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-EIGHT: This is Part 2 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: On the morning of Tuesday the 18th July 1989, 33-year-old Peter Foster walked into Bridlington Police Station stating that his girlfriend, 38-year-old Linda Grimm had died in her sleep. Living his life like Alex DeLarge in ‘A Clockwork Orange’, the next scene in his violent tale should have played out like this. Inside a Police cell, having been beaten bloody by corrupt officers, Alex professes his innocence to his probation officer, Mr Deltoid, whose revelation is about to make this little thug famous. Alex “It wasn’t me brother Sir, I’m not so bad, I was led on by the treachery of others, Sir. It was one of my stinking droogs, get them before they get away. It was all their idea. They forced me to do it. I’m innocent”. Deltoid laughs “you’re now a murderer little Alex, a murderer”, Alex “it’s not true Sir. It was only a slight tolchock, she were breathing I swear it”, Deltoid “I’ve just come from the hospital, your victim has died”. And with that, Alex is convicted of murder, and unwittingly becomes a martyr to the state. Alex DeLarge is rehabilitated using a revolutionary technique, which makes him physically sick when he even thinks about committing a crime, and conforming him against his free will to society’s norms. In Foster’s mind, it’s possible that he also believed that his crimes were not his fault, and that his brutal assault, torture and trauma of his ex-wives Lindy & Margaret Foster, and ex-girlfriends Kathryn Portelli & Julie Dixon to name a few, that he was led to commit them by a higher power, whether God or fate. But Foster wasn’t arrested or questioned, as with the pathologist Dr Lloyd Denmark unable to state if Linda’s injuries (said to be “extreme” and “akin to a car crash”) not being listed as suspicious, with her four times over the drink-drive limit, her death was blamed on her alcoholism, and Foster walked free. This deranged and dangerous man would go on to physically and mentally torture more many more women, and another would end up dead. 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? My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 358: Evil Little Droog – Part 2 of 2. It’s hard to pin down who Peter Allan Foster really was, as by the mid to late 1980s, he was so obsessed with ‘A Clockwork Orange’ – reciting the lines, wearing the clothes and re-enacting the violence with his fists, feet or a sharpened umbrella tip – he so inhabited the persona of the film’s narrator and (so called) “hero”, that it was hard to tell where the real Peter Foster began, and Alex DeLarge ended. Given his wanton cruelty, some may suggest that he was mentally ill? One week before Linda Grimm’s death, Foster told his doctor he was prone to banging his head against walls and fearing he may harm someone. In 1973, after ‘A Clockwork Orange’s release, reports show that he had tried to kill himself. July, inside a cell at Bridlington Police Station, he tried to strangle himself with a handkerchief, having made what was described as “a half-hearted attempt to slit his wrists”. He later claimed he was ‘just mucking about’ but was this so he could receive the same fictional medical treatment as Alex DeLarge? That August, he attacked Derek Sharman, the new man dating his ex-girlfriend, Denise O’Conell, with a carving fork. Foster lunged at him, Derek fell over a sofa and the fork pierced his leg, and as seen, Foster was a coward when confronted by a man. When Police arrived, it was said “he was clawing at self-inflicted razor wounds on his wrists”, but tried at Bridlington Magistrates Court, it was concluded “he’s not a lunatic with suicidal tendencies, Foster was childish and immature. He was unable to accept rejection… it was a suicidal gesture… and there was no real danger that any harm would come to him”. In the film, feeling that his free will had been taken from him, Alex DeLarge throws himself out of the window of the hospital. Quote: “Suddenly, I viddied what I had to do, and what I had wanted to do, and that was to do myself in; to snuff it, to blast off for ever out of this wicked, cruel world. One moment of pain perhaps, and then, sleep for ever, and ever and ever”. But Foster’s was just an act. It was like when he listened to Beethoven’s 9th symphony to get himself pumped up for a dash of the old ‘ultraviolence’ as Alex would say, “Oh bliss! Bliss and heaven! Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeousity made flesh. It was like a bird of rarest-spun heaven metal or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now. As I slooshied, I knew such lovely pictures!”