Hungerford: One Man's Massacre
Page 19
Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary made no specific criticisms of the Thames Valley Police in relation to their handling of the massacre. But neither did he seek to praise their operation. He confined himself instead to making recommendations, his report containing sixty-one suggestions for reform, covering a wide variety of issues of policing. Many of his recommendations have since been implemented. And many have been summarily ignored.
'In our debriefs we have been through it countless times,' Chief Inspector Lambert explains. 'Could we have saved more lives? Could we have got there quicker? Could we have been more professional and deployed more quickly? Well, with the benefit of hindsight, of course, we would have done certain things differently. But if I am asked, would we have acted any differently in terms of our overall approach, I think that the answer is no. We did locate Ryan; we did contain the school. I don't think that more lives could have been saved. Containing a deranged gunman is a very difficult thing to do. Just imagine someone appearing right now, wherever you are, and that person starting to go mad with a powerful weapon - how long would it be before armed police could successfully contain him? It's not easy.'
The car in which Kathleen Wainwright was travelling might also have proceeded in a different direction had the roadblocks established in Hungerford been operating more effectively that day. But they were not. And her husband, Douglas, was killed as a consequence of that. Nonetheless, Kathleen Wainwright has steadfastly refused to condemn the police: 'There's only one person I blame for what happened to my husband. And that's Michael Ryan. We can all say things after the event, what they should have done and so on. But who would have dreamed a thing like this was ever going to happen in a lovely little town like Hungerford? Nobody was prepared for it. We weren't prepared for it. The police weren't prepared for it. They did their best.'
Chief Inspector Laurie Fray, who was at the time in charge of the police press office, is satisfied that the tightening of the firearms law and licensing procedures which has taken place as a result of Hungerford has succeeded in striking a satisfactory balance: 'I think that it's probably about right now. But at the end of the day you can't legislate against nutters. It would be just as possible for someone to kill sixteen people by putting a concrete slab on a railway line. And you can't then outlaw concrete slabs.'
Chief Constable Charles Pollard puts the vexed question of the police response to Hungerford rather differently: 'Many of my officers showed extreme bravery at Hungerford. It was precisely because of good policing that a quite impossible situation was successfully resolved. It was damn good policing. I know it took a long time. But I don't think people appreciate how it might have been. Let's look at it another way. Had we not shown the caution we did, it is entirely within the bounds of possibility that four or five members of the Tactical Firearms Team could have been picked off by Ryan on the loose with his Kalashnikov. If not even more. Then people would have been pointing the finger at me - and quite rightly so. They would have said: "You allowed your men to go in like that? You must have been stark raving mad.'"
On 25 August 1987, just six days after the massacre, Ron Tarry was asked to travel to London to participate in Nick Ross's BBC Radio 4 phone-in. He was particularly anxious to appeal to listeners to stay away from Hungerford. 'We want to cleanse ourselves of this. It is time for the people of Hungerford to comfort and help each other,' he said.
Ron Tarry had barely finished broadcasting his heartfelt appeal when a middle-aged man, prepared to identify himself only as 'John from Hertfordshire', called in to warn that he considered himself to be a potential Michael Ryan. His weapon was not a Kalashnikov but a crossbow. He had been influenced not by the film Rambo but a book by Colin Wilson entitled The Outsider. 'There is more than one Michael Ryan about,' said the caller. 'I am also a loner and a perpetual outsider. Nothing can be done to help me. Only recently I bought a crossbow. I keep it locked away, and I don't think I will harm anyone with it. But I have been in and out of institutions. It just amazes me that someone like myself could buy a crossbow with a pull of 1251b, without a licence, for just £135. The thing is, I can act irrationally. My medical history shows that I have done so in the past.'
As Hertfordshire police set about trying to contact the man, Ron Tarry returned to Hungerford. For the first time since the shootings, the man who had justifiably won acclaim as the Voice of Hungerford' found himself too shocked to comment. Driving home along the M4, he wondered how many more potential Ryans there are in our midst.
