Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast - #295: The Good Mum (Nicole Hurley, Primrose Hill, NW8)30/4/2025 
Nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST, triple nominated at the True Crime Awards, 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Channel's Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
Kingsland Estate on Broxwood Way @Googlemaps2025 April2019
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, all set within and beyond London's West End.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND NINETY-FIVE:
On Saturday 9th of October 2021, mother-of-four Nicole Hurley was brutally attacked in her bed; only the man who murdered her wasn’t a stranger who’d stalked her or a burglar who’d broken in, but the jealous and controlling boyfriend she’d loved, lay beside, and raised a family with for half of her life. That night, he took her life, orphaned her children and devasted her family, yet - like so many domestic assaults which culminate in a killing – it could have been stopped, if only he’d got himself some help.
THE LOCATION:
The location is marked with a blue symbol of a 'P' just above Regent's Park. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other maps, click here.
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various sources
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: of #295: The Good Mum Welcome to Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on Broxwood Way in Primrose Hill, NW8; two streets east of Dr Francisco’s killing, a short walk west of the dumping of Rene Hanrahan’s body, one street north of The Blackout Ripper’s arrest, and two streets east of the tragic demise of Kathleen Higgins - coming soon to Murder Mile. Nestled between the Regent’s Canal and Primrose Hill sits the Kingsland Estate, two lines of two and three storey terraces designed in the late 1960s by Sydney Cook, as part of the post-war regeneration of the city. Being brick built with an odd look like 1980s space invaders, many were once social housing but increasingly more are privately owned, being so close to the heart of the city and its greenspaces. As a close-knit community, it deals with its share of vandalism, drugs and gang violence which spills in from less desirable areas, yet the biggest crime to flood any estate is one which often goes unspoken. On Saturday 9th of October 2021, mother-of-four Nicole Hurley was brutally attacked in her bed; only the man who murdered her wasn’t a stranger who’d stalked her or a burglar who’d broken in, but the jealous and controlling boyfriend she’d loved, lay beside, and raised a family with for half of her life. That night, he took her life, orphaned her children and devasted her family, yet - like so many domestic assaults which culminate in a killing – it could have been stopped, if only he’d got himself some help. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 295: The Good Mum. Wednesday 20th of October 2021, 10 days after her murder. With the autumn sun having set in the west, a solemn procession slowly walked to the top of Primrose Hill, their hands and faces illuminated by the soft orange glow of candles. Nobody spoke, as everyone thought the same words and felt the same pain, as they stood at its peak overlooking the city below. All of Nicole’s loved one’s were there; her father Tom, her mum (in spirit), two of her siblings Michelle & Ryan, uncles, aunts, cousins from County Kerry, close friends and good neighbours, as well as her four young children (Jason, Nicole, Violet & Amira) who had lost their mum in this selfish, brutal attack. As requested, the family’s priest, Father Terry Murray of the Church of the Sacred Heart in Kilburn said a prayer, and as an impromptu rendition of Amazing Grace drifted from the hill where she watched fireworks with her kids, over the park where they had picnics and across the Kingsland Estate that she called home, every parent held their child tight as was this something that could happen to anyone. The shock still stung, as a sense of disbelief and horror cracked the voices of those who shared words, and with hundreds turning out, Nicole’s youngest daughter spoke through a megaphone so her fragile voice could be heard; saying “my mum was the best person you could ever meet. She was funny, smart and beautiful. I wrote her name in the sand and the waves washed it away, I wrote her name in the sky and the wind blew it away. I wrote her name in my heart, and that’s where it will stay”… …a family was broken, but their love and strength would hold them together. Nicole Ann Hurley was born on the 1st of February 1984 in Camden, as one of five siblings as well as a vital part of a well-established Irish community of North London. With her late grandmother, Patsy Hurley having come to England from Killorglin in County Kerry on the south-west coast of Ireland, she had been president of the Kerry Association London, and just like Nicole, her family was everything. Raised in Child’s Hill, a leafy suburb near Cricklewood, Claire, who was one of Nicole’s 23 cousins said of their upbringing, “theirs was the party house – they had darts, table tennis, it was the best. We were around there all the time” being a place of love, joy and laughter, and although as Catholics they were burdened by an in-built guilt, their children were raised to believe in something good – family. Family is reliable, loving and trusting, family protects you from the bad, it praises you for the good, and as Stacey, another cousin would say: “your cousins are your first friends, we were all really close”. Attending St Agnes primary school across the early 1990s, aged 16, she left Bishop Douglass secondary after the millennium, and – described as “friendly, funny, gentle and smart” – she worked as doctor’s receptionist and then in the family’s hospitality business. Nothing was a problem for Nicole, as said to be a lovely lady, she breezed through life with passion and patience, she had time for everyone, and – as if her heart played an endless tune – she always had rhythm in her feet and a song on her lips. And although she was earning a good living, it wasn’t what she wanted her life to be. As a teenager, Nicole had fallen in love with Jason Bell. As a couple, they stood out; as she was of Irish heritage and his was African; he was three years older, and where-as she was a petite and effortlessly pretty brunette, being 5 foot 10 and weighing about 19 stone of mostly muscle, he was twice her size. Motherhood came naturally to Nicole, as said to be “tiny, gorgeous… a really strong-as-nails woman”, she could handle any tricky situation with a smile, but not a loud voice or a palm raised in frustration. Over their 21 years together, although they never married, they raised four wonderful children, three girls and one boy, and having moved several times to different flats across the district, in 2011, they found a more permanent home; a four-bedroomed, three-floored maisonette on the Kingsland Estate. Settling into Block No2, they found it to be friendly, safe and welcoming, as being an extension of her own family, the residents stuck together and looked out for one another. For Nicole, it was the perfect place to raise her family, and here they flourished; neighbours said “her kids are amazing, they excel at school and are always helpful. It’s a testament to Nicole as an mother… she was devoted to them”. Residents would state, she never shouted, “she’d say their names quietly and they’d go in”, having learned from their mum to be civilised, polite and respectful. Said to be “the heart of our community… they help carry groceries for you… they offer to water your plants when you are away… they helped build our planters, they go above and beyond to help”. All of her children were growing into thoughtful and caring people, and clearly being a loving family “they’d go to the park and all walk back laughing.” Every part of Nicole’s personality had made her children the wonderful people they became… …it all seemed so perfect, yet behind those closed doors, Nicole was living in pain. For Tom Hurley, Nicole’s father, it all went wrong so many years before, “I feel I lost her a long time ago when at about 16 years of age, she decided to pursue a relationship with Jason Bell. I knew of him and although we disapproved of her relationship there was nothing we could do”. What could they do? As if they had disapproved of her lover, they risked losing their daughter forever, and although that would have been the worst thing that could happen to them, the unthinkable was yet to come. Born on 17th of July 1981 in the borough of Westminster, very little is known about Jason Bell, as none of his relatives publicly spoke about him, or even leapt to his defence. His upbringing was troubled and traumatic, as in 1996, when he was 15, he saw his brother brutally stabbed to death in a callous and cowardly attack, which – at his murder trial – he’d refuse to let psychiatrics assess him for PTSD. ‘He’ should have got the help ‘he’ needed, but ‘he’ didn’t, and because of that, others would be hurt. Across his teens and into adulthood, he amassed 12 convictions; driving whilst disqualified, the assault of his other brother and possession with intent to supply cocaine, as he led a cruel and selfish life of drugs, misery and violence leaving victims in his wake where his only thought was his needs and wants. ‘He’ should have got the help ‘he’ needed, but ‘he’ didn’t, and because of that, others would be hurt. As a gym-obsessed, martial arts enthusiast who was obsessed with knives, he hadn’t the skills to solve a problem, or (like Nicole) the intellect to negotiate a tricky situation, as fuelled by anger and jealousy, this 19-stone hulk couldn’t resolve a dispute by talking, as all he knew was to lash out with his fists. ‘He’ should have got the help ‘he’ needed, but ‘he’ didn’t, and because of that, others would be hurt. Nicole’s father stated “Bell caused our family trouble… we have had to cope with threats from him as we questioned the relationship… (and) although I know I couldn't have saved her, I can't help thinking if only I did more she would still be with us today. It’s a thought that will haunt me for rest of my days”. Nicole always saw the best in everyone, she believed that everyone was good, and although, amazingly she raise four thoroughly decent children in an environment that prosecutor Michelle Nelson KC called “difficult, volatile and toxic”, Bell showed his true colours when in March 2020, Nicole’s mum died. “He had no sympathy for her, and would tell her to get on with life and to move on”, as in his eyes, her priority shouldn’t be her grief and loss over the mother she loved so much, but to look after him. She was all about family, he was all about himself, and although she tried her damndest to maintain a stable life for her children, their relationship was already fatally fractured when on the 23rd of March 2020, every door across the whole world slammed shut as the first Covid lockdown was announced. (Quote – Boris Johnson). “…stay at home…”. From March to June 2020, we were all locked-up like prisoners in our own home, and for those families who got on well, it was fine (some even thrived), but many struggled as tension and frustrations boiled. Nicole was trapped in her home with her children who she loved, and her controlling coercive partner, Bell, who would snap without warning and would violently lash out as one lockdown led into another. By June 2021, after 15 months of isolation and restrictions, a phased re-opening of our shattered lives meant that the world had started to return to a new kind of normal, but although incidents of domestic violence had spiked during the lockdowns, when the world’s doors opened again, it didn’t stop or even lessen, as in many cases, it got worse… much worse. Benaifer Bhandari, CEO of the Hopscotch charity stated “violence against women and girls tripled since lockdown ended and the number of high-risk cases has tripled, too. People over lockdown hadn’t come forward and hadn’t been talking to people”. As Councillor Georgia Gould stated, “violence against women and girls is an epidemic. More than two women a week die because of male violence”, and although a loss of funding for services is key, too often the onus is on the victim to resolve it; by leaving home, changing their details or seeking help. These ‘solutions’ are reactive not proactive, it blames the victims for being targeted and assaulted, and yet, it’s the perpetrator who instigates the violence, yet unlike Jason Bell, they could resolve it. Bell had repeatedly punched and kicked Nicole since their relationship began in their teens, and since, she’d hid the bruises with make-up and long-sleeves, but as one of the neighbours at the Kingsland Estate noticed in the weeks prior, “she always seemed so happy… but had not been smiling recently”. In the days prior, Nicole and her kids spent more time at her sister’s, as family is family, and her family were the ones she could always trust. It was her home and her life, but for the sake of her children, she needed to get away from him as the arguments stretched into days and the violence got worse. Days before that fateful weekend, Bell met Nicole at the park in Primrose Hill, where barely two weeks later, a candle-lit vigil was held in her memory. That day, as unfounded paranoia pumped through his fevered mind, he accused her of having an affair with his friend, Jeremy Drewitt, of being pregnant with his child, and recording the conversation on his phone, he demanded that she take a DNA test. She wasn’t cheating on him and she wasn’t pregnant, as all she ever thought about was her children. But unable to accept the fact that he had lost her because of his violent and controlling behaviour, he was too selfish to see that it was all his fault, and instead of thinking and talking, he would lash out. ‘He’ should have got the help ‘he’ needed, but ‘he’ didn’t, and because of that... …a life would be taken, a family would be destroyed, and four children would be orphaned. It was never said what occurred during Saturday 9th of October 2021, but being so dedicated, Nicole would have done what she loved doing best - being a wonderful mum. Being her children’s role model, they probably played in the park and helped out a neighbour, as life was all about family and decency. Whereas Bell, having converted a room on the top floor of their maisonette in Block 2 into a so-called ‘man cave’, as she fed the kids, sat with them at TV time, bathed them, and tucked them into bed, he probably sat sulking on his gym equipment like a huge moody baby, thumping his punchbag in anger. For some reason, that argument didn’t fizzle out as so many had, so as midnight struck, even though Nicole was dressed in a light top and leggings and Bell in a bathrobe, neither wanted to go to bed. In court, unable to blame himself for his actions, Bell claimed “I lost control because of the things she said to me… she taunted me”, unironically blaming his ‘vulnerable emotional state’ on the very recent death of one of his family members (a nephew), and himself “suffering from undiagnosed seizures”. Yet, his jealously and violence against her wasn’t a new thing, as he had attacked her since his teens. Prosecutor, Michelle Nelson KC summed it up best, stating “the attack was an act of murder motivated by anger and jealousy in the realisation that she was planning to leave him… in short, he was no longer able to assert the control he had”, and unleashed an abhorrent torrent of sadistic violence against her. Although twice her size and weight, he attacked her four times in a short space of time, as at least two of her four children screamed as the monster they called ‘dad’ pummelled the angel they called ‘mum’. The first assault came in the living room, as Bell, a cowardly 19-stone martial arts expert punched his tiny and helpless partner hard in the face, splitting her lip and causing her to stagger. It was an assault she’d experienced many times before, but as she went to their bedroom, he headed to his ‘man cave’. He could have apologised and admitted he needed help at any point, but he didn’t. As Nicole lay on the bed, praying for a chance to sleep, Bell burst into the bedroom and having climbed on top of her, with his sheer bulk weighing down her on, he began stabbing her with his combat knife. Her children heard her screaming “J, what are you doing? J, stop”, as he stabbed and slashed at her, later claiming “she’s done too much to me over the years. I cannot take it anymore. It’s driving me insane. I’m not coming back from this”, as if the total failure of their relationship was her, and not him. Described as a “frenzied, brutal attack on a defenceless” and unarmed woman, and although several deep lacerations slashed her arms and hands as she fought to protect herself, with at least one stab wound penetrating her chest, when she cried ‘J, Stop!”, he stopped with a passive "yeah, cool, alright". He didn’t care about her, he only cared about himself, and although this brief respite from his bloody onslaught gave her time to stagger to the bathroom, struggling to breathe and to put pressure on her wounds with a towel, having grabbed two more knives from the kitchen, Bell commenced his attack. In a brutal assault which spattered the bathroom wall with her bloody handprints, Nicole had suffered 32 stab and puncture wounds, two – to her chest and neck – proved fatal. And although, with her dying breath she pleaded for him to call an ambulance, not only did he refuse it, not only did he stop her kids from trying to save their mum, but as a pitiful last grasp at control, he took all of their phones. Up in his ‘man-cave’, Bell packed an Adidas rucksack with all six phones and two of the four knives, and although wheezing and profusely bleeding, Nicole tried to stagger to the front door for help, again he attacked, battering her face and body until every ounce of her fight to stay alive was spent. And as he left, with one of the children saying “she’s dead”, before he slammed the door, he shrugged “good”. Neighbours heard the screams and called the Police at 12.56am, and although many administered first aid and comforted her children, even with the best efforts of the paramedics, she died at 1.46am. The investigation was headed up by Detective Chief Inspector Jim Eastwood. It was short and swift, as - with knives left at the scene, his fingerprints everywhere, and witnesses including his own children - before the first cards, flowers or teddies were laid by mourners on the stairs to Nicole’s door, the Met’ Police had initiated a citywide manhunt to stop and arrest Jason Bell. He could have given himself up at any point, but he didn’t, as he still had someone else to blame. Through the darkness of St John’s Wood and Kilburn, no-one saw the bloodstains on his dressing gown, as Bell walked two miles north-west to an isolated two-story terrace at Victoria Mews in Maida Vale. Behind a plant pot on the main road, he stashed the rucksack, broke into the home of Jeremy Drewitt - his good pal for two decades - and accused him of having an affair with his dead girlfriend, Nicole. Across the night, the neighbours were unaware that inside of 8 Victoria Mews, Jeremy was being held hostage, that Bell had confessed the murder and that “he said, if I wasn’t truthful, it was going to end badly for me”, as he accused Nicole of sleeping with him and other men, none of which was even true. Jeremy later said “he wasn't making sense, he was rambling and going around in loops, making the same accusations, and the same conversation”, which went on all night, and as – twice – the two men fought, resulting in Jeremy cutting his hip on a smashed vase, he was terrified that he’d end up dead. By the morning, with Bell still paranoid, he was sat by the front door clutching the combat knife to stop his hostage fleeing. Having claimed he was going to give himself up, he took the keys to Jeremy’s Ford transit van, and ushered him into Victoria Mews, only to see that the Police had cordoned it off. Barely moments before, a member of the public had alerted an officer to an Adidas rucksack with six phones and a bloody knife inside hidden behind a plant pot. At that point, it hadn’t been linked to the murder, so a female officer had sealed off the street with tape, awaiting a detective and forensics. Guiding his hostage into the van with a knife in his back, Bell got in, started the engine, and although the officer saw the big box-like van speeding and swerving towards her, she called ‘Stop!’, but barely managed to dive behind the parked police car for safety as Bell breached the cordon and sped on. She called it in, as Bell sped left down Victoria Road toward Kilburn High Road and the Kingsland Estate beyond, but as the van got snarled up in traffic, Jeremy saw his opportunity and jumped from the van. The manhunt was alerted to stop with lethal force (if needed) the driver of Jeremy’s Ford transit… …but the hunt was over, Bell had given up, and having driven to the mental health assessment centre at St Pancras Hospital, he was tasered by Police and arrested. Finally, ‘he’ was in the one place where he would have got the help ‘he’ needed days, weeks, even years ago, but because ‘he’ didn’t, because ‘he’ did it too late when everything had gone too far, because of ‘him’, a good mum was dead. (Out) Interviewed at Holborn Police Station, he blamed Nicole, claiming she was pregnant, even though an autopsy conclusively proved that she wasn’t; he refused to allow psychiatrists to assess him for PTSD, and at 7:13pm that day, he was charged with dangerous driving, driving while disqualified with no insurance. the false imprisonment of a Jeremy Drewitt, and the wilful murder of Nicole Hurley. Tried in Court 1 of the Old Bailey, the cowardly and selfish Jason Bell refused to attend in person, so he appeared via video link from HMP Pentonville. It was said that he sat there “sometimes sobbing”, no doubt feeling sorry for himself as he showed no remorse for his actions. Throughout, he stuck to his ridiculous defence that this was “her fault”, but with the jury deliberating for just 3 hours and 42 minutes, on Tuesday 8th of August 2022, they unanimously came back with a verdict of ‘guilty’. Judge Alexia Durran sentenced 42-year-old Jason Bell to life with a minimum term of 22 years, as well as an additional 7 years for false imprisonment and dangerous driving, and – although he won’t be free till he’s in his mid-60s - the judge also disqualified him from driving for 36 months upon his release. Again, if Jason Bell had accepted that he had a problem (not Nicole) and that he needed help (not her), if he’d embraced Nicole’s way of life which was about family and love, this may never have happened. Nothing can ever take back the fact that, that night, Nicole’s four children lost a mother and a father, but they continue to be loved and protected by good people. A GoFundMe page was set-up to cover the cost of the funeral and also to help support the children’s care, with it currently standing at £47,500, just shy of its £50,000 target. And blessed with a loving family of aunts, uncles and cousins, it is said that they all continue to flourish at school, which would have made their mother proud. This episode is dedicated to Nicole Ann Hurley, a good mum who deserved better. The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of.
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Nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST, triple nominated at the True Crime Awards, 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Channel's Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND NINETY-FOUR: On Friday 28th of February 1997 sometime after 7pm, at 6b Gosfield Street, a brutal and bloody attack on a lone sex-worker occurred in this first floor flat. Barely reported in the newspapers and ignored by television, the murder of ‘Robyn’ Browne is a case which was largely forgotten… yet the truth of what happened could be hidden among a scattering of facts, being drenched by a deluge of bigotry, racism and fear which helped derail the investigation.
THE LOCATION:
The location is marked with a bright green symbol of a 'P' just above the words Soho'. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other maps, click here.
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various sources
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on Gosfield Street in Fitzrovia, W1; one street west of Georgia Antoniou and the ‘deadly soap’, opposite the ‘missing pieces’ of Juliette Merrill, two doors up from the Blackout Ripper’s killing of ‘the lady’ and a short walk from the love-sick arsonist - coming soon to Murder Mile. As a place we’ve been to many times before, Gosfield Street is a mix of five-storey Victorian mansion blocks and townhouses, split into flats and bedsits, being accessible by a communal door. Close to the bustling hum of Oxford Street, it’s oddly quiet, as only residents have any reason to be here, as with no shops and just a few offices, most of the business occurs in the secret world behind its closed doors. On Friday 28th of February 1997 sometime after 7pm, at 6b Gosfield Street, a brutal and bloody attack on a lone sex-worker occurred in this first floor flat. As had happened many times before on this street, being a prostitute, witnesses were few, details were sketchy, the Police were said to be less likely to solve it or even unwilling, and because of who the victim was, the Press lacked sympathy or decency. Barely reported in the newspapers and ignored by television, the murder of ‘Robyn’ Browne is a case which was largely forgotten… yet the truth of what happened could be hidden among a scattering of facts, being drenched by a deluge of bigotry, racism and fear which helped derail the investigation. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 294: Sheer ‘Bloody’ Ignorance. (Writing, voice) “Well, I will tell them the whole story, the truth about 28th of February 1997”. In the few articles written about this case, the basic details of ‘Robyn’s background is so sparse, it’s as if the journalists couldn’t be bothered to research it, or didn’t feel that ‘Robyn’s life was worthy. In short, it often states that “Robyn Browne, aged 23 was a gay transgender prostitute”, and that’s it. In any other case, something positive would be said about the tragic passing of a victim, even a generic platitude such as “he was loved by all”, “she was a good wife and mother”, or “they were talented and had a bright future ahead of them”, but in ‘Robyn’s case, their past and struggle was entirely ignored. James Darwin Errol Browne was born on the 26th of July 1973 in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, a sleepy garden town between High Wycombe and Milton Keynes; notable for its prestigious grammar school, and its links to the English Civil War, the wealthy Rothschild family and author Roald Dahl. For some, it would have been an idyllic upbringing, being very English, very white, very affluent and middle-class. But only if you were of that ilk. ‘Robyn’ (being one of the gender neutral names she was comfortable with) was raised in the Aylesbury of the 1970s and 80s as a mixed race male who was open to his feminine side. Growing up will have come with endless challenges in an era where boys wore blue never pink, played rugby not netball, watched testosterone-fuelled action movies, yet if a boy dared to play with a Barbie, try his mother’s make-up on, or even (God forbid) discusses his feelings, mental health, gender or sexual orientation, the teachers would be alerted, a meeting would be called, and the boy would forever be bullied. In this kind of world, you could never be yourself, you had to be what ‘they’ wanted you to be. That meant being just like ‘them’, even if it made you deeply unhappy, and they had to beat it out of you. As a young boy who would have felt different, ‘Robyn’ needed the support of his family, and although her half-sister Louise was there for her, ‘Robyn’s parents refused to accept her for who she wanted to be, as they didn’t understand it and wouldn’t listen, as it was all about their happiness and not hers. It’s no surprise that – in her late teens or early twenties – ‘Robyn’ Browne moved to London, living in the more-welcoming neighbourhood of Fitzrovia, just across from Soho, the openly-gay capital of the West End; where she was safer but not always safe, where she was less persecuted, and although isolated from her parents, she found a new family who loved her for who she was and wanted to be. It’s a life many of us didn’t experience, couldn’t hope to understand, and some will never want to. Even in 2025, many of us (including myself, being a white heterosexual male by birth) are ignorant of gay and trans issues. When someone says ‘CIS’ or ‘non-binary’, we have to Google it to remind ourselves what it means, and I write this episode being cautiously desperate not to misgender ‘Robyn’ by calling her ‘he’, when she wanted to be a ‘she’. Many of us may think “does it really matter if you call someone who was born a man but wants to be a woman ‘he’?”. Yes, it would be like me being called me ‘Miss’ as it impugns my masculinity, in the same way it would if a woman was called ‘Sir’. We don’t understand it because it doesn’t affect us daily, and when confronted by it, we see everyone else through our own morally righteous prism, we assume that we’re right and they’re wrong, that we’re good and they’re bad, but the truth is, we’re all different. I don’t have a soap box to stand on, except that everyone should have the right to live their life as they want to. And yet, by making such seemingly small mistakes as ‘he’ instead of ‘she’, we helped derail this investigation, and many others. Everything we know about this case, we learned second-hand from a newspaper. We expect it to be factually accurate and unbiased reporting, but even when the journalist tries not to, it creeps back in. The first paragraph of every article about ‘Robyn’ Browne’s murder begins like this… “A GAY transvestite was murdered”, with gay in capitals and transvestite (an archaic term) highlighted early so the reader thinks “that’s why they were killed, case closed”. And yet, a person’s orientation should never ‘outed’ except by themselves, as imagine how you would feel if your loved one was murdered and the Press wrote “heterosexual, but once wore his wife’s bra, allegedly for a joke”. How does that impact a reader’s understanding of a case, when the victim-blaming has already begun? Next, “he was taking female hormones and awaiting her gender reassignment operation”. Again, this often appears in the first paragraph or line, and although it seems an irrelevant piece of fluff as a tired hack races to cram as much guff into the story before the deadline, it has nothing to do with the case. But it does pin the blame for the murder on ‘Robyn’. Many articles state “she used aliases like Darren, Jenna, Gina & Robyn”, with ‘aliases’ being more associated with criminality and felons fleeing from the law, yet they don’t refer to them by what they are; a stage name or persona to entertain her client. Again, normally in the first paragraph, it states that “she was HIV positive”; which wasn’t a motive for her murder, which had no bearing on the case, which again shouldn’t be ‘outed’ and although stating “she did not offer full sex because of her HIV-positive status”, this should have been seen as a plus given the fear around HIV in the 1990s, but it was