. But was this an alibi? Peter Foster spoke of love, but like Alex DeLarge, he didn’t know what love was. On the 18th of July 1989, he murdered Linda Grimm. Four months later, he re-married. Amanda Thorne was his third wife, they wed in November 1989 in Bridlington, and although they remained together for six years, that would imply that their life together was heaven, when it was the epitome of hell. Tried at Hull Crown Court in February 1995, he was described him as “an evil stepfather who would drink a bottle of sherry” - his version of milk-plus, Alex’s drug of choice – “and get angry with his kids”. In his eyes, “I had little to do with the children… we all seemed to get on pretty well. I played with all the children and they used to come and watch me do gardening and repairing the motorcycles”. But finally finding the courage to flee his fear, Amanda told the court, “I was sick of his brutality”. He beat her, he abused her, he stalked her, and threatened to hit her kids if she ever went to the Police. These were not idle threats, as he didn’t just attack and torture women, he beat children too. Retold in court, her 9-year-old son said he was smacked in the face with a brush, her 7-year-old he kicked in the groin with his steel-capped boots, one son he handcuffed to the stairs and threatened “I will saw your toes off”, and banged her 18-month old son’s head against the wall, as well as attacking Amanda. Found guilty of two counts of cruelty to children and ABH against the 7-year-old, but found not guilty of assaulting his wife and cruelty to her three year old son, Foster was sentenced to just 18 months. Amanda later stated during his 2003 trial for a brutal double murder, that Foster - perhaps as a threat to ensure this terrified woman never left him - he told her “I am not afraid to kill” and that “I beat Linda Grimm to death with a heavy electric guitar, because she was ill and she wanted to die”… …it wasn’t entirely the truth, but what had it got to do with ‘A Clockwork Orange’? Everything about Peter Foster was pathetic, he was weak, insecure, cowardly, and - dressing like Alex DeLarge - he was little more than a boy pretending to be Action Man, only this was a grown-up in his 20s, 30s and into his 40s. To him, he was the hero of his own film, and everyone else was a bit player. As Alex did, Foster saw his parents and grandparents who raised him through distant and cynical eyes, Alex "Pee and em in their bedroom next door had learnt not to knock on the wall with complaints of what they called noise. I had taught them", and being little more than a cash-cow, in January 1975, Foster stole a £5 social security cheque from his grandfather, one of many thefts from his loved ones. He quoted The Bible and went to midnight mass, but like Alex states in the film, “I didn't so much like the latter part of The Book - which is more like all preachy talking than fighting and the old in-out. I like the parts where these old yahoodies tolchok each other and then drink their Hebrew vino and getting onto the bed with their wives' handmaidens. That kept me going”. He was religious for effect. Several times he crashed his car or scooter, driving too fast, unlicenced and disqualified, maybe while racing down the back streets of Bridlington like Alex and his droogs in a stolen car. Alex: “the Durango 95 purred away real horrorshow, a nice, warm vibraty feeling all through your guttiwuts. Soon it was trees and dark my brothers, with real country dark. We fillied around for a while with other fellow travellers of the night playing hogs of the road. Then we headed west, what we were after now was the old surprise visit, that was a real kick and good for laughs and lashings of the old ultra violent”. The problem was, Foster said he was acrophobic, and he didn’t have a gang, it was just himself. In his version of the Korova Milkbar, Foster went to the pub to get pissed, but also wasted many hours getting high as “this would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence”. He took LSD, magic mushrooms and cannabis, and drank up to two bottles of sherry and neat whiskey a day. “Many people knew not to visit him after noon because of his temper”, like Alex after a milk-plus. Only Foster’s life wasn’t a thrilling two-hour epic filmed in glorious technicolour, but the sad existence of a violent alcoholic living off benefits, and dispensing his abuse and bullshit on terrified women. The author, Anthony Burgess stated that the title is a metaphor, if Alex “can only perform good or only perform evil, then he is a clockwork orange—meaning that he has the appearance of an organism lovely with colour and juice, but is in fact only a clockwork toy to be wound up by God or the Devil”. But did the film make Foster into a monster, or did the monster make the film his scapegoat? Linda Doris Wardill was born locally on the 31st of May 1957, and had lived in Bridlington for most of her life. They first met when she was 16, and said to be ‘childhood sweethearts’, he briefly dated her in late 1981 between divorcing Margaret and dating Kathryn. But like Clive, the father of his first wife, Lindy Derham, Linda Wardill’s father took an instant dislike to him and banned her from seeing him. Heeding his wise words, Linda later married a man called John, and together they had several children; Tom, Ben, Ellen and Cheri. She lived a good life, but as life is sent to test us all, 1994 had begun badly. On the 19th of January 1994, the Hull Daily Mail reported that she had fled her home with her children, as fire engulfed the upper floor. Christmas had only just ended, but with Tom & Ben being curious boys, “it is believed the fire started by the two youngster playing with matches, it