Nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST, 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.
32 Davisville Road, Shepherd's Bush, W12 (Copyright, Sept 2022, @GoogleMaps2024)
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 the West End.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FIVE: In the evening of Friday 1st April 1949, in the top floor flat at 32 Davisville Road in Shepherd’s Bush, W12, 38-year-old wife Mary Cooper was found murdered under her bed by her 14-year-old daughter. It seemed like an ordinary domestic, but a much darker secret was hidden behind those doors, one which would lead to this murder.
THE LOCATION:
The location is marked with a purple green coloured symbol of a bin beneath the words 'Shepherd's Bush'. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other maps, click here.
SOURCES: This case was researched using some of the sources below.
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: Welcome to Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on Davisville Road in Shepherd's Bush, W12; four streets east of the Shoe Box killer, two roads south of where Reg Christie euthanised his dog, two roads south-west of The Beast, and one road north of the coldblooded killer with nothing to lose - coming soon to Murder Mile. 32 Davisville Road is an ordinary house on an unremarkable street. Built in the Victorian era, this three-storey house was once separated into flats, and behind each door, many secrets may lurk, especially around “the old S. E. X”; such as dad’s dirty DVD of Suzy Melons meets the Whopper Chopper, mum’s “special pets” other than the dog being two rabbits, a moose knuckle and a black mamba, a daughter who denies being on the pill but every time she pees a swan goes infertile, and a teenage son with so many tissues under his bed, that if you knocked off the legs, it would be the same height off the floor. Everybody has secrets, but some secrets are so dark, that it makes sense for them to remain hidden. In the spring of 1949, the top floor flat at 32 Davisville Road was home to 40-year-old Bernard Cooper, his 38-year-old wife Mary and their two children. To many, they seemed like a typical but dysfunctional working class family who were struggling to make ends meet, and although Bernard’s crimes were known, a much darker secret was hidden behind those doors, one which would lead to a murder. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 259: ‘The Lone Hand of Terror’. The first three months of 1949 reflected the changes in post-war Britain; although the Second World War was over in principle and clothes rationing had ended, men aged 18 to 26 were still required to serve 18 months in the armed forces, NATO was coming into effect, Britain had announced it was developing plutonium, and that January, an anonymous national survey was carried out among 4000 British people about their sexual behaviours and attitudes. It remained unpublished for 50 years… …and thankfully, one of those who didn’t appear in the study was Bernard Cooper. Born on the 17th of September 1908 near Radford in Nottingham in the East Midlands, Bernard Alfred Peter Cooper was one of three siblings to Percy & Florence. As a catholic, days after his birth, he was baptised at All Souls Church, and although poor, he should have had everything he needed to succeed. But with his parents seeking a better life in a foreign land, his childhood was fragmented and lonely. Bernard recalled “my schooling was very poor, and I learned little”, as on 14th of October 1916, while a raging war burned Europe to the core, the Cooper’s set sail on the Orita, a passenger ship as part of the Pacific Steam Navigation Co, and one week later, they arrived in the Chilean port of Punta Arenas. Raised in the southerly region of Patagonia, Chile must have felt a little like home to 8-year-old Bernard with its lush green hills, its wealth of catholic churches and the endless sheep farms (which became a key part of its brief economic boom), but as a stark contrast to England, it had glaciers and penguins. Given its proximity to Antarctica, some referred to it as ‘the end of the world’, and for Bernard it may have been, as being raised in a Catholic school in Chile and not speaking Spanish, he would state that “everything I know I learned when I left school”, and with his parents separating, that meant his father. In 1921, aged 13, Bernard arrived back in England, and with 13 being the age at which British education ended if you were poor and working class, he learned his trade as a house painter and decorator from his father. At that point, he could have done well, but there were other things that he learned to love. When a child is young, they all need a good role model, someone they can learn from, and get a grasp of the difference between good and bad or right and wrong, only Percy was far from a perfect parent. At breakfast, Bernard would crack open a beer and had no qualms about pissing his wages up the wall. Burdened by a high sex drive, he openly admitted “I visited prostitutes at least three times a week”, which he did throughout his whole life. And although being the spit of his father – 5 foot 7 inches tall, medium build with brown hair, blue eyes, a long nose and bushy eyebrows – it was uncertain where he got his violent and cruel streak, but there was no denying who had taught him his criminal ways. On the 1st of August 1924, 46-year-old Percy Cooper and his 16-year-old son Bernard were hired as decorators by Mr Cowley, the landlord of Lavendon Inn in the village of Lavendon, Northamptonshire. In the beer cellar, they helped themselves