lumped in with other titbits which demonised her further; like “she used amphetamines”, and “was known to entertain two or three clients at a time”. And again, according to the Press, it was her ‘risky behaviour’ that led to her death, it was ‘her lifestyle’ (as if it was a choice) which made her a victim, and “the cops calling on gays and transvestites to solve the killing of a cross-dressing prostitute” meant the community was blamed as if this was a conspiracy. By the end of the paragraph, the average reader would have little if no sympathy for ‘Robyn’, they’d believe her death was her fault, and it was all because they assumed they were reading fact, not bias… …yet, this isn’t just an anti-gay or anti-trans snub based around ignorance, as the murders of many sex workers are reduced to blaming and shaming, regardless of their gender, colour or sexual orientation. Articles state “she advertised for clients in phone kiosks and newspapers”, as if she was literally asking for trouble. “She worked from a housing association flat”, a line which riled up many tabloid readers to grumble “yeah, and my taxes paid for that”. And “Police still do now know if it was committed by a bungling burglar or a disgruntled client”, putting the blame on her for a ‘bad service’, or by “advertising in the Sunday Sport and Loot” (two very masculine newspapers) and ”dressing in women’s underwear, make-up and a shoulder-length black wig”, that either this was a transphobic attack, her punter lashed out having been deceived by her into thinking he was going to sex with a ‘woman by birth’, or that she was honest about her gender, but that the killer struck having confronted his own repressed sexuality. The same ‘blame game’ occurs with every sex worker, and since the days of Jack the Ripper or earlier, not a single detail of their lives is treated with any decency or respect, as all that the reader thinks is relevant is their name, age, injuries, and what their wounds tell us about the psychology of the killer. ‘Robyn’ kept her client’s names in a black Filofax “with some well-known… and a famous entertainer… who to avoid embarrassing them”, they weren’t called to give evidence. In death, the intimate details of ‘Robyn’s life was sprawled across the papers, yet, although her celebrity clients who – by seeing her for sex - committed a criminal act, they were treated with the respect she deserved, but was denied. It was unfair and cruel, but that bias also exacerbated the investigation’s failure. (Writing, voice) “Well, I will tell them the whole story, the truth about 28th of February 1997. It’s a lot more straightforward than it looks…”. That day was a typical day for ‘Robyn’ Browne, as being the last day of the month but also payday for many, she was expecting a client at 7pm and possibly some others. She had lived in a small council flat at 6b Gosfield Street for a while, being a safe space for those at risk of homelessness, and although few of her neighbours knew her or what she did, Natasha Brentwood, a friend who was staying did. To give ‘Robyn’ space, at 6:30pm, Natasha headed out to meet an ex-boyfriend for dinner, wishing her a goodnight as ‘Robyn’ donned her make-up and a shoulder length black wig as she got into character. Her mood was good, she had no fears, and her client had pre-booked via her classified advert in Loot. At 7pm, the doorbell rang, ‘Robyn’ checked who it was via the intercom, happy she buzzed him in, and as he ascended the communal staircase, two boys who lived with their mother on the ground floor saw a man enter ‘Robyn’s flat – described as white with blond hair, clean-shaven and dressed in black. Neighbours often saw men, usually ‘city gents’ arriving at ‘Robyn’s flat at all hours, so it didn’t seem odd, and with the sound of sex easy to confuse with the thumps and groans of violence, although the boys heard “raised voices” and “stamping” coming from the floor above, it didn’t seem strange. At 8pm, as ‘Robyn’s clients rarely took longer than an hour, Natasha returned to 6 Gosfield Street; she knocked on the door but got no reply, she buzzed but no-one picked up, and having no key herself, she climbed up the wrought iron railings and snuck in through a slightly open window on the first floor. PC Susan Gill was the first officer on the scene and stated “Natasha was distressed and crying. She had lots of blood on her hands, face and clothes”, having tried in vain to see if ‘Robyn’ was breathing and cradled her in her arms when realised her friend was dead, having been violently attacked on her bed. “I could see a lot of blood in the room, as well as large pools of blood on the bedclothing”, and with obvious spatter marks up the walls and some reaching the ceiling, Coroner Dr Paul Knapman stated “there was evidence of a struggle… it’s obvious (s)he had put up a fight judging by the stab wounds”. From the kitchen, two single-edged six inch knives were missing. Stabbed and slashed 34 times in what was described as a “frenzied attack”, the blade was plunged with force and ferocity 9 times in her neck and chest, with one penetrating her breast bone, one piercing her heart, and one severing the carotid artery of her neck, with some of the wounds to her back as she lay face-down, half naked and helpless. Her killing had all the hallmarks of a client attacking a sex-worker… …but even though there was no money missing, a robbery had taken place. The flat was in disarray, there was a struggle but no signs of forced entry. The flat had been ransacked, a drawer had been removed from a bedroom chest, and from ‘Robyn’s black Filofax where she kept the details of her celebrity clients, from the address book, her killer had ripped out pages ‘A’ to ‘N’. Nobody saw or heard him leave, but clearly in a state of panic, he left behind a carrier bag containing a copy of The Sun newspaper and classified listing magazine Loot, which ‘Robyn’ advertised herself in. And with his hands and arms drenched in blood, he had left a bloody palm print on the bedroom door. The investigation was headed up by Detective Superintendent Brian Morris who described the killing as “vicious and brutal… a very tragic case”, and unconsciously blamed and misgendered the victim, stating “in a fringe group, he put himself in a vulnerable position”, a quote many journalists led with. The bloody knives were found in the sink and in a drawer under the hob, a set of clothes were found in a holdall, and although genetic samples were taken and the palm and fingerprints were legible, the DNA was hard to isolate having come from a sex-worker’s bedroom. The Police’s fingerprint database was still – bafflingly – searched by hand in 1997, and with it assumed that the killer must be a client or an associate, their search focussed on the remaining names in ‘Robyn’s Filofax, the bulk being local. Witnesses proved difficult, not only because sex-work is a clandestine and illegal affair conducted by two strangers in exchange for untraceable cash, but with the Press being so biased against ‘Robyn’, very little sympathy was garnered, officers were said to be “prejudiced, relying on stereotypes or lacking any knowledge” of trans or gay issues, and having got the basic details like her name, age and gender wrong, having ruled out every suspect, after several weeks, the murder investigation stalled. Westminster Coroner’s Court ruled it an ‘unlawful killing’, and although open, the case gathered dust. (Writing, voice) “Well, I will tell them the whole story, the truth about 28th of February 1997. It’s a lot more straightforward than it looks and if the evidence is really bad against me then the truth will have to come out which might send me down for a long time”. It was a dead-end, but for the detectives, it wasn’t dead, it was waiting for the technology to catch up. In 2007, a decade later, not only were there significant advances in DNA profiling, but the entire UK Police Force were linked together by NAFIS (National Automated Fingerprint Identification System). Unlike news reporting, a fingerprint can’t lie. It proved a positive match to 40-year-old James Hopkins, a Glasgow-born roofer who matched the boy’s description “white with blond hair and clean-shaven”. Arrested in 1988 for stealing a car and theft in 1993, by 1997 having separated from his wife and being a crack addict, he was desperate for money, sleeping rough, or crashing at the Queen Hotel in Brixton. After the murder, he fled back to Leeds, started a new life with his girlfriend (Donna Abbott) and their son (Jack) as they lived an ordinary life on a council estate in New Farnley, unaware of his crime. Until Wednesday 27th of June 2007, when the Met’ Police kicked down his door at 40 Bawn Drive. In a prepared statement, he told the Police “to my knowledge, I do not know the person or the address referred to. I met a lot of people and went a lot of different addresses due to my lifestyle in 1997. I have never stabbed or was involved in stabbing anyone. I have nothing further to say at this time”. Hopkins refused to answer any questions, but the evidence spoke volumes, as two eye-witnesses had seen him enter the flat, his DNA was found at the scene, his fingerprints were on copies of The Sun and Loot left in the living room, and his palmprint was on the bedroom door, caked in ‘Robyn’s blood. Hopkins refuted “I did not kill anybody called James Browne”, which was true, as James Darwin Errol Browne hadn’t existed in years, but that didn’t stop him from blaming someone who also didn’t exist. He claimed the killer was a Jamaican crack-dealer called ‘Appee’, a violent Yardee who paid him £500 “if I’d do him a favour. He said there’s a girl who had some phone numbers he needed, a book that she wouldn’t return”, being a Filofax full of her celebrity clients who Appee could blackmail for money. “She wouldn’t let him in the flat so I’d go and get him access”. Hopkins said he booked in for 7pm, “thinking she was a woman, but when the door opened, it was a black man in a bathrobe. I asked to use the bathroom and I heard her moving to the bedroom” and while she was distracted, Hopkins said he buzzed ‘Appee’ in via the intercom. Yet, the boy’s only saw a white man enter, not a black man. Spinning a story to make himself the hero, Hopkins said “Appee was struggling with her on the bed. I tried to pull him away. There was a lot of blood coming from her abdomen. Appee made for her again. I grabbed him, this time Appee turned round and headbutted me. I staggered back, Appee returned and stabbed Browne up near the neck. I was in a state of shock. I couldn’t believe what happened”. It was so unbelievable, that somehow, Appee left no fingerprints or DNA, and Police never found him. In court, prosecutor Nicholas Hilliard QC stated that Appee was entirely made up, “the truth is you went to that flat on your own, didn’t you?”, “No”, “You went into the bedroom and Browne said ‘make yourself comfortable’”, which he did, putting down a plastic carrier bag containing The Sun and Loot. “You took out a knife and stabbed that man to death”, which Hopkins denied, stating “where did that knife come from? I never carried a knife in my life”, and yet, we know he took it from the kitchen. Again, Hopkins portrayed himself as the victim, claiming “a fight started… Browne pulled a knife, cut my arm… we ended on the floor, Robyn on top, and somehow the knife cut Robyn in the chest. When I left, she was still alive”. Hopkins denied he was guilty of murder, “I’m guilty of making a lot of mistakes in my life… guilty of not ringing the emergency services… I have never been a violent man in my life”. Yet, with 34 stabs and slashes, of which 9 were wounds to the neck and chest as ‘Robyn’ lay face-down and half naked on the bed, Hopkins claimed it was all an accident, yet the coroner called it ‘frenzied’. Judge Martin Stephens stated "I am satisfied you went there to steal. You repeatedly plunged the knife into her and disposed of her with cruel brutality". But why? If ‘Appee’ didn’t exist, but Hopkins had set out to steal ‘Robyn’s Filofax (perhaps for blackmail), why was her death so frenzied, and how did he know about her famous clients, did he know her or did he read about it in the coverage of the murder? James Hopkins was held on remand at Wormwood Scrubs Prison. Inside, he sent two letters, one to his girlfriend (Donna) and one to his son (Jack), which – like all letters sent by prisoners – was screened by prison staff, and in this case, was used as evidence against him. To Jack, he wrote “Sorry you got involved in this mess. My past has come back to haunt me. Did I do it? Well let’s just say I know a lot about it and how it happened. Whether people believe me depends on a few things”, but he never said what they were. To Donna, he wrote “Sorry for all the shit this has caused you… if I see you or someone who knows me, well, I will tell them the whole story, the truth about 28th of February 1997. It’s a lot more straightforward than it looks and if the evidence is really bad against me then the truth will have to come out, which might send me down for a long time”. To Donna, he initially claimed “I haven’t done it… a criminal known as Pineapple Head or ‘Appy’ did”, which we know was a lie, and on a prison visit on the 6th of July 2007, when she asked “did you do it?”, he told her “yes”, but in a later letter he asked her to change her story, stating "they have no proof I told you anything… this letter is the only thing I'm going to have trouble explaining. Make sure no silly c**t sees it, because this letter will send me down for a very long time”. But by then, it was too late. In a three-week trial at the Old Bailey, James Hopkins pleaded ‘not guilty’ to murder, and although the familiar ‘trans panic’ defence would have been mooted – “a legal strategy where the defendant claims their violence was a reaction to the discovery of the victim's transgender identity” – it wasn’t used. Found guilty by a unanimous jury on Monday the 19th of January 2009, Hopkins was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 17 years. Judge Stephens summed up “You went there to steal property and remove pages from a Filofax which probably contained confidential information”, but everything else “was a web of lies that you tried to create”. Yet, the prosecutor, Nicholas Hilliard queried if this ‘list of celebrity clients’ was actually “a red herring, something fuelled by what the defendant saw in a newspaper, that someone well known used the services of the victim?” That could be true, but is it? Let’s consider this theory. James Hopkins, a heterosexual male who was miles from his home and separated from his wife, saw an advert for a sex-worker in a copy of Loot. He made an appointment, he rang the bell, and (with no knife to commit a robbery), he entered her flat. Hopkins claimed he arrived “thinking she was a woman, but when the door opened, it was a black man in a dress, a bathrobe”, yet he still went in. He made himself comfortable, he didn’t flee, and with ‘Robyn’, a transgender male leading him to the bedroom, half naked, a struggle was heard and the sound of raised voices as Hopkins hunted for the black Filofax. If he was after a list of famous clients to blackmail, why didn’t he steal pages ‘A’ to ‘Z’? Because the section of the address book, ‘A’ to ‘N’, covers his first name and his last – James Hopkins. He was removing his name from ‘Robyn’s Filofax, not because he planned to murder her _ as surely a murderer would carry a weapon - but because as a first-time client with a transgender sex-worker, ‘Robyn’ wasn’t attacked because of something she had done or said, but because Hopkins was unable to accept his own repressed sexuality, and rejected a ‘trans panic’ defence, because it was the truth? The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of.
