Scotland Yard's History of Crime in 100 Objects E-Book

Alan Moss

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Explore Britain's dark criminal history through the fascinating objects that have been hidden away in the Crime Museum at Scotland Yard, a collection that, although world-famous, is so sensitive it is not open to public view. Each object tells its own story: the briefcase with a concealed syringe owned by the notorious Kray twins; the gun Ruth Ellis used to murder her lover David Blakely; a burnt-out computer from the Glasgow airport car bomb; a picture from the property of Dennis Nilsen of the grisly drain that was blocked with human body parts; and the gun that Edward Oxford fired at Queen Victoria that failed to assassinate her. Updated to feature new objects that have entered the collection since 2015, Scotland Yard's History of Crime in 100 Objects is an absorbing, sometimes shocking and often disturbing journey through criminal history. Peer within to experience a unique insight into the crimes and criminals dealt with by Scotland Yard.

Leseprobe

Front cover images left to right: an undamaged version of Charlotte Bryant’s weedkiller tin (see p. 141); Ruth Ellis’ Smith & Wesson .38 revolver (see pp. 145–6).

Back cover images left to right: timing device used by the IRA (see pp. 229–30); Florence Maybrick’s bottle of Valentine’s Meat Juice (see pp. 129–31).

Images reproduced by kind permission of the Metropolitan Police Service.

First published 2015

This paperback edition first published 2022

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Alan Moss and Keith Skinner, 2015, 2022

The right of Alan Moss and Keith Skinner to be identified as the Authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 7509 6655 9

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed in Turkey by IMAK

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Contents

Introduction

Highwaymen and a Loving Cup

Culley Cup and a Riot Shield

James Greenacre: An Early Murder Before the Advent of Detectives

Edward Oxford’s Gun: Attacks on Royalty

Death Mask of Daniel Good

Franz Müller: Railway Murders

Forgery and Fraud: Henry Fauntleroy and the Tichborne Claimant

Cybercrime Equipment

Horatio Bottomley MP: Politicians in Trouble

Counterfeit Currency

Charles Peace’s Ladder: Burglary, Henry Miller and the Hatton Garden Case

Women’s Hair: Henry Wainwright and a Pin Cushion

Ballistics: The Hooded Man Case, Browne and Kennedy and Other Cases

Reward Posters and Jack the Ripper

Adolf Beck: Identification, Identikit, Photofit and E-FIT

Ada Chard Williams: Baby Farming, Amelia Dyer and Amelia Sach

Dr Patterson’s Female Pills and Abortion

Dr Neill Cream’s Pill Box, Florence Maybrick and Mary Cotton

Louise Masset and Constance Kent, Child Murderers

Frederick Bywaters’ Knife

Weedkiller Tin: Charlotte Bryant, Frederick Seddon and Herbert Armstrong

Ruth Ellis’ Gun and Te Rangimaria Ngarimu, a Female Contract Killer

Umbrella Pellet: The Case of Georgi Markov and the Use of Ricin

Sketch of Laura Horos, Fortune Telling, Witchcraft, and ‘Cultural’ Crimes

Bath: George Joseph Smith and the Brides in the Bath Case

Drain in which Remains of some of Denis Nilsen’s Victims were Found

Cash Box: Fingerprints, Criminal Records, Blood Grouping and DNA

Franz von Veltheim: Blackmail, Kidnap and Extortion

Mauser Pistol from Sidney Street, and Other Sieges

Roger Casement: Treason, Espionage and Terrorism

Button and Badge: Clues that Convicted David Greenwood of Murder

The Crumbles and Other Classic Murder Cases

Antique Bowl

More Classic Murder Cases

Ketchup Bottle: Great Train and Other Robberies

Dr Crippen’s Pyjamas

Wooden Stool: Peter Arne’s Murder and Celebrity Crime Victims

Gangs: The Krays, Richardsons, Arthur Harding and the Sabinis

Set of Scales Used by Drug Dealer

Imitation Firearm and Other Weapons

Observation Photograph and Sex Attacks

Roulette Wheel and Gaming Offences

Visitors’ Books

Authors’ Note

Appendix I    Curators of the Crime Museum

Appendix II   The Courtroom Sketches of William Hartley

Appendix III   Death Masks

Appendix IV   Remembering the Fallen

Acknowledgements

Bibliography

Introduction

THE OBJECTS FEATURED in this book come from Scotland Yard’s Crime Museum. They illustrate the history of crime and how methods of investigation have developed over the years. Some objects are courtroom sketches from the collection of William Hartley, a reporter who attended many of the high-profile trials between 1893 and 1919; his drawings give an insight into some of the characters involved. Some are everyday objects that became vital clues, whilst other objects are interesting curiosities. This book features some weapons, but the authors do not wish to risk concentrating unduly on violence. They have tried to provide a range of exhibits, and to avoid putting into the public domain any previously unknown details that might give improper inspiration. They have also taken into account Scotland Yard’s own judgements about what items should or should not be featured.

The Crime Museum at New Scotland Yard has accumulated an intriguing and fascinating variety of exhibits from crime scenes since the collection was established in 1875. The police have always needed to store property belonging to prisoners and evidence that might be relevant to court cases. Some of those objects could never be returned to their criminal owners when the court cases were concluded. They were sometimes examples of criminal ingenuity that illustrated the very essence of those crimes, so they were very much an educational resource for police officers.

The officer in charge of the property store, Inspector Percy Neame, and his assistant, PC Randall, started exhibiting some of the tools of the criminal trade so that their colleagues could see first-hand the housebreaking implements, forgery equipment and disguised weapons that might be found on suspects on the streets of London. As the collection expanded, the attraction of the museum increased, not only to police officers, but also to judges, lawyers, forensic scientists and many others who were intrigued by the prospect of seeing for themselves the infamous details that they had read about in newspaper accounts of the high-profile cases dealt with by Scotland Yard detectives. Sometimes the exhibits have passed through the private hands of police officers and even judges, who unofficially retained souvenirs of the famous cases in which they played a part. As with many museums, the precise circumstances of each item’s acquisition have not always been recorded with precise detail, but Bill Waddell, curator from 1981 to 1993, deserves great credit for establishing the modern catalogue.

