by Dick Kirby
More officers, some of them armed, from the investigating team quickly surrounded the flat. Others were on the roof and more in the surrounding streets.
At about 9.40 that evening, Martin, who had arrived back in the United Kingdom three days earlier, turned up at the block of flats; but the officers were unaware of it. Police Constable Steven Lucas (who had earlier been relieved from duty but had now returned) and Detective Constable Peter Finch were on the seventh floor when they saw what they assumed to be a woman, carrying a black handbag walking along a long corridor. As PC Lucas would later tell an Old Bailey jury:
This person had long fair hair and a striped yellow T-shirt and was wearing trousers. The person looked effeminate. At first, we stood back, believing it to be a woman but then we approached and DC Finch said, ‘Excuse me, love …’ The person was standing by the door, about to put a key in. She turned round and it was David Martin. He was holding a large black handgun and at that point, DC Finch grabbed him bodily.
As the officer struggled with Martin, he shouted, ‘I’ll have you – I’ll blow you away!’ DC Finch shouted to the other officers who were on the roof and they were quickly joined by Detective Sergeant Tom Martin, Detective Constables Jim Francis and Fred Arnold and also Police Constable Peter Van-Dee.
Martin, who was struggling furiously, suddenly dropped the black Smith & Wesson .38 Chief Special revolver (which was loaded with five bullets and had been fitted with the Pachmayer grips, purchased earlier that day) and appeared to surrender. Instinctively, Finch relaxed his grip; it was the moment Martin was waiting for. He produced a second firearm, a silver Star 9mm self-loading pistol, loaded with fifteen rounds, with one in the chamber, ready to be fired, from his waistband and pointed it at the detective. PC Lucas shouted, ‘He’s got a gun!’ and PC Van-Dee, having no doubt that he was about to witness a colleague being murdered, shouted ‘Freeze, armed police!’
‘Pete [Van-Dee] later told me that, convinced Martin was going to shoot, he drew his service revolver, placed the barrel against Martin’s head, looked aside and pulled the trigger,’ Steve Fletcher told me. ‘He told me, everything froze for a split second. He looked back, expecting to see ‘‘strawberry jam’’ (Pete’s words) where Martin’s head had been. Not so. He resumed his struggle, slightly less ferociously than before as his collar bone was broken. It transpired that the bullet that Pete fired pierced Martin’s scalp, then travelled down between skin and bone, down to his shoulder, fracturing the collar bone.’
Both Martin and Finch crashed to the floor, with Finch on top, but still Martin continued to kick out and at the same time, with his right hand, tried to grab one of the two handguns. Finch, by now almost exhausted, drew his gun and hit Martin in the face with it. DS Martin, who had also drawn his revolver, ran up and swept the two handguns away. Apparently, Finch was initially annoyed at Van-Dee for firing his revolver, thinking that he too could have been shot, but in the circumstances there was little else that the officer could have done. As Finch told me, ‘Peter [Van-Dee] told me afterwards that the end of the barrel was close to my head and that’s why he fired his gun.’
In spite of being shot, Martin continued to fight ferociously, even after being handcuffed, telling the officers, ‘I could have killed the lot of you, I could have had you all! Why don’t you just finish me off?’ And then, as Fred Arnold recalled, he looked the officers in the eyes and said, very calmly, ‘You cunts can’t do anything right. Come on, give me another one.’
Other officers who had been in nearby Macready House, a police section house, rushed to the incident, including the then Police Constable 532 ‘D’ Martin Power, attached to the crime squad. As a crew member of ‘Q’ Car, ‘Delta One-one’, he had been one of the first on the scene when PC Carr had been shot. The sight that confronted him now was that of David Martin, with blood pouring from him, with officers trying to restrain him. ‘My DS appeared and told me to get a first-aid kit,’ recalled Power. ‘I ran down as the area car, ‘Delta-one’ turned up and grabbed the kit; when I got the kit up to Martin, the DS tied his legs together with a bandage!’ Martin’s legs needed restraining; he had kicked DC Arnold in the face and chest, causing him to fall awkwardly, resulting in injuries to his back, rear ribs, spine and shoulder which later required surgery.