Triple nominated at the True Crime Awards and nominated Best British True-Crime Podcast at the British Podcast Awards, also hailed as 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Channel's Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
Clarendon Court at 33 Maida Vale @WikiCommons
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, all set within and beyond London's West End.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND NINETY-THREE:
On Friday the 7th of February 1936, 32-year-old Carmen Swann booked a twin room for one night
in Clarendon Court at 33 Maida Vale, West London. Staying in Room 4 of Flat 20 on the third floor, she and her 8-year-old daughter unpacked their cases, popped on their nightdresses, ordered a pot of tea and got into bed beside the reassuring warmth of the fire. Their stay marked the end of a very long journey, and it was here that their lives would cease.
THE LOCATION:
The location is marked with a blue 'P' below the words 'Maida Vale'. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other maps, click here.
SOURCES: a selection sourced from the news archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Ep293: The Mercy Murderess Welcome to Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on Maida Vale in West London, W9; a short walk from the massacre of the coffee shop Madam, one street east of the suffocation of Samuel Bragg, a few doors up from the scattered remains of Hannah Brown, and two streets west of the Kung Fu Killer - coming soon to Murder Mile. As part of the A5 out of Paddington, where Edgware Road stops, at 33 Maida Vale sits Clarendon Court, a 9-storey art-deco mansion block completed in 1917. Once hailed as ‘truly modern’, these high spec’ serviced apartments had their own toilets, ensuite baths, gas heating and electric lights, with parking, a 24-hour maid and porter service, a restaurant and a theatre booking office. It was so posh, residents half expected to ring the bell and have a bow-tied butler dab their peach with a silk hanky at poo time. On Friday the 7th of February 1936, 32-year-old Carmen Swann booked a twin room for one night. Staying in Room 4 of Flat 20 on the third floor, she and her 8-year-old daughter unpacked their cases, popped on their nightdresses, ordered a pot of tea and got into bed beside the reassuring warmth of the fire. Their stay marked the end of a very long journey, and it was here that their lives would cease. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 293: The Mercy Murderess. Good people deserve a good life, but sadly, that’s often not what they receive. Carmen Marthe Alice Swann was raised in London, but born in Asnieres, France in 1904, the second youngest of six children to Athanase Vasilesco, a Romanian tailor, and Eugenie, a French seamstress. As a loving family, they knew their devotion to one another was their strength and although each child (Irene, Lucy, Jane, Carol, George & Eugenie) were born well, Ill-health would plague this cursed family. Shortly after Carmen’s birth, the family moved to London, living in a two-storey semi-detached house at 11 Acland Road in Willesden Green, a middle class area for the skilled and educated. With the older girls working as showroom assistants and trainee dressmakers (possibly in their father’s business) and the younger siblings at school, they were happy, until fate handed them a blessing and a bombshell. In 1910, their youngest was born, being named Eugenie after their mother who died that same year, and although it was never said what killed her, Tuberculosis (known as TB) ran in the family, as years later, aged 25, that same debilitating and uncurable disease took one of Carmen’s sisters to her grave. For many, it began harmlessly enough, as a sniffle, a cold, or a cough which laid them up every winter, but with the common cold still being a killer today and the 1918 Influenza outbreak being the deadliest pandemic in history killing 50 to 100 million people worldwide with 250,000 in Britain many of whom were young and fit, the Vasilesco’s had more than their share of sickness, especially Tuberculosis. For many families, that double-death would have been their undoing, but the Vasilesco’s were strong, and with them susceptible to this disease, Carmen didn’t smoke, she ate well, and kept herself fit. Described as a petite women with a dark bob, Carmen was selfless, a kind lady who put others before herself and therefore it was no surprise to her loved one’s that she dreamed of marriage and babies. Seeking a man who would make her eternally happy, in 1926, she met Leonard Clarkson Swann, a bank clerk 11 years her senior and on 26th of April 1927 at St Barnabas Church in Hendon, they married. He was loving and considerate, a bookish gentleman who was financially stable, owned his own home in leafy Hendon, and although his mother (Maria) refused to accept Carmen into the family, many described Mr & Mrs Swann as ‘devoted’. Shortly after their honeymoon, they tried for a baby… …but the tragedy which plagued them had only just begun. By the May of 1927, with the wedding flowers at their matrimonial home at 3 Hurst Close still in bloom, being newly-weds, Carmen & Leonard conceived a child in happiness and love. It was the perfect little place to raise a baby, and although several issues naturally worried Carmen – an infant mortality rate of 1 in 10, and a small risk of developing TB – there were other ‘potential’ issues to her baby’s health. One month later, in June 1927, Carmen’s brother-in-law suffered an epileptic fit, a seizure so strong, it debilitated his brain and his body. It was the first of many for him, but what if this was hereditary? Two months later, Carmen discovered that her mother-in-law (who hadn’t attended the wedding) was a long-term patient at the Winchelsea asylum having been certified as insane, and although it was never stated what type of mental illness had confined her, Carmen wondered was this hereditary too? A brother and a mother were both mentally unwell, and then there was her husband, Leonard; a lovely man who had bravely served his country as a Private in the Norfolk Regiment, but unlike the millions of men who sacrificed their lives in the First World War and were returned home in plain wooden boxes, those who had ‘survived’ came back not only physically broken, but mentally and emotionally. It was like he was two different people; a softly-spoken gentlemen who soothed her with a warm hug and a soft kiss, but - triggered by a smell of sulphur, a pained cry or even a slight bang – his nightmares flooded back, his body trembled, he screamed and he was sodden in sweat, as an uncontrollable rage turned this mild-mannered man into a monster. Back then, no-one understood PTSD (or shellshock as it was called), so with no counselling, the more he was forced to suppress his trauma, the worse it got. That same summer that his brother and mother were hospitalised, Leonard was committed to several hospitals for the mentally unwell in London, and although sometimes they made progress and other times they didn’t, being heavily pregnant, Carmen couldn’t help but wonder if this was hereditary too? But with her baby was growing inside of her, she wouldn’t know that, until it was born. On the 15th of January 1928, Carmen gave birth to a daughter who they named Valerie. She was small, pink and podgy, she had no issues eating or sleeping, and as could be determined by the ear-splitting shrill of its wailing, her lungs were healthy and well-developed. Those early days as a new mum were predictably stressful and exhausting for Carmen having a newborn baby and a mentally sick husband, but as ‘Black Thursday’ plunged the whole world into The Great Depression, things only got worse. As a bank clerk, Leonard’s stress level rose, his anger spewed and having suffered a mental breakdown, the bank put him on sick leave. Paying him a year’s salary to ensure Carmen & Valerie were secure, they also bared the costs of committing him to Graylingwell Mental Hospital near Southsea with what was diagnosed as ‘battle neurosis’. Amidst its quiet confines, he began to recover, but after just four days of rest, he suffered another breakdown when he found a fellow patient hanging from the walls. Times were hard for Carmen, Leonard couldn’t return to work, and although – as a proud man – he managed to make £200 selling second-hand cars, by January 1931, being forced to sell their home, they moved to the less desirable district of Hornsey and Carmen had to earn a pittance as a secretary. Carmen’s siblings helped as best they could, but Leonard’s family didn’t, so if it hadn’t been for the Bank Clerk’s Orphanage, a fund set-up in 1883 to help the children of sick or deceased bank workers, they would have been homeless, hungry, and – with Leonard’s war-trauma causing him to spiral into a deeper, more aggressive depression - 3-year-old Valerie may have seen things a child shouldn’t see. At Carmen’s request, they paid for Valerie to attend a boarding school in Stanmore, where – although she would be miles away from her mother’s cuddles for months on end – she would be fed, educated and safe, as that year, unable to quell his escalating rages which came out of nowhere, mild-mannered Leonard not only began to beat Carmen, but in October 1931, twice he had tried to kill her; once by strangling, and another time, by turning on the gas taps, believing it was best “if we die together”. He wasn’t arrested, as she knew it wasn’t fault, but the war-time horrors he’d endured which plagued his mind. Prescribed strong sedatives which left him little more than a dribbling vegetable, that month, they were evicted, and although each time he hurt her, it made him sicker, his nightmares didn’t stop. That Christmas, with Valerie home from school, they did their best to make their family seem normal and safe. They had a tree, decorations and a few presents in their sparse room at 15 Woodland Rise in Muswell Hill, and with Leonard dosed on tranquilisers, no-one was hurt, as all he could do was cry. On 15th of January 1932, they organised a little party to celebrate Valerie’s 4th birthday, only her daddy didn’t turn up. Concerned, Carmen went home, and found his body hanging from the bathroom door, a makeshift noose around his neck made from his belt, and being so gripped with shock, she collapsed. In those four years of marriage, she’d witnessed more pain than most people experience in a lifetime… …but the tragedy which plagued her was far from finished. Leonard’s death had left Carmen as an unemployed widow with a child to raise alone and she was only 28 years old. His modest life insurance had helped, but the stress and trauma she had endured had exacerbated her own ill-health, leading to depression, exhaustion and frequent chest infections. Unable to find a home for herself and Valerie when she returned home at the weekends, Carmen’s brother George (an unmarried man who earned a good living as a surveyor for the Prudential) bought a flat at 7 Carlton Road in Maida Vale “so she could live with me, I thought she shouldn’t live alone”. Carmen didn’t like asking for help or accepting charity, but unable to work and with their savings gone, as she got weaker and paler, all she could do was lie listlessly in her bed as her dark moods festered. Despite the trauma she had seen, Valerie grew into a loving girl who doted on her mother; when they were apart, they cried, but when together, they were inseparable. Carmen so wanted her to do well, but she couldn’t help but worry; as every time her daughter coughed, she was convinced it was TB, and said to be “hysterical over trivialities”, she wondered if her husband’s madness was in her blood? She was reassured as Valerie seemed fit and well… unlike Carmen who was being ravaged by an old and familiar ill. It started as a sniffle, a cold and a cough. Developing over the winter into Influenza, Carmen was x-rayed at the Middlesex Hospital in Fitzrovia where she was diagnosed with Tuberculosis, the same bacterial infection which had taken her sister, possibly her mother, and which with no cure or antibiotics invented for another 15 years, it could only be controlled with rest or a major operation. From the winter of 1932, Carmen spent six months as a patient at the Royal National Hospital on the Isle of Wight, with the bright sunlight, the sea breeze and the warm wind soothing her aching lungs. Returning to her brother’s flat, over the summer of 1933, she savoured the time with her daughter, watching her play in the park from the window and trying to read her a bedtime story without coughing, but with the polluted city air causing her lungs to wheeze and her cough to hack so it felt as if she was inhaling rusty razors, in October 1934, she was admitted to the King Edward VII Sanitorium on the south coast, a well-respected hospital for the long-term convalesce of those suffering from TB. After a six month stay, the city air had again reduced her to ruins, and being re-admitted in April 1935, although her initial diagnosis was advanced tuberculosis of the right lung which could only be cured by the removal of that lung (an operation which - with only £12 left – she couldn’t afford), it was in October that Carmen – whose short life had been an unparalleled tragedy - received the bad news. Tuberculosis had spread to her left lung, and – at best - she had only six months to live… …she was 32 years old, and her young daughter wasn’t even eight. On the 31st of October 1935, Carmen moved to the Connaught Hotel in Bognor Regis, a private hotel on The Esplanade, inches from the beach and a few feet from the sea. Its tranquil calm soothed her, as with her brother funding the operation with only “a slim chance of recovery”, her odds were not great, so until then, she would rest her lungs, but every day without her daughter, it broke her heart. Irene Reynolds, the owner said that some days Carmen walked unaided, other days she needed help, but most days she hadn’t the strength to get out of bed so simply lay there staring into the void. Some nights she slept, often she didn’t, and the only time she seemed to perk was when school broke up. With that Christmas being her last ever Christmas, at her bedside, she received the best present she could hope for – her 8-year-old daughter Valerie, and although she hadn’t the strength to buy presents or to pop up a tree, just being together was the greatest gift that both of them could have hoped for. It was a quiet, but perfect little Christmas… until Valerie began to wheeze. It began harmlessly enough as a sniffle, a cold or a cough which had laid them up every winter, until the young girl (who many said was the spit of her mother) began breathing painful razors and hacking up a brown and reddish mucus. Dr Blackburne diagnosed it as bronchitis, which it was, but Carmen knew that’s how it began, that old familiar ill which had taken her sister, possibly her mother, herself and was coming for her only child. By January 1936, letters were being exchanged by physicians on the best date for Carmen’s operation at the Brompton Hospital and her convalescence at the King Edward VII, not knowing that it would all be in vain. Plagued by sleeplessness, headaches, pains, a fever and other additional ills, Dr Blackburne gave Carmen & Valerie the medication they needed to get them on the road to some kind of recovery.