destroyed most of their possessions”, including their clothes, bedding, carpets and presents, “but Linda was not insured”. It caused unnecessary stress, and fractures a difficult marriage, but worse was to come. In the summer of 1996, Ellen later recalled “It’s strange but I was only 12 and I must have known something was going on. I remember I was with my friends in the street one day and I saw Peter drive past. I ran all the way home to warn my family he was out of prison”, having served 18 months for attacking his stepson. It’s uncertain why, as although Foster was an “evil and cruel stepfather” and was later charged with child pornography offences, Linda moved in with him, and Tom, Ben & Cheri stayed with their father. As had become routine, at first he was said to be charming, and as Ellen recalled “they seemed happy”, but as the months turned into years, soon her ‘happy, pretty and confident’ mother became a shadow of her former self; sullen, bruised and broken. “They would take great pleasure in telling everyone how much they loved each other”, but as with the others, this was just an alibi to mask the awful truth. Neighbours regularly saw her covered in bruises. Ellen recalled “she started getting black eyes, bruises and cuts, which she would say happened when she fell off ladders, slipped or walked into doors”. It’s hard to protect a loved one when they refuse, or are too terrified to see the truth, “I knew what was going on, but in the end I stopped asking because I got sick of the same old lies. One day I went round to visit her and when she put her head around the door her face was totally bruised and she didn’t have any front teeth. I asked her what happened, and she said the dentist had taken them out”. Several times, Linda tried to flee from Foster’s vice-like grip, but she always came back to him. Ellen said “It was something powerful, but I don’t know whether it was love or fear in the end”, and although he said to her friend, Sandra, “one day I might kill her”, something kept them together for seven years. But the pain and the lies would never end. On the 2nd of September 2002, three months before her death, being treated for an unexplained injury at Bridlington hospital, x-rays found an air-rifle pellet in her shoulder. Telling Dr Hamida “I shot myself by accident”, although this was almost impossible, unwilling to blame Foster, it was taken no further. In the weeks prior, Albert Copsey, a driver she’d worked with at First Line Taxis recalled, “I picked her up to drive her to Beverly… her eyes were full as if she’d been crying, she walked very slowly”, and each time the car hit a bump “she grabbed her chest and winced” as if something inside her was broke. One week before, Linda fled Foster for a final time. Arriving on her 19-year-old daughter’s doorstep having been beaten with a pan, Ellen said “she kept saying she was ‘sick of it, sick of all the beatings’, so I called him and asked him why he had done it. He said it was because he loved her. It was then he threatened to kill her. I put the phone down and thought it was an empty threat, but he called back later, and my mum spoke to him. She asked me for my exact address and soon after a taxi arrived. My last words to my mum were ‘you know where I am if you need me, but if this carries on, the next time I see you, you’ll be in a coffin’. She didn’t even look back as she got into the taxi. I never saw her again”. Monday the 9th of December 2002 was Linda Wardill’s last full day alive. Like Linda Grimm, the pain Linda Wardill felt was excruciating, it was something she would describe as “worse than child birth”, when she called NHS Direct and spoke to Sally-Anne Smith. Diagnosing it by phone, all she had to go on was Linda’s claim that she had food poisoning from eating pork faggots, but couldn’t see that her teeth were smashed, her eyes swollen, her face was a patchwork of old and new bruises, blacks, blues and yellows, with her body riddled with cuts, welts, burns and drag marks. Unable to stand and struggling to breathe, the nurse said “I’m going to call you an ambulance”, but Linda begged “no, no, no, no, I don’t want that”, as in the background, Foster could be heard hissing “you are going to get us in trouble”. The nurse asked “what did he mean by that?”, and out of panic, Linda replied “eating pork”. The nurse urged her to call her GP, and said she’d ring back an hour later, but – being controlled, body and mind, by Peter Foster – these lies and excuses she told were to save her from a fate worse than death, but her death had already begun days, months and years before. When the nurse called back, Linda said he hadn’t been able to get through, so took painkillers, but in the background, Foster could be heard shouting “tell her the truth. We had a really heavy night on the booze”, only that wasn’t why she was screaming and writhing in excruciating agony. When her GP, Dr David Hickson arrived, she told him the same lie, so he gave her pain killers and anti-sickness injection. That night, she went to sleep, and she never woke up. Foster said they drank 3 to 4 bottles of sherry or spirits a day between them, so his memory was hazy. He said he got her some medicine, she