The nature of some of the exhibits, and concern for the victims of crime, has always dictated that the museum could not be open to the general public. Demand for opportunities to visit the museum, even amongst police officers, has invariably outstripped the available visiting times, and this, over the years, has created a premium on the chance to see the museum’s contents. A journalist wrote a description of the museum in The Observer of 8 April 1877, and his comments about the appropriateness of the title ‘Black Museum’, by which the collection became known, was the first record of the name that was used for many years.

In 1889, Charles Clarkson and J. Hall Richardson described the museum in their book, Police! A General Account of the Work of the Police in England & Wales, at a time when it had not been properly organised:

There remains to be mentioned an extraordinary feature of the Convict Office. What becomes of all the property, ‘portable’ or otherwise, taken from prisoners at the time of their committal? Most of it is of a trivial character, but some of it is valuable. Since 1869 it has not been forfeited to the Crown in the same way that the pence of a pauper are forfeited to the common treasury of a workhouse. Every article has to be restored to its rightful owner, and it may happen that, even after an interval of a long term of years, the rightful owner has a memory so retentive as to place a purely fictitious value upon his chattels, should any portion of them be missing or damaged. It is a strange collection of miscellaneous wares, a musty mass of odds and ends, which is stored in the cellars and garrets of the Convict Office in Scotland Yard. But every pocket-knife, bonnet-box, packing-case, or whatever it may be, has to be duly docketed, so that it may be produced when wanted. The dust of years falls upon these relics, and gives a black coating to the contents of the bins in which they are kept; they are mute witnesses that their owners are yet living, though dead to the world. Periodically all the unclaimed goods are sold, but there is always a large stock on hand, and amongst it may be noted many articles which have been produced in evidence in the course of celebrated trials.

There are five chief inspectors, but one of these, Mr Neame, is in charge of the Convict Supervision Office … the Black Museum is allotted a room in the basement of the Convict Office in Great Scotland Yard, which is in reality a private house, ill adapted for the purposes required. In fact, the museum is in a cellar, and it is a collection, displayed in amateurish fashion, of relics which recall certain causes célèbres. Therein is the chief interest, and perhaps the grimness of the show is not lessened by the bareness of the boards upon which the array of knives, pistols, revolvers, and criminal curios is laid out. There is no attempt at cataloguing the items, and the museum, as at present arranged, serves no useful object.

This book features 100 objects from the museum as a method of illustrating the development of crime and its detection over nearly two centuries. We hope that the stories behind these objects will create a better public understanding of the museum and about crime itself.

This updated edition has enabled us to include some exhibits that have been added to the museum in the last few years to reflect recent trends in policing. Techniques for extracting DNA from crime scenes have continued to advance. Body-worn video cameras have produced graphic evidence of the violent situations faced by police officers on the streets. Firearms can now be constructed from 3-D printers. Cybercrime equipment gives an insight into the world of criminals who can defraud victims of enormous sums of money. And yet old-fashioned policing methods, supported by CCTV, can be crucial in bringing prolific burglars like the Wimbledon Prowler to justice.

The Crime Museum is now accommodated in the basement of the New Scotland Yard building on Victoria Embankment (SW1A 2JL), the fourth location in its life, and we are pleased to note that its standard of presentation and explanation about the exhibits is better than has ever been achieved before.

We have undertaken the project with a profound appreciation of the work of the countless detectives who have combatted criminals indulging their dreadful cruelty, greed and violence. Those officers have contributed to the world-wide reputation of Scotland Yard as a centre of excellence in the investigation of crime.

Many of the crimes described in this book can be regarded, at best, as distasteful, but there will have been a traumatic effect on those involved – including the officers investigating them. Ultimatley, our respect must primarily be owed to the victims, and their relatives, some of whom have suffered unspeakable torments of pain and suffering at the hands of criminals. We hope that the efforts of Scotland Yard, police officers elsewhere, and the legal system will always give the public the protection that they deserve.

Alan Moss and Keith Skinner2022

1

Portrait of Jack Sheppard

DATE: 1724

EXHIBIT: Mezzotint of Jack (or John) Sheppard in Newgate prison

THE PICTURE WAS donated to the museum by Sir Howard Vincent, who was appointed as the director of Criminal Intelligence at Scotland Yard in November 1883. A note to Percy Neame in November 1883 records Vincent’s remarks about confirming the authenticity of the picture and states ‘if genuine, we might have it for the museum’. Vincent resigned from Scotland Yard in 1885 and then became the Conservative MP for Sheffield from 1885 to 1905. He made a study of the French police’s detection methods and compiled a report that he sent to a committee that was investigating the implications of the Turf Fraud trial – a corruption scandal in which many of the senior members of the Detective Branch had become embroiled. Vincent’s carefully planned report led to his appointment to the Scotland Yard role, where he expanded and reorganised detectives into the Criminal Investigation Department.

The portrait shows notorious gaol-breaker Jack (or John) Sheppard in Newgate’s condemned hold, wearing the handcuffs – reputedly held at the museum – from which he escaped, probably by using a knife blade to undo the screw-type mechanism that locked the device.

A century before the formation of the Metropolitan Police, Jack Sheppard, a 22-year-old failed carpenter’s apprentice, turned to crime and became known more for his ability to escape from custody than his criminal exploits in theft, burglary and highway robbery. He lived with Elizabeth Lyon (a prostitute known as ‘Edgworth Bess’) and broke into St Giles roundhouse to release her from custody after she was arrested. Jonathan ‘Thief-Taker General’ Wild tried to gain a share of the profits from Sheppard’s crimes, but Sheppard refused to collaborate, so James Sykes, a member of Wild’s gang, lured Sheppard to a game of skittles where Constable Price of St Giles parish arrested him. Whilst being detained at St Giles roundhouse, Sheppard broke through the roof and escaped, despite still wearing his irons. He was later arrested for pickpocketing near Leicester Square and was held at St Ann’s roundhouse, where Elizabeth Lyon visited him, only to be detained herself. They later escaped from their joint cell in Clerkenwell prison by filing through their manacles and a bar in the window, and then climbing down a rope made from bedclothes.

