The Wrong Man: The Shooting of Steven Waldorf and The Hunt for David Martin

by Dick Kirby

  At the same time, Martin also broke into Susan Deacon Associates, a public relations consultant’s office which was part of the business complex at New Row, and stole a sheepskin coat, two sheepskin jackets, a hanging wardrobe, two tea towels and a blip game, valued at £701 – it was pretty small beer for someone of Martin’s calibre but then he was not one to waste an opportunity.

  Surrounded with a small arsenal, David Martin had now acquired a toughness that nature had not endowed him with. He was all set to go to war.

  Next, Martin stole a Ford Granada from a car park at London’s Heathrow airport. A few days later, on 29 July, this Granada was used during the course of a £25,000 robbery on a Brink’s-Mat security van outside Lloyds Bank at Bucklersbury House, 83 Cannon Street, in the City of London. It was a crime not executed with Martin’s customary aplomb and coolness when circumventing alarms while breaking into premises. In fact, it appeared that he acted with exemplary stupidity.

  What follows is an account of the robbery, both from the bare facts of the case, plus information from an unnamed source.

  Martin was the front-seat passenger in the stolen car, driven by an accomplice. This was no carefully premeditated, skilfully thought-out plan, such as Martin’s blagging contemporaries in prison would have devised. The two simply cruised around until they saw a security van; it happened to be part of the Brink’s-Mat fleet but it could have been any security company’s van. Both men were armed with handguns stolen from the gunsmiths and both wore motorcycle crash helmets; Martin was in drag. As the guard, Edward Ernest Burns, was transferring a metal container containing cash to the bank, the men strolled across and without a word being uttered, from a range of six inches Burns was shot in the leg, seriously wounding him. A shot fired at a second security guard fortunately missed. Snatching the money, another gun which had not been used to shoot Burns was dropped on the pavement and both men drove off. However, a group of men who had been drinking outside a nearby pub had seen what had happened and threw pint glasses at the Granada; Martin calmly told the driver to turn around. As the car drove towards the men, Martin opened his nearside window and fired at the group, fortunately missing them. The car was later found abandoned a quarter of a mile away in an underground car park in the Barbican. The first part of the incident – the actual robbery – fitted in quite neatly to Martin’s prison dictum: shoot someone and the rest would do as they were told. And the second part – firing at the public-spirited pub customers – demonstrated how out of control he was becoming. It was his arrogant way of rebuking impertinent people who had dared to show criticism towards him.

  Around this time Martin had rented two safe deposit boxes and into them went some of the stolen firearms and part proceeds of his crimes. It was also during this period, on 2 August, that Martin broke into office premises at 30 Old Bond Street and among other items stole identification cards, marked APS Security. In fact, during the burglary the company’s managing director was working late and had challenged Martin, who calmly told him that he was a security advisor who had been employed by the former tenant of the office and that his name was ‘Demain’. Asked how he had gained entry to the premises, Martin replied that he had climbed the fire escape to the top floor and had entered through an unlocked door; he then had the impertinence to admonish the director for poor security. Martin then left and later inserted photographs of himself in the cards describing the bearer as a security advisor named ‘David Demain’.

  At that time, the managing director did not report the matter to police but what did arise from this incident was that the fire door which Martin claimed to have been unlocked when he entered the building was, in fact, locked. Furthermore, it could only be locked from the inside; however, Martin’s explanation could well have been a hoax. It is also possible that the front door could have yielded to Martin’s lock-picking skills – either that or a duplicate key had been used.

  Also at this time, two night-duty security guards in a prestigious office block were surprised to discover that a lift in the premises was in operation and was stopping at every floor. Since they were supposed to be the only two occupants in the building, they were understandably concerned and waited until the lift descended to the ground floor, whereupon Martin stepped out, produced his ‘Demain’ security card and coolly informed them that he had been engaged to check their competence. During the following discussion, Martin castigated them for failing to discharge their duties properly since he had been in the premises for some time and had checked all the offices without once seeing them. The chastened guards humbly saw Martin off the premises and since he had been so calm and convincing, there was, of course, no question of the police being informed; however, to cover themselves, a note was made in the security office’s night-duty diary.

