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This is Part Two of Two of The un-Holy Trinity.
On Friday 6th of January 1967, 17-year-old Bernard Oliver vanished from Muswell Hill. 10 days later, his body was found 85 miles away in Suffolk. He had been strangled and assaulted, with his body cut into eight pieces. But who had abducted him, and why?
THE LOCATION: (note I stopped updating the map, as MapHub were demanding money)
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Who murdered Bernard Oliver, and why? Find out on Murder Mile. This is The Heath, also known as the Wheatsheaf Crossroads near the village of Tattingstone in Suffolk, 4 miles from Ipswich where it was believed that Bernard was raped, strangled and dismembered, and 82 miles from Muswell Hill where he last seen alive, then abducted, lured away or left without reason. With no sightings of him for a week, he ended up in a place he didn’t belong, there were no hints that he was held captive, restrained or mistreated, having been fed, and given a haircut and a manicure. Two days before his body was found and ten days after his disappearance, possibly in a warehouse in Ipswich, he was ‘expertly dissected’ by a professional, stripped of any ID, cut into eight pieces, stuffed into two old suitcases - with a shipping label, a set of initials, a matchbox, a tea towel, his sports jacket and a jewellery receipt, which may have been red herrings to confuse the detectives – and on Monday 16th of January 1967 at 9:20am, both suitcases were found, having been carelessly dumped in a hedge. It was a murder which posed more questions than answers as the Police had no suspects, sightings or motive; as why did he vanish, how did he get there, and why didn’t he flee, as it hadn’t all the hallmarks of a typical abduction, and no-one even knew if it was the same person who fed him, then killed him. The Wheatsheaf Crossroads was an odd place to dump the body parts, as although isolated, with no streetlights, few houses and farmland for as far as the eye can see, there was a real risk of the killer or killers being seen, as nearby was a pub, Folly Farm, and the A137; a busy rural road between Ipswich, the city of Colchester, the docks at Harwich, and many ships heading to Denmark and The Netherlands. A high level of care was taken to ensure that Bernard’s body wouldn’t be identified, and yet he hadn’t been buried, possibly due to several nights of frost which made the ground too hard to dig, as even Fred Burggy the farmer had to plough his field a second time. But what baffled the detectives was why the suitcases weren’t then hidden somewhere else having been hastily tossed into a hedge of bracken. It was possible, even here at an ungodly hour in the midst of winter for a culprit to be seen and panic. Many witnesses reported alleged sightings of a suspicious man with a suitcase – some weeks, months, years, and even decades later, resulting in cloudy recollections owing to time, bias and facts gleaned from the newspapers - but one sighting of the so-called ‘Trilby Man’ is very credible, as it was reported just two days after the body was found, and well before anyone knew anything about the case itself. On Monday 16th of January 1967 at 1:15am, eight hours before the suitcase were found, Sheila Foulser, a 24-year-old hairdresser was driving south along the A137 from Wherstead, just south of Ipswich. She stated “It was rather foggy”, weather reports confirm this hence her speed was slow and cautious. “I stopped to turn left at the crossroads” leading onto Church Road heading to Tattingstone village, “I noticed a man about 30 feet away, carrying a suitcase” – this was the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, it was cold, he was carrying a suitcase and he was nowhere near a taxi, a bus or a train. “He was walking in the direction of Tattingstone on the Harwich Road. I noticed him because at that time of night he was the only pedestrian I had seen. I picked him out in the headlights. He was middle aged and wearing a dark Trilby hat and a long trench coat”, but being foggy, that’s all she could see. She had been spooked earlier in the drive, “as a car had been following about three yards behind me with its headlights on for about five miles”, starting near to Ipswich, “but at the spot where I saw the man with the suitcase, the car behind me stopped, then turned in his direction and appeared to stop ahead of him”, just mere yards from the hedge at the crossroads where the suitcases were dumped. She didn’t see it happen, as she had driven off, with the car no-longer following her. She was unable to identify its make or the driver as it was dark, and we have only limited details on ‘The Trilby Man’. Psychologists state any killer would likely remove a body from any place they’re associated with, to a space they know but have no connection to, having travelled no more than 4 or 5 miles from the killing