…only her call would never come. With enough strength to stand and to shuffle in slow painful steps, on Friday 7th of February, after lunch, she had her trunk sent to her brother’s, Carmen & Valerie caught the 3:20pm train to Waterloo, but instead of returning to his flat – with what she had to do being a private thing - they didn’t arrive. That evening, they both checked into a twin room for one night at the Clarendon Court in Maida Vale, signing in as “Mrs and Miss Swann”, they ordered some soup from room service, a box of matches, and being a woman who thought of others, she paid in advance so as not to inconvenience the owner. That night, in Room 4 of Flat 20, they got into their nightdresses, at 9:15pm Carmen called down for a pot of tea, and with the waitress delivering it at 9:30pm, that was the last sighting of them both alive. Not wanting the staff, especially the 15-year-old waitress to witness the scene, Carmen bolted the door from within, and as Valerie played with her dolly, Carmen placed three letters in calm and legible handwriting on the bedside table. Tying up all her affairs; one was the final account for the Bank Clerk’s Orphanage, one was her Last Will & Testament, and the last one was addressed to the Coroner. With residents on either side, no-one heard any screams or any crying. Inside, Carmen crushed up the pills (including the Veronal) she’d got from Dr Blackburne having claimed she couldn’t sleep, and as they drank it together, she kissed her daughter goodnight and goodbye, as she watched her fall asleep. At the inquest, they called it a ‘murder’, but this was Valerie’s wish. For half of her life, she had been apart from her mother, and now with her dying, she’d said “mummy, are you going to die? If you do, take me with you, please don’t leave me behind, and we can both be with daddy”. So, once Carmen was certain that her baby was asleep, with the windows shut tight, Carmen turned the gas taps on. They didn’t cough or choke, and for the first time in years, they were without misery or pain. The next day, with the maid finding the door bolted, at 2:30pm, the manager had the porter force it, and once inside, they found both mother and daughter lying in bed; their skin cold and pale, the bodies motionless, the remnants of sleeping pills in a drained cup, three letters (one a will and another a suicide note), with a faint but expired smell of gas, and Valerie long dead her dolly cradled in her arms. The Police arrived at 3:35pm, with Dr Alexander Baldie (the Divisional Surgeon) arriving to certify them both as dead. To the Coroner, the letter said “I cannot fight tuberculosis any longer, neither can I leave my baby alone in the world”. To her brother, George, she’d written “we are to be cremated and our ashes thrown to the winds. My lungs have gone phut and I have not the money to look after Valerie”. She requested a Church of England funeral, she assigned each of her personal affects to her surviving siblings, her brother got her furniture and on the envelope she wrote “anything left give to my father... with the cash in the bank and in the home safe to cover our interment. With love, Carmen Swann”. Her sickness had taken her health, but she was damned if it was to take their lives… …only, with the gas on a coin-meter having expired during the night, Carmen wasn’t dead. With her lips blue, her pulse faint, but her lungs still breathing, using artificial respiration to keep her live, at 3:52pm, she arrived at St Mary’s in Paddington, and although in a critical condition, Dr Willcox made her vomit to get the drugs out of her system, and slowly, she began to make her recovery. Groggy but lucid, Carmen confessed “I was absolutely right in what I did. My conscience is perfectly clear. It is ridiculous for me to go on. I cannot see how any law can condemn me for what I have done”. An autopsy by Sir Bernard Spilsbury confirmed that Valerie had died “due to a combination of Veronal and carbon monoxide poisoning”, she had no injuries or bruises, “and was a well-cared for child”. On Saturday 15th of February, having been discharged from hospital, Carmen Swann was arrested. (Out) On Tuesday 24th of March 1936, she was tried at The Old Bailey charged with attempted suicide and the wilful murder of her daughter, at which, she pleaded guilty, gave no defence, and asked that her lawyer not plead a case of insanity, as although gravely ill, she was very aware of her deadly actions. Permitted to sit as the evidence was cross-examined, Carmen (whose dark bob had greyed) had to be aided as she entered the court, she looked pale, frail, often fainted, and hadn’t the energy to lift her head. St John Hutchinson for the defence stated “her life constituted one of the bitterest, most terrible tragedies that we have ever heard. From the day she married, fate seemed to be fighting against her”. So tragic was her tale, that many of the jury were in tears, sobs were heard from the gallery, and even Justice Hawke, a veteran judge of some 30+ years was seen to cover his face as her woes spilled out. Found guilty, she was sentenced to 8 days in prison for attempted suicide, and for the murder of her daughter - without any irony given that her Tuberculosis had already sentenced her to death – Justice Hawke knew it was unjust, but as he donned his black cap, he decreed she be “executed by hanging”. Stating, “I have no alternative but to pass sentence, but it will be for others to consider your future”, of which he was right. As Carmen was led down to the cells, so strong was the support for her plight, that within 24-hours, the King himself had reprieved her, and she was released to a sanitorium. The Home Secretary stated “she will spend her final days where specialists will do their utmost to save her life”, and although a public fund was set-up to aid her recovery at the best clinic in Switzerland, after almost a year, on an undisclosed date, she succumbed to her sickness and joined her daughter. Years later, it was discovered that Tuberculosis isn’t hereditary, but that it can be contagious. The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of.
Triple nominated at the True Crime Awards and nominated Best British True-Crime Podcast at the British Podcast Awards, also hailed as 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Channel's Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
The dead-end of Caxton Road in Shepherd's Bush, W12 (@Googlemaps2025 / April 2024)
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, all set within and beyond London's West End.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND NINETY-TWO: Saturday 19th of December 1992 at 2:20pm, behind a wooden hut at White City bus depot off Caxton Road in Shepherd's Bush, the body of 32-year-old successful Peter Wickins was found, he was naked except for a pair of socks and had been stabbed 19 times. The Police assumed because he was a millionaire dressed in a tuxedo and that his Rolex watch was missing, that it must be a robbery gone wrong. But it led to a story which was much darker, as one of life’s winners... met one of life's losers.
THE LOCATION:
The location is marked with a blue symbol of a 'P' just under the words 'Shepherd's Bush'. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other maps, click here.
SOURCES: a selection sourced from the news archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on Caxton Road in Shepherd’s Bush, W12; one street north of the First Date Killer’s garage, two streets west of the Devil’s Child’s home, a few doors down from the Shoe Box Killer’s last murder, and a short walk from the charred remains of the deadbeat - coming soon to Murder Mile. Beyond the dead-end that is Caxton Road stands Westfield, 2.6 million square feet of shops for the middle classes. To keep the yummy mummy’s in and the ne’er-do-wells out, there’s no chicken shops, arcades or doss holes where bored ‘yoofs’ can sit for hours listening to the same beat through a tinny speaker, where they walk like they’ve had a stroke as their baggy trousers scrape along the floor, and talk like old grannies (“oh my days bruv”/“oh my days Enid”, “dygetme bruv”/“what did you say Enid?”). Prior to its opening in 2008, this was the White City bus depot, a vast terminus where the buses parked up overnight to be washed, cleaned and refuelled, yet all that remains are the large red-brick Grade II listed Dimco buildings, which stood in for the ACME factory in the film ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’. It’s a wonderful movie full of merriment, mirth and joy, and yet, just six years later, that same location would – in real life – become a scene of abject horror, as a good man had suffered a terrifying death. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide and this is Murder Mile. Episode 292: One of Life’s Winners. Saturday 19th of December 1992 was the last weekend before Christmas, and although every ounce of festive cheer was being wrung-out like tepid water from a dirty dishcloth, a half-cut Santa in a filthy polyester suit and the ear-splitting wail of ungrateful sprogs only made the mood more grim, because as happens every Christmas, there was no snow, just grey cloud, howling wind and a perpetual drizzle. Surrounded by two-storey houses, Caxton Road was abruptly halted by an unmanned iron gate leading to the bus depot, and although inaccessible to passengers, it was always busy, since night buses began in 1913. At 2:20pm, having parked up his Routemaster, bus-driver Patrick McConnell headed from the garage, passed a 30 foot patch of scrubland beside the gate, and towards ‘the hut’, a small pre-fabricated shed made of hardboard. It was basic, being fitted with a kettle, cups, tea, newspapers and (if it was actually working) a gas powered heater, and kept the drivers warm and occupied during their tea-breaks. But it was as Patrick approached the gate, that something sinister made his blood run cold – a dead body. Face down lay the body of a man in his 30s, his pale skin rippled with a blue hue stood out against the nettles and thorns, there was no attempt to hide him as he wasn’t covered in leaves, a coat or an old tarpaulin, and as Patrick stated “if it’d been put 20 yards in, it wouldn’t have been found for a year” With the Police alerted, the investigation was headed up by Detective Superintendent Brian Edwards. There were several theories which sprung to mind; first, being a courtyard where “no-one could enter without being seen”, drivers stated that “it definitely wasn’t there at 11pm” when the night shift came on duty, so why was he dumped there, was it deliberate or did his killers panic? Second; being naked except for a pair of black socks, possibly he was gay, only there was no evidence of a rape. Third, with an autopsy proving he’d been stabbed five times in the chest with 14 additional wounds to his hands, arms and face, that he’d been attacked with violence and hatred. And fourth, having been stripped of his watch, wallet and any ID, was this a gangland hit, a business rival or a robbery which went wrong? With a faint drizzle having washed away any usable DNA and the body without tattoos or birthmarks, the Police had no idea who he was, but with his hair neat, his teeth good and his physique healthy and groomed, being clearly affluent, the victim wasn’t the kind of man who would go missing for long. Peter Wickins was one of life’s winners. Born in the cathedral city of Chichester in West Sussex on the 10th of July 1960, Peter James Wickins was the youngest of six children to John & Mary. Raised in an upper-middle-class family, although born into privilege, he wasn’t entitled or arrogant, and never took money as something to be squandered. Described as a handsome boy with an easy smile, although educated at Seaford, a prestigious public school, his friends said he was “cheerful and straightforward”, he was clever but not boastful, popular but not attention-seeking, his nickname was ‘Gummage’ (after Worzel Gummage) but he wasn’t the type to hold a grudge so he took it as harmless fun, and being well respected, “he delighted everyone with his innate charm and gentle nature… being a man of talent, spontaneity, joy and moral fibre”. What made him so well-adjusted was his upbringing, as with his father, John, alongside his dad’s brother David, being the co-founder of British Car Auctions Ltd, the world’s biggest used car auction – despite their father’s tragic death when they were teens – from the ashes of the Second World War, they build an empire off the back of hard work and graft, and living a good life, they both retired early. As a mini mirror of his father, money didn’t spoil Peter, as struggle and success was in his blood. Leaving school aged 16 with several O’Levels, he could have gone to college then university, but didn’t, as what he wanted was to run his own business. His father said, “he did well, he had tried a few things that didn’t come to anything, but he was determined to find his own ideas and make them succeed”. In 1990, following the worldwide launch of the Super Nintendo games console, having already made a killing selling Ludo and Monopoly, Peter and his business partner Neil Taylor set up a company called Game, a computer and board game retailer which over the next two years expanded from an office in Surbiton to 13 high street stores across the UK, and that year, it was expected to turnover £14 million. But for Peter it wasn’t all about profit, as being proud and respected, Dawn, a former employee would say “he was always grateful for anything you did, he was not someone to look down on you… he was very dedicated… and used to say to me ‘just imagine, when we get big, you can say I started here’”. By his early 30’s, Peter was a multi-millionaire, although anyone who passed him in the street wouldn’t know it; as his