went to bed at 5:50pm, he went watching a DVD, and the next morning she wasn’t moving. Foster said “from that time I realised something was seriously wrong. I rang 999, and had been giving her mouth-to-mouth and heart massage, but she would no respond”. Within minutes of his call, an ambulance crew found Linda dead, she was cold, rigor mortis had set in, and although he claimed he was trying to revive her when they arrived, she’d been dead four hours. Like Linda Grimm, the death of Linda Wardill could easily have been brushed off by an uncaring society as just another sad story of two alcoholics, trapped in a cycle of benefits and abuse, who being prone to falls, self-harm and arguments had taken a tumble during an argument, and died due to poor health. But the crew reported this as a ‘suspicious’ death, and Detective Chief Superintendent Christine Kelk took charge. Dr Hickson certified her as dead, the pathologist found her 38 bruises to her arms, back, chest and - more significantly - to her abdomen, and a bruise to her arm in the shape of a man’s shoe. Peter Foster was arrested, charged with two counts of ABH, and was bailed to a hostel in Sculthorpe. During his trial, the senior investigating officer said: “Foster is an evil, vicious man who terrorised women for years… he chose to force these women to give evidence against him. He sought to hide behind a cloak of silence when he was interviewed by the police”. But in court, he was full of excuses. He said she was staggering and slumped on the floor. Out of frustration, he kicked her as if to say ‘get up you drunken sod’ stating “I didn’t know I had hurt her, I loved that woman”. He said he truly believed she had food poisoning, he said he was shattered when he found out she was dead, and said “If I had realised it was that bad, if I had even an inkling, I certainly would have done something more”. He would claim “it was an accident. We were both very drunk. I stamped on Linda, not knowing I had hurt her”, but a post-mortem showed a catalogue violent wounds, both fresh and sustained over time. She had several fractures to her ribs from a few days before, two of which had refractured. Numerous bruises of different colours and sizes which patchworked across her body like a sickly rainbow. And having been subjected to a sickening and severe assault in the hours before her death, he had beaten her with a broom and stamped on her abdomen so hard, he had ruptured her bowel, her stomach was completely split in two and she bled internally with injuries “consistent with a high speed car crash”. He had beaten her to death in a similar way to how Alex and his droogs attacked the homeless man in ‘A Clockwork Orange’, kicking and beating the drunk with his feet and cane, yet, Foster was a drunk. (Quote): “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… 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”. In the early hours of the 26th of January 2003, Foster was charged with Linda Wardill’s murder… …but this wasn’t the end of the investigation. Three weeks before, Humberside Police had already began re-investigating the death, 13 years earlier of Foster’s former girlfriend, Linda Grimm, a death that the pathologist, Dr Lloyd Denmark hadn’t listed as ‘suspicious’. But there were too many eerie similarities between both deaths; the man, his crimes, his crocodile tears, his dressing up as Alex DeLarge, and speaking of droogs, milk plus and devotchkas. Police appealed for any former girlfriends and ex-wives of Peter Foster to come forward to help paint a picture of his personality and peculiarities. If it hadn’t been for the strength and bravery of these five women - Lindy & Margaret Foster, Kathryn Portelli, Julie Dixon & Amanda Thorne - Detective Superintendent Colin Andrews stated “we would never have snared this horrific double murderer”. Pathologist Dr Lloyd Denmark was asked to examine the evidence from the autopsy of Linda Grimm, as conducted by him 13 years before, but with her body cremated, all they had to go on was paperwork and memory. He stated “I believed she may have suffered a spontaneous rupture of the renal vein”, resulting from a build-up of pressure from an operation she’d had four years before. But he agreed that her death was not natural and her ruptured kidney had resulted from a trauma, possibly a kick. Because those details hadn’t been listed as a cause of death, and weren’t prominent in the findings, Foster was never suspected of Linda’s murder, he was never questioned about her injuries, and as Detective Superintendent Colin Andrews would state “he had literally got away with murder." The Judge agreed with the detective’s hypothesis that, as a violent man who modelled himself on Alex DeLarge and was obsessed with the film ‘A Clockwork Orange’, the murder of Linda Grimm had been a savage recreation of the killing of the cat lady – a crime which made Alex infamous as a murderer. But instead of beating the cat lady to death with a statue of a phallus, Foster had attacked Linda Grimm with his guitar, bursting her kidneys. It was a crime which changed Alex’s fictional life, led him to prison, and meant he was engaged in the Ludavico treatment, where he was programmed