The Wrong Man: The Shooting of Steven Waldorf and The Hunt for David Martin

by Dick Kirby

  Cross-examined by Richard Crabtree for the defence, I was accused of grabbing Enter by his shirt front, telling him, ‘We’re not the local nancy-pansy boys; we’re the Flying Squad.’ Naturally, the allegation was untrue and I denied it, but the ‘nancy-pansy boys’ jibe followed me around for years!

  Stephens stated that she believed the items to be household goods and had no reason to believe they had been stolen and Purdy admitted that he was suspicious and thought that some of the property was stolen. In a statement made by him that I read out to the court, Purdy stated in part, ‘It just didn’t seem right that a girl should have that sort of stuff.’

  Stephens admitted in court that it was her information which had helped police catch Martin but denied that she had accepted or had been offered a reward; in fact, on the few times she had met him between escape and capture, she had, she said, entreated Martin to give himself up. However, she told the jury that she was ‘in no doubt’ that after Martin’s arrest in September 1983, she had told police of the whereabouts of the property at Pickfords, but they had never taken her up on it. Several officers were called in rebuttal to say that she had never mentioned the goods in storage, which made sound sense; had she informed the police, it was in their interests to recover the property as soon as possible, not months later.

  Stephens said that after Martin’s arrest, she had gone to see him at Brixton prison but that she became bored with having to visit him. ‘He was obsessed with me all day and I was trying to drop him nicely,’ she told the court. In addition, she said that Purdy had become her boyfriend – she had told police this when she was first interviewed following the shooting at Pembroke Road – but after pressure from Martin’s probation officer and vicar, who told her he would go on hunger strike or commit suicide, she returned to see him at Brixton. ‘Without that pressure,’ she informed the jury, ‘I would never have gone to see him again.’

  On the fourth day of the trial, Stephens was cleared, on the directions of Judge Babington on one of the charges of receiving stolen goods, which included security equipment and surveillance devices. However, the second receiving charge was still in place, as were two more charges alleging handling the goods for David Martin’s benefit. It appeared that little if any of the trio’s testimony impressed the jury of seven women and five men who on 21 November found the three defendants guilty. Judge Babington told them:

  All three of you have been convicted on the clearest evidence of offences concerned with lending assistance to a very dangerous criminal by helping him to conceal proceeds of a crime.

  Stephens, who had no previous convictions, had been represented by Ronald Thwaites QC, a barrister described as ‘capable of producing results that others can only dream of’, but not, alas, on this occasion. He told the court that she had helped the police catch Martin, stated that she had received several poison pen letters, that she would ‘be in danger in jail’ and that she now wanted to start a new life carrying out voluntary work in Africa. However, as the judge told Stephens, ‘No doubt you were infatuated for a time by David Martin. That is a reason for your offence but not an excuse’ and sentenced her to six months’ imprisonment. Purdy, who had had several minor brushes with the law including a spell of Borstal Training, was sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment, as was Enter; the following day, they sought leave to appeal against their sentences, which were duly suspended. This leniency was reflected in a comment by Steve Holloway: ‘My view of these people was that they were not out-and-out criminals; but just people who got caught up in situations which happened to be criminal.’

  The day before the trio were sentenced, there was a column in the Sunday Express which mentioned that the allegation had been made in court that Steven Waldorf had helped the defendants move Martin’s stolen property. ‘May we be told why Mr. Waldorf is not in the dock with them?’ was the question posed by the newspaper. The answer is quite simple. The matter was referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions. Having carefully considered all the circumstances of the case, he decided – as he did in the case of Detective Constable John Deane – to take no further action.

  * * *

  1. In fact, this was quite understandable; at that time, London was in the grip of a major IRA offensive.

  2. A popular and gung-ho, gun-toting American police detective TV series of that time.

  The End of the Road

  While he had been on remand at Brixton prison awaiting trial, Martin had begun a sentimental albeit unlikely friendship with the serial killer Dennis Nilsen. Prison officers saw them constantly whispering together and came to the conclusion that they were plotting an escape and separated them. Nilsen was apparently so upset that he attacked three warders with a chamber pot.1

  However, following Martin’s conviction, the couple were briefly reunited at Parkhurst maximum security prison. Nilsen had been convicted of six counts of murder and two of attempted murder and had been sentenced to life imprisonment, with a whole life tariff. Martin told his friend, ‘Twenty-five years is worse than a life sentence. If I can’t get out of here, I’ll kill myself.’ In fact, during their last meeting, Martin had told Mark Bryant, ‘I won’t do my time in prison.’ Separated from ‘Natasha’ and now also Nilsen, Martin resumed his correspondence with Stephens. He had already told police, plus anybody else who would listen, if his demands were not met ‘you will have a dead body on your hands’.

  ‘I just want to see you once more and then I will end it. That is the escape’ was part of one of the letters he had previously written to Stephens from Brixton prison, and in another: ‘You are the only one who can help me, as your love is all that can bring me my happiness or release me from the life I lead.’ Stephens later said, ‘I honestly think that he will do it. To cage him up for twenty-five years is to say that the man has no future. He is the kind of man who likes to be active. He is very intelligent and will go mad in jail. I fear for what is going to happen.’ While on remand at Brixton, Martin had been taken to hospital having swallowed a cocktail of paracetamol and barbiturates.

