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

by Dick Kirby

  Further back in the tunnel, Alan Branch saw Martin arrested. ‘He wouldn’t put his hands up,’ he told me.

  Billy Miller recalls being at the end of the platform at Belsize Park when he decided to relieve himself. Just as he was about to do so, he saw Martin approaching from twenty feet away and drew his police issue revolver. Martin stopped in his tracks and it was debateable which of the protuberances held in Miller’s hands caused him the most consternation. As he remarked to me over thirty years later, ‘Good job I needed a slash, eh?’

  Martin, dressed in a dark jacket and shirt and casual trousers, with a mixture of dirt and grease on his face, had been arrested at 8.43 p.m. ‘Take it easy, guys, you’ve got me,’ he said, and after thirty-four days on the run, they had.

  Ten-year-old Jude Campbell had been out rollerskating near his home in Belsize Park and saw Martin being escorted from the station. ‘He looked very scared and nervous,’ said Jude. ‘He was walking slowly. I couldn’t see whether he was handcuffed because of the policeman so close around him. They put him in a red Ford and drove away very fast with the sirens wailing. To think I was looking at Martin’s picture only this morning,’ he added. ‘It was on a poster outside Hampstead police station. I never thought I was going to see him arrested tonight!’

  Police Constable John Barnie was driving the local area car and was told to cover the exit from Belsize Park station. He and his RT operator PC Kevin Rose were besieged by the press demanding information regarding Martin’s arrest but they were unable to assist. A London Transport employee had chalked up ‘Station closed until further notice’ on a blackboard outside the station; fed up with the persistence of the press, Barnie borrowed a piece of chalk and added: ‘PS. Martin’s bin nicked!’

  Safely contained in the back of Tom Renshaw’s squad car, Martin was taken to Paddington Green police station, where he was thoroughly searched. He did not have a firearm in his possession but he did have two knives, a bottle of ammonia, pick locks concealed in his hair and when Davy Walker noticed that Martin had problems speaking, he told him to open his mouth. When Martin demurred, Walker took the simple expedient of pinching his nostrils together, which had the desired effect. Stuck to the roof of his mouth with chewing gum was a tiny Swiss Army multi-purpose penknife. Ruefully Martin told the officers, ‘You’ve got to cover all angles, haven’t you? You can’t blame me for trying.’

  By the time I made my way down to the platform at Belsize Park, it was deserted. ‘They’re all gorn, mate,’ said a passing London Transport employee. So I made my way up the stairs, once more and Alfie drove me to Paddington Green. There, in the charge room, I saw for the second and last time the man I had started hunting ten years previously. We had never spoken to each other and now we never would. He was sitting on a bench, looking slightly dishevelled but relaxed. Martin caught my glance; he looked up at me. I wanted to see if I could detect even a flicker of recognition in his eyes, but there was nothing; just disinterest and he looked away. ‘Ten bloody years!’ I thought, ‘and still I didn’t catch you!’

  But what did my pricked vanity matter? Martin had been arrested, by whom it mattered not, and one dangerous member of society was out of circulation and that was the most important thing. That and my desire for a large drink, the first in fourteen days. As Gerry Gallagher recalled, ‘In true Flying Squad style, we all adjourned to the Green Man pub just around the corner from Paddington Green.’

  The seventeeth-century Green Man pub at 308 Edgware Road was suddenly flooded with extremely thirsty squad officers and as the hour reached midnight, Gordon Harrison recalled the licensee demanding to know who would be accountable for the after-hours drinking. An officer asked for pen and paper and, as Harrison recalled, ‘After writing on it, handed it to the licensee and told him to place it on the window of the door.’ After reading the note, the landlord proudly positioned it in the window as requested. It read: ‘I authorise this public house to remain open to officers of the Flying Squad until further notice – signed by the commander.’ The signature was quite unlike Frank Cater’s which led many to believe that he may not have been the authentic signatory to that profligate document.

  ‘Much later that night and after a few celebratory drinks,’ as Flying Squad driver Tom Renshaw remembered, ‘I took DI Tony Brightwell home, where his wife told me that the following morning, he stood at the top of the stairs and shouted “We’ve got him!’”