clothes were stylish but not flashy, his manner was polite and humble, he drove an 8-year old Mercedes 190-E as it was reliable, he lived in an unassuming one-bedroomed flat at 352 King’s Road, and although he owned a little cottage called Bakers Barn in the leafy Hampshire village of Kingsley, he let his friend Emma live there on the condition that he could stay if he needed a retreat. Some thought that Peter and Emma were a couple, but they weren’t. With his parents having been happily married for 50 plus years, he steered away from romantic relationships and in the Leap Year of 1988, he even turned down a proposal from Jessica Sainsbury, heiress to the £2 billion Sainsbury’s supermarket empire, as being so focussed on his business, he didn’t want it to ruin any marriage. As the Christmas of 1992 approached, Peter was busy having opened a new shop in Aberdeen. Profits were up and the future looked great with new games like Terminator 2, Spiderman and Alien 3 hitting the shelves, and as the cherry on the cake, his company had been nominated as 'Retailer of the Year'. As one of life’s winners, Peter was reaping his well-earned rewards… …but it all came crashing down, when he bumped into one of life’s losers. Sealed off by Police tape, his naked body lay among the nettles, dumped behind a bus drivers ‘hut’. Photos were taken, swab samples examined and more than 400 potential witnesses were interviewed, but by the first week of January, detectives had no idea how he had got there nor who had killed him. Keen to establish a timeline, they appealed for any taxi-drivers who may have picked him up that night with Peter’s father offering a £15000 reward for information “praying it finds our son’s murderer”. As for the initial theories, being a charming and hard-working businessman, he had no known enemies who wished him ill; he didn’t lead a secret life as a homosexual, in fact with adult magazines in his flat, it was known that he used of high-class prostitutes; but most likely, because of how he was dressed and that his wallet, gold-cufflinks and a £7000 Rolex watch was missing, a botch robbery seemed likely. Friday 18th of December 1992 was a special day for Peter Wickins. Immaculately dressed in a tailored tuxedo with shiny shoes, cummerbund and a bow tie, as he entered a pre-awards cocktail party in Chelsea, he looked like the millionaire he was, and although he didn’t like getting tarted up like a penguin, tonight was about the recognition he deserved for his hard work. Arriving at the Portman Hotel in Marylebone at 7pm, Peter and a colleague joined a table of ten in the beautifully-bedecked ballroom, surrounded by three journalists from Computer Weekly. The night was about business, but having earned it, he kicked back with a few flutes of bubbly, a swanky dinner of palette de salmon fume and parfait amaretto, they were entertained by the band Atlantic Soul Machine as well as comedians Frank Carson and Jack Dee, and to top it all off, that night, they won. Game, his company won ‘Retailer of the Year’, after just two years in business, smashing its rivals. He accepted the award on behalf of his team, he gave a very gracious speech, he shook hands with his fellow nominees without sounding like he was gloating, and although the awards finished at 10:30pm, he carried on knocking back the bubbly until the bar had shut and the last of the stragglers had gone. At 2:30am, he said his goodbyes, and with his speech slurred but his mood jubilant, he hopped into a cab. It was there that the investigation into his movements ended, as he disappeared into the night… …but no-one can truly vanish, especially one of life’s winners like Peter Wickins. It took two months, a terrified witness and a simple mistake by his killer to pin down his final moments, and although detectives had scoured every place he was said to frequent, he was only 6 minutes away. Flagging down a taxi, at his request, he was dropped off beside the London Hilton. He wasn’t staying at the hotel, but the junction of Park Lane and Hertford Street is a regular pick-up place for prostitutes, and with no woman in his life to celebrate his good fortune, he sought out a high-class sex-worker. As a tall and willowy brunette in a black sequined mini-dress, a fur coat, stockings and suspenders, 32-year-old Frances Graham later said “he came towards me and asked ‘what’s a nice girl like you doing up here?”, I said ‘what’s a nice boy like you doing likewise?’”. He liked her, she thought he was kind, a price was agreed (£250) and he got into her battered old Ford Fiesta and was driven to her flat. Like Peter, she came from privilege. Born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, Frances Wright was the daughter of Jimmy Wright, one of the pioneers of the British brick industry and chairman of Blockley’s in Telford. Raised in wealth, she was educated at a private grammar school where she attained three A-levels, and dreaming of becoming a model, she moved down south to study at the London Institute of Beauty. But whereas Peter’s upbringing made him hardworking and humble, Frances sought out a shallow and self-absorbed life of fame and celebrity. Falling in love with and ultimately marrying Matthew Graham a heroin addict, which led to her parents cutting her off, cocaine consumed her life and her ambition, and with her husband dying of an overdose, by 1989 as an addict herself, all she had left was her looks. To Peter, she was stunning, she spoke well and her breeding shone through, but it was all a façade. Her high class life was a mess, as having hooked up with 22-year-old Gordon Topen, a huge 6 foot 6 inch hulk with a thick set build, terrifying eyes, and a temper which swung from ice cold and raging fire, to fund their drug habit, while he burgled houses, he had her slept with at least 20 men a week… …one of whom was Peter Wickins. Driving 4 miles south-west and coincidentally passing his own flat, at roughly 3:15am, the Ford Fiesta pulled up at Lancaster Court, a series of five and six storey red-brick council blocks built after the war. The cold wind and soaking drizzle had set in, so as they dashed out of the concrete car park with the broken down wrecks, passed the stinking bins and into the foul-smelling graffitied lift, within the only six-storey block on the corner of Kelvedon Road and Darlan Road, they rose up to the sixth floor… …but within minutes, Peter would be dead. Entering her flat, it was basic but confused, it was messy with a hint of class, as next to a vase of fresh flowers sat a half full ashtray, beside a fruit bowl lay an empty pizza box, and surrounding a decent but cheap piece of art was a wall of 1980s action films on VHS. To the left, beyond a closed door was the front room and kitchen, only she led him to the right, passed the bathroom and into the bedroom. This wasn’t love, this was business. As is the way, as Peter placed £250 on the bedside table, Frances showed him what he was buying as she stripped down to her stockings and suspenders. There was no kissing or cuddling, as that was extra, so being aroused and wanting to get down to the dirty, Peter took off his tux’ until he was naked, with the last piece of clothing to be removed being his black socks. It was then, that they should have had sex… only they didn’t. At 4am, having spent the night burgling houses, Frances’ boyfriend Gordon Topen arrived home at the flat they shared. He told the Police “Fran was in the front room smoking a pipe of crack. She was coked out of her eyeballs”, as the fug of caustic chemicals muddled her brain. Seeing her eyes wide and red raw from crying, as he walked into the bedroom, “I was knocked out to find a dead body”, naked and bloody, “there was claret everywhere”, as having been viciously stabbed, “it was all around his groin”. He said he didn’t call the Police because of the burglaries, the drugs and because “I was protecting my missus”, as with their regular dealer – an Iranian called Ali Mishrafi – “having planned to roll or clip the geezer and it had gone wrong”, they meant to beat-up and rob him, but it hadn’t gone to plan. Being three hours before dawn, he knew they had to get the body as far away as possible, as being the last weekend before Christmas, a throng of eagle-eyed shoppers and their sprogs would be awake. In the flat, they stuffed his tuxedo, shirt and underpants into a black bin bag. Removing anything which could identify him – his wallet, his watch, his cufflinks – Gordon wrapped the pale bloodied body in the badly stained bedsheets. Wheeling a Safeway’s trolley up to the sixth floor, being a 6 foot 6 inch hulk, it took no effort for Gordon to heave Peter’s 12 stone body into the trolley, and under the cover of night, having bundled it into the boot of her car, they drove 2.5 miles north to Shepherd’s Bush. Gordon told the Police “we drove to The Bush, as it’s the only place I could think where there wouldn’t be anybody… the bus garage”, as he’d burgled houses on that street before, and knew it was quiet. Pulling up into the unlit dead-end of Caxton Road, maybe it was his plan to hide the body under a coat or an old tarpaulin in the small patch of scrubland to the right, but with the bus depot crawling with cleaners, drivers, mechanics and the courtyard “impossible to enter without being seen”, he panicked. Desperate to get in, dump it and be gone before anyone saw them, with the neighbouring houses in darkness and no CCTV cameras on this side of the garage, he dragged the body behind the bus driver’s hut, and fled. Nobody saw him, nobody heard him, and the body wasn’t spotted for the next 9 hours. As far as we know, the bloody bedsheets and all of the clothing was destroyed, possibly being dumped, but most likely being burned on wasteland. The flat was thoroughly scrubbed with strong bleach so that – two months later – when the forensics team examined it, not a drop of blood or strand of hair was found by their primitive techniques of that era, and he claimed that did it to protect his girlfriend. Interviewed by the Police, that’s what Gordon confessed… … and yet everything he said was a lie. Ten hours later, at 2:20pm, as bus-driver Patrick McConnell discovered the naked and savaged corpse of Peter Wickins beside the bus depot, Frances said “Gordon showered me with gifts that day”, as he pawned off Peter’s gold cufflinks for £95 and to a pal, he sold his £7000 Rolex Submariner for £1500. When the case collapsed and Peter’s father John made an emotional plea for witnesses and offered a £15,000 reward for information to find his son’s killer, Gordon didn’t care about the aching pain he had caused and was exacerbating with his silence, as having blown every penny on heroin and crack, he was off causing chaos to more people’s lives by burgling their homes and pawning their possessions. Gordon’s alibi about the Iranian drug dealer was utter hogwash, and although that’s the testimony he gave in a court of law, Prosecutor Alan Suckling stated “you heard him give evidence. He had a rather cool, flip attitude. What he did was cool and callous”. And although he blamed the murder on his own girlfriend, Frances, in the Police interview, he never once asked what happened, whose knife it was or who had stabbed Peter, or why, with the Prosecution stating “the reason is he knew how it happened and where the knife was because he had done it”. And more importantly, Frances had denied his alibi. This wasn’t a robbery, this was rage by an addict who was fuelled by his paranoid jealousy. Gordon Topen was a uncouth thug, a thick-set yob with terrifying eyes who lived perpetually in a state of anger, confusion and paranoia. He had no plans except getting high and no hope of any redemption. Frances Graham was pretty, posh and she still had a chance at a life less dreadful. With her not totally rejected by her parents, she lived off a £100-a-week family trust fund and desperate to return to a life of privilege, although he forced her to sell her body, it drove him mad every time she slept with a man. Two years earlier, the film Pretty Women was released, in which Julia Roberts plays a prostitute who’s dreams come true when a handsome and wealthy stranger played by Richard Gere picks her up. It was no coincidence that Frances was a high class hooker who scoured the affluent streets of Mayfair for a wealthy man to have sex with, and – by chance – the man who picked her was a charming millionaire. Maybe this was her dream, or maybe it was her chance to escape? Many men were bought back to their flat while Gordon was out committing burglaries. He would have known about it, having found condoms, smelling aftershave and the bedsheets being warm and soiled, but by the Christmas of 1992, their relationship had soured, as he believed Frances had a secret lover. That night, as Frances ushered Peter into the flat, this wasn’t love as she had only just met him, and even though she quite liked him, this was business, as she led him to the bedroom and they undressed. But behind the closed door to the left, the front room wasn’t empty, as Gordon stewed after another failed night of burglaries; a pizza eaten, a few beer sunk and having injected his veins with heroin. As his groggy eyes fluttered open from his stupor, the first thing he smelled was a high quality aftershave, the next thing he heard was the charming and witty banter of a man who through a crack in the door was dressed in a tuxedo, wearing an expensive Rolex, and he felt was the kind of man Frances fancied. Hearing the sounds of giggling coming from within his bedroom, with his pulse racing and his paranoid brain foggy in a jealous rage, from the kitchen, he grabbed a four and a half inch single bladed knife. They hadn’t had sex, as Peter was still in his socks, but as Frances later confessed “Gordon stormed in with a manic look… it was a face I