by the state not to be evil. So did Foster believe he was forced to be bad by a higher power, or was this an alibi? On the 30th of January 2003, Foster was charged with the murder of Linda Grimm and Linda Wardill, and with Andrew Campbell QC for the Prosecution choosing “nine sample charges from what could have been hundreds arising from Foster’s violence towards six women”, he was would also be tried for the wounding with intent to do her grievous bodily harm to Lindy Foster, two charges of the false imprisonment and the assault of Margaret Foster, the kidnap of Kathryn Portelli, assault occasioning ABH to Julie Dixon, and the additional charge of the possession of indecent images of young children. In December 2003, at Hull Crown Court, Peter Allan Foster was tried before Judge Justice Henriques. He denied both counts of murder and all charges against Lindy, Margaret, Kathryn & Julie. He admitted he was “an angry man with an interest in ‘A Clockwork Orange’ and that he had been violent to all the women, not in the way it was alleged” with his solicitor stating that some of their stories had been exaggerated or fabricated. He denied that the film made him feel violent, he denied sharpening the tip of an umbrella like it was a sword cane, but Foster did send a letter to the judge admitting that he was “a miserable excuse for a human being”, whose issues were down to drinking and mental health. Under cross-examination, and weighed down by the wealth of evidence, when asked if he assaulted Linda Wardill, he said “yes sir, I did”, asked if he assaulted Linda Grimm, he said “no sir, I did not”. The prosecution called his remorse “humbug and hypocrisy”, and that “Mr Foster’s regret was like a schoolboy apologising for scrumping apples, when in reality he was facing a double murder... this is a case about persistent, terrifying violence… unprovoked, and sustained without any hint of remorse”. But in his closing speech, Gary Burrell QC for the Defence said that Foster admitted he was a violent bully, “but the prosecution have failed to provide evidence of a sustained attack on Linda Wardill, or of a mental intention to kill Linda Grimm. This is not a case of domestic violence, this is much worse, this was a case about a man with a problem who had been dangerous and out of control in the past and who did not know he had a problem… he is a bully, a coward and by his own admission has done terrible things… but if you cannot be sure, it will be your duty to return a verdict of manslaughter”, as hid defence rested on one phrase - “were these the actions of a man who really wanted to kill?” (END) At the end of this 13-day trial, the jury deliberated for three-and-a-half-hours, and returned with a unanimous verdict. Of the ABH of Julie Dixon? “Guilty”. Of the kidnap of Kathryn Portelli? “Guilty”. Of the assault and false imprisonment of Margaret Foster? “Guilty”. Of wounding with intend to do GBH of Lindy Foster? “Guilty” and the murders of Linda Wardill and 13 years before, Linda Grimm? “Guilty”. For his crimes against Lindy, Margaret, Kathryn and Julie, he was sentenced 22 years in prison. And for the murders of Linda Wardill and Linda Grimm he was given two life sentences. Justice Henriques told Foster “you are a very dangerous man to women of any age. Beginning in 1976 and ending 26 years later, you have mercilessly terrorised women who made the dreadful mistake of agreeing to live with you. You took the lives of two of them, you terrorised those who survived so that they fled for their lives. This case has focussed on just six women who suffered the most brutal, cruel, bullying conduct at your hands…”, the Judge thanked the women for their courage and strength, he described the horror inflicted upon them as “having gone to hell and back”, and said to Foster and he stood with his head bowed, “your survivors are entitled to know you will remain in prison for very many years”. When Foster was led away, in his hand he held The Bible, just like Alex DeLarge when he was led away to the cells in ‘A Clockwork Orange’. In 2007, he appealed his sentence, but the judges rejected this. Meril, Linda Grimm’s sister said “after 14 years of uncertainty, the British justice system has finally succeeded in bringing Peter Foster to justice”. And Ellen, Linda Wardill’s daughter said “this verdict is both right and proper, and should ensure that the person responsible for these evil acts be put away from society for the remainder of his life… I hope Peter Foster is never released. He killed my mum, but where he is now, he can’t hurt anybody else, or their families, the way he hurt us all”. Aged 70, Peter Foster will be eligible for parole in 2028, and if he is, he will remain on licence for 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.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorMichael J Buchanan-Dunne is a crime writer, podcaster of Murder Mile UK True Crime and creator of true-crime TV series. 
Archives
July 2026
Subscribe to the Murder Mile true-crime podcast
Categories
All
Note: This blog contains only licence-free images or photos shot by myself in compliance with UK & EU copyright laws. If any image breaches these laws, blame Google Images.
|