SEVENTEEN
'Our Saviour will receive him fittingly'
Several years have elapsed since the Hungerford massacre. But seldom in the Berkshire market town is the name of Michael Ryan heard. For the people of Hungerford prefer to allude to the slaughter rather than to speak about it directly. So there is instead often a reference to 'the tragedy', 'the events of 19 August' or 'that dreadful day'. A booklet entitled 'Hungerford Remembered', the entire proceeds of which were donated to the Tragedy Fund, barely mentioned Ryan's victims, let alone the gunman himself. Even five years after the massacre, when a small memorial garden was opened in the town, there was that same lingering reluctance to mention the unmentionable: the name of Michael Ryan. Yet his shadow had hovered over that inauguration ceremony, just as it had done at every one of the funerals of his sixteen victims.
Nonetheless, as early as the first anniversary of the massacre the press felt able to report on a community whose wounds were healing rather rapidly. The Scotsman ran the headline 'Hungerford learns to smile again', while the Daily Express confidently asserted that 'Life starts again in the vale of tears'. This might well have been true for some. But for others it was not. Liz Brereton explains: 'I'm still missing Roger very much. In fact I still love him very much indeed. Someone once told me that I didn't - that I loved only his memory. That's just not true - it's Roger I still love. That doesn't stop me having a go at him, mind you, from time to time. I still talk to his photograph - I keep a rather smiley one of him by the bed. One day I was having a rather hard time and I was sure that his grin was wider than it usually is. I suddenly found myself getting angry at the photograph, shouting out: "And what are you grinning at?" -whereupon I slammed it down. Then I thought, poor old thing, I'm still shouting at him even though he's gone.'
Jenny Barnard, by contrast, had been able to speak about seeing light at the end of the tunnel when she had participated in the BBC's Everyman programme, broadcast on the eve of the first anniversary of the massacre. That progress had continued apace, and within fifteen months of the death of her husband, Barney, she married Sam Sanchez, the man who had helped her so much during the earlier stages of her grief. Fists had flown shortly after their wedding ceremony when the bride, dressed in an off-the-shoulder pink dress, lashed out at a local freelance photographer, landing a punch on his cheek. Permanently hounded by the press, Jenny Sanchez longed for the right of privacy to become enshrined in English law.
The memory of Sue Godfrey, the first of the massacre victims, is perpetuated in a rather different way. For shortly after her death, staff at Reading's Battle Hospital - where Sue had worked as a ward sister until the birth of James - raised well over £3000. This money was put into a special account known as the Susan Godfrey Memorial Fund, and it now provides for the distribution of annual bursaries to Berkshire student or trained nurses to undertake further education or research in a specific field of medicine. Brian Godfrey attended the first ceremony, held at Battle Hospital, in January 1989. It was there that Sister Anne McDonald, one of three recipients of an award, recalled her former care sister's sense of fun and infectious laughter which used regularly to fill the wards.
Several years later, the ramifications of Hungerford continue to manifest themselves, and in a number of different ways. Anne Eggleton, the senior nursing sister in charge of the Accident and Emergency department at the Princess Margaret Hospital in Swindon on the day of the massacre, and whose calm professionalism was praised by doctors and admini
strators alike, took her own life shortly after the turn of the new year in 1990. Her husband Stephen Eggleton, an ambulanceman who had himself braved Ryan's bullets, found her body in the fume-filled garage of their Swindon home.
Christopher Larkin, a young policeman and one of the first officers on the scene, was honoured as a hero for his courage that August afternoon. He was to lose not his life but his liberty. For he was jailed in 1991 for six years after a trial at Reading Crown Court for having robbed a building society. He had left the police force shortly after the tragedy, turning first to alcohol and then to crime. His sentence was reduced on appeal by Mr Justice Leonard to four years, the Court of Appeal accepting that the police officer had been deeply affected by the massacre.