  Not only did this make headline television news that night, the popular crime television programme The Gentle Touch was interrupted to inform the viewers of Martin’s arrest. When I arrived home – I was, I believe a little unsteady on my feet – it was to loud acclamation from the Kirby clan. Colourful greeting cards were in abundance and one from my 11-year-old daughter Barbara with the heading ‘Happy Families’ read as follows:

  I will tell you a story. On a Friday night, some of the Kirby family were watching TV. The Gentle Touch was on. Sue, Mum, Robert and Barbara were watching it. The adverts came on, then a newsflash came on. The newsreader said David Martin had been caught. He was chased by policemen. Everyone cheered, screamed and hugged each other. Then Sue said, ‘Get out the drinks and have a toast to Dad.’ The end.

  I doubt by that time I could have consumed one more cubic centilitre of liquid, alcoholic or not!

  The next day, the newspapers were full of it, both at home and abroad, with Oregon’s Eugene Register-Guard laconically noting, ‘Scotland Yard gets its man on fourth try.’ Homegrown publications were rather more flattering in their comments. ‘Martin arrested!’ proclaimed the Daily Mail. ‘Martin caught in tube tunnel!’ cried The Sun. ‘Captured!’ shouted the Daily Express. Steven Waldorf, who had been ‘overwhelmed’ by the cards and messages from well-wishers, heard the news while he was still recovering in the Charles Kingsley Ward at St Stephen’s Hospital, saying he was relieved to hear of it and that now he wanted to ‘fade into the background’. The commissioner sighed with relief. Martin had been recaptured without a shot being fired. It was fortunate that the detectives were all right as well, of course. The hundreds of ‘wanted’ posters for Martin, which had been prepared and were ready for distribution on the morning of Monday 31 January, were not pulped but were put to one side – just in case of any unexpected eventuality.

  But Martin was not done and dusted just yet. Before we leave him in his cell at Paddington, this is what Gordon Harrison recalled:

  I remember going to look at Martin through the wicket gate in his cell and he was one very cool, dispassionate guy, prowling his cell and you got the feeling that he was already planning and plotting what he could do to either escape or evade justice.

  Martin had a few other tricks up his sleeve and he would reserve them for the courtroom.

  Martin – Centre Stage

  Martin was interviewed by Detective Inspector Tony Brightwell and Nicky Benwell; the latter later told me ‘it was an interesting experience’. Nicky, a member of 10 Squad, had a nice, relaxed manner when dealing with people, criminal or otherwise. On one occasion, having received an absolute paucity of information to such an extent that no sane magistrate would ever have been induced to issue a search warrant and believing this was a no-hoper if ever there was one, he simply knocked on the suspect’s front door. When it was opened, Nicky, in his public school accent, politely said to the occupier, ‘Good morning. Sergeant Benwell from the Flying Squad. Whereabouts are the guns, please?’ To his astonishment, the householder replied, ‘You’d better come in – they’re under the bed.’ It led to the seizure of a whole range of weapons, plus a series of arrests for conspiracy to rob which resulted in Nicky adding another commissioner’s commendation to an already growing pile.

  Now he interviewed Martin who, referring to his arrest, said, ‘Believe me, I did not have a gun. It would not have been so easy for you if I had one.’ Asked if that meant he would have fired, Martin replied, ‘For sure. You were pointing guns at me, weren’t you?’

  The officers wanted t
o know the whereabouts of the five missing guns, to which Martin replied, ‘As far as I’m concerned, I never trusted that list I was shown last time. I want to help you as much as I can. I will tell you everything I’ve been doing. There were two other guns – a magnum and a target .22. I’ve put them out to someone but I’m not involving anyone else. They’re locked away – that must give you a clue.’

  Martin was doing what he did best, goading the police by showing how clever he was. He was telling them things that he was certain they knew nothing about; then he could surprise them by generously providing them with the answer.