in order to distance themselves from any evidence, and without being found with a body in their car. Ipswich seemed a likely location, and this sighting happened 24 hours after Robert Thurston said he saw a well-dressed, middle-aged, long-faced man in long black mac’, dark trousers and polished shoes exit the R&W Paul Building between 1am and 2am carrying two suitcases and wearing surgical gloves. So, was this Bernard’s killer or killers, were they dumping the body in panic, were they innocent men, or was this a coincidence? Neither man was found, so we’ve no way of knowing if any of it is real. But it was plausible, very plausible… …and it may even have led to the culprit. The investigation was thorough. Headed up by Detective Superintendent Harry Tappin of the Met’s Murder Squad, 50,000 people were questioned, 30,000 homes were checked, 3000 cars were stopped at the road block, 2000+ statements were taken, 1800 calls and 670 letters received, with 6000 people in the villages nearby and 15,000 people in Ipswich questioned, with the same done in Muswell Hill. It was thorough, but riddled with the bias of its day. Bernard was raped, therefore it was assumed that his killer had to gay, and being just months before homosexuality was partly decriminalised, detectives “interviewed every gay man in London”, as being the villain of the era, the less-educated believed that every gay was a sadist and a paedophile, and as they ran rampant in the streets, no-one was safe. Yet, whenever a female was raped, the Police didn’t question every heterosexual male as a likely suspect. It began as gossip, when staff at the King’s Head in Stutton (2 miles south of Tattingstone) told Police that seamen were having all-night drinking parties in a nearby cottage. It was checked and ruled out, but 150 detectives questioned every gay man charged as a ‘sex offender’ in the Home Counties and East Anglia, including anyone who had been arrested for being gay, as it was still a criminal offence. Rightly, even though there wasn’t a centralised Missing Person’s Register, Police cross-referenced the details of the 120 boys, aged 12 to 20 who had gone missing in the previous year, as – like Bernard – many were young, handsome, easily led, and were fed and groomed by someone prior to their deaths. Similarities were found between the murder of Bernard Oliver, and 14-year-old Michael John Trower. Like Bernard, Michael – who lived in Hove, 116 miles south of Tattingstone – came from a good family and went to a special needs school. For no known reason, on 19th of September 1966, he ran away from home and a week after Bernard’s body was found, his dismembered skull, a limb, a plimsole and a sock were spotted in a shallow grave at Sweet Hill, an isolated spot not far from the A23 to Brighton. Michael was buried, Bernard was not, but if this was the same killer, had he learned from other killings to stuff the body parts in a locked and buried suitcase, where the foxes couldn’t dig them up? Or again, was this just a coincidence? Michael’s killer was never found, so we shall never know. As was stated, the Police “interviewed every gay man in London”, especially anyone who was famous, wealthy, powerful or a threat by the Establishment. The three most infamous suspects was the East End gangster Ronnie Kray, the music producer Joe Meek, and the pirate radio DJ Tony Windsor. Chris, Bernard’s brother stated “I have an idea that the Kray’s had something to do with it. They used to go to this house”, a 7-bedroomed period building in Bildeston called ‘The Brooks’, 12 miles north-west of Ipswich where “rent boys were brought in”. It was well known that Ronnie Kray was bisexual, had a fondness for ‘young boys’, that he organised orgies attended by politicians such as Lord Boothby, Jeremy Thorpe and Tom Driberg, that he ‘procured’ for these orgies underage boys (some as young as 10), and that The Kray’s arrest was delayed as “10 Downing Street had told the police to back off”. In 2015, documents released under FOI showed that MI5 (Britain’s Security Service) had used the Kray twins to gather intelligence on homosexual politicians and established figures, in return for protection. But they didn’t purchase ‘The Brooks’ until two months after Bernard’s body was found, there was no evidence that The Kray’s abducted or murdered a child, the killings they were convicted of (George Cornell and Jack ‘The Hat’ McVitie) were shot and stabbed, not raped and dismembered, and Ronnie’s so-called confession to his former cellmate, Pete Gillett in the BBC documentary Reggie Kray: The Final Word in 2000 was that he’d murdered ‘a young gay boy’, which came to light five years after his death. It's a tenuous link, and as always, people have jumped on it because it’s sensational. The next high profile target was gay record producer and songwriter, Joe Meek. On 3rd of February 1967, two weeks after Bernard’s body was found, in his North