Wild, still anxious to be rid of his competitor, plied Elizabeth Lyon with drink and convinced her to disclose Sheppard’s whereabouts. This led to Sheppard’s arrest, detention in Newgate prison and conviction for burglary, for which he was sentenced to death. However, he managed to remove a bar from his cell and, after a visit from Elizabeth, escaped from the prison precincts disguised in women’s clothing. At this point, both the authorities and Wild’s men were hunting him, and he was eventually recaptured on Finchley Common by constables from Newgate. Sheppard was then placed in chains and held in a special room high up in Newgate prison. During a prison disturbance, Sheppard unlocked the handcuffs, climbed up a chimney, broke through to the roof of the prison and across to a neighbouring house from which he escaped into the street. His manacles were later found in the room of Kate Cook, one of his mistresses. The handcuffs held in the museum illustrate the unsatisfactory technology of the time.

On 10 November 1724, Sheppard, in a state of drunkenness, was arrested once again and sent to Newgate, but this time he did not escape and was publicly hanged a few days later at Tyburn in front of a crowd of 200,000 people.

Sheppard’s involvement with highway robbery was a brief career carried out near Hampstead on 19 and 20 July 1724 with Joseph ‘Blueskin’ Blake. This was prior to one of his arrests that had taken place in Blake’s mother’s brandy shop in Rosemary Lane near the Tower of London (near the modern Royal Mint Street).

The management of prisons and the criminal justice system was very different in those days. Before the introduction of adequate salaries, it was quite common for public servants to purchase their offices, and to then set about recouping their investment by using opportunities to extract bribes from the unfortunate people who came into their jurisdiction. In 1739, Colonel Thomas de Veil was known as the first notably honest magistrate at Bow Street, for instance, in an era of ‘trading justices’ who routinely accepted bribes. Bow Street officers were often paid rewards directly by victims of the crimes they investigated, and in many cases deals were brokered between thieves and victims for the return of stolen property, the formal prosecution process often being avoided. Jonathan Wild, known as the ‘Thief-Taker General’, exploited the absence of a police force by manipulating a gang of thieves and the payment of rewards for return of stolen goods, before he himself was executed in 1725. Wild would often bribe prison guards to release his associates.

Thomas Bambridge became warden of Fleet prison in 1728, taking over from a John Huggins who had paid no less than £5,000 for the office. Many of the inmates had been imprisoned for debt, and were therefore likely to remain incarcerated until their families or friends paid off those debts. Bambridge became notorious for extorting money from prisoners for privileges and comforts, and his tenure was marked by sadistic and arbitrary punishments which became a blight on the reputation of the prison service.

The Parliamentary Gaols Committee of 1729 under James Oglethorpe MP famously set about trying to remedy the situation that saw many respectable people imprisoned for debt, and publicised the abuses within the prison system. They found that Bambridge had taken bribes to permit escapes as well as indulging in extortion, torture and murder. One prisoner, Jacob Solas, was placed in irons and held for two months in a windowless dungeon that also housed the dead bodies of prisoners prior to their burial. The committee took an interest in the prosecution of the wardens of both Fleet and Marshalsea prisons but were surprised both by light sentences and acquittals, and also by the conduct of the trial judge Sir Robert Eyre, who had allegedly visited Bambridge in Newgate prison before his trial. Bambridge was acquitted of the murder of Robert Castell who had been deliberately exposed to smallpox that was rife in a sponging house (a temporary prison for debtors). Huggins also faced trial for the murder of another inmate, Edward Arne, because he had left the prisoner in the death trap dungeon and knew about the dangers, but had done nothing. The Old Bailey jury brought in a special verdict after Huggins blamed a deputy warden Gibbon, who had died by the time of the trial, for the incident. Bambridge was also acquitted of theft of property of a Mrs Elizabeth Barkley in December, also arising from his stewardship of the prison. The implication that Sir Robert Eyre might have been willing to show improper favour to Bambridge created fresh complications for the momentum of the committee’s noble attempts at prison reform.

Another early set of handcuffs, presented to the museum by Superintendent Digby of V Division in April 1882, had come from Mr W. Herrick of Kingston upon Thames whose family had owned them since 1795. The handcuffs were worn by a notorious highwayman, Louis Jeremiah Avershaw, commonly known as Jerry Avershaw, who was tried at Croydon for the murder of David Price, an officer from Union Hall, Southwark, who undertook a role similar to officers from Bow Street court. Avershaw was also tried for feloniously shooting at Barnaby Turner, another officer from Union Hall, for which he was executed, being hung in chains on 3 August 1795 on Wimbledon Common where the offence was committed. The location became known as Jerry’s Hill. Avershaw and his associates made highway robbery a common hazard on Kennington Common, Hounslow Heath and Bagshot Heath at the time, and their activities were a major preoccupation for those concerned with combatting crime.

Dick Turpin, who had once been a butcher, was a more famous highwayman, but he had also been involved in deer poaching and in violent robberies as part of a gang that included John Fielder, Samuel Gregory, Joseph Rose and John Wheeler. These became known as the Essex Gang, most of whom were caught and executed for various burglary and robbery offences around 1735. Turpin, who had lodged in Whitechapel and Millbank, moved around frequently to escape the attention of parish constables, and would rob travellers on the approaches to London such as Barnes, Hounslow Heath, Kingston Hill and Epping. He then moved to Yorkshire under the name of John Palmer and was in custody for horse theft when he wrote from prison to his brother-in-law Pompr Rivernall at Hempstead, Essex. Rivernall would not pay the postage to receive the letter, which was eventually opened by a teacher, James Smith, who recognised Turpin’s handwriting, informed the local JP, and then travelled to York to claim a £200 reward that had been offered for Turpin’s arrest. Turpin was convicted of horse theft and was hanged at York on 7 April 1739. His grave can be found in a cemetery opposite St George’s church in York.

One highwayman, John Popham, later turned to good, and apparently even became Lord Chief Justice from 1592 to 1607.