to drinks and stole from a bowl £17 15s & 1d (£1350 today) which belonged to the Green Man Loan and Dividend Society, which helped struggling families with small loans to get through their week. With Percy guilty and undeniably remorseless of his crime, he was sentenced to six months in prison, but seeing something good in “the lad” (as they called him), they reduced Bernard’s sentence to two months, and sought him work while Percy was locked up. There was no denying that Percy was a bad influence on his son… …but Bernard seemed to make amends when he went his own way. In 1927, aged 19, as was the law for single men, he was conscripted as a Private in the Queen's Royal Army, and although it was a steady job and regular income where a better role model could teach him some discipline, unable to take orders, he was cautioned and dismissed for bad behaviour three times. When questioned, he claimed he joined the Navy in 1942, only this was a lie to hide different crime. On the 8th of September 1930, at Branksome Police Court in Dorset, Bernard was sentenced to three months in prison for stealing gloves from a taxi. Having only served one year and two months in the three years he had been in the Army, he was court marshalled and dismissed from all armed forces. By 1931, as a convict, a remorseless thief and a habitual drunk who spent more time with prostitutes than any prospective wife, owing to his cruel streak, by the time he moved to London, he was single. So it is with much sadness and misfortune, that – for whatever reason, maybe poverty or desperation - a young lady fell in love with him, and what may have seemed liked the start of something good… …would end with her brutal murder. 21-year-old Mary Fordham of Islington was a good woman seeking a good man to live a nice life and start a family with. Being far from a catch, what she saw in him was uncertain, but becoming pregnant in October 1933, the right thing to would have been to marry her - only for now, it was not to be. On the 6th of July 1934, they gave birth to a daughter who (for her decency) I shall call ‘Susan’. As a tiny tot who was no bother to anyone, she deserved to live a happy life full of joy, toys and treats, but just three months into her life, back to his old ways, Bernard was sentenced to 18 months for burglary. Mary strived as best she could, only their marriage was ‘never a happy one’, as whereas she struggled and strived to make ends meet mostly as a single mother, he spent 10 of their 17 years together, sat on his arse in a prison cell, learning even more pathetic ways of stealing only to end up inside again, or half-heartedly being a husband and a father who squandered their money on women and drink. In October 1935, with Bernard released from prison - possibly not because she wanted to, but because they’d also had a son born in an era where they’d be cruelly branded as bastards – Mary & Bernard married. Mary was now tied to a thief, a drunkard and a womaniser for the rest of his life… …and although he would cruelly murder her, he was capable of something much worse. Barely six months into their marriage and two years into ‘Susan’s life, on the 2nd of April 1936, again Bernard was sentenced to 18 months in prison on the charges of theft, burglary and common assault. Three weeks earlier, on 12th March 1936, Bernard broke into Park House, a country estate in Harrow-on-the-Hill, which was the residence of Swedish diplomat, Johan Stille. With Johan’s party having died down and his guests having gone to bed, that night – when any good father would have read their daughter a bedtime story, tucked her into bed and checked-up on her every time she had a bad dream – Bernard broke in via a side window, and as taught by his father, he stole goods and drank their drink. Being sat in the sitting room and lounging on their sofa, as he quaffed three bottles of expensive wine, being cocky and remorseless, he wrote a series of notes to the owner which he left dotted about; the first read “you can call the police if you like, but they will not catch me", the second read “you sure know a good drop of drink" as he slugged back another glass of Chateau Margaux, and third, insultingly it read “I must say you all snore like pigs. Thanks”, which he signed as “The Lone Hand of Terror”. Bernard didn’t have an ounce of compassion for his victims, he never did, and as he stumbled about, with his staggering legs bouncing off every table and toppling every ornament to the floor, Lawrence O’Shea, a guest of Johan Stille grabbed the burglar, a scuffle ensued, and Bernard hit him across the face with a fire poker. Requiring a few stitches, Lawrence was released that day. But being arrested, at Wealdstone Police Court, Bernard was convicted of burglary, plus another count of housebreaking. Only this wasn’t his worst crime. Another lengthy spell in prison did him no good, and having lost contact with his father, as well as his younger siblings, all he had now was Mary and their children, who deserved much better than him. In 1937, while he was serving his sentence, desperate to live a better life, Mary left him and took their children with her. She’d had enough of his drinking, his crimes and his cruelty, he wasn’t a husband or a father who claimed he was providing for his family, as the only person he thought about was himself. The longest he had lasted in a job was three years until he was dismissed for drunkenness, ever since then, he never fully committed to being a legitimate decorator, but he promised that he would change. In January 1938, upon his release from prison, as the Second World War loomed, Mary took him