A resident on the same floor offered Finch a large scotch; ‘Greatly appreciated!’ he told me and a couple emerged from a nearby flat and offered the use of their telephone; an ambulance was called and DC Jim Francis telephoned Inspector John Devine, Marylebone’s duty officer, who arrived and saw Peter Finch. ‘I could see he was covered in blood spatters and not really ‘‘with it’’,’ recalled Devine and arranged for Finch to be taken back to the police station. Finch had acted commendably. In justifiably hitting Martin in the face with his revolver, he made no secret of it and included this incident in his notes and later his statement. However, during the next twelve months, and through no fault of his own, things were to go badly wrong for Finch and this incident would be the subject of profound criticism at Martin’s trial.
Detective Sergeant Roger Clements had been part of the inquiry ever since PC Carr had been shot. He had been night-duty CID at the time, but following that tour of duty, he recommenced running the Crime Squad at Marylebone Lane police station and took some of his forty-two young charges to hunt for PC Carr’s attacker. Now, he accompanied Martin to St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington.
By now, Martin was raving. ‘I could have shot them all,’ he exclaimed. ‘I made a mess of it. I could have had four or five of them!’ However, raving or not, because of the amount of blood covering Martin, Clements began administering a ‘Dying Declaration’, a statement only to be taken when a person is in imminent danger of dying, beginning with the ominous words:
I, (name) having the fear of death before me and being without hope of recovery make the following statement …
But then Clements looked up to see a doctor, standing behind Martin, shaking his head. ‘He’s not going to die,’ said the doctor. Clements took possession of Martin’s clothing; underneath the trousers and the T-shirt, he was wearing stockings and women’s underwear. When questioned about it, he replied, ‘It’s my scene.’
If Martin was not by now actually kicking, he was certainly alive and before he went into surgery, he demanded to know, ‘Why didn’t you finish me of? Looking at it logically, with four armed coppers in those circumstances, I should be dead. Unfortunately, you didn’t do your job properly and I am not dead – you fucked up!’ But PC Van-Dee had not ‘fucked up’ at all. He had reacted precisely as he had been trained. Let’s pause to consider gun statistics at that time.
During 1981, police had been issued with firearms on 4,983 occasions and had drawn their revolvers 106 times, firing just six times during two incidents where no one had been hit. Criminals, on the other hand, had used firearms on 1,168 occasions. But gun crime was worsening; now in 1982 criminals had used firearms 2,069 times and police had been issued with firearms on 6,635 occasions and drawn them from their holsters 118 times; during that period, police had opened fire six times, injuring three people. Martin was one of those casualties and, given the circumstances, no one was going to blame PC Van-Dee for his actions. Indeed, his feat had been praiseworthy in the same way that Finch’s achievement had been commendable. In addition, Martin had also been in possession of a clip containing a further fifteen rounds for the Star pistol, plus ten more rounds for the revolver. Martin’s response was nothing more than an extension of his enormous ego. Before he had admonished security guards for failing to discharge their duties; now he was castigating Peter Van-Dee for neglecting to kill him. With Martin, he was always right; it was everybody else who was in the wrong.
According to a later newspaper interview, Sue Stephens had arrived outside Martin’s flat, only to see a police officer outside. ‘I knew something was wrong,’ she accurately stated. ‘I just legged it.’ Even though Martin had been shot from the closest possible range and ha
d lost a considerable amount of blood, he made no mention of pain or indeed any discomfort. The consultant surgeon was astonished that Martin was not suffering from any form of trauma, and concluded that Martin had not been seriously injured and the doctors agreed that he was fit to be interviewed by police. Shortly after Martin’s admission to hospital, he was interviewed by Detective Superintendent Ness and Detective Inspector Bob Cook. Martin declined to have legal representation present while he was questioned and refused to answer any questions at all. Bob Cook told me, ‘His egotistical, boastful character was quickly evident. After the interview, he bragged about his ability to escape from custody, police or prison, claiming that no one could hold him once he had made up his mind to escape.’