Highway robbery was a serious problem on the outskirts of London. It was the main reason for the re-establishment of the Bow Street mounted patrol in 1805 when the chief magistrate, Richard Ford, recruited fifty-two men to patrol the approaches of London on horseback. They wore blue greatcoats and trousers with spurred Wellington boots and red waistcoats. These patrols were stationed at various points on main roads into London. In Kent, for instance, patrols were stationed at Shooters Hill, Welling and on Bexley Heath. Ten years after its foundation, the boundaries of the Metropolitan Police were extended by an 1839 Parliamentary Act, partly to meet the need for the protection of travellers, and the horse patrols were incorporated into the Metropolitan Police.

2

Loving Cup

DATE:c. 1807/8

EXHIBIT: Silver-mounted loving cup made from a human cranium

THE SILVER LOVING cup, used for shared drinking, is reputed, according to museum records, to have originated in the early nineteenth century from a young Irish titled lady who had become attached to a man from a lower social class, and was then thrown out of her home by her family. She had become pregnant and was then deserted by her lover, who went on to marry another woman who was independently wealthy. In a reflection of the fate suffered by many disgraced young women in those days, she became a prostitute and then the madam of a brothel in Edinburgh.

About twenty years afterwards, she welcomed a party of students into the brothel, recognised one of them as the son of her former lover and murdered him out of revenge. The records state that she was hanged, her body donated for the benefit of medical science, and, subsequently, it was her skull that was mounted in silver in the form of the loving cup.

In 1982, curator Bill Waddell had the cup examined by a scanning electron microscope at the Metropolitan Police Forensic Science Laboratory. This showed that stains inside the female skull were the sediment of red wine rather than blood. Marks on the front of the skull, previously believed to have been made by a saw used by a surgeon, or indeed by the woman while mutilating her murder victim, were in fact compression marks consistent with a blow from a heavy blunt instrument.

3

Culley Cup

DATE: 1834

EXHIBIT: Silver cup presented to inquest jury members

SILVER CUPS GIVEN to members of a jury in 1834 represented public opinion about the verdict at an inquest that ruled that the killing of PC Robert Culley in a demonstration in 1833 was justifiable homicide.

Following the Reform Act 1832, which reallocated unrepresentative parliamentary constituencies and changed voting qualifications, an organisation called the National Union of the Working Classes was formed in London. The organisation called for a demonstration on 13 May 1833 at Coldbath Fields, Clerkenwell, to protest about the many working-class men still being debarred from voting. It was probably the first major demonstration that the Metropolitan Police had to control.

Lord Melbourne, the Home Secretary, was concerned about the republican sympathies of the organisation, and ordered the two joint Metropolitan Police commissioners, Sir Charles Rowan and Richard Mayne, to stop the meeting, but without any directions being put into writing. A decision was made that the assembly would become illegal once speakers started to address the meeting or flags were exhibited. At 1.30 p.m. about 300–500 people had gathered at the meeting ground, located near the present-day Mount Pleasant mail sorting office, and at about 2.45 p.m. a wagon left the Union Tavern carrying six speakers who intended to address the meeting. An activist by the name of Mee started to speak to the crowd and requested those displaying banners to remove them. They refused and Mee fled the scene when he saw police officers approaching. There was a period of five to ten minutes of violent disorder before the meeting place was cleared. Police officers used truncheons and there were some doubts about whether there was any easy way of peaceably breaking up the crowd.

During the melee, PC Robert Culley became separated from his colleagues Tom Flack, James McReath and Samuel Acourt, and disappeared into the stone-throwing mob. Culley then emerged, clutching his chest and complaining that he had been stabbed. He staggered to the Calthorpe Arms public house where he collapsed and died in the arms of a bartender.

The incident is famous for the fact that the jury insisted, against the coroner’s warnings, that a verdict of justifiable homicide be recorded on the basis that the actions of the police were ‘ferocious, brutal and unprovoked’, the Riot Act had not been read and the government had not taken proper precautions to prevent the incident. The court of the King’s Bench Division overturned the verdict, but did not substitute an alternative, leaving the matter to a parliamentary select committee investigating the riot. The jury were feted by the public and were each awarded one of these inscribed goblets. The jury’s decision was cruel in relation to the fate of Robert Culley and definitely not in the interests of keeping public order, but it was consistent with another jury’s decision to acquit a demonstrator, George Fursey, who had seriously assaulted Robert Culley’s colleague, Sergeant Brooks. The verdicts reflected public opinion about the police, concern for civil rights and the criticism of the level of force used by the police notwithstanding that the officers may privately have sympathised with the demonstrators’ views. The verdict was an illustration of the independence of juries despite directions that they might receive from a judge or coroner. It followed the precedent of the 1670 trial of William Penn and William Mead, two Quakers who had been prosecuted for addressing a religious assembly that was not part of the Church of England, who were acquitted despite the jury being threatened by the judge and imprisoned for contempt of court.

Robert Culley’s widow did become the centre of much public sympathy, however, and the subsequent reflection about the role of police officers did mark a positive turning point in police–public relations. Due to the violent situation and confusion of events, nobody was identified or prosecuted for killing PC Culley.

Although Britain is noted for valuing the right of free speech and for adopting a liberal attitude towards political demonstrations when the authority of the government is being challenged, this reputation took many years to acquire. In the early days of the Metropolitan Police, there was no expectation that contentious demonstrations could pass off peacefully, and experience at crowd control was still largely based on military attitudes. In 1819, for instance, fifteen demonstrators were killed and more than 400 injured by soldiers at St Peter’s Field, Manchester (‘Peterloo’). This followed the pattern where the numbers of rioters killed by the military far exceeded other riot deaths.

Nowadays, damage to property and looting tend to be the most dramatic effect of riots, together with a communal fear about the consequences of a breakdown in public order. In political demonstrations, the passionate beliefs of a crowd can easily be triggered into violence, and when this occurs, arrests of individuals may well be impracticable. The gathering of clear evidence against individuals for the crimes they commit in a mob rule situation can be very difficult. The legal offences of riot, violent disorder and affray no longer require a magistrate to read the Riot Act as a public warning, and are framed so that individuals are guilty if they are part of a group using or threatening unlawful violence in a manner that would cause a bystander to fear for their safety.