back. A month later, he was arrested for the possession of a firearm, theft, burglary, resisting arrest, and the attempted murder of a Police Constable in Paddington. On 8th of March 1938 at the Old Bailey, convicted of the lesser charge of grievous bodily harm, he was sentenced to seven years in prison. Aged just 29-years-old, Bernard Cooper had committed several serious offences for which he showed no remorse. He was evil, and yet, the burglary of a diplomat, the attempted murder of a policeman and the later murder of his wife weren’t the worst crimes that ‘The Lone Hand of Terror’ would commit… …that was yet to come. (Cliffhanger). By 1942, as many British cities burned and were blasted apart by Luftwaffe’s bombs, Bernard said he’d enlisted in an Anti-Tank Unit of the British Army only to be honourably discharged four years later, but this was all a lie. In truth, he was in Brixton Prison serving seven years for almost killing a constable. Released in 1946, he moved in with his wife Mary, their 11-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son into the top floor of 32 Davisville Road. Already a troubled marriage, their relationship was strained as this wayward father and husband had missed most of their lives, and although he would blame his actions on drink, a bout of herpes, and having his left cheek scarred and being knocked unconscious for three days by a falling window frame, his real criminality and cruelty begun under the tutelage of his father. In 1948, again having served three months for burglary, upon his release, he squandered their money on pints and prostitutes, and yet, it was then that he committed his most abhorrent of crimes. ‘Susan’ was only 14 years old, a young girl in the blossom of womanhood with her whole life ahead of her. In their own home, which should have been a place of innocence and happy memories, he raped her, he raped his teenage daughter for the sake of his carnal lusts, ruining her mind and scarring her body. As a pitiless man who was worth nothing, having forced and stripped her, he treated his own offspring like one of his badly paid whores, and with the feted stench of drink on his breath, her first experience of what should have been with a boy who she loved was instead an incestuous rape by her own dad. It was a secret she was forced to keep silent about, only nature is impossible to silence. In October 1948, with ‘Susan’s belly swollen by a foetus which had been fathered by the monster who had fathered her, with a rape allegation having over him, he admitted his crime to his wife Mary, the pregnancy was terminated by a surgical abortion, and with no arrest, it’s likely this was kept secret. It was an impossible decision for Mary to make. Bernard was an evil man who’d done the unthinkable. With nowhere to run to, no money of her own and two children to care for, when he promised “I’ll never touch her again, if you take me back”, the best of the worst options was to agree. But with all three still living in the same flat, she knew that she couldn’t keep her eye on him all of the time. Bernard tried to resume his decorating work, but failed. He tried to earn a living anyway he could, but failed. He promised her he had stopped seeing sex-workers, stating “I’ve been faithful to you all this time, except for what happened with ‘Susan’”, but the more he failed at life, the more he drank. At the start of March 1949, unable to trust this loathsome paedophile who was a liar and a drunk who lived in the same three-roomed flat as the wife he had begun to assault and the daughter he had raped and traumatised for life, Mary accused Bernard of interfering with ‘Susan’ again, which he denied. In Bernard’s own arrogant words, she nagged him and nagged him and nagged him, as (rightly) every time his lascivious eyes drifted towards the sullied frame of her once virginal child, it made her furious. Everything came to a head on the evening of Thursday 31st of March 1949. With ‘Susan’ asleep and sharing her bed with her cousin Gwendoline, the simple act of having to sleep next to the man she despised must have sent a clammy shiver down her spine, and although (for the sake of her children) she had tried to keep the peace, it had all become too much for her, that night. The argument was a hushed one, which with whispered curses, awoke no-one who was already asleep. That day, Bernard had been slowly seething, as Mary had accused him of having sexual intercourse with his own child that morning, which – of course – he denied, and there was also no evidence of. In the early hours, Bernard would claim “I tried to keep my temper, but I lost it”. Slapping her across the face, in fury, he grabbed her silk stocking from the chair, stating “I tied it round her neck meaning to silence her”. Only wrapping it twice, pulling it tight and tying it with a double knot, even as her nails desperately clawed at her darkening throat which bled her neck red, weakening, she couldn’t untie it. “I knew what he was doing” Bernard said, and as her eyes protruded, her tongue jutted forward and her last ever breath was held a prisoner in her crushed throat, he said “I realised that I had killed her”. During the night, Gwendoline said “I thought I heard screams”, but believing it was either a nightmare or had come from the street outside, she headed back to sleep, unaware of what had happened. And as a remorseless man, he removed the wedding ring from her finger, and having pushed her slowly cooling body under their matrimonial bed, Bernard went back to sleep, until the morning sun rose. Friday 1st April 1949 was a day beset by gloom. In the top floor flat of 