired.”

  He emphatically denied visiting Highley and after a twelve minute pause, said that he was not sure if he had ever visited Bathpool Park. He asked for a cup of tea and while it was being organised, Mr Morrison asked why he took so long to answer questions. After waiting for an answer for nine minutes, the Scot asked sharply, “Do you understand what I am asking you?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “So why do you take so blasted long to answer my questions, then?”

  Five minutes later, he said, “I am thinking, sir.”

  He was given a cup of tea and became a little more cooperative. He told them he was self employed joiner, born on 1st December 1936. He had served in the army for two years on National Service, being demobilised as a lance corporal.

  The commander nodded at his two colleagues and as one, they got up and left Neilson with two constables who had previously been briefed not to say a word. After an hour and a half, they returned.

  Mr Morrison said, “You said you needed time to think. Have you had sufficient time to think?”

  Neilson nodded, “Yes sir. I think so.” Tears welled in his eyes and he started to sob. They let him cry for twenty five minutes, then asked him again about Highley and Bathpool Park.

  After eight minutes, he said, “I don’t know sir. I have been lots of places. I may have been to these places. How can I remember?”

  He said that he could not remember where he had been on 14th January, which was reasonable, given that eleven months had elapsed. Nevertheless, he seemed agitated.

  Mr Morrison asked him directly, “Are you the man responsible for the kidnapping and murder of Lesley Whittle?

  Neilson started crying again and after a pause of eleven minutes, said, “No sir. Not me. Not murder the young girl. I know you got job to do. I realise that, but it is too distressing.”

  They had been on the go, through the night. Commander Morrison wanted to press ahead, but realised they all needed a break, so at six forty a.m., he decreed that they should all – including their suspect – get some rest.

  Some nine hours later, this time in the chief superintendent’s office at Newcastle-under-Lyme, they resumed. Now, they possessed full knowledge of the results of the searches at Grangefield Avenue.

  Neilson no longer denied murdering Lesley Whittle, replying, “It’s too distressing.”

  Sensing a breakthrough, Wright asked again about Highley and Bathpool Park. Now, Neilson admitted he had been to both.

  Mr Morrison quickly followed it up, “Did you go to an underground culvert at Bathpool Park for any reason?”

  There was an eleven minute silence before Neilson replied. “Yes. I found a manhole cover open and walked through there.”

  “When was that?”

  “Last year. I don’t remember when.”

  “Do you know Dudley at all?”

  “Why that? Why do you want to know that?”

  Wright explained, “The ransom trail laid by the person who kidnapped Lesley Whittle led to Dudley Zoo car park.

  Do you know Dudley?”

  Another twenty minutes elapsed before Neilson conceded, “I know the Zoo. I know the caves.”

  Mr Morrison questioned him about having an accomplice, but achieved no direct reply and there was another twenty two minutes silence before he suddenly blurted, “I didn’t murder her. I didn’t even know who I was going to get from the house.”

  It was what they wanted, hoped, needed to hear.

  Commander Morrison formally cautioned him and in response, Neilson said, “People believe all the lies about this Black Panther. The papers don’t tell the truth. The Black Panther, so called, they tell lies about him. I read them. He is not like they say. I want people to know the truth. I hate all these lies. Can you protect my wife and daughter if I make a statement?”

  SEVENTY SEVEN

  By the time Neilson was arrested, two hundred thousand people had been interviewed. At Kidsgrove alone, there were two million, five hundred thousand cards in the incident room index system. Thirty thousand telephone calls logged, over thirty thousand statements taken, plus around seventy thousand house to house enquiry pro formas, not including the many thousands of Bob Booth’s disastrous Bathpool Park construction personnel enquiries.

  Not one mentioned Donald Neilson, nor was any one of them ever likely to have led to him.

  Now, they may have found out all they needed to know about the man, but there was still a crown court trial – or two – to contend with and as Groat knew well, trials are always potentially slippery slopes. Slopes cunningly strewn with hazardous concealed crevasses. He had seen cases where he had considered the evidence extremely thin and would have bet good money on an acquittal, only to be dumbfounded with a verdict of guilty. And only a fool would take it for granted that what appeared to be a one hundred
percent rock solid, racing certainty, sewn up to the eyeballs case would result in the defendant going down. He had witnessed too many walk, for him to take anything as read.

