Seven time nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at the True Crime Awards, Independent Podcast Award and The British Podcast Awards, and voted 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
EPISODE THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-SEVEN: This is Part 1 of 2 of Evil Little Droog.
From 1976 to 2003, Peter Allan Foster of Bridlington committed a string of vicious and brutal attacks on his girlfriends and wives, including holding them hostage, kidnapping them at knifepoint, strangling, beating, shooting, coercion, and two counts of murder. But how did he evade justice for so long, and what has any of this got to do with his obsession – the 1973 film, A Clockwork Orange.
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile: Unleashed. (Engine) And I’m away. Goodbye London. Hello Britain. And as I cruise the UK’s canal network in my little boat, I shall bring you true crime cases from the cities, towns and villages I visit. Following last week’s case, we examine whether a different double murderer was inspired by ‘A Clockwork Orange’. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 357: Evil Little Droog – Part 1 of 2. (Cue intro to film) “There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening. The Korova milkbar sold milk-plus, milk plus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom, which is what we were drinking. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence”. And with that, the 1972 film ‘A Clockwork Orange’ opens with a stark close-up of the story’s unblinking narrator and “hero”, Alex DeLarge, sat staring directly at us as if he’s daring us to fight. Dressed in a set of overalls, braces, boots and a bowler hat, his attitude is writ-large by his fashion; white overalls implies a blank canvas onto which society imprints its rules and conventions upon the youths, braces and bowler hats to mock the establishment, black combat boots to unite the gang as a rebellious army, a codpiece on the outside of their trousers giving a threat of sexual violence, and (for Alex) a single eyelash to his right eye giving him an eerie doll-like look, and a three-foot cane concealing a blade. Like James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause and Marlon Brando in The Wild One, Alex DeLarge became a 1970s icon for many maladjusted youths, who like him; dressed to cause an outrage, spoke in a slang only they understood, partook in a era’s drug of choice, and rebelled against society’s stifling control. Hanging around with a gang of undesirable droogs - Dim, Georgie and Pete – Alex’s psychotic motives “being the adventures of a young man whose pursuits are rape, Beethoven and ultra-violence” reflect every parents fear of each generation’s youths being subverted by something they don’t understand, whether junk food, drugs, hip-hop, horror movies or computer games. Yet, although Alex’s crimes are the epitome of extreme, he proved to be a character who was weirdly aspirational for many youths. But did this violent film turn a man into a monster… …or was the monster merely using this violent film as an excuse for his crimes? By 1974, society had made up its mind about the film, ‘A Clockwork Orange’, which was sporadically banned by draconian local councils who – like fascists burning books - had censored what the people could and couldn’t see, thus eradicating any free will in an ironic nod to the moral of the book itself. A wealth of crimes were unfairly blamed on ‘A Clockwork Orange’, as if the innocent were corrupted to become evil having seen the film, when even if they had copied its style, evil will always be evil. In 1973, five youths were convicted of gang-raping a 17-year-old Dutch girl in Lancashire, it was said they had sung ‘Singing in the Rain’ in a nod to the gang’s rape of the author’s wife. Six youths also went on a crime spree speeding across France like the droogs do in a Durango 95; beating, burgling and committing copy-cat crimes directly lifted and mimicked from scenes in the film which culminated in a murder. And as explored in last week’s episode, 60-year-old homeless man David McManus being beaten to death by Richard Palmer, a horrific recreation of the infamous ‘tramp’ scene in both sources. With the film’s director, Stanley Kubrick receiving death threats, each had sealed its fate for the next three decades, being banned in the UK until Kubrick’s death in 1999. But by banning it, that only made the hype to see it more dangerous and thrilling, and cemented its place in history as a censored film. But there was another, less well-known ‘Clockwork Orange Killer’ who was inspired by the film. On the 27th of March 1956 in Germany, Peter Allan Foster was born. Few concrete details exist about his upbringing, so it’s hard to pin down who he really was, before he began mimicking Alex DeLarge. Nothing was written about his mother and his father (Ronnie) struggled to care for this anxious youth, so as a toddler, he was sent to live with his grandparents (Mr & Mrs Emmerson of Harrington Road) in the seaside town of Bridlington, East Yorkshire. But proving to be “more than a handful”, Foster spent many of his formative years in care homes and an approved school for behavioural problems. Like Alex DeLarge, he had little respect for his guardians, his education was broken by truancy, he held down part-time jobs as a mechanic at a fairground and a doorman at Scarborough caravan park, and although he was never diagnosed as mentally unwell, like Alex, he also had two sides to his personality. As a 6 foot, 14 stone muscular youth with a Dennis Nilsen-like vibe, it was said he was charming but admitted “I was an angry young man, insecure and frightened… incapable of controlling my violence”. Like Alex, his violence was vicious and unprovoked, with the beatings he meted-out being so severe, his victims were too scared to speak out, but whereas Alex was a full formed psychopath, Foster’s early crimes were pathetic in comparison, yet it’s clear that the film had a big impact on his motives. Foster’s known offences go back to 1968 when he was 12, but in 1973, aged 16 he saw ‘A Clockwork Orange’ at the cinema, and that same year - as a coincidence or maybe down to drink or hormones - his violent offending increased. And although the film was banned in UK cinemas, available in Europe, pirate copies on VHS and Betamax were sold cheaply in pubs, shops, in car boots or by mail order. Foster was said to be obsessed with the film which he watched religiously and could quote verbatim, as well as another 1972 X certificate film, Bruce Lee’s violent martial arts actioner ‘Enter the Dragon’. In 1977, Foster was described by his solicitor as a ‘paper tiger’, “someone who appears powerful and threatening, but is weak, ineffectual and unable to withstand a challenge”. With 63 convictions to his name, many were minor; like driving his scooter without insurance and while disqualified, a drink drive ban for crashing his Skoda into a hedge, and in 1986, he was given a six-month suspended sentence for tampering with his electricity meter and damaging the front door of his former girlfriend’s flat. But with his actions grounded in rage, his violence grew more psychotic, later being convicted of GBH, ABH, weapons offences, stabbing, torture, false imprisonment, child pornography and the assault and cruelty to a 6-year-old boy. Yet the most brutal and violent crimes he committed were against all of his wives and girlfriends, often mimicking ‘A Clockwork Orange’ and culminating in a double murder. Fear was his weapon of choice. At his trial, having overcome their terror of giving evidence against him, Andrew Campbell QC for the Prosecution stated to Foster: “you have four partners that leave you because of the threat of violence and flee because they are terrified of what might happen. And you have two partners that don’t flee… …and they end up dead in your bed”. Lindy Derham was born in Oldham, they met in 1974 when she was 16, he was 18, and he chatted her up while he was working on the dodgems. Like many other girlfriends, he was said to be handsome and charming, he played the guitar, could quote Shakespeare, and spoke to her of astrology and love. But her father, Clive, saw through his facade. In April 1974, Clive was convicted of assaulting Foster repeatedly punching him in the face, stating “I lost my temper and went for him (because of) what I had heard about his relationship with another girl”, it was unclear what this was, but seen as “an act of desperation… for his daughter’s welfare”, Clive was fined just £25 at Bridlington Magistrates Court. Like other relatives of Foster’s ex-partners, Clive would do anything to protect his loved ones, but with Lindy moving into a flat with Foster in Bridlington’s Old Town and marrying him in June 1975, either she believed that she loved him, or – with the abuse having already begun - she was too afraid to flee. Always carrying a knife in his Doc Martin boots, he regularly beat her and threatened to cut her from ear to ear. Once when she’d angered him, he burned all of her clothes in the bath. Like his other hero, Bruce Lee in ‘Enter the Dragon’ he often left her face and body black-and-blue having been attacked with kicks and chops, and he once punched her so hard in the stomach, that their baby miscarried. Believing he was Alex DeLarge, the leader of the droogs who the law didn’t apply to, she often saw him standing in front of the mirror dressed in overalls, boots, braces, a bowler hat and a single eyelash, and she would recall “he would play the soundtrack of the film”, whether the William Tell Overture or Beethoven’s 9th symphony, “and his eyes would change into a menacing look” and spew a violent rage. By 1976, having endured three years of pain, Lindy tried to flee, but with Foster working alongside her at the arcade, following her wherever she went, and threatening to kill her when she went back to her father’s house, later claiming that he had seen her embrace another man, he planned to hurt her in an identical way to how Alex had attacked Dim, the Droog who’d deceived him in A Clockwork Orange. In the famous scene where Alex and the droogs walk along the docks, feeling double-crossed by his subordinate Dim, Alex beats him, knocks him into the water, and when Alex extends