4

Riot Shield

DATE: 1985

EXHIBIT: Riot shield used at Broadwater Farm

PURPOSE-BUILT RIOT SHIELDS were introduced after the 1976 Notting Hill Carnival ended in violence, with stones and bricks being launched at the police. The public-order tactics until then had largely consisted of police officers engaging with crowds on a face-to-face basis. The full-length shields were made of perspex, allowing the officers to see ahead whilst sheltering behind groups of three shields that could be locked together as they moved forward. They were first used at a riot in Lewisham in 1977 after a series of clashes on London streets between the National Front and Socialist Workers’ Party activists culminated in a National Front demonstration on 17 August 1977. In their efforts to keep the opposing factions apart, the police were pelted with missiles from both sides and sprayed with water pistols filled with ammonia. The commissioner, Sir David McNee, imposed a legal ban on demonstrations for two months, and the tension subsided.

The shield pictured was used in the Broadwater Farm riot of 1985. It shows not only smoke staining created by petrol bombs, but it also has a bullet hole caused by a gun fired against the police in the middle of the rioting.

On 28 September 1985, the police raided a house in Normandy Road, Brixton, in an attempt to arrest Michael Groce, a suspect in an armed robbery. Despite nobody in the house having a firearm, Groce’s mother Cherry was shot in the chest by an armed police officer. She was taken to hospital and survived, but suffered paralysis until she died in 2011. Fuelled by false rumours of Mrs Groce’s immediate death, spontaneous disorder broke out and, over the next two days, 200 arrests were made. Cars were overturned and set alight, petrol bombs were thrown and shops were looted. In various locations affected by rioting, one photojournalist suffered an aneurysm and died, and fifty people were injured. Disturbances also occurred in other communities with strong Afro-Caribbean links.

A week later, on 6 October 1985, and with tensions running high, the police in Tottenham arrested a young black man, Floyd Jarrett, in connection with a suspicious car tax disc, and went to his mother’s home to search for further evidence. During the police search of the premises, his mother, Cynthia Jarrett, collapsed and subsequently died from a heart attack. A demonstration then took place outside Tottenham police station, but this did not resolve the tension. Gangs of black youths started to take over the Broadwater Farm estate, a relatively modern housing development with overhead concrete walkways and tower blocks. The police formed a cordon around the estate but it took a long time before there were sufficient numbers of trained senior officers and other resources on hand to penetrate the upper walkways to deal with the situation. The police lines, protected by riot shields, were bombarded with petrol bombs and some were shot at with firearms. Fires were started and the fire service was unable to gain access to extinguish them.

A close-up of the bullet hole from the 1985 Broadwater Farm riot

One group of officers formed a squad to gain access to Tangmere House where a shop was on fire, but they were overwhelmed by rioters and forced to withdraw. In the process, PC Keith Blakelock was set upon by rioters, attacked with knives and a machete, and killed. His colleague, PC Richard Coombes, was severely injured. Arrests were impossible at the time due to limited resources and the volatile situation. Subsequent inquiries led to the arrest, trial and convictions of murder for Winston Silcott, Engin Raghip and Mark Braithwaite. The convictions were overturned by the Court of Appeal on 25 November 1991 on the basis of forensic tests indicating that interview notes might have been tampered with, an issue on which the two detectives concerned were later acquitted. (An electrostatic detection apparatus (ESDA) test was run, which allows impressions of writing to be discovered several layers of paper below that on which the original impression was made.)

The 1985 riots were the catalyst for reviews and improvements in tactics and equipment, police firearms training and deployment, senior officer public order training, and methods of evidence gathering in riot situations. The police then adopted smaller protective shields that enabled them to advance more quickly and to maintain the initiative in fast-moving situations. Armoured Land Rovers were made available to specialist firearms officers to counter the threat of gunfire, but employing effective tactics to deal with firearms incidents in riot situations remains a great challenge.

Personal protective equipment for police officers was introduced in the mid-1990s after a series of deaths of police officers from knife and gun attacks. Considerable effort was made to develop a protective vest made from material that could counter both knives and bullets, whilst also allowing reasonable freedom of movement and comfort for the police officer.

5

Pamphlet on James Greenacre

DATE: 1837

EXHIBIT: Contemporary pamphlet on James Greenacre

JAMES GREENACRE’S CASE was recounted in a pamphlet that would have been printed in large numbers to meet the public’s thirst for knowledge about the murder of Hannah Brown. His death mask is held at the Crime Museum. Casts used to be taken of the heads of executed prisoners with the apparent aim of assisting research into crime in a period when phrenology (measuring skulls to ascertain details of parts of the mind) was fashionable.

PC Samuel Pegler was patrolling Edgware Road three days after Christmas in 1836 when he was called to a flagstone that had been covering a large sack, inside which was the nude torso of a woman, inclusive of arms, but without legs or a head. There were no detectives in the Metropolitan Police at that time, so Local Inspector George Feltham, who had once been in the Bow Street horse patrol, took over investigating.

Crime scene investigation was virtually non-existent in those days as the scientific developments had not yet been made. The police loaded the torso on to a wheelbarrow from a local building site and took it to Paddington Workhouse where the parish surgeon concluded that the victim was above average height, middle-aged and had no signs of disease. He also noted the mark of a wedding ring on one of her fingers and mentioned in his notes that the victim had an unusual malformation that would have left her incapable of having a child. Identification of the victim is always crucial to an investigation and, in the absence of a report of a missing person fitting the woman’s description, the inquiries were likely to be difficult.

Samuel Pegler noted that there had been no impacted snow under the sack, indicating that the body could have been left there, according to the weather pattern, perhaps on Christmas Eve, when he remembered seeing a cart near the scene. He recovered a cord, some cloth and bloodstained wood shavings that seemed to be connected to the sack.

Ten days later, a lock-keeper in Stepney found a human head blocking one of the sluice gates of Regent’s Canal, 7 miles away. It had apparently been sawn from its body and belonged to a woman aged 40–50 years. There was bruising over one eye and a torn earlobe, but finding this head did not answer the question of identity. It was before the age of photography, so her head was preserved in spirits and put on display for members of the public to attempt to identify her. This became a popular attraction, but aroused morbid curiosity rather than the evidence needed to prove her identity.