  The occupants of the two buildings – the company director and the two security guards – would, with hindsight, congratulate themselves on not being more assertive in confronting Martin and relieved that they were merely censured with words; later intelligence would reveal that since the burglary at the gunsmiths and whatever he was doing, Martin was permanently armed.

  When he was not busying himself breaking into premises and rebuking the occupants, Martin frequented gay bars and when he did so, one of the stolen pistols was inevitably in his handbag, with another tucked into his waistband. He was fiercely arrogant and keen to flaunt his sexuality at every possible opportunity. This was undoubtedly assisted by the growing strength of the gay movement during his enforced absence from society. In addition, gay clubs were rapidly opening up: Fangs, underneath a hotel in Paddington, was launched in 1975, as were one year later Bang in Charing Cross Road, Shane’s in West Hampstead, The Catacombs in Earls Court and Heaven, situated under the arches beneath Charing Cross station. Boy George and Culture Club had appeared on BBC television’s Top of the Pops and, for many, frequenting gay bars, cross-dressing and bisexuality was increasingly acceptable. In particular, Martin was a regular at The Embassy Club in Old Bond Street which had opened in April 1978. It was described thus:

  The door policy was strict but democratic; contemporary icons, freaks and beautiful people were invited in and those who did not fit into the scene were kept out. The mixed white, black, straight and gay crowd was a melange of glamorous drag queens, leather-clad gays and girls draped in gowns by Halston, Gucci and Fiorucci. Everyone took part in the disco tradition of dressing up to go dancing.

  It was said that ‘going to The Embassy was like being in a Hollywood movie with everyone wanting to be the star’; and that being the case, Martin must have felt as though he’d died and gone to heaven.

  He was also involved in the making of pornographic films; he broke into film processing companies and stole their cameras and video recording equipment. And this was how, for the second time, he came to make an illicit entry into Colour Film Services, 22–25 Portman Close, Baker Street, shortly before midnight on 5 August 1982.

  On the Run

  On this occasion, Martin was seen in the first-floor office by Ken Trebeck, a night supervisor who was making a routine call to the premises, who not unnaturally wanted to know what he was doing there. Martin replied that he was ‘security’ and that he was there by arrangement with a director of the company. Although Trebeck appeared to accept his explanation, he went to another office where he quietly telephoned the police. When they arrived, Martin was calmly sitting at the reception desk using the telephone and told the police officers that he was a security officer named David Demain and showed them his identification. He produced a bunch of keys, unlocked the door to the office, went straight to the light switches and the officers followed him inside. The supervisor who had discovered Martin on the premises decided to telephone a director of the company; with incredible nerve, Martin asked to speak to the company’s director, saying, ‘There’s an arrangement with another director; it’s all hush-hush because we have had workmen in who left the fire escape open.’

  However, one of the remainin
g officers went to his car to check out on the radio details of ‘Demain’ and the security company. Police Constables Nicholas Carr and Jerry Fretter stayed with Martin, questioning his story. In fact, 37-year-old PC Carr should not have been there at all; he was one of the late-turn shift who should have finished duty at 10 p.m. Instead, he had been at St Mary’s Hospital reporting a personal injury accident; a woman had attempted suicide and when he completed his enquires, he had phoned Marylebone Lane asking for a lift back to the station. He was picked up by PC Fretter; en route the GP (General Purpose) car in which they were travelling was one of those which responded to the call.

  The local area car also arrived; PC Fretter went into the premises with Police Constable Ian Hunter, the car’s RT operator while PC Carr remained with the car’s driver, Police Constable Dick Cross. An inspector and a female sergeant who were patrolling together arrived at the premises, accepted Martin’s explanation and left, saying, ‘there was nothing in it’.