  Neilson engaged Leeds solicitor, Barrington Black for his defence. A veritable Pit Bull of a man, he earned a reputation as a particularly able and forthright defence advocate. Black instructed Gilbert Gray QC, a polished, forceful barrister with a keen sense of humour.

  They immediately argued that holding the trial at Stafford Crown Court would significantly prejudice their client’s right to a fair trial. Gray told the judge, Mr Justice May that the protracted police enquiries meant that a large number of people in Staffordshire had been directly or indirectly affected. In turn, this meant that prospects of a fair trial were diminished, by saturation coverage of publicity hostile to the defendant. He went on to say, “If thirty thousand people have made statements, the probabilities are that a very great number of them will be from the catchment area for the jury, or that they are friends or relatives. Mr Justice May ruled that whilst he rejected the assertion of public hostility – it having been sixteen months since Lesley disappeared – because of the number of statements taken, the case should not be heard at Stafford. Two days later, the new venue was fixed as Oxford Crown Court and the first trial, beginning on 14th June 1976 would deal with the Lesley Whittle matters. A second trial, to follow immediately the first was concluded, would deal with the remaining charges.

  At Oxford, the defence team once again went on the offensive. They knew that no jury could give unbiased consideration to the charge of murdering Lesley Whittle if they were also aware that he was accused of attempting to murder Gerald Smith and PC Mackenzie. So Gilbert Gray QC applied for the three Whittle allegations, kidnapping Lesley, murdering her and blackmailing her mother, to be heard separately from the shooting incidents at Dudley and Mansfield, arguing that the explosive ‘quality of act’ at those locations bore no similarity to the prosecution’s contention of painstaking preparation in connection with Lesley.

  The leading Crown counsel argued that, whilst the prosecution was anxious that there should be a fair trial, the motive for killing Lesley had been to eliminate her as a witness and that the intention at Dudley and Mansfield had been the same.

  The judge, Mr Justice Mars-Jones ruled in favour of the defence.

  Groat groaned.

  The charges that the judge would allow, were read to the court:

  Kidnap – ‘On or about the fourteenth of January 1975, at Highley in the county of Stafford, stealing and unlawfully carrying away Lesley Whittle against her will.’

  Blackmail – ‘On or about the fourteenth of January 1975, with a view to gain, made an unwarranted demand for £50,000 to Dorothy Whittle with menaces, namely a threat to kill Lesley Whittle.’

  Murder – ‘On a date unknown between January the thirteenth and the seventh of March 1975, at Kidsgrove in the County of Stafford, did murder Lesley Whittle, contrary to common law.’

  Until this point, Neilson indicated that he would fight all charges, every inch of the way, but when asked, “How do you plead, Guilty or Not Guilty?”

  To gasps of amazement from the public gallery, he pleaded guilty to the kidnapping and blackmail charges, but not guilty to the charge of murder.

  The trial would be significantly shortened by this development. The prosecution and the defence would go through the evidence and unless there were any major arguments or discrepancies, most of the evidence could be read – to the court and jury, rather than many witnesses to be called, examined then cross-examined.

  Groat was surprised that the Crown were pressing ahead with a murder charge. Neilson had always strenuously denied playing an active part in Lesley’s death and as there were no witnesses, he did not see how they could adduce the requisite degree of proof. All in all, he thought that manslaughter would be far more appropriate and easier to prove – and involve far less of a struggle in court. There was no contest – Lesley was dead and she would not have been, if he had not put her down that drain and put a noose round her neck. He may not have done it on purpose, but he was the instrument of her death. QED. They’d never get a murder charge home. The evidence simply wasn’t there.