  Among Martin’s fellow prisoners at Parkhurst were Donald Neilson, the so-called ‘Black Panther’ who in 1976 had been convicted of a series of armed robberies and murders, the fourth of whom was Lesley Whittle, an heiress, and Neilson had been sentenced to life imprisonment, with a whole life tariff; and Henry MacKenny, who had been convicted of four contract murders in 1980 and who would be cleared on appeal twenty-three years later. Martin’s mind was now unravelling. He had been noted as a potential suicide risk and had been placed in a special security wing at Parkhurst with six or seven other prisoners where there was a high staff ratio. He had become involved in a row with Neilson regarding the use of a video recorder which Martin used a lot; on this occasion, he wanted to record a nature programme but it was Neilson’s turn to use it. When Senior Prison Officer Donald Smith ordered Martin back to his cell, he became ‘very hysterical’ and as Smith would tell the inquest held on 21 May 1984 at Newport, Isle of Wight, ‘He had lost face with the other prisoners. The other prisoners knew he was in the wrong. One of them had told him, ‘‘Come on, David, go back to your cell and grow up.’”

  Martin was put on a special fifteen-minute observation, later lifted to a thirty-minute watch. The following day, Smith tried to persuade him to get back into normal prison routine because when he got into a black mood, he would generally emerge from his cell, to associate with Neilson or MacKenny and he would then have a cup of coffee with them.

  But not this time. Martin was found hanged in his cell on 13 March 1984; in a bizarre twist, it was the same cell that Terrance John Clark aka Terry Sinclair, jailed for a gangland murder, had been found dead, ostensibly from a heart attack, the previous year. Prison Officer Jonathan Austin had visited Martin’s cell that evening to find the door ajar and the light turned off. ‘I pushed the door three or four inches and I could feel something behind it,’ he told the inquest jury. ‘It turned out to be a chair. As I entered the cell, on the righ
t, I could see Martin hanging with flex around his neck.’ Martin had used a piece of flex, taken from a prison washing machine. The plug was then re-fitted on the remaining cable so that no one would know that the twenty-one inch length of flex was missing. Even in death, Martin was meticulous in his preparations; and for the last time in his life, he was, as always, in complete control. A note to Susan Stephens, found beside his body contained the passages: ‘All I have is death to take away the pain of not being with you … Whatever death is, it can’t be as bad as waiting each day to see you – and not.’

  The principal medical officer at Parkhurst said that Martin’s paramount problem was his obsession about getting back together with Stephens who had not visited him since beginning his sentence. Senior Prison Officer Smith concurred, saying, ‘I think this time, David Martin had decided to kill himself and he was trying to draw attention to this fact because normally he would not argue over the video.’ Psychiatrist Dr Brian Cooper had examined Martin on several occasions. He told the inquest, ‘Martin was a clever and resourceful man and there is some doubt as to whether this was a genuine suicide attempt. He came from a group of people in prison who put very little value on their lives and who try to use them as blackmail.’ Cross-examined by James Storman, solicitor for the Martin family, Dr Cooper was asked if he believed Martin would try to kill himself if his relationship with Sue Stephens totally ended; his reply was ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you think he ever got over Sue Stephens?’ asked Storman and the psychiatrist answered, ‘No.’

  The jury, having also heard from Ralph, Martin’s father, returned a verdict of suicide. Upon hearing the news, Steven Waldorf’s father said, ‘I never met David Martin,’ and then characteristically added, ‘but I am rather sad to hear that he is dead.’

  In interviews with the press, Martin Sr was almost triumphant about his son’s demise, while taking the opportunity to blame everybody else for it. He told Daily Mail reporters, with the type of rhetoric which had become his trademark:

  When they gave him twenty-five years, they might as well have put a bullet through his head. I knew weeks ago that this would happen. He told me. He said there was no way he could do all that time. The governor of the prison wrote to me saying maybe he would settle down and do his time. But he was thirty-seven – how can you face twenty-five years in prison at thirty-seven?

  He has taken the can back for the Waldorf shooting. To me, he has done them in the eye. He is better off where he is now. It is the police and the system that killed him. I told them all what would happen and they did nothing. David was cleverer than any of them. He just bided his time until he got the opportunity. Nobody can hurt him anymore. In the finish, he beat them anyway.

  I suppose it’s difficult to argue against logic that is as twisted as that.

  Steven Waldorf recovered from his gunshot wounds and sued the police, who did not fight the case. He was reputedly awarded £120,000 – and that wasn’t all. Following his retirement, Commander Frank Cater wrote his memoirs entitled The Sharp End. In it, there was an account of the Martin case, which contained the words ‘… the injured man was in fact, not David Martin – he was a friend of Martin’s, Steven Waldorf’. Of course, this was untrue; in fact, everyone had been at pains to say that the two had never met and once more, Waldorf sued, this time for libel against Cater and his publishers, The Bodley Head. Cater and his co-author Tom Tullett agreed there was no truth in the suggestion, saying that the libellous piece had been added during the editing, after the authors had delivered the manuscript to the publishers, but the fact remained it had appeared in published form. On 19 January 1990, Waldorf’s barrister Geoffrey Shaw told the High Court before Mr Justice Popplewell, ‘The effect of that wrong statement, in its context, was to convey the suggestion that Mr Waldorf had been assisting Martin to avoid arrest’ and Waldorf received substantial damages plus costs.