a seemingly sympathetic hand to Dim, from his cane, he pulls out a concealed blade and slashes Dim's hand open. That Christmas Eve, as Lindy was walking with Foster to midnight mass, perhaps quoting: “For being a bastard with no manners and not a dook of an idea how to comport yourself public-wise, my brother”, Foster pulled out an umbrella with a sharpened tip, stabbed her in the torso, and like a coward, fled. Bleeding profusely, Foster returned to take her to intensive care, not to ensure she survived, but to secure his alibi by getting her to tell the nurses that she’d fallen on a set of railing, and although he’d stabbed his wife and risked her life, with his crime unspoken, Foster wasn’t charged nor questioned. Having fled his grasp, one year later on the 17th of December 1977, Foster was dragged kicking and yelling and smashing from Lindy’s solicitor’s office, having begun divorce proceedings against him. As the two male officers manhandled him, they found strapped to his back, a set of rice-flails known as nun-chucks as used in ‘Enter the Dragon’. Stopped before he hurt someone else, Foster was fined £20, bound over for a year, and the magistrate “seriously considered sending him to prison”. But didn’t. All of his wives and girlfriends lived with “an over-riding fear of him which stopped them from making complaints”, but Foster would never hurt Lindy again, as although he was unable to accept that the marriage was over, his solicitor stated “while he was in custody, he had received a letter from his wife, which made him realise there is no chance of reconciliation”. Lindy never saw him again, and she lived. In Foster’s eyes, ‘A Clockwork Orange’ wasn’t just a film, it was a way of life. The violence he slavered over on-screen was nothing compared to reality, as Alex DeLarge said “oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh... and you could viddy it was real... not like a film, but a terrible, terrible real thing", as blood thrilled him, as much as recreating scenes from the film did. In October 1978, it was reported in the Hull Daily News “police and firemen were called to a woman’s house in Bridlington after her grandson went berserk with a guitar”. Like the narrator of his own story, he stated “I’d had a few drinks and was keyed-up mentally. I had a brainstorm, I picked up a guitar she had bought me and smashed it on the floor. I then took it into the bedroom and smashed it through the window”, and having barricaded himself in the bathroom, he threatened to set the house on fire. Foster said he was depressed, and blamed it on his divorce. Almost a year later, while still living at his gran’s house on Medforth Road, being blind drunk, Foster was sent to prison for three months for the assault of a Policeman having been stopped for riding a suspected stolen bicycle. Throughout Bridlington, Peter Foster was – to the outside world – a nothing, a nobody, a ‘paper tiger’… …but as his violence against women was unreported, nobody saw this powder keg was ready to erupt. In 1979, released from prison and working as a doorman at a caravan park in Scarborough, Foster met Margaret Manningham who was on a weeklong family holiday. Having fallen in love with him, within weeks they had moved in together to a flat on Trinity Road, and in July 1980, they married. It was far from the dream she must have imagined, as his abusive control had begun within those first weeks. Many ex’s stated he’d undermine them, making them feel inferior without him “he’d say that my body had gone, that it was all flabby and unattractive” and threaten “‘no-one could have you after me’”. For him, women were there for sex, as Alex DeLarge says “the first thing that flashed into my gulliver was that I'd like to have her right down there on the floor with the old in-out, real savage”, they were nothing but “young ptitsas on their bolshies, very starry-eyed” who adored him like a rock star or God. Everything he did was to control her; he beat her when she displeased him, he humiliated her so she felt worthless, held her hostage in her wardrobe to prove that he owned her, even chaining her to the radiator like she was his possession, and owning her free will, he’d strangle her until she blacked out. On their one-year anniversary, Margaret recalled “I realised if I didn’t get out, something awful would happen”, so as they toasted their marriage in the pub, she pretended to go to the toilet, but hid on the fire escape until the pub had shut, then fled 300 miles to Bournemouth, and filed for a divorce. Margaret never saw him again, and she lived. Andrew Campbell QC said “Foster had a consistent pattern of domineering behaviour”, all of his wives and girlfriends were terrified, “and believed he would kill them if they did not do as they were told”. In early 1982, he met 17-year-old secretarial student Kathryn Portelli, when he was 26. As before, it began with a façade, she said “he was very nice, intelligent. He’d quote Shakespeare, I was impressed”, and having moved into a flat in Little Beck Road, his charm gave way to abuse, coercion and violence. Kathryn said “I wasn’t allowed to have a mind of my own”, she wasn’t allowed to see her friends, and she was beaten and kicked, once while she was pregnant. She wasn’t a person, but his little play thing. One day, the lodger, Paul Jepson found Kathryn outside their flat, tied to the drainpipe. “She started crying. I went to untie her… Peter came out, and told me not to, He said ‘it’s better that I do that than hit her’”, as in his words “she’s doing my head in”. Foster eventually untied her, and it was forgotten. One night, having displeased him, he punched her, kicked her and dragged her to the bedroom. Tying her hands behind her back with a belt, he ripped out a lamp, and having wound the bare electric wires around her neck, he threatened to flick the switch, and electrocute her if she moved an inch. Kathryn said “I really thought I might die that night. His demeanour was very aggressive. His teeth were gritted. He was talking strange”. He left her tied up, shaking and terrified on the floor, and having placed lit candles around the bed, “he laid with his arms across his chest, sleeping all night”, like he was a deity. Kathryn recalled “I thought he was going to kill me”, and not for the first time. One time, at his father’s house near Leeds, Foster threatened Kathryn with a samurai sword, chasing her around the house, until Foster’s father (Ronnie) stopped him and drove her to her mother’s house. But Foster had followed her. At her door, he pleaded, professing that he loved her and that he would make everything right, but as she stepped outside, “he put my arm up my back and put a knife to my throat”, and frog-marched the pregnant women, at knifepoint, back to their flat. Tied up with rope to her hands and her feet, “I was terrified”. He kept her on a small camp bed in the corner of the room “for the rest of the night, all the next day and half the day after. He only untied me to go to the toilet”. And for the next few days after, with a knife in his pocket, going shopping, he had her handcuffed with a jacket over them, Kathyrn said “people thought we were courting. I was too scared to ask for help”. He controlled her mind, her body and her being… but her hope wasn’t entirely sapped. On Sundays, when he was at the pub, she secretly smuggled clothes out of the house, and having made arrangements with a women’s hostel, and while attending an ante-natal class, she fled. “I never saw Peter Foster again. I changed my name. Only my mother, my father and my priest knew. I feared if anyone else knew where I was, he would kill me”. Kathryn never saw him again, and she lived. In court, Foster denied attacking her with a sword, making her sleep on a camp bed, putting a knife to her throat, making her wear handcuffs and he said he only tied her up for “half an hour”. He admitted punching and kicking her, but claimed in his defence, “I was inexperienced. I should not have been in a relationship”, even though he was 26, had been married twice, and may have had several children. By 1984, Foster was dangerous, deranged, and on the hunt for another girlfriend. Julie Dixon was 18-years-old, Foster was 28, as being a coward, he needed these girls to be young and impressionable, lured in by his charm and easily broken by his abuse, coercion and delusions. Being drunk, day-in, day-out, he worked very little, and they lived in a commune where many druggies lived. Julie said “He was aggressive, strange, often when the music of A Clockwork Orange was playing, the aggression would start… his eyes would change and he would have a menacing look”. But not only did he break her face and body with his fists, as like so many others, he also broke her spirit. “Early in our relationship, he said he had been possessed by a priest… he spoke a lot in Latin, a language I didn’t understand” and would recite Bible verses in reverse under a pentagram he had drawn in the kitchen. As silly as it may seem to those of us who weren’t been broken by his mind-control, “Peter claimed he could astrally project himself… he said he could leave his body at any time and find me using his psychic powers. I believed him. It made me feel like I would never be able to escape, as long as I lived”. And when his beatings and coercions waned, to keep her under his boot, he resorted to deadly threats. With a modified Colt revolver, he forcedher to play ‘Russian Roulette’. With one bullet in the six-shot cylinder, “Peter went first, spun the chamber and chose to point the gun at me. I think it was at my head. I thought I could die. When he pulled the trigger, it was empty, it just clicked”. With five shots left, when it was Julie’s turn, “I thought, if I pointed it at him, I would be responsible for his murder… but if I pointed it at myself, then I would be dead”. With the gun aimed at her head, “I pulled the trigger. It clicked”. It did this four more times, as with the revolver having never been loaded, Foster didn’t want her to die, what he wanted to see was the terror in her eyes, as her life lay in his hands. Sometimes his threats were deliberately theatrical, and other times, they were brutally simple. From the second-floor window of their bedsit on Marlborough Terrace, holding her by just her throat, “he was