Two months later, an ostler (a man employed to look after horses) found a sack containing a pair of legs in a water-filled ditch in Camberwell, and they appeared to fit the trunk of the victim. So, the body was complete but still unidentified, until William Gay from Goodge Street became concerned that he had not heard anything from his sister, Hannah Brown. He was uncertain about identifying her from her head, but his sister had an ear injury from an earring being pulled out, and this was consistent with the head found by Pegler.

Brown had been due to marry James Greenacre, from Camberwell, the previous Christmas, but the wedding had been called off by Greenacre, who had accused Brown of misleading him by stating that she had savings. (At that time, a husband normally assumed rights over his wife’s property.)

The identification of the body was a breakthrough in the investigation. When Greenacre was traced and arrested, his new girlfriend, Sarah Gale, was found to be in possession of Brown’s earrings, whilst one of Gale’s children’s dresses was patched with material matching the cloth found in Edgware Road. The wood shavings helped to identify one of the sacks as coming from a local cabinetmaker known to James Greenacre and Sarah Gale. After initially denying knowing Hannah Brown at all, Greenacre then claimed to have killed her accidentally in an argument when they were both drunk. Medical evidence was used in the trial to show that the various parts of the body fitted together, and to rebut several aspects of Greenacre’s defence about where he had struck her on the head. The evidence confirmed that her throat had been cut before, and not after, death, and that her stomach had contained no alcohol. Greenacre was hanged at Newgate on 2 May 1837.

It was a complicated inquiry that was solved before the introduction of the Detective Branch in 1842 and without modern crime scene examination techniques. Examination of the body is always a crucial part of a murder inquiry and normally the starting point of the police investigation. So murderers sometimes try to conceal the body or dismember it to make it easier to transport and more difficult to identify. Undertaking this grisly task after the murder itself reflects the state of mind of the killer.

Trying to dispose of a murder victim’s body in this way may reflect a belief, widespread for many years, that it is impossible to be placed on trial for a murder without the body being found. This originated from the Campden Wonder case in the 1660s, when three men were hanged for murder of William Harrison from Gloucestershire, who later arrived back in the area alive and well, recounting a story of having been abducted abroad by pirates.

6

Edward Oxford’s Gun

DATE: 1840

EXHIBIT: Percussion pistol of the ‘commonest kind possible’ made in Birmingham, used against Queen Victoria

THE 18-YEAR-OLD EDWARD Oxford was the first of seven assailants to attack Queen Victoria. On 10 June 1840, from a range of 10yds or so, he fired with two pistols – one of which is pictured – at the pregnant queen whilst she was riding in a horse-drawn carriage with Prince Albert along Constitution Hill. Oxford was immediately overpowered by a member of the public, Joshua Lowe. At the same time Lowe’s nephew, Albert Lowe, seized the pistols. PC Charles Brown then took Oxford into custody. No bullets were found at the scene and there were some doubts as to whether the pistols had been loaded. Oxford was tried for high treason, but there was a good deal of evidence about mental health issues suffered by his family. He was acquitted on the grounds of insanity and sent to Bethlem Hospital. In 1864 the patients there were transferred to Broadmoor, and three years later Oxford was offered release if he agreed to leave the country. He was last heard of on his way to Australia.

This was not the first time that the security surrounding Queen Victoria had been breached. In December 1838, 14-year-old Edward Jones, disguised as a chimney sweep, was caught in Buckingham Palace’s Marble Hall, but ran from the building. He was caught by the police in St James’s Street with items of the queen’s underwear stuffed down his trousers. He became known as the ‘Boy Jones’ in newspapers, and is an early example of an intruder making his way into the grounds of a royal palace. He climbed over the wall from Constitution Hill and entered Buckingham Palace on 30 November 1840, and repeated his exploit the following night, on 1 December, when he was found hiding under a sofa in the queen’s dressing room, ten days after she had given birth to her first child, Princess Victoria. Jones was sentenced to three months’ detention, but was found again by police officers in a royal apartment on 15 March 1841, just under a fortnight after his release from prison. The Boy Jones was the inspiration for the film The Mudlark starring Alec Guinness who played Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli in a story of a waif who entered Windsor Castle to meet Queen Victoria.

Another example from 1838 involved a man who wanted to meet Queen Victoria and who managed to get into Buckingham Palace and wait for her outside her bedroom. He fell into a drunken sleep in an adjoining room.

On 30 May 1842, John Francis fired a pistol at Queen Victoria when she was riding in a carriage returning to Buckingham Palace, at about 6 p.m., after her daily drive. Francis was immediately arrested by PC William Trounce from A Division and had in fact been seen the previous day threatening the queen at the same spot, but no further action had been taken, apart from excusing ladies-in-waiting from accompanying the queen. Security arrangements were very different in those days! Francis was convicted of high treason, but his death sentence was commuted to transportation for life. Prince Albert considered that the way in which Edward Oxford had been acquitted had, perhaps, encouraged a further attempt against the queen. This second attempt on the queen’s life was one of the issues that influenced the formation of the Detective Branch.

On Sunday, 3 July 1842, soon after John Francis’ death sentence had been commuted, Queen Victoria was riding in a procession of three carriages along The Mall from Buckingham Palace to the Chapel Royal at St James’s Palace when 17-year-old John Bean held out a pistol at arm’s length, pointed it at the queen’s carriage and pulled the trigger. The pistol was old and did not fire. Bean had been holding it in his hand for some minutes beforehand with no attempt to conceal it. Charles Dassett, a member of the public, seized Bean and handed him into the custody of police officers, but they expressed their doubts about whether Bean could be charged with any offence as the gun had not fired, and the incident was not generally treated seriously by onlookers. The gun was loaded with a relatively small amount of powder, and Bean was charged with a misdemeanour rather than treason. The court heard evidence of his good character and then awarded a sentence of eighteen months. Prince Albert encouraged Parliament to pass a law against aiming a firearm at the sovereign, striking her, throwing anything at her or producing any weapon with intent to alarm her.

After a seven-year period without further incident, 23-year-old William Hamilton swore at the queen and discharged a gun, loaded only with powder, on 19 May 1849 in Green Park. He pleaded guilty under the new law and was transported for a period of seven years.

