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

by Dick Kirby

  Both defendants were charged with attempting to murder Steven Waldorf, both with causing him grievous bodily harm and for Finch, a further charge of inflicting grievous bodily harm; this latter charge referred to the pistol-whipping. Each of these charges carried a maximum sentence of life imprisonment and to all these charges, they pleaded not guilty.

  In fact, there was very little in the facts to dispute; the defendants naturally did not deny shooting Waldorf and the prosecution conceded that everything that happened was as the result of a genuine mistake by the officers; the question for the jury was: were their actions justified?

  Not, of course, according to the attorney-general. ‘It does not matter, in fact, whether it had been Waldorf or Martin because there was no need, in the submission of the Crown, to take those actions at that stage – either to shoot at him, as Jardine did when he was half-in, half-out of the car, or to fracture his skull with a revolver, as Finch did. Whether Finch was standing or crouching, in order to strike Waldorf hard, at least twice, surely he must have been in a position to stop him getting a gun, even if he had a gun to go for. If you are pistol-whipping a man that closely, you must be in a position to restrain him.’

  Sir Michael added that there was ‘a remarkable similarity between Waldorf and Martin,’ adding, ‘This is one of the misfortunes of the case you are now trying. In fact, Waldorf did not know Martin and had never met him.’

  In addition, Sir Michael told the jury, ‘He [Finch] then fired two shots into the rear nearside tyre, deflating it. Why that was necessary is difficult to see. The car was stuck in the traffic.’ It appears that Sir Michael completely missed the point that in situations such as this was perceived to be, desperate men take desperate actions. Simply because a car is stuck in traffic, it does not mean that there is no way out; a car can mount the pavement or – in this case – could pull out to the offside, because there were no vehicles in the middle lane. Unlike police officers, desperate men do not have to observe the niceties of the Road Traffic Act; they can and will drive incredibly recklessly to the danger of pedestrians and other road users, as Martin had already demonstrated. Of course, Purdy was driving and he could not remotely be described as being ‘desperate’ but Finch was not to know this and he had to make a split-second decision and he took it.

  Students attending a firearms course are not told not to fire at tyres but as Acting Chief Superintendent Robert Wells stated, ‘Students are merely told that the action is usually ineffective and dangerous.’ Although television programmes and films depict tyres being deflated by means of gunshots, a fully inflated tyre is unlikely to be hit successfully to cause deflation and even a stationary tyre will resist most bullets fired by handguns. In fact, this stationary tyre was deflated by Finch firing at it; was this a correct course of action to take? With hindsight, it probably was.

  Waldorf cut an impressive figure in court; pale and thin, with a voice that was sometimes barely audible, he nevertheless told the jury that he remembered ‘vividly’ much of what had happened that evening at Pembroke Road. When the shooting began, he initially thought it was between two other parties and that he had just been caught in the cross-fire, but soon ‘It became pretty apparent I was the target. I was trying to think if I had any enemies. The car windows came in and the bullets kept coming through.’

  Susan Stephens told the jury, ‘Everything went white as the window shattered … then there was a split second and I remember hearing shots and thinking it was terrorists.’1

  Giving evidence, George Ness was asked what the police should have done and he replied, ‘They should have made it clear they were armed police.’ Asked whether Finch should have pistol-whipped Waldorf, Ness replied, ‘I do not know. You cannot make an assessment in cold, clinical terms. The adrenaline and blood were flowing that night. He was facing a man he thought was dangerous.’

  He went on to say that Finch had gone against standing orders by drawing his gun and firing into the tyre; he should, he told the attorney-general, have called out, ‘Armed police.’ He went on to say that if there had been any evidence of anyone in the car being armed, he should have told them to stay where they were.

  However, Michael Corkery read out the official instructions for what armed police were to say when dealing with a car containing armed suspects:

  We are armed police. Driver, stop your engine, throw the keys out driver, open your door, put your feet on the road, put your hands on top of the open door and get out of the vehicle, slowly, turn and face me. Keep your arms outstretched. Now walk towards me, slowly. Stop. Get on your knees and lie down.

  ‘Any officer dealing with Martin might well be dead before he got very far with that rigmarole,’ observed Corkery and Ness agreed that that was possible. He also agreed that Finch was probably under considerable pressure, strain and stress and feared what might occur, but told the court ‘What I would expect him to do is put himself in the position of whether it was Martin in the car, without putting himself in jeopardy and then come back to tell me.’

  Jardine and Finch both gave evidence, reiterating their previous statements to the officers from CIB2 and Jardine told the jury, ‘It would have been extremely foolish to have covered the man with a gun and then attempted to overpower and arrest him.’ If it had been Martin, it would have been a contest to see who got shot first and Jardine added, ‘I’m very much afraid I would have to act the same way again.’

  Half way through the trial, the attempted murder charge against Finch was dropped and in summing up, the judge told the jury: ‘I cannot emphasise too strongly there is one attitude you must not have in this case. That because an innocent man is shot, someone must have committed an offence of some sort. That is not so. Let me tell you what you are trying and what you are not trying.’