London flat, Joe killed his landlady Violet Shenton with a single-barrelled shotgun he’d confiscated off a friend, then turned it on himself. They’d argued over unpaid rent and loud music, he struggled with debts, drugs use, bipolar and schizophrenia, and after his death, the tabloids fabricated many of the myths which are still today mistaken for fact. One was that Bernard had worked as a tape-stacker in Joe’s recording studio, which is unproven. That he had killed himself three days after Bernard was buried, only Joe had actually killed himself three days before. That he was yet another possible boyfriend of Ronnie Kray. And – as a homosexual with a 1963 conviction for importuning for immoral purposes in a toilet – it was suggested his mental state was exacerbated as Police interviewed every gay man in London. But given that he had no connections to Ipswich, Suffolk, and had an alibi for the days around Bernard’s murder, why would he be worried? Again, it's tenuous, but it’s a more saleable story than Bernard being murdered by a nobody. Besides, neither Joe Meek nor Ronnie Kray had an ‘expert’ skill in dismembering bodies, similar to a surgeon. The next target of many was a Tony Withers alias Windsor, who was once one of the highest paid DJs in Australia, but came to the UK in 1962 to work as a radio DJ onboard the pirate radio ship ‘MV Galaxy’ for Radio London – a ship harboured off the coast of Frinton-on-Sea, 12 miles from Tattingstone. He was questioned by the Police in January 1967 about Bernard’s murder, and according to Mary Payne, who worked with him at Radio London, "he was gay, an alcoholic, and a close friend of Joe Meek". Mary later stated “we have since discovered many things about the station's personnel and associates that have saddened us deeply. It's horribly sleazy stuff", as several 1960s and 70s DJs on MV Galaxy have been convicted of heinous sexual offences, like Chris Denning, who had a 1959 conviction for distributing pornography, and in 1974 and 1985 for gross indecency and the indecent assault of a child. In 1967, Tony Windsor was dismissed owing to his alcoholism, and when interviewed by the Police, it was said that they shared this dark joke about Bernard’s murder, stating – “we are seeking a man who boarded a bus in Ipswich with two suitcases, he asked for one full fare, and two halves please". Tony Windsor was dismissed as a suspect, but with detectives investigating whether the initials ‘PVA’ found on the suitcase could belong to a Dutch national, they had the captain on the MV Galaxy submit a list of all the crew members names, as well as those who left the ship and disembarked in Holland. With no evidence, these three suspects were never arrested or convicted… …but there were two prime suspects with links to something much darker, known as The Holy Trinity. In 2004, under the Freedom of Information Act, documents released revealed that the Police’s prime suspects in the murder of Bernard Oliver were two doctors, Dr Martin Reddington and Dr John Byles. Martin Bruce Reddington was born on the 26th of June 1931 in Colchester, 20 miles south of Ipswich and 15 miles shy of Tattingstone, being two places he knew well, but had no direct connection to. As one of several sons to Yvonne and Mortimer, he was raised in affluence and privilege as his father was a respected gynaecological surgeon, and his son Martin followed him becoming a general practitioner. Records show that from 1962 to 1969, Dr Martin Reddington lived at 18 Woodland Gardens in Muswell Hill, a few streets south of Bernard’s home, and as a GP, he had a surgery in Muswell Hill Broadway, the same street that Bernard was last seen walking along. Dr Reddington may have been his doctor, but could have chatted to him at the cinema, the laundrette, or the Wimpy bar where he had worked. In 1965, two years before Bernard’s murder when he was 33 (the same age range that the pathologist said the killer would most likely be) Dr Reddington was charged with the buggery and indecent assault of teenage males, but as it never led to a conviction, he remained in his job and home in Muswell Hill. Then in 1971, four years after Bernard’s killing, with those same crimes coming back to haunt him, before he could be charged, he fled to South Africa, and then to Australia, he lived in Marrickville and Turramurra, a suburb on Sydney's Upper North Shore, where he had a surgery and worked as a doctor. There were several attempts to extradite him to the UK, but without enough evidence, Dr Reddington was never interviewed regarding the indecent assault of young males, or the murder of Bernard Oliver. In February 1977, Reddington was charged with the indecent assault of a young male while working as a GP in Turramurra, and although he made no plea, but was later cleared at Sydney Central Court. Sometime in the 1980s, he returned to the UK, he lived and worked in Surbiton, Surrey, and died on the 29th of