32 Davisville Road, as an ineffectual father, ‘Susan’ got herself ready for school, made a packed lunch for her brother, and the two headed off, being told their mother was ill in bed. With Bernard keen to get her out of the flat, Gwendoline said “he said that Mary had had bad night”, having been injured years before in an air-raid, “and asked me to take a letter to her sister in Croydon". It took her two hours to get to her aunt’s house, but when she opened the letter, the page was blank. Bernard fled with a wedding ring, a £1 note and some cigarettes. At 3pm, the children returned to a silent flat. There father had gone, which wasn’t unusual, but there was also no sound of chatter, no reassuring smell of an evening meal, and no hug from their mother. The familiarity of a seemingly happy home was gone and replaced with a cold empty feeling of dread. Later that evening, seeking signs of where their mum may have gone to, ‘Susan’ checked the bedroom, and under the bed where a suitcase would usually have been placed, she found her unceremoniously stuffed like discarded rubbish, still in her nightdress, her hair in curlers, and a look of abject fear etched upon her contorted face, as rigor mortis had fixed her features with that terrified expression forever. ‘Susan’ was haunted for life by three things; the rape, her father’s eyes, and her mother’s dead face. Detective Inspector Jennings of Shepherd’s Bush police headed up the investigation. With his one suit missing, and no other suspect, a description of Bernard Cooper was put out to all stations, docks and airports, and with a long nose, bushy eyebrows, a black scar down his face owing to a head injury, and the little finger of his right hand unable to contract, he should have been easy for the police to spot. That evening, being found incapably drunk in Islington, a slow-witted constable arrested him, let him sober up in a cell, and having forgotten to check the list of ‘wanted felons’, Bernard was released on bail. Fleeing to Ashford in Kent, with no remorse, he pawned Mary’s ring, and again was arrested as a mere drunk and was bailed when he had sobered up, as the cops headed for a hattrick of cock ups. On the run, or more accurately a sozzled stagger, on 6th of April 1949, a full six days after the murder, PC Johnston of the Kent Constabulary spotted Bernard outside of the Girls’ County School in Ashford. Why he was there? He never revealed. But having ran out of money and drink, he proudly proclaimed, “you have heard of me. I strangled my wife in Shepherd’s Bush. I have been on the run ever since. I intended to give myself up at Dover but didn’t”. And finally, The Lone Hand of Terror was arrested. With all the cockiness in the world, Bernard declared “I will be perfectly frank about it. I did it, and I will tell you all about it in due course”, but not before he had a little sleep. As a pointless man who had achieved nothing but misery, he may have expected a dose of adoration being a sadistic killer with a self-coined nickname. But with the sensational trial of the acid bath murderer, John George Haigh, having hogged all the limelight, the crimes of Bernard Cooper were relegated to the inside pages. As of today, he remains forgotten. But that didn’t stop the tabloids from printing their own bile to sex up the case, by writing “Mary become hysterical, so he strangled her with her own stockings. He asked ‘Susan’ to run away with him but she, sensibly, said no”, for which there was no evidence. (End) Charged on the 7th April 1949 at Shepherd’s Bush police station, he said nothing, except to ask “the 25 shillings and 6 pence found in my pocket, I would like that back”, as all he cared about was money. Assessed at Brixton Prison, Prisoner 2853 Cooper showed “no signs of insanity, and despite a lack of intelligence, he is not a defective. There is no evidence of epilepsy, and he is declared fit to stand trial”. Further assessed by a psychiatrist, his report states “he admits that all his convictions were done when he was drunk, so drunk that he could not remember them”, which was the same convenient alibi he had used several times awaiting trial for theft, assault, and attempted murder, as were his subsequent head injuries, “but it is our opinion that his story of drunken forgetfulness was completely untrue”. Tried at the Old Bailey on the 18th of May 1949, it took the jury just eleven minutes to find him ‘guilty’. With Mr Justice Hallett summing up, “it is perfectly simple, but none the less dreadful, that this is a case of plain murder without any excuse for it whatsoever”, and with Bernard giving no evidence, even his own lawyer had to open the trial with the following words, “nothing I can say can prevent you from disliking him because of what he has done”. And for his heinous crimes, he was sentenced to death. On Tuesday 21st of June 1949 at 9am, having been given communion by the bishops of Stepney, within the execution chamber at Pentonville Prison, 40-year-old Bernard Alfred Cooper was executed by the hangman Albert Pierrepoint. Weighing 153lbs, his body was dropped 7 feet and 3 inches, and with a dislocation of the 2nd and 3rd cervical vertebrae resulting in the complete separation of the spinal cord, left to hang for an hour, the world became a better place when The Lone Hand of Terror’ went limp. ‘Susan’ lived a short life, and plagued by trauma, she died in Autumn 1978, aged just 44. 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.
1 Comment
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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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