strangling me. If he had let go, he would have dropped me. I would have fallen to the steps below”. Julie made several attempts to flee, later stating “I was totally afraid of Peter, but when you are with someone like that, you don’t provoke them”, so having secretly smuggled money, clothes and her passport out of the flat in binbags, she paid the shopkeeper downstairs to put them into a taxi to her parent’s house, “and I got as far away from him as I could”. Julie never saw him again, and she lived… …but not all of his girlfriends would be so lucky. When the Detectives later appealed for witnesses to his abuse, several brave women – his ex-wives Lindy and Margaret Foster, and ex-girlfriends Kathryn Portelli and Julie Dixon - set their trauma aside, came out of hiding, and often using their new or real names, they faced him in court. Their truth would put an evil man behind bars, but for three other girlfriends, his arrest and trial would come too late. Linda Moreen Chapman Peacock was born on 2nd of December 1950 in Bridlington, one of four sisters and a brother to Stuart & Iris. Described by her sister, Meril, as “beautiful, lively, lovely and talented”, she met her husband, Robert Grimm at a studio in London in 1970 when he was a professional guitar player for Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons. They married a few years later, lived in Bridlington, and moved to America with their three daughters – Athena, Beth and Lyra, but separating in 1988, Linda Grimm (as she was now known) returned to her hometown of Bridlington, where she met Peter Foster. He lived in the flat opposite her on Midway Avenue, she was charmed by him, in June 1989 they moved in together, and said “Linda was bright, intelligent, artistic, and good fun, everything you could want. I loved her”, but like so many other girlfriends and wives, she was seen with black eyes and bruising. To one of her friends, while drunk, he admitted “I hit her, cos I lost it”, but to everyone else, as they both had a drink problem, this was his excuse of choice, stating “she was a staggering wreck around the flat. Many times I put my arms around her to stop her hitting herself”, this also became his alibi. On Monday the 17th July 1989, Foster claimed they went for a walk at Bempton, a 400-foot high series of cliffs overlooking the sea. They were both drunk, she fell over a stile, and falling hard, she bruised her head, face, torso and thigh. They returned home to Midway Avenue, and she fell asleep, comatose. The next morning, at around 6am, Foster woke, and found Linda dead. (End) Hungover and rambling, Peter Foster entered Bridlington Police Station stinking of drink. He told them about her accident on the stile, and how 38-year-old Linda Grimm had died in her sleep. Without any witnesses to any argument between them, with no signs of a struggle in the flat, and as he hadn’t a criminal record for assaulting his ex-wives or girlfriends, the Police accepted his version of events. As an unexplained death, an autopsy was conducted by Dr Lloyd Denmark, who noted she had died of “shock and haemorrhage due to a rupture to her renal vein and right kidney which had split in half, an extreme trauma only seen in road accidents”. He also noted she had 21 other (unexplained) bruises to her chest and groin, and six broken ribs. But with her blood test showing she had “320 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood”, meaning she was “four times over the legal drink-drive limit, it was agreed that because of her alcoholism”, her injuries and distended organs could have been caused by a “forceful blow by someone dropping their full weight on the abdomen”, or she fell off the sofa. With the autopsy unable to conclude whether she had died of natural or unnatural causes, and with any reference to “significant trauma caused to her” being less prominent in the report, it was easily glossed over by those who needed to see it, and Foster was released by the Police without questioning. As a trained pathologist hadn’t listed her death as ‘suspicious’, in August 1989, her body was cremated at Scarborough Crematorium, and any evidence of the murder of Linda Grimm was lost forever. She had died in agony, having been sadistically beaten and abused by this violent thug for months, and in a scene, reminiscent of the film ‘A Clockwork Orange’, he had deliberately attacked and killed her. The murderer of Linda Grimm walked free, like Alex DeLarge, Foster’s hero in his favourite film having murdered the ‘cat lady’ by beating her to death for his own pleasure. Quote: “and the very next day, your friend and humble narrator was a free man”. But what connected these two killings? The Police wouldn’t know for another 13 years, when Foster killed again, being inspired by ‘A Clockwork Orange’. Part Two, the final part of Evil Little Droog continues next week. 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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Seven time nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at the True Crime Awards, Independent Podcast Award and The British Podcast Awards, and voted 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
EPISODE THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FIFTY:
On Wednesday 8th of January 1988, at 3:25pm, expelled pupil 16-year-old Darren Fowler entered the Ferrers School in the town of Higham Ferrers with two knives, 25 cartridges and a shotgun. He had written a suicide note, and planned to get revenge on those who had wronged him. By 3:37pm, it was over. But unlike the Dunblane massacre, it is largely forgotten, and why, like the Dormers Wells school shooting did it not lead for stricter gun control? This was the UK’s penultimate school shooting.
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile: Unleashed. (Engine) And I’m away. Goodbye London. Hello Britain. And as I cruise the UK’s canal network in my little boat, I shall bring you true crime cases from the cities, towns and villages I visit. This week, I’m in Higham Ferrers, Northamptonshire exploring a crime which, due to strict laws, is rare in this country. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 355: The UK’s Penultimate School Shooting. School shootings are synonymous with countries where constitutions are fawned over like the word of God. In America, which averages 40 to 60 school shootings annually, this kind of crime against innocent children is so common, they’ve had to implement a school shooting database. In 2021, there were 257 school shootings. In 2023, 308. 2024, 352. 336 in 2025, and at time of recording, 235 in 2026. This century in the United Kingdom, we’ve had none. School shootings are incredibly rare. Why? Because when the innocent die at the hands gun-toting idiots, we learn from our mistakes and we implement laws to make the country safer for everyone, even if it upsets some so-called hunters. The case you’re about to hear was the penultimate school shooting in the United Kingdom, but it isn’t retold to glorify its perpetrator or glamourise the violence, but to re-iterate that the way to make our schools safer isn’t through the use of bag-checks, metal detectors or armed security (which effectively turns it into a prison), but a focus education, mental health, bullying, and how this school remained professional and did everything right to protect their staff and students, which they continue today. Wednesday the 8th of January 1988. As was typical of a post-British Christmas, that week it rained as this was about to be one of the wettest January’s on record. Comic Relief had been launched, Margaret Thatcher was then Britain’s longest serving Prime Minister, and at the top of the charts were the Pet Shop Boys with ‘Always on my Mind’. Monday was a ‘teacher training day’, so Wednesday was the second day of the school term. By 3pm – across Higham Ferrers, a small historic town, and neighbouring Rushden, a larger industrial town in East Northamptonshire, with then a combined population of 27,500 - the pavements were filling with prams and the streets with cars as parents prepared to pick up their kids after a dull and ordinary day. Just shy of 3pm, 16-year-old Darren Fowler left his parent’s home on Westfields Street in Higham Ferrers. Taking 10 minutes, his walk up Westfields Avenue, High Street and right into Queensway towards his local school was a route he had made hundreds of times, only three months ago, he was expelled. As he approached the end of this residential street, and entered the open gates of The Ferrers School, a modern comprehensive opened just eight years earlier, no-one noticed him but then they never did. Slightly built and spotty with neck-length brown hair covering his left eye, Fowler was a loner, isolated, a boy who struggled to make friends, and being dressed in black trousers, a black jumper, a crumpled checked shirt, an uneven tie and a donkey jacket with an imitation wolf’s tail, his clothes reflected this. At 3:28pm, with lessons ending, some of the 760 pupils were already exiting the classrooms and milling about before heading home, so being just another student, no-one really noticed Fowler as he entered the administration block, or spotted what he was carrying; two combat knives, one tied to his leg with a six inch blade and a one a nine-inch blade strapped to his hip; a length of nylon rope, twine and matches, an ammunition belt with 25 cartridges, and across his back, a single barrel 12 bore shotgun. Darren Fowler was here to kill, he wouldn’t stop until every shot was spent, and having left a suicide note, the last life he would take would be his own, just like his hero – Michael Ryan – only now Fowler had a captive audience of those who had expelled him, bullied him, or had stolen the girl that he loved. At 3:29pm, the first shot rang out… followed by eight minutes of terror. So, why is the Ferrers School shooting barely known in the UK, and even in Higham Ferrers itself? The same was said of the UK’s antepenultimate school shooting at Dormer’s Wells High in Southall, West London, occurring two months before The Ferrers School, and again is almost entirely forgotten. Some don’t regard it as a school shooting, as it happened late in the evening when the pupils were at home and the sports hall was being used for a religious