March 1995, aged 63, leaving an estate of £250,000 (roughly half a million pounds today). When Bernard’s murder was re-opened in 1977, a private investigator said she recognised the suitcase with the ‘PVA’ initials as belonging to three men who used a laundrette in Muswell Hill. Shown photos of the Police’s prime suspects, she picked out Dr Reddington. But this was 10 years later, so was she right, was her memory clouded by time, bias and the newspapers coverage of the case, or had these suitcases got anything to do with Dr Reddington at all, as although the Police believed that the initials, the shipping label and the tea-towel could be red-herrings or a clue to the killer’s identity, the suitcases could easily have been found in a skip, and relate to someone unconnected, who was long since dead. The other primary suspect in Bernard’s murder was Dr Reddington’s friend, Dr John Byles. John Roussel Byles was born on the 27th of January 1933 in Hammersmith, West London as one of two siblings to Hilda & John Byles. Like Dr Reddington, he was raised in privilege, as his father was a highly respected doctor and he too followed his father working in obstetrics and gynaecology, which is how he may have met Dr Reddington, and as a nod to the shipping label, he had worked as a ship’s surgeon. His history is harder to pin-down, as he moved from place-to-place, but he was raised in Bromley, had lived in Kent, Kensington and Muswell Hill, and the same year he had obtained his doctor’s diploma, he was charged with indecently assaulting a 16-year-old boy in the Earls Court flat that he shared with a marketing executive called James William Halsall. They pleaded ‘not guilty’, they both claimed that the boy was lying, and on the 11th of November 1963 at the Old Bailey, they were both acquitted. In April 1967, four years later, in connection to Bernard Oliver’s murder, when detectives interviewed “every gay man in London” with a conviction for sexual offences, they searched Dr Byles’ Ennismore Gardens flat in Knightsbridge. They found nothing, but why would they, as with the culprit said to have a high level of “criminal sophistication”, would Bernard’s killer leave any evidence in their own home? That same year, along with that search, Dr Byles was interviewed “as one of two men thought to have been seen talking to Michael John Trower”, the 14-year-old boy from Hove whose dismembered body parts were found in a shallow grave near Brighton. He wasn’t charged and the case remains unsolved. In 1973, both Reddington & Byles were suspects in the murder of another boy in London, and with Dr Byles being investigated by Scotland Yard for more than 20 alleged indecent assaults, they both fled to Australia. On the 17th of December 1974, Byles was arrested in Melbourne for the gross indecency of a minor, and pending his extradition back to England, his $2000 bail was paid for by Dr Reddington. He was due appear at his extradition hearing on the 27th of December 1974, but instead, he fled. Three weeks later, on the 19th of January 1975, three days after the 8th anniversary of the discovery of Bernard's body, he booked into a room at the Prince of Wales Hotel in Proserpine, Queensland, under the alias of John Matthews, and killed himself by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. He was 41. Beside his body, he had written three notes; one addressed to his family in London, the other to his friend Dr Reddington, and a third to Scotland Yard, in which he apologised for his actions, but he made no reference to Bernard Oliver. He was buried in an unmarked grave in Proserpine General Cemetery. When he took his life, he was almost broke, unemployed, lonely and a wanted man, as just four days prior, he’d been named at Leeds Crown Court in Northen England as a ringleader in ‘The Holy Trinity’. So, who killed Bernard Oliver and why? It has never been solved, but is the evidence right there? Bernard Oliver was 17, but looked 12, as he was small, pretty, slim, and as a student at a special needs school, he was said to be “easily led”. He talked of leaving home, but hadn’t and wasn’t dressed for it and that night, he went to a café and told his friend Christine Willars ‘well, I’m going off to see a friend’. Was he chosen because of his pre-pubescent looks, was he hand-picked by someone who knew him, was he gently lured away from Muswell Hill by someone he truly trusted, maybe a teacher or doctor, who bought him a meal and a necklace for his ‘girlfriend’, plied him with cigarettes, and promised to fulfil his dreams – “he said he’d like to work on a farm with animals” – not realising it was a nightmare. Maybe no-one spotted his abduction, because he wasn’t snatched, he was coerced by a kindly friend? There were no confirmed sightings of Bernard from Saturday 7th to Monday 16th January, so maybe – given he had no restraint marks to his wrists and ankles suggesting he wasn’t held captive – had his