  As he did in this case: he told the officers to try a security box at Harrods department store under the name of ‘Smith’. The interviewers expressed some scepticism at that, but Martin insisted, ‘No, really. I’m not saying they’re still there, but they were. If you get me a diary, I’ll show you the week they were put in.’ When the box was identified, searched and found to be empty, Martin simply shrugged and replied, ‘I told you I wasn’t sure.’ So it appears highly likely that although several handguns were still outstanding, Martin did not have immediate access to them and this was partially confirmed by his next set of admissions.

  He admitted two burglaries while he was on the run; one was between 21 and 24 January when he broke into Teesdale Publishing, Standard House, Bonhill Street, EC1 and stole photographic equipment valued at £6,721 belonging to John Dunbar – property stolen from that company was found in the stolen Ford Sierra – and the second burglary was at the offices of Guns Review in Shoreditch. Martin had scoured the pages of gun magazines, and also Exchange & Mart, for people who had guns to sell. He found them; but their only point of contact was a box number, which was housed at Guns Review’s office, hence the reason for this burglary. Having broken in and acquired the details of the gun sellers, he photographed their addresses, one in Stevenage, Hertfordshire and another in Osterley, West London.

  These photographs were contained in a spool of film in a camera stolen from Teesdale’s, at a flat above Bottoms Up off-licence in Notting Hill Gate where Martin admitted living. He had moved in a week before his arrest; it was a complete and utter dump. Neighbours thought squatters had moved in. One woman living opposite noticed that the curtains were drawn and that a light was on at night. Mail and circulars littered the floor, as did Wimpy Burger cartons and paper coffee cups. If Martin had acquired his sustenance from the nearby Wimpy takeaway, no one had noticed him. ‘The counter staff serve several people at once,’ commented the manager. ‘They hear the order, shout it up, hand it over and take the money. They don’t have time to study faces.’ Unnoticed, living in a room where an old beige sofa, dusty green curtains and a filthy green carpet complemented the wall-to-wall squalor of the premises, for someone who had seen himself as a modern-day Raffles, this was a consummate fall from grace. Enormous faeces floated on top of a filthy, limescale-encrusted lavatory. Perhaps it was Martin’s way of welcoming any unannounced visitors and at the same time displaying his contempt for them.

  Martin told the officers he wanted to acquire guns ‘because I was unarmed and the people looking for me would be armed’. Asked if he wanted the guns for robberies, he replied, ‘No, for defence, in case someone came up to me.’

  He was asked how many guns he had and Martin, referring to the burglary at the Covent Garden gunsmiths, replied, ‘At that time, I had loads of guns. I don’t know how many. Listen, I’ll give you an example. I found one in the car I didn’t even know I had. I nearly had a fit when I saw it. I certainly haven’t got any now. I took as many guns as I could carry. Can you imagine how heavy they were?’

  Referring to his attempted arrest at Colour Film Services the previous August, he told the interviewing officers, ‘The last time I was nicked, I could have blown them away. They were dead men. The reason I didn’t was they were unarmed and if I chopped them, people would have thought I was some sort of an animal.’ It was as though Martin was giving himself absolution, through no fault of his own, for not murdering PC Carr. At the conclusion of the interview, Martin said, ‘I would just like to say I had no intention of hurting anybody and at no time have I been armed since my escape.’ Martin was charged with fourteen offences of robbery, burglary, firearms offences and attempting to murder PC Carr.

  Alan Berriman was a career CID officer who, together with many others, had suffered under Sir Robert Mark’s despotic ‘interchange’ dictum and now, upon promotion as Police Sergeant 40 ‘D’, he was stationed at Paddington Green. Coincidentally, he had also been present at Marylebone police station when Peter Finch had been issued with his firearm; now, as station officer, he personally supervised safety and suicide visits to the cells, the consumption of meals by Martin and arranged four-hourly visits by the divisional surgeon. ‘Casual conversation with him was kept to a minimum to try to prevent allegations by him,’ he told me. ‘Everybody was very keyed up to ensure there was no chance of an acquittal on a procedural technicality. As I recall, he was resentful of detention and the divisional surgeon’s examinations, even though it was for his benefit. He displayed contempt for everybody.’