The most serious incident affecting Queen Victoria occurred on 27 June 1850, when she was starting her return journey from Cambridge House, Piccadilly, to Buckingham Palace. Robert Pate, a former lieutenant in the 10th Hussars, who had become mentally unstable, stepped out from the crowd of 200 or so people, and struck the queen with a cane, causing a bruise and bleeding to her forehead despite her bonnet taking most of the force of the blow. The senior footman, Robert Fenwick, grabbed Pate by the collar, and Sergeant James Silver then arrested Pate, who needed protection from the angry crowd. At Vine Street police station, Pate, who lived in Duke Street, St James’s, was charged with assault. He was found guilty and transported for seven years.

On 29 February 1872, Arthur O’Connor, a 17-year-old Irishman, climbed over Buckingham Palace’s wall and rushed at Queen Victoria’s carriage with an empty pistol in one hand and a petition to free Irish prisoners in the other. O’Connor was the great nephew of Irish MP Fergus O’Connor. Queen Victoria’s servant, John Brown, knocked the assailant to the ground before the queen could see the pistol, and was rewarded with a gold medal for his bravery. O’Connor was sentenced to twelve months’ imprisonment, but the queen remitted another part of his sentence that involved twelve strokes of the birch, and he was later sent to Australia. The museum has a note from the then Prince of Wales asking to see the gun involved.

The last assailant to attack Queen Victoria actually fired a bullet at her, at Windsor railway station on 2 March 1882, as she was seated in her horse-drawn carriage on her way to Windsor Castle. Roderick MacLean was apparently aggrieved that a poem he had sent to Buckingham Palace was not being fully appreciated. The firing of the bullet was from a range of about 30yds, and missed its target. A number of Eton schoolboys tackled MacLean, who was then taken into custody by Chief Superintendent Hayes of the Windsor Borough Police. MacLean was tried for treason, his Belgian pistol being more effective than the firearms used by some of his predecessors, but the death sentence was avoided because he was found ‘not guilty, but insane’.

On 5 April 1900, 15-year-old Jean-Baptiste Sipido attacked the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) at Brussels whilst the royal party was on its way to Denmark. The young man leapt on to the footboard of the train carriage and fired four shots into the royal compartment – each of them missing its target – before Sipido was seized, shouting of his intention to kill the prince because of the casualties of the Boer War. Sipido was acquitted by the Belgian court, apparently because of his young age, and later became a director of the General Society of Belgian Socialist Cooperatives.

On 16 July 1936, as King Edward VIII was riding on horseback in a ceremonial procession down Constitution Hill after presenting new colours to the Brigade of Guards in Hyde Park, George MacMahon lowered a newspaper that concealed a gun and aimed at the king. A Mrs Lawrence, standing next to MacMahon in the crowd, grabbed his arm and Special Constable Anthony Dick then knocked the gun from his hand and arrested him. MacMahon, whose real name was Jerome Bannigan, was a publicity-seeking fantasist and claimed at one stage that he had not intended to harm the king, but that he had been paid £150 by a foreign power for the assassination, had been in contact with MI5 immediately before the incident, and had deliberately bungled the attempt. His revolver was brand new and had probably never been fired. It was later proved to be inaccurate for distances over 10yds; the king was about twice that distance away from him. MacMahon’s story was rejected by the court and he was sentenced to twelve months’ hard labour; King Edward had abdicated before his sentence was completed.

On 5 June 1939, Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent, was leaving her residence in Belgrave Square and was about to get into her car when a man named Vincent Lawlor fired a gun at her. The firearm, retained in the Crime Museum, had a barrel that had been shortened to the point where it had become a very inaccurate weapon and he missed his target. Lawlor was arrested and appeared in court, where he was bound over to keep the peace for one month on condition that he returned to his native Australia.

In 1974, a ransom note found in the possession of Ian Ball indicated his motive for intercepting and attacking the royal Rolls-Royce carrying Princess Anne back to Buckingham Palace after an official function. Ball’s intention was to kidnap the princess and ask for a ransom of £3 million. Bizarrely, his note indicated that he had wanted the queen herself, accompanied by two solicitors to vouch for her identity, to personally bring the money to a jumbo jet at Heathrow Airport, to travel to Switzerland with him and then to write him a free pardon both for his crime of kidnapping and for a parking ticket he had incurred. Ball overtook the royal car, forced it to stop, jumped out of his Ford Escort and attacked the vehicle – intending to kidnap the princess – and managed to open the door, something that was then possible from the outside but is not now. During the ensuing violent scuffle, protection officer James Beaton, whose own firearm jammed, shielded Princess Anne and was shot three times. The chauffeur, PC Michael Hills, and a member of the public who came to assist, were also shot and wounded. Princess Anne and her husband were taken on to the safety of Buckingham Palace in a police car.

Ball himself was chased, overpowered and arrested by PC Peter Edmonds as he fled from the scene. Ian Ball pleaded guilty to attempted murder and attempted kidnap, and was ordered to be detained under the Mental Health Act 1959 for a period ‘without limit of time’ on the grounds of criminal insanity.

The incident caused a major review of royalty protection methods and tactics, including driver training. The queen made a number of gallantry awards, including the George Cross to Inspector Beaton.

A starting pistol was used by an unemployed youth, Marcus Simon Sarjeant (b. 1964), on Saturday, 13 June 1981, as he stood in the crowd watching the procession for the Queen’s Birthday Parade, the annual high point of London’s ceremonial occasions. As Queen Elizabeth II passed from The Mall into Horseguards Road, mounted side-saddle on her police horse, Burmese, Sarjeant suddenly produced a gun and fired six shots in rapid succession towards her. The queen rapidly reassured the frightened horse and continued her ceremonial duties, without apparently turning a hair, whilst Sarjeant was overpowered by a special constable and a guardsman. A starting pistol actually fires blank ammunition to begin a race, but the true nature of the gun was only apparent afterwards.