abductor kept him sweet by driving him to Suffolk, where for a week he worked on a farm, earning some money, and living his dream, having been reassured “it’s okay, I’ve squared this with your dad”? This was something only a man of wealth and power could do, having given him food, a bed, a haircut and a manicure, believing he was being treated well, when in truth, his abductor had a darker motive. On Saturday 14th of January, Bernard was raped, receiving two lacerations and a few bruises as “he put up a vain fight for his life”. But did he not flee as he was drugged, then dismembered ‘expertly’ by a doctor or a surgeon, and disposed of as - many young boys were - having served their purpose… …for a sadistic child pornography and paedophile ring called ‘The Holy Trinity’. On the 15th of January 1975, four days before his suicide, Dr Byles was named at Leeds Crown Court as one of several men accused of the grooming, abduction and sexual assault of boys, some as young as 9, at the Holy Trinity Church in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. Having fled to Australia before he could be charged, Byles was described as ‘evil’ and a ringleader in a network of child rape and porn. In the dock, his three perverted co-conspirators stood in his absence; Reverand John Fairburn Poole, vicar at the Holy Trinity Church, Raymond Varley an ex-child care-worker, and Clive Wilcock, a school teacher, who like Dr Byles were the kinds of adults that vulnerable children were told they could trust. Byles - who had prior allegations hanging over him for luring boys to his south London surgery, plying them with alcohol (maybe tranquilisers) and photographing the child’s rape, as well as a further claim that he had assaulted, murdered and cut up a cabin boy as a ship’s surgeon – he used dark isolated spaces where no-one would hear the children scream, such as the crypt under the Holy Trinity Church. Having been fed a last meal, lured with promises, and given a haircut and a manicure so they’d look pretty, with each young child drugged and raped, ‘The Holy Trinity’ posed them, photographed them, and sold these naked and explicit images to pornographic magazines in Denmark and The Netherlands. On the 15th of June 1975, Reverand John Poole, Raymond Varley, Clive Wilcock, and Dr John Byles and Jack Nicholls in their absence were convicted of conspiracy to contravene the Sexual Offences Act, the Obscene Publications Act and the Post Office Act, as well as the gross indecency and assault of minors. Poole denied taking part in the abuse and was sentenced to three years, Wilcock to four years, along with Raymond Varley who admitted to 7 charges of indecently assaulting boys aged 9 to 13, and in the 1980s he abused boys in Albania, Serbia, India and Thailand while working as an English teacher. An extradition application later failed as he claimed he’d dementia and he died in a Goa prison aged 63. Varley’s close associate was Dr Freddy Peats, a notorious doctor and a social worker for the Catholic Church, who participated and co-ordinated the international abuse and trafficking of young children. Dr Byles was never sentenced as he was already dead, and Dr Reddington was suspected, but never tried, even though as a known associate of Byles they were suspected of several assaults and murders, but there was never any hard evidence to connect either man to the suitcases or the killing, and it is uncertain (and unlikely, given the distance) that Bernard Oliver was brought to the Holy Trinity Church. In 1968, with the murder site still missing, no confirmed sightings and no evidence against any suspect, the investigation into Bernard Oliver’s murder collapsed, and no-one was brought to justice. As a cold case, it’s re-opened every decade, or when new evidence emerges, but little progress has been made. Chris, Bernard’s brother said "I wish it had been solved before my father, my mother and Tony died. I don't know if it ever will be”. As of today, it’s remained unsolved for 58 years, and even with advances in DNA - with Bernard’s jacket lost, the suitcases improperly stored for modern forensic purposes, and if he was murdered at R&W Paul warehouse in Ipswich, with that being renovated into flats - another piece of the puzzle is erased forever, along with every witnesses and their memories clouded by time. As Chris said, “at the end of the day, even if I found out who did it - he might be alive, or dead - but it doesn't bring my brother back. People say you'll get closure, but I'm never going to get closure". Dr Byles and Dr Reddington remain the Police’s primary suspects in the murder of Bernard Oliver… …and maybe, other young boys who were raped and murdered by ‘The Holy Trinity’. 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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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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