  There were two court appearances on Monday 31 January. Martin made his first appearance at Marlborough Street Magistrates’ Court and Stephens, Purdy and Enter appeared at Marylebone Magistrates’ Court. I’d taken the day off, so when I saw the one o’clock news, I was a little surprised to discover that Acting Detective Inspector Richard Kirby had told the court that he had no objection to bail and that the three defendants were duly remanded until 14 March.

  The following day, I mentioned my concerns to Tony Freeman at being in two different places at the same time. ‘Oh, that,’ he nonchalantly replied. ‘One of the press blokes asked who the officer was in the witness box, so I said it was you. Gave you a leg-up, like.’

  ‘Ah. Right,’ I said. I didn’t understand Tony’s reasoning then, any more than I do now!

  At Martin’s court appearance, the interior of Marlborough Street court was ringed with detectives, with a detective handcuffed to Martin in the dock who had, of course, dressed for the occasion: a grey pullover casually draped over his shoulders, wearing a grey shirt and grey-striped trousers. Detective Chief Superintendent Don Brown asked for a remand in custody for eight days. A girl in the public gallery, dressed in a fur jacket, whined, ‘Lies, lies!’ rushed out of the court, refused to identify herself and continued to chant, ‘It’s lies, all lies!’

  Meanwhile, the magistrate, Mr St John-Harmsworth – who once famously told a girl, charged with soliciting prostitution, ‘Young women who stop men in cars in Hyde Park often come to a sticky end!’ – remanded Martin in custody for the specified time. However, outside the court his solicitor, Anthony Blok, stated, ‘He told me this morning that he is deeply distressed at not being able to see Miss Susan Stephens, despite promises which he says were made to him by the police. He says he won’t eat or drink until he is allowed to see her.’

  So there! However, a Scotland Yard spokesperson denied that such a promise had been given, saying, ‘Whether a police prisoner is allowed visitors is a matter for the officer in charge. In view of all the circumstances of the Martin case, it was decided he would not be allowed to see any visitors.’

  It was pretty sound reasoning. It is quite possible that at that time Martin had formed the view that Stephens was responsible for his incarceration, in which case it would have been injudicious at the very least to have permitted a meeting between them; it was similarly possible that Stephens simply did not wish to see Martin.

  Blok also said, ‘There has been much public comment about matters not related to the charges faced by my client. Accordingly, he would like the following to be known: he considers he is greatly indebted to Steven Waldorf, whom he has never met. But for what happened to Mr Waldorf, Mr Martin is convinced he would have been shot in the course of his arrest. It should be noted and emphasised that he was unarmed at the time of his arrest. He tells me that at no time whilst at liberty wa
s he in possession of any firearm and as far as I am aware, the police have no evidence to indicate to the contrary.’

  Detective Constable Mark Bryant was one of the escorts detailed to convey Martin from Brixton prison to court and back again. There was an altercation between the two after Martin objected to being handcuffed. Bryant, who four years earlier had been highly commended by the commissioner after being injured saving a mentally ill man from falling from a bridge on to live railway lines, was a keep-fit enthusiast, an army reservist and a pretty tough character and managed to disabuse Martin of his notions. ‘When I put the handcuffs on him, I couldn’t feel a pulse, he was cold, unblinking, wouldn’t speak,’ Bryant told me. But from these inauspicious beginnings, Martin did appear to thaw. One morning, Bryant offered him a Polo peppermint which Martin accepted and the two men began chatting. Referring to the escape from Marlborough Street Magistrates’ Court, Bryant asked, ‘How’d you get out of that cell, mate?’

  Martin laughed. ‘I wouldn’t even grass you lot up,’ he replied. It was a typical Martin retort; implying mistakes on the part of the police while displaying his own unshakable code of honour.

  This was evident at a further hearing at the Magistrates’ Court, when Martin asked for reporting restrictions to be lifted and told the magistrate – and, of course, the press – ‘It’s been suggested that Sue Stephens could be the cause of my present situation.’ He added, ‘I want to make it absolutely clear that she is in no way to blame.’