Answering questions or not, Martin, in hospital under armed guard, continued his boastful ravings to anyone who would listen. ‘I got to the door and heard a noise. I looked around. Your bloke was there. I should have taken him out there and then. I could have got away easily. I could have taken out four or five and all the rest would not have wanted to know.’ In fact, once again, Martin was using the dictum he had previously expounded, about shooting a customer in a bank ‘and then the rest would listen’; it had been utilised in the shooting of the security guard in the City of London robbery, plus firing a shot at another guard. Telling his listeners that he had two guns with him, one in his handbag, another in his waistband, he was asked if he would have used them and he replied, ‘Yes. I don’t know why I didn’t. I wouldn’t be here now, if I had. I went for my gun and he dived on me and the others followed. It’s all a bit hazy. We struggled.’ He said that while he was going for his second gun, there was a bang. ‘I knew I’d been hit. It’s a funny feeling, really.’
However, the investigation as to what he had been up to had got underway and Martin would find that the result of those enquiries was anything but funny.
* * *
1. Force Medical Examiner.
2. Traffic Patrol.
3. Diplomatic Protection Group, who were always armed.
Escape Plans
‘David Demain’ had now officially been identified as Martin and an in-depth search of his flat at Crawford Place got underway. The wardrobe, full of women’s dresses, leather trousers, sling-back shoes and designer underwear, caused raised eyebrows among the detectives but there were far more interesting matters to excite their attention. A leaflet was found relating to a safe deposit box service; keys in Martin’s possession fitted the locks of the boxes which he had rented two months previously. In both were a veritable treasure trove of valuables and evidence. The first, rented from Selfridges, Oxford Street, W1 contained £3,595 in cash, foreign currency and jewellery as well as seven of the handguns together with ammunition that had been stolen from Thomas Bland & Sons. The second security box, which had been rented from the Berkeley Safe Deposit, Davies Street, W1 contained £2,000 cash, three APS identity cards – all bearing Martin’s photograph – plus four more handguns and ammunition. A signatory to the box was one ‘Danja Thyssen’, coincidentally a name used as a model and dancer by Susie Stephens.
A car key was found in Martin’s possession; it was traced to a Mercedes which had been stolen from the car park at Heathrow on 24 July, at the same time that the Ford Granada had been taken. There were also documents relating to a Volkswagen Golf; this, together with an Audi, had been stolen between 19 and 30 April from Vag (UK) Ltd, Manston Road, Ramsgate. The Audi was later recovered while in possession of two men, associates of Martin, who were charged with the theft of the vehicle and were bailed to attend Ramsgate Magistrates’ Court; they failed to appear. The Volkswagen was later found in Calais. It was searched by the Sûreté Nationale and five more handguns, stolen from the Covent Garden gunsmiths, were found; forensic tests identified that one of them had been used to shoot the security guard in the £25,000 robbery in July. Another identified the gun, a .22 revolver, which had been used to shoot PC Carr.
On 22 September, Martin was discharged from hospital. He was taken to Paddington Green police station where a series of identification parades were held. ‘This had to be the straightest ID, ever,’ Carr told me. ‘Officers from other stations ran the identification parade and there was someone on the parade who was an absolute dead ringer for Martin.’ It did not deter Carr plus several other officers from correctly identifying Martin; in fact, at Martin’s later trial, identification did not become an issue for the defence.
Detective Constable Jim Francis was part of the investigating team and during a boastful moment, Martin chillingly told him, ‘I’ve just done nine years for fraud. You don’t get that much for murder – and you’re next!’ Although Martin was not amenable to official questioning, it was thought that he might be induced to impart information with a series of informal ‘cell chats’. It was Detective Constable Fred Arnold deputed for this duty; notwithstanding being kicked in the face by Martin, it was thought with justification that Arnold would be the right man for the job. The six foot five former Royal Marine Commando had enjoyed a considerable number of successes during his career. Arresting an ex-mercenary for the murder of a neighbour, the man was induced to admit another thirty-nine crimes committed throughout the country. And after a two-week nationwide hunt for the man who had shot and paralysed Police Constable Philip Olds QGM, the time taken for Arnold to receive a tip-off, arrest and deposit the gunman at the police station was just thirty minutes, the same amount of time it took for Martin to write the gunman’s full confession and book off duty by 10 p.m.