  But as Nick Carr told me, ‘Ian Hunter came out of the premises, shaking his head. ‘‘There’s something funny about him,’’ he said.’ Carr went into the building where with Fretter he saw Martin in the office. ‘He was very calm, very well dressed and had keys to the premises,’ said Carr. Martin once more said he was employed by the managing director and gave the officers the director’s phone number; but when police called the number, the director’s wife said he was out.

  Martin now became agitated and the officers were unhappy with Martin’s behaviour and told him to turn out his pockets; Martin refused, saying that he had done nothing wrong. ‘He said, ‘‘You can’t keep me here, I’m going,’” Carr told me, and the whole scenario was highly suspicious. ‘I told him, ‘‘You’ll spend three days in the cells and then we’ll find out who you are,’” Carr recalled, and informed Martin he was under arrest, who promptly made a dash for it. The officers grabbed him and Martin pulled a pistol from his waistband. Carr, at six feet two and weighing thirteen stone, a tough former member of the 44th Parachute Brigade (V) recalled, ‘I went to his right side and grabbed his wrist. The gun went off and I pointed the gun away from Fretter. There was a second shot and the third went into me.’ The bullet had hit Carr in the top of his leg, near the groin. The officer crashed to the floor and Martin fled, shouting, ‘Move, and you’ll get another!’ PC Carr, a qualified first-aid instructor, pressed down hard on the wound with both hands; it went a long way to saving his life.

  Police Constable Perrie, who had been checking Martin’s false particulars on the radio, heard the sound of three shots, left the car and ran towards the building where he saw Fretter, who exclaimed, ‘He’s got a gun – he’s shot Nick!’

  ‘Everyone turned up,’ said Carr. ‘The FME,1 the TD2 car and the DPG3 arrived,’ and so did Detective Constable Fred Arnold who was the night-duty CID officer covering the whole of ‘D’ Division. ‘I ran up the stairs,’ he recalled, ‘and saw PC Carr being gently positioned for removal by the paramedics to hospital. One of the paramedics was firmly holding PC Carr’s finger in the wound as PC Carr’s condition was weakening. This plugging of the wound prevented a more serious outcome as PC Carr looked very grey and poorly.’

  Carr was taken to the Middlesex Hospital where it was discovered that the bullet had severed the femoral artery, responsible for the main arterial supply to the lower limb. The artery was tied off and after an hour-long operation, the skilful surgeons stabilised his condition; however, PC Carr had lost six pints of blood. ‘The bullet had bounced off the hip bone, went down the line of the groin and ended up between the hip bone and the knee,’ recalled Carr. He was hospitalised for several weeks.

  The offices at Colour Film Services were sealed and became a crime scene; an incident room at Marylebone police station was set up the following day and an investigation commenced under the direction of Detective Superintendent George Ness, the deputy head of ‘D’ Division’s CID. Detective Sergeant Tom Martin was the office manager and the staff included Detective Constables Fred Arnold, Stuart Smith and Peter Finch as well as some temporary detective constables and two female officers.

  ‘He may have been a video pirate,’ suggested Ness in a press interview, ‘as the firm is concerned with video and is in the process of setting up a new venture which is to copy video tapes on a large scale.’ However, he also emphasised that the intruder was highly dangerous, adding ‘A man who carries a gun and is prepared to use it can only be called a potential killer.’

  The hunt was on for ‘David Demain’, but who was he? Nobody seemed to know. No one by that name was listed on the local electoral roll, nor in the telephone book. A search for that name in the ‘Nominal Index’ at the Yard’s Criminal Record Office (CRO) was conducted, without success, as was a search at CRO’s ‘Method Index’ for any likely suspects who fitted that description. If, when Martin had been previously arrested, he had used the alias of Demain, this would have been listed at CRO under the ‘Miscellaneous Nicknames and Aliases Index’, but he hadn’t, so it wasn’t.