event. On Wednesday 11th of November 1987, controversial guru Mahraz Darshan Das was preaching when two Sikh extremists - Rajinder Singh Batth & Mangit Singh Sunder – opened fire with a sawn-off shotgun, a 22 handgun and a 38 Smith & Wesson. The attack lasted 16 seconds. Mahraz Darshan Das was killed instantly, Joga Singh a Psalm writer and Satwant Panesar an engineer were killed in the crossfire, and another was injured but survived. The shooters were disarmed, arrested and convicted of murder and manslaughter, and got life sentences. As the third from last UK school shooting, Dormer’s Wells is largely forgotten as the dead were adults, some argue because they were Asian, and it was a politically and religiously motivated assassination. It barely made the newspapers, and as emotion drives change, it brought about no new gun laws. Gun laws in the UK have evolved with changes in society, and as a reaction to high-profile shootings. Before 1900, most British citizens could carry a gun. In 1903, the Government restricted which guns a teenager or child (yes, a child) could own. After World War One, seeing a spike in gun-crime, the 1920 Firearms Act introduced the first modern licensing system which required certificates for rifles, pistols and ammunition, shifting gun ownership from being an unrestricted activity to a licensed privilege. In 1936, a ‘safe storage’ policy was introduced to stop guns falling into the wrong hands, and all short-barrelled shotguns and fully automatic weapons were outlawed, as these were not hunting weapons, but weapons of murder. In 1946, the police deemed ‘self-defence’ no longer a good enough reason to own a gun. In 1953, carrying a firearm outside permitted areas was made illegal. And after the murder of 3 policeman in Shepherd’s Bush, the 1968 Firearms Act required all shotguns to have certificates. In 1988, after lone gunman Michael Ryan went on a killing spree and murdered 16 people in the town of Hungerford, the 1988 Firearms (Amendment) Act saw the banning of semi-automatic, pump-action rifles and explosive ammunition, and increased how they are storage and its certification procedures. His guns were legally owned, but by implementing even stricter laws, our country became safer… …but the legislation we needed came too late for the last school shooting in the United Kingdom, a crime so shocking and callous that it changed our gun laws forever. It was of course, Dunblane, when on the 13th of March 1996 in this small Scottish town, Thomas Hamilton, a former Scout leader who had been blacklisted having committed sex-crimes against minors, opened fire inside of Dunblane Primary School. 15 were wounded, and 16 pupils aged 5 and 6 were killed, alongside their teacher. It remains the deadliest mass shooting in British history. Outraged by this senseless massacre, the people spoke and Parliament was forced to eradicate the last pointless piece of the puzzle. The private ownership of handguns and semi-automatic weapons was effectively banned in the UK, leading to some of the strictest firearms regulations in the world. Since then, almost 30 years ago, the UK hasn’t had a single school shootings… …so why was the Ferrer’s School shooting forgotten? The shooter, Darren Lloyd Fowler was born in 1972, as the eldest of four boys to Gerald, a forklift truck driver and Sandra, a housewife. Little was reported about his upbringing, but with no known criminal record, being described as having a “relatively good character”, he didn’t seem a ‘danger to society’. As a pupil at the Ferrers School, he was often truant, disruptive in class, and had a history of being abusive to teachers, but he was never violent. He had a bad academic record even though he was an avid reader, but with his interests limited to guns and war, his only friend was 16-year-old Simon Bates. With those skills, he could have joined the Army or become a military researcher, but didn’t. Being 16, he should have been preparing for his exams, but having got expelled, instead he went on a rampage. But why? The state of his mental health was never reported in the press, and his motive is lost, he told it to no-one and 38 years since the attack, most of the alleged facts are wrapped in myths and rumours. One possible motive was bullying. Graham Buchanan for the Prosecution said “he constantly suffered taunts by other pupils over his personal hygiene… they nicknamed him ‘smelly’ and ‘gypsy’”, and although all children bully and tease, “he remembered all the insults, and the times he had threatened to hit back, but little did his classmates realise when he vowed to ‘grease them’, that he meant to kill”. Another was his expulsion. The previous summer he had been suspended owing to his bad behaviour in Mr Lever’s science class, but was later re-instated after appealing to the Board of Governors. The school tried to give him counselling to put him back on track, with headmistress Barbara Smith stating “we did everything to help the boy, but he failed to respond. When his behaviour went beyond what the school could tolerate, he was expelled”, placed under the supervision of the EBD (the emotional and behavioural difficulties service) in October 1987, and was sent to a ‘special school’ in Rushden. He wasn’t a danger, he was just disruptive. He wasn’t violent, he was just deluded. A third possible motive was jealousy. In September 1987, one month before he was expelled, and four months before the attack, his friend, Simon started dating Karen Arnold, who Fowler told a psychiatrist “she was the first girl I cared for… for the first time, I realised that a relationship with someone gave a new meaning to life. Before that I didn’t think I needed anyone”. But this wasn’t love, it was obsession. When Simon broke up with Karen that December, Fowler fancied himself as her new boyfriend. As the Prosecution said “he became infatuated and jealous if anyone expressed interest in her”. He pestered her, followed her, and hung out at her part-time job. Karen said “he wouldn’t take no for an answer. But there was no way I’d have gone out with him. He was a strange lad”. And as Karen’s father recalled “he once pulled a knife on me. I just took it off him and threw it in the bushes, as easy as that”. But now the figure of Fowler’s hatred wasn’t Karen, or Simon, but her Karen’s boyfriend - Jason Williams. And then there was a fourth possible motive. On the 19th of August 1987, Michael Ryan shot and killed sixteen people in Hungerford, including his own mother, an unarmed police officer, and then himself. Across the autumn of 1987, everyone knew his name and his crimes, but his motive remains a mystery. Detective Superintendent David Johnson said “Fowler had studied (the Hungerford Massacre) closely. He could discuss the details with great authority”, with the Prosecution stating “he had indicated he had in mind to do something similar in the area of the school or his home town”, which would bring him the fame and notoriety he possibly craved, and getting revenge on those who had wronged him. But we shall never know the truth, as he never mentioned his motive to the Police and he didn’t write it in his suicide note. So, maybe he kept it to himself, maybe he didn’t know, or maybe he didn’t care? Wednesday the 8th of January 1988. It was cold, breezy and soon to be one the wettest January’s on record, it had started to rain. Unwilling to engage with the help he’d been given, Fowler had gone absent from his ‘special school’. Back home, he was visited by a worker from the Emotional & Behavioural Department. At 12:30pm, Fowler and his pal, Simon watched Critters - a 1986 comedy horror in which a group of vicious aliens are pursued to Earth by two shape-shifting bounty hunters, which (being just 2 years after the ‘video nasties’ era) the press tried to blame this as his reason for the school shooting – but this doesn’t seem to ring true. It is then said, that he walked with Simon back to the Ferrers School, and when Fowler was asked by his pal why he was winking, reports state that he said “I’m going to grease someone”, meaning to kill. He was a loner and a fantasist who was desperate for attention, so why would anyone believe him? It seems likely that his killing spree was a last minute decision, as everything about its execution was sloppy and disorganised, as if he had imagined it in his head, but hadn’t realised that reality is different. Instead of wearing light-weight clothes to make him mobile, with it being barely 5 degrees, he dressed for the cold in a baggy jumper, unbuttoned shirt, untied tie, a donkey jacket with too many straps, zips and pockets, and a pair of woollen gloves which kept his hands warm, but tended to block the trigger. In his bedroom, he wrote his Last Will and Testament in the back of an exercise book, and across those four lines, he left all of his possessions to his friend, Simon, he gave no details about his motive and implied that he was set to take his own life. And also planning to flee, he packed a survival kit of twine and matches to catch and cook rabbits, as not being committed, he said “in case I change my mind”. As a combat fanatic, he tied his legally owned sheath knives to his hip and left thigh, he packed into his pocket a length of nylon rope (possibly to tie someone up, or maybe hang himself), and knowing where his dad kept the key to the cupboard in which was held his unloaded, un-cocked, legally owned 12-bore single-barrel shotgun, he strapped the case to his back, and loaded 25 cartridges into the belt. Darren Fowler was ready to kill, and in a confined space like a school, this would be a massacre. There was just one problem - beyond his lack of skill, courage and grasp on reality – as although he had read about and was fascinated by weapons, according to Fowler, “I had never fired a gun before”. Armed to the teeth with weapons and ammo’, but thankfully lacking the skill to be a real killer, Fowler walked his usual 10 minute route from Westfields Street to Queensway in Higham Ferrers, mingling among the distracted mums and disinterested dads, many of whom may have thought that this boy was pretending to be Action Man and carrying plastic bullets, toy knives and an imitation gun. That said, this was the 1980s, so in any fishing shop, market or Army & Navy Store, there were no rules or