The incident was investigated by Ian Blair, who later became the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. Sarjeant had a framed portrait of Queen Elizabeth, on the back of which he had written various threats against her, and he indicated that he had intended at one stage to kill her, but had not been able to find a more effective weapon. He was charged under the 1842 Treason Act and was sent to prison for five years.

Just over a year later, there was an even more serious incident when, on 7 July 1982, Michael Fagan managed to scale the railings at a vulnerable corner of Buckingham Palace, at about 6.40 a.m., then climb into the queen’s private apartments and reach her bedroom, where he was able to spend almost ten minutes talking to her. The queen, a non-smoker, raised the alarm by telephoning for cigarettes, and Fagan was detained by a footman until a police officer arrived. Fagan apparently had no intention of injuring the queen and had legally committed no offence (apart from civil trespass), but was prosecuted for stealing a bottle of wine, a matter on which he was later acquitted. The obvious and embarrassing security lapses included part of the perimeter wall that could easily be climbed, a window left open, the night duty police officer in the queen’s corridor not having been properly relieved and a failure to implement effective security in a manner that was also compatible with the privacy, comfort and unobtrusiveness required in the queen’s own home. Fagan was committed under Section 60 of the Mental Health Act 1959.

Aaron Barschak was an interloper at a fancy dress party held at Windsor Castle to celebrate Prince William’s 21st birthday on 21 June 2003. The self-styled ‘comedy terrorist’ infiltrated the guests and interrupted a speech by Prince William in which he thanked the queen and his father, the Prince of Wales, for organising the party. Barschak was rapidly arrested and taken away as he claimed to be the terrorist Osama bin Laden, but the implications of his ability to pose as a party guest was a concern and a scandal (notwithstanding the fancy dress costumes of many of the guests). Aaron Barschak was apparently trying to gain publicity for his unsuccessful career as a comedian, but escaped prosecution because of the lack of a specific law against trespassing on royal premises.

The 32-year-old Jason Hatch was the centre of a stunt, on 13 September 2004, when he climbed on to an exterior ledge of the facade of Buckingham Palace as part of a protest about the rights of fathers to gain access to their children in disputed child custody cases. Other protesters had created a diversion, and Hatch’s colleague was detained by armed police and prevented from following him on to the ledge. In a climate of high security over terrorism, the armed officers considered, but did not use, their guns against him.

7

Death Mask of Daniel Good

DATE: 1842

EXHIBIT: Death mask of Daniel Good, executed at Newgate on 23 May

DANIEL GOOD UNWITTINGLY caused a change of organisation that meant murders were no longer investigated by ordinary uniformed officers.

PC William Gardner from V Division was patrolling Wandsworth High Street on Wednesday, 6 April 1842, when he was called to a shop where a pair of trousers had been stolen. A shop boy had seen the theft committed by Daniel Good, known to be a coachman in the Roehampton residence of a Mr Shiel. Gardner took two shop boys to the big house and started to make a thorough search of the stables where Daniel Good worked. Their task was nearly finished and it was getting dark when Gardner shone his lantern for closer examination of what he thought was a plucked goose. As Gardner discovered that the plucked goose was in fact human flesh, he heard the sound of the stable door being bolted as Daniel Good escaped, locking the officer, the shop boys, the estate factor and Good’s own son in the stable. After the hapless party managed to escape, inquiries were started to trace Good, whilst a bloodstained axe and various bones found in the harness room confirmed the case as one of murder.

At the time – about twelve years after the Metropolitan Police had been formed – there were no official detectives because the new police service had been set up firmly to prevent crime rather than to investigate it. It was before the age of telephones or telegraph equipment and messages were distributed to police stations around London by officers, sometimes on horseback, meeting on their station boundaries to exchange handwritten ‘route papers’ giving details of crimes that had been committed. The V Division superintendent, Thomas Bicknell, arranged for 1,000 ‘wanted’ posters to be printed and distributed overnight. The next morning, Sergeant Golding questioned Good’s son and then visited No. 18 South Street, near Manchester Square, Marylebone, where his mother, Good’s common-law wife, Jane Jones (or Sparks) took in washing. It turned out that Jane Jones was the victim. Immediately after the murder Good had fled to South Street by cab, the identification number of which had been noted by a patrolling officer, but the wanted man had moved on. At that time cab drivers invariably returned to the same rank, so it was relatively easy for the police to find the driver. He had taken Good to the Spotted Dog public house in the Strand, and from there Good had temporarily visited Flower and Dean Street, a notorious location for criminals in Spitalfields, where he had changed his clothes.

One of the joint commissioners at Scotland Yard, Richard Mayne, appointed Inspector Nicholas Pearce to co-ordinate inquiries. Pearce had formerly been employed as a Bow Street patrol officer, and had recently returned from conducting an investigation into the murder of Jane Robinson, a farmer’s wife in Eskdaleside, Yorkshire. He was one of several officers in whom Mayne took an interest because of their flair for conducting investigations, but he was not formally a detective.

Good had left London on Saturday, 9 April without being caught by the police.

The case was widely reported in the press, and on 11 April 1842, The Times published an article severely criticising the new police system and the lack of co-ordinated inquiries it was making into catching Daniel Good. A number of murders had taken place in London, including that of Lord Frederick Russell by his butler, and although most of these cases had been solved quite quickly, The Times, influenced perhaps by some magistrates who resented their loss of control over policing arrangements, argued that what was needed was a body of specialist detectives, such as those who had been employed by the Bow Street magistrates.

The level of concern was raised further six weeks later, on 29 May 1842, after an assassination attempt against Queen Victoria by John Francis. Richard Mayne sent a long report to the Home Secretary, pointing out the relative success of the new police system but, using an argument that would be repeated in later years, wrote that he needed more resources if a new detective branch was to be formed. This resulted in the employment of eight officers, on 15 August 1842, with Inspector Nicholas Pearce in charge of the new branch. These eight officers were, in fact, the first formal detectives to be employed at Scotland Yard.

By this time the case against Daniel Good had been solved: he had been recognised whilst working as a labourer on the new railway line being built in Tonbridge, Kent, and had been arrested, tried and then executed at Newgate on 23 May 1842, unaware that his bolting of the stable door had contributed to the establishment of detectives at Scotland Yard.

8

Death Mask of Franz Müller