  The judge said the jury were not trying the issue of whether or not the police should be armed or whether the general policing of law enforcement and law and order were being satisfactorily dealt with, nor were they trying the issue of whether the wrong man had been shot and somebody should pay. The intentions and state of mind of the two detectives were something which had to be taken into account and that could be difficult. The officers were entitled to fire first if it was done in ‘an honest, genuine and reasonable’ frame of mind. A ‘pre-emptive strike’ was justified in the right circumstances. He told the jury that if they were anything less than sure that the prosecution had proved its case, then the detectives were entitled to be acquitted. ‘You must look at the situation as it was at the time, and as it presented itself to the two defendants,’ he said.

  ‘I’d been nervous all the way through the trial,’ Jardine told me, ‘but as I climbed the stairs from the cells for the verdict, I felt completely calm.’ It was Wednesday 19 October and the jury of eight women and four men had retired for 105 minutes before unanimously finding both detectives not guilty of all the charges. As they were about to leave the court in separate taxis, an unnamed detective sergeant patted Finch on the back, saying, ‘That’s the right verdict. They were only doing their duty. No officer wants to cause anyone any great harm but it can become necessary when your life is in danger. If you are left with the split-second decision – if you don’t fire, you are dead; if you do, you end up in the dock at the Old Bailey.’ He continued, ‘I’m sure both officers have the support of the general public who understand the situation they were in. Mr Finch is a quiet, honest, hard-working officer … a happy family man. There is no way he would have been considering revenge. That would be the very opposite of his nature.’

  Opinions following the verdicts were understandably mixed. The Metropolitan Police were delighted with the result, although Assistant Commissioner Geoffrey Dear QPM, DL (later Baron Dear), who had the responsibility for firearms training, added a caveat: ‘We regret the incident. I would like to say it will never happen again. It would be impossible for anyone to say that, but we will do our very best.’ The chairman of the then 120,000-strong Police Federation, Leslie Curti
s, added a cautionary note when he addressed a federation meeting at Southampton: ‘If the only rule that applies to an armed police officer is going to be ‘‘You are on your own and God help you if you make a mistake,’’ then we have a problem.’

  Over thirty years after the event, Neil Dickens told me, ‘In this unfortunate particular event, both the Waldorf family and the police officers and their families were all victims; they all gave their full support to the investigation.’ Labour MP Robert Kilroy-Silk, a spokesman on home affairs, said, ‘What I am very worried about is to ensure that we eradicate any semblance of a ‘‘Starsky and Hutch’’2 mentality that might exist in the police. I am going to raise the matter with the Home Secretary.’ The National Council for Civil Liberties told the Home Secretary precisely how his duties should be discharged, adding, ‘The public can have no confidence that this appalling incident will not be repeated.’ These were sentiments echoed by the left-wing press who, a week after the acquittal, roared their displeasure. Telling their readers that they were ‘startled’ by the verdict, they asked for the retired judge from the Court of Appeal Lord Denning’s views on the verdict. Unfortunately, this rather backfired on them after he opined ‘the verdict was absolutely right’. ‘So be it. As he says, the jury is the jury. We might add, the judge is the judge,’ the readers were told, adding nastily and perhaps even libellously, ‘Mr Justice Croom-Johnson got the result he wanted.’

  But apart from wanting Finch and Jardine hung, drawn and quartered, the newspaper thundered:

  Blame for what happened rests not only with the men who pulled the trigger but with those who sent them out incautiously prepared and wrongly briefed. The whole operation was badly controlled, with an all-but-fatal ending. To those who call this a counsel of perfection one must reply that the British public is entitled to expect the highest degree of care when policemen carry firearms. The senior officers, as well as those acquitted in court, should now face a disciplinary hearing. Otherwise, the commissioner’s – and the home secretary’s – reassurances will not be convincing.

  Probably the most dignified response came from Steven Waldorf’s mother, Beryl. She and her husband Len had kept a vigil at the hospital as their son fought for his life. Now she said, ‘We are not vindictive. As long as Steven is all right, that is all that matters. We feel pleased for the detectives and their families because they must have been living a nightmare.’ In the circumstances, it was an exceedingly generous observation.

  As for Steven Waldorf, he stated that he was not surprised at the verdict, adding, ‘I don’t think I could ever forgive them but I can’t blame them. It’s the system that’s at fault, not them. When you think that they fired fourteen shots and only five hit me – and none of them killed me – that had to be luck. It was lucky for me the police were bad shots. At least, I think it was luck. I don’t know whether we’re lucky or unlucky when the police are incompetent.’

  The Police Federation was furious when on 14 December 1983 Thames Television televised an edition of TV Eye which depicted a dramatisation of the shooting in Pembroke Road. Actor John Arthur (who had played the part of police officers on several occasions) took the role of DC Peter Finch and Jonathan Morris played the part of Steven Waldorf, to whom, not unnaturally, he bore more than a passing resemblance. Waldorf assisted in reconstructing details of the incident, saying, ‘It was a very fair portrayal. It was an interesting experience watching the reconstruction. I helped make the programme because I thought it was something I needed to get out of my system, and it did.’