laws to stop a teenager from legally buying any of the following; a combat knife (unrestricted until 1997), a black widow catapult (still unrestricted), nun chucks (never banned), a deactivated grenade, or semi-lethal weapons like an air rifle, which were only made illegal for the under 18s to buy in 2004. Thinking he was Stallone in Rambo or Schwarzenegger in Commando, he arrived at The Ferrers School at 3:25pm. By 3:28pm, as many of the lessons were ending, he entered the administration block. And by 3:29pm, surrounded by 100s of pupils, parents and teachers, the first shot rang out… …followed by eight minutes of terror. With no plan, his attack was as muddled as his mind and his motive, and as stated in court, “he was fascinated by the power (that weapons) gave those who used them”, but stating “I did it because it was something I’d always wanted to do”, the first shot he fired wasn’t at someone he hated or was hunting, but the ground-floor staff room window, and with the glass shattered by 12-bore pellets, the sharp shards showered the face of school teacher Jane Lucas, but diving onto the floor, she survived. An average 12-bore shotgun has a muzzle energy of 3000 ft-lbs, and with 270 lead pellets per cartridge, this shotgun was used for hunting small game and clay pigeons as at 30 to 45 metres it can be lethal, but only when aimed accurately, but as will be seen, many of his shots that day, were indiscriminate. Fowler said he was here to kill, but was he? If his motive was to get revenge on his bullies, he had picked the right moment, as being home-time, lessons were ending, students were milling about in the Quadrangle, and having heard a bang, many like Stuart Wood said “I thought it was fireworks being let off”, so he could easily have picked them off one-by-one as they panicked and screamed, but he didn’t, instead Fowler mingled among them. When questioned, he told the Police that when he saw Jason Williams, the boy he claimed (but Karen) denied was now her new boyfriend, “I wanted to shoot him”. Chasing Jason into the Science Block, some reports stated that he fired and missed, but Fowler recalled “my finger jammed. I could not do it, there were lots of kids”, so in frustration, “I went outside and fired into the air and at the walls”. Did he coward out, did he never intend to kill, or had the reality of taking a life hit home? After this, witnesses said they saw him muttering to himself about how he hated the science teacher, Ken Lever, who he blamed for his expulsion, but never found him as he randomly fired at the walls. Some pupils spoke of chaos and confusion, with Mark Dickenson recalling “the teacher told us to hit the floor”, as many hid under tables fearing for their lives. Others didn’t realise what was going on, as Peter Britchford said “I asked him what he was doing. He just turned around and told me to run”. Yet, for others, it was all a bit of a laugh, and some excitement, as Northampton Chronicle & Echo reports some pupils “egged him on”, following him and giving him the attention this bullied boy had craved. But nobody really seemed to be his target, as so far, the worst hurt except Miss Lucas was a window and a few walls. This shotgun could have been lethal in trained hands, but firing indiscriminately, no-one was hit by direct shots, but ricochetted pellets and flying glass; like 12 year-olds Ronnie Sherratt who had two pellets removed from his cheek, and Simon Druce, who had glass splinters to his left eye. This shooting could have been chaos had it not been for the professionalism of the staff, everyone did their bit from the headteacher to the part-time cleaner, as when science teacher Sue Deacon saw the gunman, “I was in the playground. I shouted for everyone to go inside. There was a tremendous bang. I was only feet away”, but through all of their quick-reactions, many lives were potentially saved. As many had, Michael Cousins, a 38-year-old English teacher, deputy head and father-of-two thought the bangs were an exhaust backfiring. Having left a mobile classroom, he told a colleague “I walked through the quadrangle, came down the stairs and literally walked into it. I realised something was going on because I heard girls screaming, but didn’t know what”, until a shot was fired from 45 feet. Fowler claimed “I meant to shoot to the side of Mr Cousins, to frighten him off. He was one of the few teachers I liked”. Hit by a glancing blow, 12 pellets embedded into his face, neck and upper body, and “at first, I didn’t realise I had been shot”, with his only concern being for the other staff and pupils, Mr Cousins covered his face to avoid distressing the students any further, and headed to the staff room. Linda Wooten, a 42-year-old part time cleaner who had a son at the school had arrived when the first shots were fired. “Mr Cousins was standing covered in blood. He had been shot in the face… they had gone through his nose and mouth and were particularly bad around his right eye”, and as a first-aider, she did the best she could until the ambulance and Police arrived, none of whom would be armed. But guns don’t bring peace, only more violence. Needing this to come to an end, 31-year-old PE teacher, Paul Greenall said “when the boy was moving around the playground, I followed him from inside the school, waiting to make a move. I saw him fire a number of shots”, and as the shotgun only fired one cartridge at a time, being a professional rugby player, Mr Greenall waiting for Fowler to reload, dashed 15 yards, and slammed hard into his back. Martin Redwood, a disabled parent who was waiting for his two daughters, knocked the shotgun out of Fowler’s reach, stripped him of his knives and with him pinned to the floor until the Police arrived, Fowler was arrested on site. Detective Superintendent David Johnson said “Mr Greenall is clearly a courageous man who acted with great calmness and presence of mind in what was a very volatile and dangerous situation. We shall never know what may have happened had it not been for his actions”. At 3:29pm, the first shot rang out. Eight minutes later, by 3:37pm, it was over. Seven shots were fired, two pupils (Ronnie Sherratt & Simon Druce) were discharged from hospital that night, two teachers (Miss Lucas and Mr Cousins) were injured but recovered well, and thankfully no-one had been killed. But if Darren Fowler had been gun-trained, if our strict laws hadn’t limited his unauthorised access to legal weapons and hadn’t banned semi-automatics, pump-action rifles and explosive ammunition, this could have been a bloody massacre. Instead, it became a footnote in history, and is largely forgotten. Mr Cousins spent four nights at Kettering General and made a good recovery. 10 pellets were removed from his face, two later from his skull and he retained the sight in his eye. On the 6th of June, six months later, he returned to work, stating “I’m back at school and my return emphasises my belief in Ferrers School… to categorise our experience as an example of violence in schools is a misrepresentation. I believe the incident was more a gesture against society than against the school. We need to appreciate that in today’s society, young people are subjected to a range of negative and violent influences…”. Like Ronnie Sherratt & Simon Druce, their mothers, both called Christine said they were “still afraid of loud noises”, and to aid the psychological recovery of at least 40 of the pupils, the school brought in ‘Service Six’, a counselling group to help them deal with emotions of guilt, anger and helplessness. Taken to Wellingborough Police Station, Darren Fowler was interviewed with his parents present. No drugs or alcohol was found in his system, he confessed but unable to give a coherent motive, and seen by a psychiatrist prior to his trial, he was described him as “unstable and potentially dangerous”. Tried at Oxford Crown Court, Darren Fowler pleaded guilty and was convicted of GBH with intent of Ronnie Sherratt, ABH of Simon Druce & Jane Lucas, possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life, and unlawfully wounding Mr Cousins, with the attempted murder charge left on file. On Friday 24th of June 1988, Justice Tucker summed up “I regard you as a dangerous young man”, and under Section 53 of the 1933 Child & Young Person Act, he was held at Her Majesty’s Pleasure on a hospital order. (End) Many were shocked by the severity of Fowler’s sentence, but the Judge’s consideration was the safety of the public. The following year the school received a “glowing report by Government inspectors” and exam results were up, as headmistress Barbara Smith praised the people of the town for their support, stating “this has been a major factor in enabling the staff and pupils to return to normal life”. As for its place in the pantheon of school shootings, like Stand Farm School in 1947, Dundee in 1967 and Dormer’s Wells in 1987, Ferrers was overshadowed by the Hungerford Massacre one year before, and Dunblane in 1996, but it did play its part in changes to gun legislation for shotguns and air rifles, and a gun amnesty that September lead to 25000 legally and illegally held weapons being handed in. As happens, on the 31st of July 1988, the Conservative gun lobby in the House of Lords defeated the new changes as many Lords “rely on income from overseas visitors who come to Britain to shoot”, but with so many young children being murdered at the Dunblane Massacre, the law-makers had to relent. As for the heroes, Linda Wootten was awarded the Red Cross Special Service Cross, Paul Greenall and Martin Redwood were commended by the judge for their bravery, with Paul Greenall being awarded the Queen’s Commendation for Brave Conduct. But everyone was a hero that day and in the days that followed because how they dealt with the shock and the trauma. Barbara Smith later said “the school returned to normal surprisingly quickly, lessons took place the next day and school life continued”, as having learned from the incident, and never seeking to dwell on what if, it was quickly forgotten. As of today, the Ferrers School remains a strong and vibrant part of the community, and thanks to the professionalism of its staff and the laws there to protect us all, it wasn’t remembered as a tragedy. 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.