  Susan Stephens too had taken legal action. A writ dated 23 April 1985 was served on the commissioner, Jardine and Finch, demanding ‘exemplary damages’ stating that she was an innocent bystander in ‘a reckless, precipitous and random ambush’ and as a result of the bullet wound to her back had been obliged to stop her lucrative career as a model. This action, like the others, was not defended and Stephens received substantial damages, reportedly £10,000. Coincidentally, that was the amount awarded to PC Carr by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board for being shot in the groin – and almost losing his life – by Martin.

  The BBC Panorama programme with the title ‘Lethal Force’ was televised on 9 December 2001, featuring the presenter Tom Mangold and Steven Waldorf. Open Fire, a 1994 made-for-television film directed by Paul Greengrass, depicted the case where David Martin was played by Rupert Graves, whose performance was very compelling. Susan Stephens and Don Brown both assisted in the film’s making.

  The police kept hold of the yellow Mini for far too long; the Portobello Car Hire Company successfully sued the police for thousands of pounds worth of loss of rental, far more than the car was worth. It led to a change of policy; nowadays in the event of a similar unhappy incident, the police purchase the vehicle immediately.

  So what happened next?

  There was such a public outcry following Waldorf’s shooting that the government knew that something decisive had to be done with regards to police firearms training and on 22 March 1983, it was. It might be thought that action taken almost two months after that near-fatal shooting was not particularly fast, especially when compared to the split-second decisions which had to be made by armed police officers, but by governmental standards this response was akin to greased lightning.

  A Home Office circular 47/1983 was sent to every chief constable in England and Wales, together with new ‘Guidelines on the Issue and Use of Firearms by Police’ and in addition those chief officers were informed that in the next few days, copies of this circular would arrive in the libraries of both Houses of Parliament. It was a clever bit of back-covering by the Home Office. By taking this course of action, the message conveyed was that these guidelines were not negotiable, they were in the public domain and whatever instructions those forces had observed before they had better change to this new national version immediately. And if anyone did not, they would be on their own; it would certainly not be the fault of the Home Office.

  Therefore, from now on the issue of firearms had to be authorised by an officer of Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) rank, commander in the Metropolitan Police, assistant chief constable in provincial forces. If a delay might result in loss of life or serious injury, the authorisation could be granted by an officer of superintendent or chief superintendent rank, although in that eventuality, a senior officer of ACPO rank had to be informed as soon as possible and then any authority which had been granted could be rescinded, if, for example, the threat level had diminished or through the ACPO officer’s general unwillingness. The exception was that a standing authority was given for those officers on protection duty, those who were responsible for the safety and well-being of politicians, including the Home Secretary.

  For the Home Office, who with a large sigh of relief had metaphorically passed the queen of spades, the next step was to appoint a national working party and this was discussed at the ACPO Joint Steering Committee on 5 May 1983. Geoffrey Dear, Assistant Commissioner ‘D’ Department, was asked to chair the party and their brief was ‘to examine and recommend means of improving the selection and training of police officers as authorised firearms officers, with particular reference to temperament and stress’. The Dear Report was published that November and its recommendations stated that all officers selected for training should undergo psychological written tests, the duration of the basic course should be extended to ten days and that refresher training should be increased to four times per year on two consecutive days.

  The Metropolitan Police policy committee sat in May 1984 and the recommendations of the Dear Report were split into two; the first phase agreed the psychological testing, the
increase of the basic course plus one extra refresher day, although there could be no increase in the budget. A decision on phase two, including additional staff and facilities, was deferred until December. It was estimated that a budget of between £3 and 10 million would be needed; however, a few days later it was decided that the majority of the funds would be allocated to the building of police stations and a miniscule amount would go to ‘phase two’. In 1985, a mock-up ‘street’ was constructed at Lippitts Hill training centre by the instructors themselves. Some single-storey plywood building facades were added in 1993, scarcely an improvement. The following year, nearby residents complained about the levels of noise generated by the camp and so training was restricted and in 2003, it closed and a new training area was opened.

  Since the time of the Waldorf shooting and up to 2014, Metropolitan Police officers have shot dead twenty-two people. Some, like the case of Jean Charles de Menezes, unarmed and again ‘the wrong man’, were heartbreakingly tragic. The majority of the other shootings were fully justified although warranted or not, the outcome has usually been differing degrees of civil disobedience. So has the police perception of wishing to be armed changed since 1883 when 70 per cent of the officers polled wanted just that? Indeed it has; in a 2006 poll, 43 per cent of the respondents wanted an increase of authorised firearms officers. However, an overwhelming 82 per cent declined to be routinely armed.