4My lingering impression,' remembers Ron Tarry, even all these years on, is, did it really happen here? I myself launched the appeal. I was involved in the whole aftermath of the tragedy and still I ask, can it really have happened here in Hungerford? Did all those people lose their lives - and all for no reason? Even some of those who saw Ryan in the process of gunning people down, thought that it must be a film or something - because it all seemed to be unreal. My main reflection, though, is on the terrific response of everyone. I was so gratified and uplifted by the help that was forthcoming. Of course people knew that they couldn't bring back people who had died - it was just an attempt to minimize the suffering. And that was very rewarding.'
The other key player in the aftermath of the massacre was undoubtedly the Reverend Salt. Working closely with the Mayor, he had been a tower of strength, his deep faith shining through. Some social workers expressed amazement that the vicar was not offered counselling by the Church. The truth was that God had carried him through this difficult time. Nonetheless, a year after the massacre, after the vicar had addressed first Oxford's Victim Support Group and then a group of clergy on the events of 19 August 1987, the traumas of the previous months suddenly appeared to catch up with him. For no apparent reason he suddenly developed shingles, although he had not the slightest doubt that the origins of his illness were entirely psychosomatic: 'It was like unburdening myself, I suppose. That once that first year had passed, it was as if I had permission to relax. And that was precisely the moment when it all caught up with me and I was sick for some time. I am sure that it was in reality all about the tragedy.'
It did not take the Reverend Salt long to recover. But Liz Brereton still finds it difficult to relax. Like Jenny Sanchez and Brian Godfrey, she has gone on to form a new relationship. But, unlike Jenny and Brian, she continues to feel entirely shackled by the past: I am seeing someone at the moment - but I do find it very difficult. Because I am still in love with my husband Roger. And therefore this is stopping me from loving that other person. I've tried to explain this, but he finds it very difficult to understand. I compare something awful - which I know I shouldn't do. I also used to feel guilty, because obviously there has been a financial side to it all - a policeman killed on duty and so on - whereas there might be a widow down the road, suffering like me, but who lost her husband through him having, say, a heart attack. So then I've had guilt piled on top of the grief. Fortunately, though, I still do feel that Roger is in the house with me and the boys. He still talks to me. If I am having a bit of an off day, for example if it's Roger's birthday, I'll hear him say: "Come on girl, pull yourself out of it - have a drink." And then sometimes, out of the corner of my eye, I think I can see something, and therefore that he is here. And then he says: "Get on with your life girl -1 am here waiting for you." '
'I can well appreciate if it's not possible for people like Liz Brereton,' Ron Tarry concludes, 'who are so closely involved in the tragedy, if they do not feel able to forgive Michael Ryan. But I can forgive him. We should always forgive. Not to forget, but to forgive, just as we should forgive other wrong-doings from the past. I know it is difficult, but I do think that it has to be done. I would be the first to admit, though, how hard this process can be when the killings were so random and senseless. All in all, looking back, I can't say that I feel privileged to have been involved. But it was an incredible experience nonetheless. I wish it could have been for a positive or happy reason, but that was not to be. I do feel very honoured indeed, despite that fact, to have played some small part.'
What of Ryan himself? After his suicide at the John O'Gaunt School, tests of all kinds were carried out on his corpse. It was part of a wide-ranging enquiry designed to provide the elusive explanation as to his motives. Perhaps, some people whispered, he had the AIDS virus or hepatitis, or signs of drug abuse or homosexual activity would be found. In fact the only change to his body other than the gunshot wound itself was some fatty change in his liver consistent with mild alcohol abuse. Dr Richard Shepherd, the Home Office pathologist who examined Ryan's body, even went out of his way to see if he might be able to detect some signs, however slight, of disturbance in Ryan's brain. But as with every test carried out, nothing abnormal was found. To everyone's regret, the very best of modern medical science proved wholly unable to provide even the hint of an explanation as to why Ryan had run amok with his lethal armoury. But the completion of these tests had at least meant that arrangements for his funeral could be allowed to proceed.