  A description of the gunman was circulated on an ‘All Stations’ message and the collators’ indices of the surrounding stations were unsuccessfully searched for a ‘David Demain’. Although Martin had been born in Paddington, he had been out of circulation from that area for many years. In fact, many of the officers had not served at Paddington Green when Martin was active in that area; some had not even joined the police. Police informants were urged to provide information as to the gunman’s identity but this was met with a conspicuous lack of success; Martin was a loner.

  The police could not raid houses in their hunt for Demain, because they did not know whose houses to search. Neither could they apply for the necessary permission to intercept telephone calls or postal mail, because they were unaware of whose telephone calls or letters to monitor. They were stymied for the lack of a name and an address. In fact, Martin had fled to his luxuriously appointed rented penthouse flat, no more than half a mile from the scene of the crime.

  Naturally, following the shooting, the occupier of the premises at Old Bond Street who had confronted Martin a few days previously was interviewed by police; he provided the investigators with the details of the previous tenant, Peter Sarony, a registered gun dealer with premises at 44 Harrowby Street, W1 and he too was questioned, but he knew nobody by the name of Demain.

  Ten days later, though, there was someone who knew that name: the foreman at Pickfords’ warehouse at Fulham who received a telephone call from a Mr Demain who wished to store some items in that depositary. The following day, 16 August 1982, these items were delivered and there were a lot of them: four laundry baskets, five tea-chests, a two-drawer filing cabinet and a large cardboard box, all of them full. Although the foreman was unaware of it, these receptacles contained a large amount of property stolen by Martin during the course of three of the burglaries, including shoulder holsters, security and surveillance equipment and medical items.

  Of course, the police were not aware of this, and were unacquainted with the person who had deposited them. Her name was Susan Stephens, a 25-year-old former model and dancer who lived at 29 Victoria Road, Kilburn. She was also Martin’s girlfriend but this intelligence had not been passed to the police, since they were also unaware of Martin’s identity; in any event, Miss Stephens had identified herself to the staff at Pickfords as Miss Freeson, a name she had used as a model. Stephens had first met Martin, probably in May 1982, possibly at The Embassy Club and had occasionally gone out with him. He seemed, she would later say, ‘besotted’ with her and in November, she would move into a flat at West End Lane, Hampstead. The incriminating evidence remained undisturbed at Pickfords for the next five months. Meanwhile, since Martin had unaccountably and fortuitously come into a great deal of money, he and Miss Stephens were off on a month-long holiday in Ibiza.

  Almost six weeks had passed since PC Carr had been shot and the lukewarm trail had grown cold. Then, on the morning of 15 September 1982, a customer entered Armalon L
td, the gun dealer’s premises at Harrowby Street whose owner had previously been interviewed by the police, and purchased some special ‘Pachmayer’ pistol grips. He also wished to purchase a 9mm magazine but since this was not immediately available, he placed an order for it. Mr Sarony politely requested contact details from the buyer and just as courteously, the customer provided a telephone number and his name, and left the shop. The name he had given, ‘Demain’, instantly rang alarm bells with the dealer who promptly passed the purchaser’s details and his description to Detective Constable Peter Finch at Marylebone Lane police station.

  Now the police had a very promising lead. A check on the telephone number revealed that it was an ‘Aircall’ number; it related to an answering machine situated in an inspection pit, at the bottom of a lift shaft in Wigmore Street, W1. From the ‘Aircall’ company they obtained an address: flat no. 16 on the seventh floor of 1–3 Crawford Place, W1.

  Initially, just two officers, Police Constables Steve Fletcher and Steve Lucas, were sent to the flats; neither armed. Fletcher told me:

  Steve and I found the front door on the first floor at the back. We sat for a few hours, not very well concealed, nattering and smoking fags. We were later relieved by a team of four officers; I think two of them were armed. One of the armed officers was PC Peter Van-Dee, another crime squad colleague. Peter was an interesting man. He had dual nationality – United States and British. I think he had served in the Met, left and joined the police in America – Portland, Oregon, from memory – he then returned to the UK and rejoined the Met.