Seven time nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at the True Crime Awards, Independent Podcast Award and The British Podcast Awards, and voted 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
EPISODE THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-SIX: Wednesday 4th of April 1973 at 11pm, on the porch of St Martin’s Church in Fenny Stratford, Buckinghamshire, 60-year-old homeless man, David McManus was beaten to death in an attack identical to a fictional killing in the book ‘A Clockwork Orange’ by Anthony Burgess and the controversial film by director Stanley Kubrick. But who was to blame, the book, the film or the killer?
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
https://www.miltonkeynes.co.uk/news/people/who-remembers-going-to-this-cinema-in-milton-keynes-3509624 The Daily Telegraph Wed, 4 Jul 1973 Daily Record Wed, Jul 04, 1973 Daily Mirror Wed, Jul 04, 1973 Liverpool Daily Post (Merseyside ed.) Wed, Jul 04, 1973 Western Daily Press Wed, Jul 04, 1973 Evening Standard Wed, Jul 04, 1973 Liverpool Daily Post (Merseyside ed.) Thu, Jul 05, 1973 Swindon Advertiser Tue, Jul 03, 1973 Daily Mirror Wed, Jul 04, 1973 Daily Record Wed, Jul 04, 1973 Evening Standard Tue, Jul 03, 1973 Norwich Evening News Tue, Jul 17, 1973 Liverpool Daily Post (Merseyside ed.) Tue, May 08, 1973 Liverpool Echo Fri, Jan 26, 1973 https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/luminist/EB/B/Burgess%20-%20A%20Clockwork%20Orange.pdf The Birmingham Post Mon, Aug 06, 1973 Evening Post Mon, Aug 06, 1973 The Northern Echo (Yorkshire ed.) Wed, May 09, 1973 Daily Express - Wednesday 04 July 1973 Dundee Courier - Wednesday 04 July 1973 https://www.theguardian.com/film/1999/sep/01/1 Wolverhampton Express and Star - Thursday 11 December 2003 Aberdeen Press and Journal - Thursday 15 December 2005 Daily Express - Friday 06 April 1973 Wolverhampton Express and Star - Friday 06 April 1973 Daily Mirror - Friday 06 April 1973 MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile: Unleashed. (Engine) And I’m away. Goodbye London. Hello Britain. And as I cruise the UK’s canal network in my little boat, I shall bring you true crime cases from the cities, towns and villages I visit. This week, I’m in Fenny Stratford in Buckinghamshire to unearth a brutal killing which may people think is just a myth. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 356: A Clockwork Orange Killer. Wednesday 4th of April 1973 at 11pm. As the last dregs of drunks were booted out of the bar at The Swan Hotel on Watling Street, a gang of lads – all in their teens, with one notably smaller and younger – they giggled about the latest hot topic, the controversial dystopian satire, ‘A Clockwork Orange’. Released 15 months before in London, this X-certificate film billed as “the adventures of a young man whose pursuits are rape, Beethoven and ultra-violence” was on national release, but its screenings were being restricted and even banned in different counties for fear of public disorder. On Sunday 1st, three days before, the gang had seen it in the 900-seater Studio cinema in Bletchley, not realising that a copy-cat killing that night would play its part in the film being banned in Britain for the next 30 years. Having sank three and a half pints at The Swan, where he’d ponced several ciggies and some say had hectored those queueing at the chip shop for some spare change, 60-year-old homeless man, David McManus from Belfast sat on the porch of St Martin’s Church where he regularly slept, swigging two bottles of lemonade and munching on a pastie and chips. By all accounts, he was no bother to anyone. David was a nobody living an anonymous life, and for that, he would be viciously beaten to death. At the trial, Roger Gray QC said the killing was inspired by A Clockwork Orange, a novel written by Anthony Burgess published 11 years earlier which the film was based on. He stated “the similarity between the description on pages 14 and 15 and this case is weird… the pub …the tramp singing in the street… and the attack” by a gang of droogs; Dim, Georgie, Pete and the story’s narrator, Alex. (Mix with film audio) The extract read: “When we got outside of the Duke of New York, we viddied a burbling old drunkie, howling away at the filthy songs of his fathers and going blerp blerp in between as it might be a filthy old orchestra in his stinking rotten guts. I could never stand to see a moodge all filthy and rolling and burping and drunk, whatever his age might be. He was sort of flattened to the wall and his platties were a disgrace, all creased and untidy and covered mud and filth and stuff. So we got hold of him and cracked him with a few good horrorshow tolchocks, but he still went on singing. But when Dim fisted him a few times on his filthy drunkard's rot, he shut-up singing and started to creech: 'Go on, do me in, you bastard cowards, I don't want to live anyway, not in a stinking world like this one.' I told Dim to lay off a bit then, because it used to interest me sometimes to slooshy what some of these starry decreps had to say about life and the world. I said: 'Oh. And what's stinking about it?' he cried out: 'It's a stinking world because it lets the young get on to the old like you done, and there's no law nor order no more... It's no world for any old man any longer, and that means that I'm not one bit scared of you, my boyos, because I'm too drunk to feel the pain if you hit me, and if you kill me, I'll be glad to be dead… So do your worst you may do, you filthy cowardly hooligans'. So we cracked into him lovely, grinning all over our litsos, but he still went on singing. Then we tripped him so he laid down flat and heavy, and a bucketload of beer-vomit came whooshing out. That was disgusting so we gave him the boot, one go each, and then it was blood, not song nor vomit, that came out of his filthy old rot. Then we went on our way” – that short extract inspired a copy-cat killing. The battered and broken body of David McManus was found fifty yards away, outside of what was Watson’s garage on Aylesbury Street. Detective Superintendent Brian Weight said “I’ve been to 100+ murders and this was the worst I ever saw”, and with Thames Valley Police seeking “a gang of youths”, the next day, the press were already describing this murder as “A Clockwork Orange style killing”. But who was to blame; the book, the film, or the killer? Born in 1917, Anthony Burgess was raised during the Great Depression, his mother died that year in the Influenza pandemic, and raised by his father and step-mother in Manchester’s Moss Side where he was beaten by gangs of feral youths, his tragic life was reflected in his work, especially during the blackout of 1943 when his pregnant wife Llewela was gang-raped by four drunk American deserters, a trauma he recreated in his book Beard’s Roman Women, and infamously in ‘A Clockwork Orange’. Post war, he worked as a teacher of speech and drama in Wolverhampton, Birmingham and Banbury, but returning to England in the late 50s from stints in Malaya, he suddenly found himself in a climate of juvenile delinquency, an unfamiliar subculture of rebellious Teddy Boys, where identically suited and booted youths would aimlessly hang about in coffee bars, full of drink, drugs, music and knives. Those who have never read it assume that ‘A Clockwork Orange’ is just a violent story crammed full of intentionally shocking scenes, but the book (and film) explores the conflict between free will and authoritarian control, whether it is better for an individual to choose to be evil rather than to be forced into artificial goodness by an oppressive state. Part one shows Alex’s ultraviolence, part two shows his imprisonment and enforced ‘re-education’, and part three is the success and failure of his redemption. Written over three weeks at his home in Hove, reaction to the novel was mixed; The Sunday Telegraph called it "entertaining, even profound", the New Statesman called it “acute” and “savage… but a great strain to read", The Sunday Times described it as "a very ordinary, brutal and psychologically shallow story", and The Times called it "a somewhat clumsy experiment into science fiction with clumsy cliches about juvenile delinquency", the violence of which they criticised as being "unconvincing in detail". It did okay, it didn’t cause any riots, and across the first 12 years of its publication, it wasn’t banned. In fact, its US publisher had the last chapter - where Alex and his gang of droogs have outgrown their violent pasts - removed as they wanted to “maintain a grittier, pessimistic ending”, which ruined the moral message. But the novel of ‘A Clockwork Orange’ was only ever banned after the film’s release. So was anyone inspired by the book to commit rapes, assaults or murders? No. With modest sales, it developed a cult following mostly among students, but all that changed when the film was first seen at its world premier in New York on the 19th of December 1971 in a climate of violent and explicit films. The early 1970s marked a turning point in cinema history, as directors broke censorship boundaries to explore unprecedented levels of graphic violence, explicit sex and psychological brutality. The year before Stanley Kubrick’s film of ‘A Clockwork Orange’ was released, audiences had already