As Ryan's relatives made contact with a crematorium in Reading, feelings in Hungerford were running rather high as to who should attend his funeral, who should not and indeed where and when it should be held. Someone even wrote to the mayor asking him to ensure that Ryan be buried at sea and without a single witness, as if Ron Tarry had some say in the matter. In fact it was the Reverend Salt who was to be the main target for attack.
'Some people had a go at me for assisting at Michael Ryan's funeral,' the vicar recalls. 'But to be honest it simply did not cross my mind not to go. In the Church of England, you bury anyone who is within the confines of your parish. You look upon that person as a parishioner whether or not he actually came to your church. I knew very well how angry people were with Michael Ryan. Don't think that I wasn't angry too. I was. But he was a fellow human being made in the image of God. We are all vulnerable as human beings, and whatever our vicissitudes, not to give respect to our human frame - even in terms of burial - denies our humanity. So of course I was there at the end.'
That end was rather bleak and in stark contrast to the crowded funerals of Ryan's victims. For in the middle of the morning of 3 September 1987, fifteen days after the massacre, a lone hearse bearing Ryan's body pulled out of the mortuary of the Royal Berkshire Hospital. Slowly, in a thin drizzle of rain, it made its way through traffic to the West Chapel at Reading Crematorium. There, outside and braving the elements, a large press corps had assembled. There was the usual jockeying for position as photographers vied with one another for the best photographs of Ryan's coffin. As the four pall-bearers prepared to carry their load, Fred Stannard, a distant relative, stepped forward to place a bouquet of pink and orange gladioli, carnations, tiger lilies and chrysanthemums on top of the coffin. It was one of just two floral tributes.
There were to be no hymns and few words of comfort. Only seven people were to attend the service, due to last a little more than a quarter of an hour. Then, suddenly, security was heightened. An illuminated sign came on, requesting 'Silence Please, Service in Progress'. The funeral of Michael Ryan had begun. Canon John Reynolds conducted the service with the Reverend Salt, but it was the vicar of Hungerford who was to be the more eloquent that day.
'The Prayer Book collect for this week says that we pray to a God who shows Almighty Power "most chiefly in showing mercy and pity". Thank God for that - for all of us need God's mercy and forgiveness. We come now to commit the body and soul of Michael to God's mercy. How sad it all is - we grieve for all those who have suffered and been bereaved in this tragedy. You will feel for them all, and especially the personal loss of Dorothy. Sadder still when we think of Michael - a lost soul who caused the loss of so many loved ones. But God is judge, and we must not take that power into our hands.
Only love can overcome, and only love can bring true forgiveness and reconciliation, which we all need. For me, the true depth and concern we should have for one another, and which reflects the compassion of Christ, was written on a scrap of paper and found by the body of a dead child in Ravensbriick concentration camp, where over 92,000 women and children died:
"Oh Lord, remember not only the men and women of good will, but also those of ill will. But do not only remember all the suffering they have inflicted on us, remember the fruits we brought, thanks to this suffering, our comradeship, our loyalty, our humility, the courage, the generosity, the greatness of heart which has grown out of all this, and when they come to judgement, let all the fruits that we have borne, be their forgiveness."
'Jesus will judge rightly, because He understands - He is the son of Man.'
The pine coffin containing the body of Michael Ryan then disappeared behind the crematorium's curtains, its moulded plastic handles buckling first in the intense heat and flames. All of the expenses were borne by Ryan's uncle, Stephen Fairbrass.
The following day the tabloid press reported Ryan's funeral in predictable style. Little was heard of the vicar's sermon, which he had written out verbatim, for, with the press hovering, he wanted to be sure of exactly what he said. For the Daily Mirror it was 'Gone Forever - Beast Ryan's last exit', while the Daily Express insisted that there was 'No Resting place for Rambo'. The Daily Star headlined just three words: 'Fry in Hell'. The Guardian spoke not of evil beasts or maniac monsters, but of the meagre cremation service itself. It was, the paper said, 'the hygienic modern counterpart of the burial of a Victorian murderer in a quick-lime grave'.