  The reason for the Federation’s fury was because no decision had yet been reached regarding the ultimate fate, under the disciplinary code, in respect of detective constables Finch and Jardine and claimed that the programme had increased pressure to have charges brought which, if they were found guilty, could result in dismissal, forced resignation, demotion or a fine. ‘ITV is seeking to conduct a trial by television of a case which has already been decided by a judge and jury,’ snapped Tony Judge, a Federation spokesman. ‘If disciplinary charges are brought against these officers there will be no precedent for the climate of prejudice that will surround their case. This programme, with its lurid enactment of the shooting incident can only put extra pressure on the two constables and upon the senior officers at Scotland Yard who may yet have to sit in judgement upon them. The Federation is very angry about this programme.’

  However, the Independent Police Complaints Board, chaired by Sir Cyril Philips (who had already headed a Royal Commission into criminal procedure during 1978 to 1981), sat just prior to Christmas 1983 and the findings of the board matched those suggestions made by Deputy Assistant Commissioner James Sewell QPM, the head of the Yard’s Complaints Investigation Bureau, following a detailed special investigation. Sewell’s recommendations were endorsed and approved by the deputy commissioner, Albert Laugharne CBE, QPM, and it was decided that no disciplinary proceedings against any of the officers would be instituted and the officers were reinstated. However, their authority to carry firearms was withdrawn and it was made clear that ‘they will not be called on to use firearms again in their service’.

  Finch told me he saw Ness once at court ‘and then at home after the trial, saying I couldn’t return as a CID officer. I can understand not being a firearms officer but return to uniform? What’s the difference? I would still be in contact with the public.’ He was returned to uniform duties at Ruislip police station. He was asked to help setting up the Neighbourhood Watch scheme and then took over the crime prevention officer’s job. It was the type of employment that suited Finch, but as new senior management came to the station who were unaware of his circumstances he was sent on Central London demonstrations and his health suffered; he was medically discharged from the force in 1991.

  Jardine resumed duties with the C11 surveillance team until 1988, when he took up duties with the No. 2 Area Force Intelligence Bureau. He retired in December 1995 and moved out of the London area.

  On 14 November 1983, the trial of Stephens, Purdy and Enter commenced at Knightsbridge Crown Court, before His Honour Judge Anthony Babington. To many defendants the judge must have appeared to have been an ‘amiable old buffer’ speaking in plummy tones with a marked stutter; he was, in fact, a remarkable man. During the Second World War, he had a passionate affair with a beautiful 19-year-old WREN. He sustained a terrible head injury following the fighting with the Royal Ulster Rifles around Arnhem and was returned home paralysed down his right side and mute (the speech-related part of his brain had been destroyed) and she refused to see him again. He regained his speech by utilising another part of his brain, learned to write with his left hand, was called to the Bar, and became a prosecuting counsel, a Metropolitan Stipendiary Magistrate and now a formidable circuit judge.

  The prosecution was led by Barbara Mills QC (later Dame Barbara and also the Director of Public Prosecutions), an extremely astute barrister. Stephens was charged with four counts of handling goods stolen by Martin, and Purdy and Enter, two similar charges; all the defendants pleaded not guilty.

  Briefly, the facts of the case were that Stephens had put the property into storage at Pickfords on 16 August 1982, using the name she had used as a model and had paid the majority of the storage charges. However, payment of the charges fell into arrears and near to Christmas 1982, Pickfords sent her a final reminder. She telephoned the company, telling them that she had had an accident and that she would settle the account after Christmas. There the property had remained until two weeks after Martin’s escape from Marlborough Street Magistrates’ Court when she, Purdy and Enter had collected it and taken it to Enter’s flat at Ladbroke Grove where it was discovered when he was arrested. In fact, said Mrs Mills, it was alleged by the Crown that Steven Waldorf had been present when the property had been moved.

  Because of the sheer quantity of the property, two trips had to be made on consecutive days, 6 and 7 January 1983. Stephens had paid the outstanding amount of £74 and Purdy signed for
the goods using the name ‘Perry’ – this, in fact, was his mother’s maiden name.

  On the second occasion, it was alleged that only Stephens and Purdy were involved, taking the property to Enter’s flat which was put into a spare bedroom. The three defendants all gave different stories when they were arrested, said Mrs Mills, plus by the time the police raided Enter’s flat two weeks later, two of the chests containing the stolen goods had disappeared. Detective Sergeant Roger Driscoll told the court that when he had searched the Mini in Pembroke Road on the night of the shooting, he had found Purdy’s wallet which contained the £74 storage receipt from Pickfords. I gave evidence that Enter had claimed that Stephens had told him that the containers held her clothes but he had looked and saw that the boxes contained ‘Martin’s stuff’. ‘I don’t know where it all came from,’ he said, ‘but I knew it was Martin’s. I know he is a villain and I know it couldn’t have been straight.’