seen Sam Peckinpah’s blood-soaked western ‘The Wild Bunch’, Mario Bava’s ‘A Bay of Blood’ which became the template for 1980s slashers, Ken Russell’s ‘The Devils’ featuring graphic torture and execution, ‘Straw Dogs’ with its disturbing double-rape sequence, as well as box office favourites like ‘Dirty Harry’, ‘The French Connection’, ‘The Godfather’ and ‘Get Carter’. And in the same year that ‘A Clockwork Orange’ was released, the public witnessed a brutal male rape in ‘Deliverance’, the kidnap and torture of two teenagers in ‘The Last House on the Left’, followed by fast-paced blood and bone-snapping martial arts in Bruce Lee’s ‘Enter the Dragon’, and visceral violence and supernatural horror in ‘The Exorcist’. All of which would be considered tame by today’s standards, and although ‘A Clockwork Orange’ was released uncut with an ‘X’ certificate, a precursor to the UK’s 18 certificate, it wasn’t created especially for the film, as the ‘X’ certificate had replaced the ‘H’ for ‘Horrific’ certificate, 21 years before in 1951. In an interview, Stanley Kubrick had described the film as a “running lecture on free will” and said his intention was “to get people thinking about whether behavioural psychology and conditioning could be weaponised by governments to turn citizens into compliant robots”. But as happens, the morally uptight focussed solely on its more salacious contents – its graphic sex and violence - and with its co-producer and distributor Warner Bros seeing this bubbling controversy as free advertising, it backfired as people were calling for it to be banned before they had seen it, creating a self-perpetuating hysteria. Three days before its London premiere on the 13th of January 1972, British Home Secretary, Reginald Maudling was given an a private screening to decide whether it should be banned, as demanded by a rabid cabal of uptight morally-righteous so-called crusaders, many of whom hadn’t seen a single scene. One year later, with no riots or deaths attributed to the film, it was released nationally, and with each local authority having the right to deny a certificate to any film it disapproved of, ‘A Clockwork Orange’ could be screened in one town and banned in the next. It was banned in Ashford, Blackpool, Dorking, Hastings, Leeds, Reigate, and although The Evening Post stated “in Derby, it has already been and gone without corruption or depravity”, the neighbouring city of Nottingham asserted their own censorship. As for Bletchley, the neighbouring town to Fenny Stratford where homeless man David McManus was later murdered in a copy-cat killing, Charles Leith, the manager of the Studio cinema whose screening it is said the killer had visited, stated “we have rules to make sure that under 18s don’t see these films, but you can’t ask everyone for their birth certificate”. Yet by then the hysteria had reached fever pitch. Several crimes were blamed on the film. In May 1973, 18-year-old James Pinching went on a crime spree in Norwich, dressed in a boiler suit, braces, boots and eye make-up with a three-foot long cane similar to Alex, the lead droog in the film. He stole four shirts, a Post Office book, got £8 by deception and smashed a shop window. It wasn’t an act as depicted in the film or the book, but it was said that this young scrote had been influenced. In March 1973, the Somerset Senior Professional Cup match ended in chaos when seven youths who were dressed like droogs hurled cans, stones and bricks, hospitalising nine people. Six were convicted of causing an affray, but wasn’t this just bog-standard football hooliganism, as yobs will be yobs? July 1974, in Runcorn, two gangs of youths engaged in a street brawl with sticks and coshes. Witnesses described it as like “something from A Clockwork Orange”, only none of the gang mentioned the film. The same happened in Bolton when a gang of 30+ youths were arrested on a train with an assortment of weapons, detectives said “one theory is that they were influenced by ‘A Clockwork Orange’ which was on its third week in Bolton cinemas”, but again, it wasn’t verified if any of them had seen the film. In May 1973, the body of Frank Boulton was found battered about the face in Newton-le-Willows. No-one saw him murdered, but the Liverpool Daily Post stated “police are investigating a cult of teenage youths wearing false eyelashes and noses, heavy make up and high heeled shoes, who had killed him for kicks… the film was shown last week in Warrington, Wigan and Newton-le-Willows… police are visiting fancy dress shops to see who has purchased what”, even though his killers hadn’t been seen. The murder of David McManus was an outlier among these crimes and misdemeanours, as it was an irrefutable copycat of a scene in the film and two pages from the book, as proven in a court of law. But at least two other crimes were linked to the film. On 3rd of November 1973 at Manchester Crown Court, four youths - John Canterbury, Glynn Harrison, Kenneth Vernon and David Tetlor - were convicted of the gang-rape of a 17-year-old Dutch girl at the Heywood campsite in Lancashire. Christopher Hosker held her boyfriend hostage with a knife to his throat, while the boys took it in turns to rape her. Sources incorrectly state that they sung ‘Singing in the Rain’ during the attack, similar to a scene from the film, but the victim herself stated she had only heard them singing it in the minutes before, so it may have inspired them or been a coincidence? Canterbury was sentenced to five years, Harrison, Vernon & Tetlor to four, with Hosker to six months. But the most violent, yet least well known attacks happened in France. In the late summer of 1973, a six youths dressed as droogs went on a sadistic spree from Brittany to Cannes. The first occurred when they dragged a young couple from their car and gang-raped the woman while her husband was forced to watch. They attacked five other motorists and youths on a campsite, burgled some houses, three Finnish girls were thrown into the docks ‘for fun’, a Swedish girl was left unconscious having smashed a bottle over her head, and a ski champion was thrown over a parapet and later died of his injuries. By the 5th of July 1973, with the hysteria brewing and Britain’s self-proclaimed moral guardian, Mary Whitehouse insisting that the film be banned, it wasn’t until the film’s director, Stanley Kubrick, who lived in England, started receiving death threats that he pulled it from UK cinemas. As an auteur who had negotiated final cut of his film, but also had the contractual right to remove it from distribution in the UK and several other territories, it was quietly pulled from all cinemas with no fanfare or furore. It was no more graphic or violent than any other ‘X’ rated film released that year, and except for a few illicit screenings at the Scala Cinema, ‘A Clockwork Orange’ was banned until Kubrick’s death in March 1999. It returned to UK cinemas on the 17th of March 2000, and the country didn’t descend into chaos. The hysteria had died decades before, and it was no longer shocking or controversial. Which begs the question, if the film or book hadn’t come out, would David McManus have lived? Oddly, on the 26th of February 1973, five weeks before his murder, using archaic words, the Western Daily Press stated “here lies the danger that the impressionable will see urban violence equated with fun and A Clockwork Orange’s influence may be registered by a sharp decline in our tramp population” Early 1973. Ted Heath was the Prime Minister, the UK had joined the European Economic Community, and the US had ended its military involvement in the Vietnam war. In the charts was Long Haired Lover from Liverpool by Little Jimmy Osmond, Blockbuster! by The Sweet, Cum On Feel the Noize" by Slade. Kids played with their Etch-a-Sketch or rode around on a Raleigh Chopper wearing bell-bottom cords, bright shirts with wide collars and plimsols, with a Vesta curry and Arctic Roll for tea, or if it was a special occasion, a mixed grill at the Berni Inn beginning with a prawn cocktail. And if you were posh, on your 20 inch telly, you could watch The Generation Game and Are You Being Served… in colour. Wednesday the 4th of April 1973 was an ordinary day for most, and with many factories and workshops surrounding Watling Street in Fenny Stratford, for one gang of lads, it was an excuse to go out on the lash. Not a biggie, as tomorrow was a work day, but a few pints… which would tragically end in murder. The Swan Hotel at 6 Watling Street, opposite St Martin’s Church, had been coaching house since 1472. It had seen better days, and like most pubs, it had a limited selection of Skol, Harp, Mackesons, bitter or mild. In the corner sat the lads, praising the sex and violence they’d seen at the cinema three days before in ‘A Clockwork Orange’, yet only one was ever named, as the others remained anonymous. As the smallest and youngest of the gang, Richard John Palmer was just 16 years old. Described as quiet, placid and slightly built with neck length fair hair, he worked as a pipe lagger’s mate and lived with his mum, Doreen and step-dad, Len Lawrence in a council house on Laburnum Grove, Bletchley. He was unremarkable, he wasn’t diagnosed with a mental illness, he attended Army Cadets but wasn’t obsessed by war, he didn’t excessively drink, and