remember. When he looks like that he’s totally out of control. I thought he was going to kill me, but Peter turned around and he went for him”. Terrified, she fled over the bed, and crawled into the corner, crying and screaming, as the blade sliced into Peter’s flesh. Being unarmed and with nowhere to escape as the deranged maniac blocked the door and the window led to a six storey plummet, Peter tried to wrestle his way passed the seething brute, but with Gordon being six stone heavier, a foot taller and slicing at his face and arms wildly with a razor sharp knife, being slashed 14 times as he fought to defend himself, two stabs to the heart and lung proved fatal. Flailing about as blood pumped from his body, although Peter pleaded “this has gone far enough. I need a doctor”, Gordon fumed “you ain’t going nowhere’, as every time he tried to flee he was thrown back in, and getting colder and weaker, it was as his blood-soaked body staggered that Peter collapsed. Even before Peter was dead, Gordon had stripped him of anything of value, before he was cold he had dumped the body beside a bus depot like it was rubbish and having ordered Frances to clean up, when she asked “why did you do it?”, he beat her about the face and stomach, telling her it was all her fault. “But why kill him, he was only a punter?” she pleaded, yet his reply summed it all up, “he didn’t look like one to me”, as although Frances & Peter were strangers, to Gordon they were secret lovers. (End) The investigation turned when the appeal asked for help in finding Peter’s £7000 Rolex Submariner, and with its buyer coming forward, on the 10th of February, 7 weeks later, Gorden Topen was arrested. Desperate to escape her violent boyfriend, Frances stated “I knew the moment I made my statement to the police – because of his character – that a contract would be put out on my life”. Terrorising her while he was on remand at Brixton Prison, he telephoned her threatening “I’ll kill not only your sister, but your whole family”, so with her the key witness, she was given 24-hour protection in safe house. Tried at the Old Bailey from Monday 8th of November 1993 to Friday 12th, Gordon Topen pleaded guilty to helping Frances dispose of the body, but not guilty of murder. With the jury of ten men and two women deliberating for 4 hours and 20 minutes, on Thursday 11th, he was found guilty of all charges on a 10-2 majority. Sentenced to life in prison, as he was led from the dock, he scowled at the jury. Summing up, Judge Kenneth Richardson QC declared the murder as “dreadful and callous”, and even though the trail was painful to bear, Peter’s family said “we’re delighted that justice has been done”. 9 years into his sentence and refusing to accept responsibility for his heinous crime, on Friday 9th April 2004, Topen escaped the lacklustre security of Group 4 (now G4S) while having a blood transfusion at Walsgrave Hospital in Coventry. Fearing he would track down and kill Frances, a warning was issued across the media that a “violent and dangerous murderer was on the loose”, but having changed her identity, he didn’t find her but he was looking, as on 20th of April, he was arrested in Shepherd’s Bush. With additional years added to his sentence for his escape and bad behaviour, parole date is uncertain. Peter Wickins was buried in St Mary the Virgin cemetery in Amberley, West Sussex. He worked hard, he was liked, and he strived for success. But having eschewed any romance to build his business and reap his rightful rewards, it’s tragic that one of life’s winners would be murdered by one of life’s losers. The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of.
Nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST, triple nominated at the True Crime Awards, 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Channel's Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND NINETY-ONE:
On Saturday 25th of May 1963 at 12:20am, four men were ejected from The Establishment Club on Greek Street in Soho. They left without a struggle, with no blood spilled, no damage done and nobody hurt. And yet, with accusations of corruption, violence and an attempted murder in its wake, it sparked a criminal trial and an inquiry which almost brought down the Metropolitan Police, courtesy of one of West End Central’s most corrupt officers – Detective Sergeant Harold ‘Tanky’ Challoner.
THE LOCATION:
The location is marked with a orange symbol of a 'P' just under the words Soho'. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other maps, click here.
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various sources
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on Greek Street in Soho, W1; one street north of Edith McQuaid and the Black Cap Farce, a few doors up from Raphael Ciclino and the Good Samaritan, a few doors down Eliza Crees’ Honeymoon from Hell, and a short walk from old Elsie’s black hole - coming soon to Murder Mile. At 18 Greek Street now stands Soho Zabrano, a cocktail bar cum nightclub cum restaurant but back in 1963, this was The Establishment, an infamous comedy and jazz club co-founded by satirist Peter Cook where anarchic comedy acts like Lenny Bruce, Pete & Dud and Frankie Howerd regularly performed, but although legendary, it lasted just 3 years, closing down in 1964 just one year after this minor fracas. Unrelated to its demise, on Saturday 25th of May 1963 at 12:20am, four men were ejected from this private member’s club by the Police. They left without a struggle, with no blood spilled, no damage done and nobody hurt. And yet, with accusations of corruption, violence and an attempted murder in its wake, it sparked a criminal trial and an inquiry which almost brought down the Metropolitan Police. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 291: The Scourge of Soho. ‘Pinky’ was a terrifying thug. That was the reputation which proceeded him; his face was known, his anger was feared and when he walked, he loomed large like a sculking shadow of death. Standing six feet and six inches high, and weighing 20 stone, as a flame-haired hulk of solid muscle, his fists were heavy and his temper quick. As a persistent criminal, his arrest record was lengthy; July 1953 he was convicted of theft; December 1953 of garage-breaking and going equipped; August 1955 of car theft, burglary and shop-breaking; and in July 1956 of car theft, burglary, grievous bodily harm and possession of an offensive weapon. Sentenced to just seven months, he swiftly rose up the ranks of the felons the coppers wanted to stop. In 1957, barely out of prison, Ernest George Pink aka Pinky and his partner Charles Parson bludgeoned two men, stealing £24000 (£760,000 today). Inflicting what was described as ‘brutal violence’, Parsons was sent to prison for seven years, whereas ‘Pinky’ was acquitted, as – being savvy about police’s forensic techniques - the detectives couldn’t prove if he’d touched the money, or even spent a penny. Again, having slipped the detective’s grasp by being collared for just the lesser crimes, it was like he was laughing at them as he was sentenced to 12 months in 1958 for shop-breaking, but barely served half and (embarrassingly of all) the best they could pin on him in 1960 was being drunk and disorderly. He was strong and sharp to the police’s practices, yet his reputation as an aggressive scourge wasn’t entirely down to his size and anger, as a childhood disability had made him ogrish to the uneducated. As one of nine children, like both brothers and three of his sisters, ‘Pinky’ was born deaf from birth, and although he attended the St John's Institute for the Deaf up to age 16, having never been able to hear how a syllable should sound, his mouth could only make unintelligible grunts and mumbles. Trapped in a world where he could hear nothing and could speak to no-one except in sign language, even with his wife (Mary), he said “I feel isolated, people think I’m mental”, and with his height causing him varicose veins, the only legitimate work he could do was as a doorman at several Soho nightclubs. ‘Pinky’ was a thug who terrorised the West End, and although misunderstood… …he wasn’t the Scourge of Soho. Friday 24th of May 1963 was a typical night out as ‘Pinky’ headed out to the Rehearsal Club in Leicester Square with his pal Robert Brown, a completely deaf scrap-dealer from Chiswick who being able to talk often acted as Pinky’s interpreter. Accompanied by Robert’s wife, they met two men who they barely knew but liked; William Francis an electrician, Frederick Bridgeman a window cleaner, and unlike Pinky, the worst any of them had been convicted of was bad driving and stealing a pair of socks. At 11:30pm, the Rehearsal Club closed, and wanting another drink and a dance, Pinky signed that he knew a place - The Establishment on Greek Street. And that was the decision which sealed their fate. The night was tinged with an odd tension as although revellers staggered through Soho, a swarm of riot vans lined the streets as 80 police officers with truncheons awaited a drugs raid at the Roaring Twenties club on Carnaby Street, and detectives eagerly perched at West End Central police station. Their reputation was worse than any criminal, as although accusations of brutality and bribery (being just four years after Gunther Podola’s beating) had led to a public inquiry, the Met’ Police Chief would state “the CID was the most routinely corrupt organisation in London”, and acting like the Mafia, by the 1960s, most bank robberies didn’t take place without the CID giving it the nod and taking a cut. At 12:15am, Pinky, Robert, William, Frederick and Mrs Brown arrived at The Establishment Club, but what witnesses claim happened was coloured by Pinky’s colossal size, aggression and bad reputation. The five of them confirmed that, although they weren’t members, as Pinky had been there before, he signed the guest book and the doorman let them in, no hassle or issue. But later, when questioned, the doorman said that Pinky had threatened him stating “I knew Pinky, he was a bit mad and capable of tearing me to pieces… he’d caused trouble in here before”, with the receptionist also bafflingly stating “one or two of the party had their hands in their pockets… and might be carrying weapons”. They weren’t, and why would they? But then part of Pinky’s reputation wasn’t what he did, but what others who didn’t know him feared he might do, and yet, to his friends, “he was a good bloke”. As they entered the downstairs Theatre Bar, witnesses would later state “dancing stopped and people started leaving”, failing to mention that a jazz quintet had finished their set. Mrs Brown ordered a few drinks, but as the barman (who had convictions for theft) overcharged them, seeing this, Pinky signed “you’ve fiddled us”, but all the barman saw was a giant angry man growling, his hands furiously waving like Bruce Lee’s fists, and as he pushed the bar’s panic button, the night manager called the police. Patched straight through to West End Central, as the CID knew Pinky and that he was “violent and dangerous”, although they were awaiting a drugs raid, they diverted a squad of officers to arrest him. For five minutes, the party of five sat quietly chatting in the half empty bar, they bothered no-one and thought the issue with being overcharged for the drinks was resolved, but all that was about to change. At 12:20am, needing the loo, Pinky & Robert headed upstairs. Half way up, the doorman pointed to them, and being surrounded by eight men in suits, even though Pinky knew who the lead one was, he showed him his warrant card – Detective Sergeant Harold Challoner known as ‘Tanky’, a short and stocky detective who had described crime-fighting in London as "swimming against a tide of sewage". The Police claimed they “struggled violently”, the men denied this saying they were “cooperative and quiet”. One officer said “Pinky made a throat cutting gesture with his left hand, and kept his right in his pocket”, as behind him an unidentified voice supposedly shouted “look out, they’re tooled up”. Bundled into the backseat of the CID’s Hillman Minx, Pinky wasn’t handcuffed, arrested or searched, and believing this was just a minor mistake, he sat quietly and said he was treated “quite pleasantly” describing their behaviour as ‘larking about’ and that Detective Sergeant Challenor was ‘very friendly’. Robert, William & Frederick all said similar… …only they couldn’t see that the con was on. At 12:30am, all four were escorted into West End Central police station on Savile Row. With the Male Charge Room on the ground floor supposedly busy due to one drunk causing a minor nuisance, they were processed in the quiet of the Female Charge Room on the first floor, and having been arrested many times before, Pinky knew the process and shook hands with DS Harrison, the Duty Officer. For him, he knew the Police were just intimidating him, making it clear to this known felon who they were desperate to arrest that they were the boss, but having done nothing illegal – they weren’t drunk, rude or disruptive, they hadn’t even got a speeding ticket - Pinky knew he’d be out within the hour. Handing over his ID, Pinky was playing the game, but as the Duty Officer asked “what’s he charged with?”, DS Challoner shoved him aside, and from Pinky’s pocket, he pulled a deadly cutthroat razor. Aghast, to the detectives who didn’t know sign language and couldn’t understand his words, his pleas fell on deaf ears, as they all laughed as the giant mute was led to the cells, unable to argue his case. Before the door slammed shut, he signed to Robert “they put knife in pocket”, but it was too late; in Robert’s pocket they found a dagger with a badly bent blade, in Frederick’s a brown-handled knife with a serrated edge, and when the Duty Officer asked William “you ever been in trouble