  The defence were fighting well, until the barrister for the Crown, Philip Cox QC stood up to cross examine. Their line of questioning was – as they had intimated from the start – that Neilson needed to silence Lesley, as he had sought to silence Gerald Smith and PC Mackenzie. They were handicapped in that they could not talk about either of the latter, but Cox was a skilled operator and knew how best to get the results he wanted. He would press the motive that Neilson simply could not afford the allow Lesley to live, because she would be a constant threat to his freedom, able to identify him at any time. Gilbert Gray prepared Neilson as best he could for his ordeal, a seemingly endless series of questions in which his client repeatedly denied that Lesley had any opportunity to glimpse his face – and his detailed precautions to prevent such a situation occurring. This was the key issue in the trial and Neilson stood his ground, answering the salvo of questions, but cracks were starting to appear. Irritated by a question from the judge – yet another about Lesley being able to see his face – he snapped, “Is it necessary, my Lord, for me to keep saying…? I would like to make it clear there was no way she could see my face at any time.” He quickly recovered his composure, but had given both the judge and the jury a revealing flash of fiery temper.

  It was his first slip.

  Neilson went on to describe how he next went to take her supplies. He had a fright as he descended the shaft, as instead of seeing the sleeping bag, there was a sheet of plastic. In fact, Lesley had pulled it over herself to deflect dirt and rust dislodged by his descent. He thought there might have been a police officer laying in wait for him.

  “I was surprised and worried about what I was going to find.”

  “Did you say anything to indicate your alarm?”

  “There must have been something in my face, in my expression.”

  SEVENTY EIGHT

  The judge emphasised that the fundamental consideration for the jury was whether Lesley fell accidentally, or was pushed.

  He said to them, “There are only two people who can tell you what happened down there, sixty feet underground – whether Neilson was wearing a hood all or only part of the time. One of these persons is dead. In the circumstances it calls for you to examine the evidence of the survivor with some care. He is in a position to say what he likes without fear of any contradiction. But there is another side to that coin. If this man is innocent, he has been deprived of the best witness he could possibly have to support his case – the person who could say that he did not push her and wore a mask the whole time underground and never saw a glimpse of his face. There is no direct evidence that Neilson pushed her over the side. There is a lot of evidence that tends to show that he did not, otherwise you would have expected certain results which do not appear. He has always denied any such action and has done so emphatically and consistently from the beginning. The prosecution case depends largely on circumstantial evidence.”

  Groat considered that the summing up was definitely biased towards a manslaughter verdict, rather than murder.

  Special arrangements were made for the jury to hear Lesley’s recorded ransom message during their retirement to consider a verdict. They also asked to see exhibits including the dark blue hood, the wire tether, surgical tape, Lesley’s dressing gown and the sawn off Smithson. It took them just one hundred minutes to make up their minds.

  Fifteen minutes after that, the foreman stood to announce their unanimous verdict.

  Guilty.

  Guilty of murder.

  *

  Groat, of course, was skiving. There was no real reason for him to be at the trial. Had he been asked, of course, he would have waffled on about having been present when Nielsen was interviewed by Detective Chief Superintendent Readwin, but that was purely to do with evidence of identi
fication, a matter that was no longer in question and unlikely to be brought up in court. He would also have mentioned the fact that Neilson had been traced, largely by using the infant science of offender profiling, and that he and his team needed to be on hand should any queries about that process needed to be answered. In truth, had that been the case, they would have wanted the expert evidence of the organ grinder, Dee Taylor, not one of the monkeys. His continued presence at Oxford Crown Court was actually one of those happy Groat contrivances. His gaffers at Leman Street were given authority to release him, so that he could assist Nottinghamshire with – well, whatever it was he was assisting them with. Not only that, but they were secure in the knowledge that it had been authorised from on high, viz DAC Van Lesseps, so no skin off their collective nose. The fact that he was in Oxford, now, rather than Nottinghamshire simply didn’t enter into the equation.

  Ted was pleased to have his friend around and Commander Morrison was content to have another Met officer on his team. DAC Van Lesseps was their authorising officer and there were no urgent return to base instructions, or cut off date.

  Good result all round then.

  One issue niggled away at him and would need some extraordinarily detailed planning and footwork. How to deal – in a proper, successful and final manner – with the package under his shed floor, at home, in Loughton.