his friend, John Willoughby told the police, “in the six or seven years I’ve known Richard, he has never been violent. He was one who was always laughing, and he loved to play practical jokes. Because of this we nicknamed him ‘Dopey’”. He was well-read, and according to the headmaster of Bletchley Grammar, Donald Hale unfairly stated “he was addicted to sensational literature”, which wouldn’t have been an issue, if Palmer had a passion for Jane Austen. After the murder, Palmer’s step father, Len said “Richard saw the film and has the book in his bedroom and the music. He was obviously fascinated by it and has told us as much. He didn’t appear wrapped up in violence”, but everyone seemed to agree that he was “spellbound” and “excited” by the book. That night, he finished work, and went to The Swan to meet his pals. Whether he knew David McManus by name or only by sight is unknown, but the press spared as little time learning about David’s life as the locals who gave him spare change. All that was written was that he was a 60-year-old homeless man from Belfast, he had forty convictions for drunkenness and begging, he was “a nuisance but harmless”, he was in court two days prior being drunk and disorderly, and his life was summed up by the tabloids in four words; he was a tramp, a hobo and a meth’s drinker. McManus was in The Swan that night, he drank three and a half pints so wasn’t intoxicated and bought his own drinks. At some point, McManus asked for a cigarette and Palmer gave it to him, it wasn’t a problem, but as McManus started scrounging off others, Palmer politely asked him to sit down. It was then, for no clear reason, that Palmer later claimed “I found myself feeling hostile towards older people and a feeling that there was no place for them”, which is a theme from the novel. Roger Gray QC for the defence said “it seemed as if he was part modelled on the characters in the book… Palmer was compelled by a sudden gust of savagery… some terrible force driving him to commit this offence”, with odd similarities to the scene in question; an old Irish homeless drunk, and a gang of bored youths. When the investigation began, that’s what the detectives were looking for, a gang, as Len, his step-father said “it’s fantastic that one boy could do all those injuries. I can’t believe anyone could be capable of such a thing, especially alone. Others might be involved and Richard could be shielding someone. He behaved himself… though always trying to keep up with his mates”. But with the court records locked away and the witness statements going unreported, the truth may never be known… …but the similarities between the book, the film and the copy-cat killing were undeniable. As Roger Gray QC stated “the similarity between the description on pages 14 and 15 of the book, and this case is weird… the public house… the tramp singing in the streets… and the attack. The passage is so revolting, I would not read it to the court”, in case it influenced other youngsters, but he had to, “in the hope that the publicity might help stamp out rather than increase this sort of senseless brutality”. After 10:30pm the pub shut and (it is said) this gang of unnamed lads headed in different directions. McManus, it was said, “scrounged 15p from customers at the fish n chip shop”, a buying his supper of a pastie, chips and two bottles of lemonade, and headed to the porch of St Martin’s Church where he regularly slept. Palmer joined him, but with no witnesses to verify this, it’s uncertain if he was alone. To the Police he claimed “I went to rob him, he was buying drinks so I thought he had money”, but this makes no sense as Palmer lived with his parents, had a job, and all McManus had left was 1 ½p. (Add film audio) “When we got outside, we viddied a burbling old drunkie, howling away at the filthy songs of his fathers and going blerp blerp in between as it might be a filthy old orchestra in his stinking rotten guts. I could never stand to see a moodge all filthy and rolling and burping and drunk… so we got hold of him and cracked him with a few good horrorshow tolchocks, but he still went on singing”. In his confession, Palmer claimed he beat McManus over the head with the bottles “until they broke”, leaving him concussed and bleeding. But he wasn’t finished. With the book being “the adventures of a young man whose pursuits are rape, Beethoven and ultra-violence”, seeing himself as the lead, Alex, he said he grabbed a slab on concrete left by the workmen, and beat McManus’ body, breaking several ribs, piercing a lung, fracturing his skull, breaking his jaw, eye-sockets and nose, with internal bleeding. Detective Superintendent Weight said “the tramp had by far the worst injuries I have ever seen”, and although Palmer later claimed, “I thought he was dead”, he wasn’t. Blinded, with his brain swelling, McManus staggered up Aylesbury Street trying to flee, but with a Droog wannabe in pursuit, he only made it forty yards, when outside of what was Watson’s garage, he was attacked with two half bricks. Two witnesses recalled, “I thought he had a red scarf over his head… It was like a mask which shone and has a glazed look… we didn’t realise it was blood”. They saw a young lad – described as 5 foot 7, pale, thin faced, fair hair, in a dark pullover and light coloured trousers - later identified by them as Palmer, and with the bricks “battered him again, then kicked him, and finished him off with a stick”. But Palmer didn’t run. At roughly 11:05pm, from a phone booth on Aylesbury Street, someone (of that same description) called the Police to report an attack, gave the address, but left the receiver hanging. The Police and an ambulance arrived, but McManus was already dead. Having thrown the three halfpennies he’d stolen from the homeless man away in disgust, Palmer went home, his mum Doreen said “I can’t get over how calm my Richard was when he walked into the house that night… he got a glass of water and went to bed… The next morning, he put the same clothes on. I didn’t see any bloodstains, then he went out”. And having been identified by several witnesses, 17 hours later, Police arrested him at work, astounded that they weren’t here to arrest a gang, but he admitted “there was no one else, just me” – a small, mild-mannered and well-read 16-year-old boy. Palmer admitted, “I kept thinking about the old boy as I made up lagging compound. It was like a scene from the film. We were talking about it the other night… about beating up an old boy like this one”. To assess if he was mentally competent to stand trial, Dr Leslie Ford, a consultant psychiatrist for the defence, said “Palmer was not suffering from a mental disease and he was not drunk or taking drugs”. But who was to blame; the book, the film, or the killer? (End) Richard Palmer was tried at Oxford Crown Court. In his defence, Roger Gray QC stated “the irresistible conclusion is that this book… is the only possible explanation of what this boy did”, with John Owen QC for the prosecution stating “if may have been carried out for excitement as a result of the film”. Having shown “no sense of remorse”, on Wednesday the 4th of July 1973, Justice Ashworth ordered that Richard Palmer be detained at Her Majesty’s Pleasure for an indefinite period. The judge praised him stating “it is to your credit that you have shown sense and courage and pleaded guilty… but it will only be when you have shown to the doctors and authorities that you are fit, that you will be released”. Many blamed Palmer for his own actions, some attributed it to his unnamed friends, and although his defence counsel stated “the link between this crime and (the book) is established beyond any doubt… many people have much to answer for whether authors, directors or (distributors). They produce a canker among these impressionable youngsters which all reasonable people desire to see stopped”. But actress, Miriam Karlin, who in the film played the cat lady who is raped by a giant phallus, stated “I utterly refute the statements that the murder was a result of the picture. Any normal human being who had no evil intent or no wild desires is not going to be influenced by this film”, with Warner Bros stating “this 16 year old boy should never have seen it. It was X-certificate”, and Anthony Burgess, the author reacted to rabid calls for his book to also be banned, stating “If you ban my book, you’ve got to ban the Old testament too”, he said all while writing a book about Napoleon, “I suppose someone will one day get around to blaming me for his massacres, just because I’m writing about them”. 53 years after its release, the film ‘A Clockwork Orange’ remains controversial, and by default, so is the book. On the 6th of July 2001, it was first broadcast on British television via Sky Box Office, and one year later, publicly on Channel 4. In 2005, it briefly became a buzz word for gang attacks when David Morely, a survivor of the Soho bombing was killed by yobs. And at least twice, two other killers in 1990 and 2003, were dubbed the ‘Clockwork Orange killer’ having supposedly been influenced by the film. As of today, 69-year-old Richard Palmer is no longer in prison, and is said to have lived a good life. 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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