before?”, replying “no”, DS Challoner smirked “well, you have now”, as with all the officers laughing, Detective Constable Smith returned from a side room with a crude butcher’s cleaver bound with electrical tape. Charged with ‘possession of an offensive weapon’, a crime carrying at least two years in prison, but with DS Challoner also claiming they were “part of a protection racket”, he strode about the charge room gleefully rubbing his hands saying “lovely, lovely, lovely”, knowing it was their word against his. In the car, Robert was punched in the face, only that didn’t appear in the officer’s statements. In the charge room, William was beaten up and had his money stolen, that also wasn’t mentioned. Robert, William and Frederick apparently blamed the whole thing on Pinky claiming “Pinky got me into this”, “he’s the brains” and “I should have known better than to do this with Pinky” which they all denied. And when asked to sign a list of their personal property (wallets, combs, cigarettes, etc), hidden among this mess of everyday items we all carry was the ‘knife’ that each man was charged with possessing. They saw this, they refused to sign it, they kept their hands in their pockets when asked to examine the knife, and although each man – being denied access to a solicitor, and a deaf interpreter for the first two hours - asked for their fingerprints to be taken to prove their innocence, although this was a standard part of processing a prisoner, the Police didn’t, and the men weren’t charged until 5:30am. Being bailed, DS Challoner boasted “I’ll let you walk for £150, the whole matter could be squared for a ton and a half”. But knowing that the four men were screwed, that the evidence was against them, and that any talk of false arrest, assault, theft, extortion and knives being ‘planted’ on them by the officers wouldn’t be believed, even William’s solicitor suggested they admit the knives were theirs. On the 23rd of July 1963, at The Old Bailey, Judge Dodson summed up “there is no evidence that Challenor instructed evidence to be planted… borne on what can only be termed as ridiculous”. Found guilty, Robert, William & Frederick were all sentenced to 12 months, with Pinky to two years. The trial was a joke, none of the men were believed, and they couldn’t fight against it… …as DS Challoner was not only a respected detective, but a decorated war hero. Enlisting in 1942 aged 20, Harold Gordon Challoner served in Egypt and Italy under No62 Commando, a highly trained tactical raiding force tasked with blowing up German targets under the command of Churchill’s Special Operations Executive, and later as a Lance-Corporal in the infamous and secretive SAS, ‘Tanky’ described himself as "the most aggressive medical orderly the Commandos ever had". Awarded the Military Medal, his citation states that as part of Operation Speedwell “L/Cpl. Challenor was dropped by parachute north of Spezia in Italy on 7th of September 1943”, and as a team of six, he destroyed train tracks and “derailed two trains… with a third south of Villafranca”, and although captured behind enemy lines, he “succeeded in escaping twice from Aquila Camp…”. As one of only two members of 2 SAS (C Squadron) to survive, “he displayed the highest courage and determination”. Promoted to Quartermaster Sergeant, ‘Tanky’ Challoner was a fearless soldier who some said “showed a propensity for violence towards his captive Gestapo prisoners”, even boasting in his autobiography “one of them made the mistake of smiling at me. The gaze I returned had him backing away. Then I took them out one by one, and exercised them with some stiff fisticuffs". Said to be displaying “signs of delusion”, his service ended with honours in 1947, and four years later, he joined the Met’ Police. In his memoirs, ‘Tanky Challenor: SAS and the Met’, he bragged that even as a Constable in Mitcham, “I knew I was always going to be a maverick”, as instead of booking a suspect, he would freely give them a good kicking when it suited him stating “I knew where my duty lay, but I ignored the rule book”. Joining the CID, he became a detective constable in 1956, a Detective Sergeant in 1960, and assigned to West End Central in 1962, he amassed a whopping 100 arrests in just seven months, and in his first weeks, he had smashed a ‘protection gang’ who were extorting money from strip clubs. The criminals claimed they were ‘framed’, ‘beaten up’ and had ‘weapons planted’ on them, but with this efficient but aggressive bully boy’s record totalling 600 arrests and receiving 18 commendations, DS Challenor was the self-appointed ‘Scourge of Soho’, and getting serious results, that’s what his superiors wanted. By the 1960s, DS Challoner was unstoppable, criminals were fleeing and there was no-one he couldn’t or wouldn’t fit up for a crime if he felt they deserved it. Ernest Pink alias ‘Pinky’ was high up his list… …only this wasn’t because Pinky was a felon the cops had failed to stop, this was personal. Friday 27th of July 1962 at 11:30pm, 10 months prior to his arrest, Pinky stood outside of The Contessa Club at 12 Archer Street in Soho, a cabaret club where Pinky had been banned for being drunk and violent. Again what witnesses claim happened was coloured by Pinky’s size, aggression and reputation. Turker Vehibi, the doorman stated “I saw Pinky, who I knew, speaking in sign language to a man on the pavement, he was making a sign running his fingers down his cheeks”, and it was no coincidence that the club’s manager, Michael Connor, who had barred Pinky, had scars down both of his cheeks. A few minutes later, with the club about to open as a crowd of 30 people queued up outside, Michael Connor entered the hallway, and it was then that a shot rang out. (Bang) Screaming in panic, the crowd fled, so not one of them could provide a statement as to the description of the gun or the shooter. When questioned, Pinky admitted he was at the club but “someone fired the gun, I was frightened and ran away”. The cloakroom attendant heard the shot, then claimed “I saw Pinky holding the gun”. The doorman stated from 12 feet away “I saw Pinky fire it with his right hand, and ran”. But with the .45 calibre bullet whistling past the manager’s head and embedding in a door, he didn’t see who tried to kill him, in fact, because of the noise from the band starting up, he didn’t know he’d been shot at. A mangled bullet and spent casing was found, police patrols scoured Soho looking for (radio) “a male, 6 foot 6, red hair, deaf and mute, goes by the name of Pinky”, and finding him asleep in bed at 1:15am, Detective Sergeant Ronald Taylor wrote on a piece of paper ‘firearm?’, but Pinky shook his head. They could have searched his flat, but they didn’t, and they should have searched his pockets, but didn’t. Driven in a Hillman Minx to West End Central for an ID parade, as an experienced felon, Pinky refused to give them his house keys for a search unless he was present, stating “what if someone try to frame me?”, and as he hadn’t been charged, he knew “you can’t search me, and you can’t bring me to a cell”. On Saturday 28th of July at 5:05am, bafflingly he was charged with ‘possession of an offensive weapon’ even though a search found nothing in his flat or his pockets, ‘shooting with intent to cause GBH’ even though only one of more than thirty-plus witnesses said they saw him fire the missing gun, as well as the ‘attempted murder of Michael Connor’, even though there was no proof that this was his motive. Tried at the Old Bailey on the 11th of September 1962, Pinky pleaded ‘not guilty’, and with his defence being to call no witnesses or give any evidence, he risked serving at least ten years in prison. But with the Police’s evidence being flimsy and their golden reputation in tatters as case after case collapsed in the years prior owing to their abuse and corruption, Pinky was found guilty of the lesser charge of ‘possession of an offensive weapon’, and acquitted of ‘intent to cause GBH’ and ‘attempted murder’. Once again, CID had let this deaf mute thug who hadn’t put up any defence evade the justice they felt he deserved, and sentenced to one year in prison, he left HMP Wandsworth after only nine months. The CID was a laughing stock, and although DS Challoner, the Scourge of Soho wasn’t directly involved in this case, he made it his mission to punish Pinky who had made such a mockery of the detectives. Released on 26th of April 1963 and being ‘bound over’ for two years, meaning if he was convicted again of ‘possessing an offensive weapon’ that the full weight of the law would be thrown at him, the day they went to The Establishment, he only met Robert to thank him for helping him get an honest job, and Frederick met William just to get a quote for some electrical work on a flat. It was all very innocent. Frederick & William were innocent bystanders in the CID’s plan to punish Pinky, but as four men sat together is technically ‘a conspiracy’, with a few fabricated statements and a battered set of knives taken from the evidence room, they could charge their No1 felon with ‘running a protection racket’. Knowing the system, Pinky filed a complaint that evidence had been ‘planted’ in his pocket… …but although it was impossible to make this accusation stick, it was DS Challoner who came unstuck. Five days before the trial, on the 11th of June 1963, The Queen was hosting the state visit of the King and Queen of Greece, a fascist-leaning country which had become a police state. With protests across London, 100s of cops and CID were protecting Claridge's Hotel which was on West End Central’s patch. Seeing a banner which read 'Lambrakis R.I.P', a harmless tribute to peace activist Grigoris Lambrakis who had been assassinated two weeks before, loving this chance to be a bully boy without reproach, DS Challoner confiscated the banner, gave the protestor a thump across the ear and barked "you're fucking nicked, my old beauty", as several other protesters were bundled into the back of a police van. Driving to Savile Row, Challoner joked to an officer, "aven't you got yourself a prisoner yet? Cor, you’re slow?”, as entering the darkness of West End Central, Challoner clouted the protestor again shouting "gerrup them stairs", and knocked him for six, laughing "there you go my old darling, 'ave that on me”. And as the first of four protestors were processed, Challoner pulled from his own pocket half a brick wrapped in newspaper and bragged “there, carrying an offensive weapon. You can get two years for that". He then repeated the same words and the same evidence to the other dumbfounded prisoners (two of whom it was proven had nothing to do with the protest and were merely passing by), and – as was his MO – on the ‘personal property’ list for them to sign, he’d scrawled the words ‘piece of brick’. Although entirely innocent, each man was as good as guilty having been framed by a bully boy… …only, this wasn’t any demonstrator. This was Donald Rooum, a member of the National Council for Civil Liberties, a group whose investigation into police brutality after Gunther Podola’s beating had led to a public inquest; he was wise to CID’s methods, he was savvy to their corruption, and with two forensic scientists proving that neither man had any brick dust upon them, and – although strangers – those two half pieces of brick had miraculously come from the same brick, the protestors were acquitted, and DS Challoner and his three corrupt cohorts (Battes, Goldsmith & Oakley) were arrested. Charged with ‘conspiracy to pervert the course of justice’, making unlawful arrests, false statements and fabricating evidence, all four officers were tried at the Old Bailey in June 1964. Found guilty, David Oakley, Frank Battes and Keith Goldsmith were sentenced to three years in prison but with DS Challoner unfit to plead being diagnosed with schizophrenia, he was sent to a psychiatric hospital. Said to have been caused by post-traumatic stress disorder (or ‘battle fatigue’ as it was called) due to his war work with the SAS, his sickness had reached its peak by the summer of 1963 when he arrested Pinky at The Establishment, but his seniors failed to remove him from duty as he was getting results. Due to Challoner’s mental illness, Robert Brown, William Francis, Frederick Bridgeman and Ernest Pink were all acquitted of being in ‘possession of an offensive weapon’, and described as a miscarriage of justice, their convictions were quashed and they were given compensation of between £250 to £750. An internal investigation by the Met’ Police and a public inquiry looked into the allegations of ‘planting evidence’ against Detective Sergeants Challoner and Etheridge, Detective Constables Robb, Smith and Robinson, alongside PCs Birch, Jenkins and Tweedy but with no evidence found, the case was dropped. Removed from duty, Harold Challoner didn’t serve any prison time, upon release from hospital, he worked for a firm of solicitors, and in 1990, he released his memoirs, ‘Tanky Challenor: SAS and the Met’, a boastful account of his life which was mysteriously vague about his brutality and criminality. He died in August 2008, aged 86, with Ernest Pink passing in June 1985, aged 54 years old. There was no denying that Pinky & DS Challoner were bad men who broke the law for their own gain, they were selfish, nasty and habitual criminals in their own corrupt way, but they didn’t do this alone, as the real bad guy was the system itself and those who abused it; every detective, every Constable, every solicitor and every witness who let this corruption happen, they were the true Scourges of Soho. The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of. |
AuthorMichael J Buchanan-Dunne is a crime writer, podcaster of Murder Mile UK True Crime and creator of true-crime TV series. 
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