Eventually I found more regular employment with GKN Engineering as a tool setter and then at Jenkins and Davies Engineering as a welder’s mate. It was hard going, but for an eighteen year old it was good money and the workplace was full of characters and fun. Something was missing though and I could not see myself doing this for the rest of my life. One of my best friends at the time was Billy Horne who had joined Dyfed Powys Police and was doing very well. He would later retire as Assistant Chief Constable for Gwent Police. He was a huge influence on me and I admired him greatly. In 1978 came the moment that changed my life. I had been out in Pembroke after playing rugby and had consumed a considerable amount of best bitter. On the walk home I decided it would be a great idea to remove the lovely orange flashing beacons from a zebra crossing as a souvenir of my day’s exploits. Carrying my trophies I walked the two miles home. Suddenly I was aware of a police car pulling up alongside me and before I knew it I was in the back and on my way to Pembroke Dock Police Station, where I was interviewed, photographed and fingerprinted before being released and told to return the following day.
The worst part of the whole episode was telling my parents. They were proud law-abiding people who had never had contact with the police. The next day I was marched into the police station by my mother and eventually given a caution by the local Chief Inspector who was a very serious and surly character. As I left his office I offered my hand to him, he looked at me and said, “No, I will not shake your hand as I will probably see you again.” My mother was disgusted and could not believe his response. For me it was the turning point in my life. I was determined that he would not see me again. The whole experience had fascinated me and from that day on I wanted to be a police officer and nothing else.
My next move was to contact Billy Horne and tell him what I wanted to do. He was not convinced that I had made the best start for my intended career, but as usual gave me sound advice. Within a year I found myself sitting the entrance exam for Dyfed Powys Police at their Carmarthen headquarters. I failed and was devastated but remained determined that one day I would achieve my goal. I was now twenty and desperate to start a career. Both my brothers had left home at sixteen and joined the Royal Marine Commandos. They had seen the world and had had many great experiences and adventures. I had a simple choice, follow them into the Marines or try another police force; I decided to try my luck with Cheshire Police.
In late 1979 I travelled to Cheshire and after a full day of exams and selection interviews I was accepted as a probationary police officer. In July 1980 I arrived in Warrington for ten weeks of basic training before being posted to Winsford. Although I was in uniform I harboured dreams of joining my plain clothed colleagues in the CID. I wanted to be a detective and in 1982 after a six-month attachment I was posted as Detective Constable 1612 Wilkins to Winsford. It was a very busy town consisting of a number of large housing estates that were the product of the overspill from Merseyside. If you closed your eyes and stood in the town centre you would swear that you were in Liverpool and it was a fantastic place to work for a keen young detective.
In December 1985 my parents were still living in Pembrokeshire and I was shocked to hear the news that there had been a double murder of a brother and sister just outside Milford Haven. I knew the area well and the murders seemed totally out of context for this rural community. From what I could glean, the investigation was focused on tracing a large bearded man seen driving a Land Rover. It was also rumoured that Richard Thomas was involved in a gay relationship that might hold the key to the murders.
The following year I was posted to the Serious Crime Squad and spent a number of years in Cheshire investigating, among other things, terrorist arms stashes, murders and a large number of armed robberies that had plagued the North West of England in the 1980s. I had also married my wife Debbie and we were very happy. Because of my workload I didn’t really keep in touch with the Milford Haven investigation but I was again shocked when in 1989, I saw the news that there had been another double murder in the area, this time on the coastal path at Little Haven. Two double murders within a few miles of each other in one of the most picturesque places in the UK was a devastating blow to an area that relied heavily on tourism. To make matters worse the latest murders had happened in high summer when the area was bustling with visitors. The solution appeared to present itself when, a few months later, a terrorist arms cache was discovered a few miles from the scene. As the months passed I lost touch with the case and the new focus of my life became the challenges of fatherhood with the birth of our first child Emily.
Family life was good and in 1991 I passed my promotion exams to Sergeant but was less than impressed when Cheshire decided there would be no promotion for at least two years. At the time I was still with the Serious Crime Squad working on the case of a murdered prostitute in Chester, when I noticed an advertisement by Dyfed Powys Police offering promotion on transfer. Six months later I was a uniformed Sergeant in the beautiful seaside town of Tenby in South Pembrokeshire.
Dyfed Powys was a totally different working environment to Cheshire and the North West. The Chief Constable Ray White was very proud of the Force’s detection rate. The Head of CID Detective Chief Superintendent Jeff Thomas was a tough, uncompromising character who had a strong grip on all matters to do with serious crime. All appeared to be well in the Force and Pembrokeshire was a fantastic place to work and live. That said the Force still had a dark cloud hanging over it with the two unsolved double murders. It was like having a troublesome relative that no one liked to mention or talk about. Although I had enjoyed my first eight months in the Force in Tenby, I was desperate to return to CID and the opportunity finally presented itself when a post as Detective Sergeant became available on the Fraud Squad. After twelve months I was transferred to Milford Haven CID where I spent probably the happiest eighteen months of my service. Crime there was low level and mainly committed by a small group of persistent offenders to fund their drug habit. In Milford Haven you always knew where you stood with people. They were straight talking, direct and would not use ten words when one would do.