‘He did not come across as thuggish, heavy or behave in a cocky manner,’ Arnold told me:
He was not into physical stuff but would shoot people with pleasure. He was cool, calm and calculating. He rarely swore, did not smoke or drink and was always calm in the presence of police. He was mean and extremely clever. He was a career criminal; he worked alone but could always call on a selection of other criminals for specific crimes. These criminals were in awe of him and feared him. I spent more conversation time with him than any other officer and I found him interesting and most certainly different. He insisted throughout that he was not a criminal but a businessman and his wages/earnings came from shooting Securicor guards as they entered bank premises with containers of money. Simple. He was deadly serious and could not understand why the police thought this was criminal.
Arnold was told to ‘try to get into him’ in order to recover the unaccounted for firearms from the gunsmiths burglary, in the event that they were now in the hands of other underworld figures, and in addition, to determine whether or not he was accompanied during the burglary. However, Martin would not explain how he had broken into the gunsmiths, and he would not admit to any other person being involved. Time after time, Arnold brought this matter up, hoping that Martin would deviate from ‘I’ to ‘we’ but he never did. And when he was asked why he had taken so many guns, his stock answer was, ‘That was all I could carry.’
Arnold was also tasked to take a statement from Susie Stephens, which, over a period of several hours, he did. Her identity had been established after she visited him at the police station and she would continue to visit him at Brixton prison and at court. He told me:
In her statement, she mentioned an overland trip/holiday they took in a stolen VW car with false plates to Ibiza. They used a system of ferries to reach Ibiza. In Ibiza, they stayed in a hotel; Martin only ever used cash. They photographed each other posing with handguns … The flat where he was staying was searched and amongst the items of interest that were found were a number of film processing receipts to be collected from a Boots Chemists in Knightsbridge. I collected the processed films and some of the photos clearly showed both of them posing with handguns. The stolen car was abandoned on returning from Ibiza in a car park in Calais near to the ferry terminal. Martin felt it was too risky to enter Dover in the stolen VW in which, of course, the stolen handguns from the burglary were found.
Arnold also supervised visits between Martin and Stephens at
the police station. ‘They were allowed no contact and I sat between them on all visits. Other officers covered the cell passage area,’ remembered Arnold. ‘The visits were rather subdued and on one visit, Martin became very emotional and tears welled up in his eyes and he lowered his head in silence; I don’t know why. But he really did have some feelings towards Sue Stephens. Maybe he felt she was the only person in the world he could trust.’
This was possibly one of the few times in which Martin did display compassion. During one of the informal ‘cell-chats’, Arnold posed a hypothetical question to him, asking what would his reaction be if, when driving a stolen car, he were to be stopped and questioned by a woman police officer? Martin’s reply was calm and unequivocal: ‘I would shoot her dead, if need be.’
Martin was charged with attempting to murder PC Carr, plus fourteen other firearms, robbery and burglary charges. He appeared at Marlborough Street Magistrates’ Court and was remanded in custody.
Robert Darby was a uniformed police constable at Marylebone and, as he admitted to me, ‘I always felt uneasy in his presence. He was a very cold person who refused to make eye contact with you.’ Before leaving for court, Darby supervised Martin washing himself. ‘He was meticulous about cleanliness,’ he told me, ‘particularly with regard to his nails which were quite long.’ Martin’s nails would figure in a strange episode that followed. There were a few officers who treated Martin in a relaxed manner, but not Darby; he had not forgotten what had happened to Nick Carr, especially since he had been the best man at Carr’s wedding as well as collecting and rushing Carr’s wife to the hospital on the night of the shooting.