In the new post my three Detective Constables were all fantastic characters. Fred Hunter, Glyndwr Henry Jones and Jeremy Davies: all worked hard and we had tremendous fun. My office looked down the Haven and on my first day I was admiring the view using a pair of binoculars left on the windowsill. Fred came into the office and said, “Sergeant, we need you down stairs to speak to a shoplifter”. I was less than impressed that my new team could not deal with a shoplifter on their own, but wanting to make a good impression I went to the interview room. The female prisoner looked at me like I had three heads and while I went into my best persuasive patter she just stared at me and laughed. “Young lady, this is no laughing matter,” I said. “I am not laughing at that,” she replied, “it’s just that I have never been interviewed by a bloke wearing black mascara before.” The laughter outside the room was a good indication that I had been set up, and to my horror when I looked in the mirror I had panda eyes from the fingerprint ink strategically placed on the eyepieces of the binoculars I had so willingly used to survey the view. I had been caught, hook, line and sinker!
Whilst I was at Milford Haven, this part of North Pembrokeshire was plagued by a number of burglaries where cash and jewellery were stolen; they were all in isolated rural locations and backed onto fields. In certain cases fences were cut, sometimes to gain access, others were left in a particular way to injure anyone who gave chase across the fields and hedgerows. North and South Pembrokeshire are divided by the Milford Haven waterway. The offences were taking place in a small cluster to the north of the county, which suggested someone with a good local knowledge was committing them. Despite the best efforts of detectives we never caught the person responsible for the burglaries. I left Milford Haven promoted to head up Dyfed Powys’ surveillance unit and Specialist Operations Team for the next four years. The new Detective Sergeant in Milford Haven was Steve Matchett, a very a
ble young officer who quickly latched onto the series of undetected burglaries in the area and began a review. He was of the opinion that the offender was responsible for dozens of offences as far back as 1983. Significantly it was also noted that in North Pembrokeshire there had been two robberies on properties where women had been at home alone at the time. The properties were in similar locations to those targeted in the burglary offences and backed onto open fields. Could the same man be responsible?
A major incident room was set up and the investigation headed by Detective Superintendent Aldwyn Jones, a popular and capable detective who was also an absolute gentleman. His investigation skills were meticulous and I would learn a great deal from him over the years. At the time I was a Detective Inspector in Carmarthen and I was drafted in to assist with the investigation. One local man in particular was interviewed a number of times as a suspect but he had a cast iron alibi and sadly after a period of intensive investigation the trail went cold. But we did not have to wait long though before the attacker struck again.
On a dark winter’s night in 1996 Sheila Clark was alone at her home in Sardis near Milford Haven when an intruder attacked her. She lived in an isolated bungalow, Westwinds, on the outskirts of the small hamlet. As she watched television she was confronted by a man wearing woollen gloves, a balaclava and brandishing a double-barrelled sawn-off shotgun. He quickly overpowered her with excessive violence, hitting her about the head and body with the butt of the gun before tying her hands together with rope. He forced her into her bedroom before searching the house for cash and jewellery. Sheila Clark knew her husband was about to return and she managed to activate a personal attack alarm. The man ran off but as he made his escape he was confronted by Sheila Clark’s neighbour. The gunman threatened him before disappearing into the night across the fields.
This was another terrifying attack on a woman at home alone. A large police investigation was launched and the surrounding fields were searched. In the hedgerows officers recovered a number of items that had been abandoned by the attacker as he ran away. Significantly they found a double-barrelled sawn-off shotgun, balaclava, gloves, a rope and a woollen fleece. The police launched Operation Huntsman. It focused on the burglaries and robberies in North Pembrokeshire. A team was dedicated to this investigation and after a great deal of painstaking work and effort they arrested a local man who was in possession of property stolen from a number of the burglaries. His name was John William Cooper.
By this stage I was working in Headquarters and involved in a number of covert operations aimed at heroin traffickers, and only paid a passing interest in the arrest and prosecution of Cooper. It was clear that the Huntsman team and in particular DS Matchett and DI Jim Morris had done an excellent job. As he was lead into court Cooper told waiting journalists that he had been fitted up but in the end he was convicted of 30 burglaries and the robbery of Sheila Clark at Sardis. The judge described Cooper as a one-man crime wave and sentenced him to sixteen years imprisonment.
Because Cooper had used a sawn-off shotgun and attacked women who were at home alone he was considered to be of interest for the Scoveston and Pembrokeshire Coastal Path murders. Indeed it had even been suggested during his trial for burglary and robbery that he was the killer. Cooper was questioned, but with little more than speculation to connect him to the crimes he admitted nothing. It was clear, if the police wanted to take it any further, that they would need substantial evidence to link him to the murders and at that point in time they simply didn’t have it, or at least they didn’t know they had it.
In 2002, I had now been promoted to Superintendent in uniform at Police Headquarters in Camarthen but in my heart I knew that I really wanted to return to the CID as a Detective Superintendent and I didn’t have to wait long before the opportunity presented itself. I saw that the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) was advertising for the Post of Head of Region for the North West of England. Just a few months later I was sitting in my new office in Manchester having moved my family back to Cheshire. Again I enjoyed working in the North West; it was a great challenge with a significant amount of serious crime and dangerous offenders. As a national organisation we provided intelligence on the very top tier of criminals and I had a good team working for me. I had made up my mind that if the opportunity arose I would remain in the North West for the rest of my service. However, this was a period of great change with the NCIS. The National Crime Squad and parts of HM Customs and Excise merged to create the Serious and Organised Crime Agency, SOCA. It was clear that many seconded police officers would return to their original organisations and I had to decide what I was going to do. My decision was made easy because by now I had been asked to run the South East Regional Office working out of Spring Gardens in London and New Scotland Yard. I commuted on a daily basis from Cheshire and it was killing me. As the plans unfolded for the new organisation, for the first time in my police career I was disillusioned with my job. I was spending an increasing amount of time away from my wife and children: this was not for me. At the end of 2004, I had decided to return to Dyfed Powys and had already started to make enquiries with the Force. The opportunity presented itself when the Head of CID retired and I applied for the job as Detective Chief Superintendent, Head of CID. I was unsuccessful, but more than happy to return to the Force as Detective Superintendent, Deputy Head of CID. My boss was Steve Mears, a friend and someone I knew well, with a similar career background to myself. I was really looking forward to returning home.
I was now part of a new Headquarters CID team in Camarthen and soon found that many things had changed since I had been away. The Force was entering a period of transition and renewal and the new boss quickly organised his team. It was clear to us that standards in some areas had dropped and in other areas had stood still. The fix was relatively simple; it was about getting a grip on things and attention to detail. Within a short time, performance had started to rise again and we were soon back at the top of the league table. However, one statistic didn’t read well at all – serious undetected crime in Pembrokeshire. The two unsolved double murders continued to haunt the Force’s otherwise impressive record.
It was a sunny afternoon in the summer of 2005 and the boss and I were sitting in his office in Carmarthen chatting when the subject turned to the future of the department and what still needed to be done. One area of weakness was Major Crime Review. We had a number of historic offences that were serious and still unresolved but unlike much larger forces we did not have the resources to deploy a dedicated team to investigate old cases. What’s more, the police service had become pre-occupied with performance league tables and specialist squads for just about everything and this was taking up a huge amount of time and resources. When it came to investigating major crime, such as murder, our response was to bring together officers from Headquarters and the local divisions. This worked well to a certain extent but tended to draw people away from other key tasks and caused some tensions with local commanders. We both knew that this position was becoming increasingly difficult to sustain and both felt that in an ideal world we would have one Major Crime Team that could investigate the most serious crimes and double up in a reviewing capacity. As we talked we felt that if we were to ever justify such a move we would need the evidence to make our case. Two crimes jumped out at us; the double murders at Scoveston Park and Little Haven. We were agreed that whatever the future looked like, we needed to have a closer look at these crimes. Little did we know at that stage just how important this discussion would prove to be and how events would unfold.
The Elephant in the Room
THERE HAD BEEN A GREAT deal of publicity over the years about legacy cases being re-opened and solved using the latest forensic science. The neighbouring South Wales Force had had some notable successes, including the identification of serial killer Joseph Kappen. In Dyfed Powys there had been some selective attempts to submit certain exhibits from historical unsolved cases for forensic review but they were mainly foc
used on trace DNA and heavily influenced by the Head of Scientific Support. There were also periodic appeals for information and witnesses that had produced precious little. Other larger forces may have had more resources to dedicate to such investigations but for me the position was clear: we had two unsolved double murders in Pembrokeshire and if we didn’t seize the initiative and investigate then who would?
There was also another pressing issue that would exercise Steve Mears and myself. During Operation Huntsman John William Cooper had been interviewed as a suspect for the murders and he was now eligible for parole. What was his involvement, if any? There were many unanswered questions and it was agreed that at this initial stage I would try to get some basic answers and make recommendations in a report to our Chief Officers. The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) recommends that undetected murder offences should be subject to a formal review every two years. There is a considerable amount of guidance and best practice available to assist reviewing officers, borne out of years of experience. In essence there are two types of review process: a full paper review, which examines the investigation in detail from start to finish and a thematic approach, which concentrates on certain elements of the investigation.
The Senior Investigating Officer (is normally a senior detective officer who leads and is also the principle decision maker in any murder investigation. The vast majority of murders are domestic, where the offender is known from the outset and the investigations are therefore relatively simple. The SIO is aware that their investigation is to be reviewed after seven and twenty-eight days and is prepared for this. It is a supportive process and not designed to delay or interfere with the investigation. The review team can be from the same force, in the case of a seven-day review, or from an outside force for the twenty-eight day process and more formal reviews. External reviews provide a transparent and objective examination of the investigation and make clear recommendations.
The Pembrokeshire Murders: Catching the Bullseye Killer Page 5