The Wrong Man: The Shooting of Steven Waldorf and The Hunt for David Martin (10 page)

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 had 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.

‘
D
avid 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.

Fred Arnold organised Martin's conveyance between Brixton and court and his return. He and two temporary detective constables would drive to Lambeth police garage, meet the driver of the seven- to eight-seater prison van with clear glass windows and thence to Brixton prison. The van was always accompanied by Arnold driving his authorised vehicle, a Honda Accord, either in front or behind. Martin incessantly looked out of the windows at the roads they were travelling along, the buildings, the side streets. As they drove north along Brixton Road, they turned left and crossed the junction with Clapham Road, on towards Vauxhall, then north again along the Albert Embankment. All the time, Martin's eyes were flickering from side to side, up and down, perhaps weighing up chances, evaluating the route; then across Westminster Bridge, up Whitehall, on to Piccadilly Circus and up Regent Street until, just before Oxford Circus, turning right into Great Marlborough Street.

Martin always had a magazine to read in the van but on one occasion, Darby suddenly noticed that Martin was scratching at the magazine with his long nails and he snatched it away from him. He saw that what Martin had been scratching was the registration number of Arnold's car. Darby immediately brought this to Arnold's attention who replied, ‘By the time he gets out, I'll have bought another car.' Arnold later told me, ‘I wasn't alarmed by the occurrence but observed him intently, at all times. I felt it best to monitor all that Martin did to get further into his character as he was so clever and devious.'

There were other indentations made by Martin's fingernails which were indecipherable. It was thought that these might have been some sort of code in connection with an escape attempt. Information was received – and how reliable it was, was anybody's guess – that criminal associates of Martins were planning to attack the escort with Belgian pump-action shotguns to secure his release.

There are alternative explanations to the fingernail scratching on the magazine. First, that by acquiring Arnold's registration number, this could also lead to him accessing Arnold's home address, simple enough for someone of Martin's ingenuity. From there, this could lead to associates of Martin's kidnapping and threatening Arnold's wife and daughters in exchange for Martin's freedom and this is not as fanciful as it might sound; within three years, I would be dealing with a kidnapping where a family was kept tied up in their home overnight until the criminals' plans were satisfactorily carried out.

The second interpretation is that incorporating the information regarding the attack on the prison convoy was all a blind, a distraction, that this was disinformation, promulgated by Martin or at his instigation. In this way, everybody's attention would be focused on the journeys from prison to court. Once he was back at Brixton he would be treated as a security risk and since he had escaped from there ten years previously (plus other attempts at escape from other high-security prisons), no one was going to take any chances. And while he was at court, there would be sufficient police officers to ensure his detention in the dock and when he was in the cells he would be incarcerated there for the shortest amount of time. As he was to be remanded on each occasion, he would be dealt with first, returned to the cells and there would be no question of him waiting for the ordinary prison van to turn up; he had his own bespoke prison van waiting to whisk him back to Brixton.

So the route was varied and no such attempt to ‘spring' Martin was made – but the fingernail indentations were an ominous sign which might mean something or nothing. Darby's assessment of the prisoner was that ‘Martin was one man you couldn't give an inch to,' he told me. ‘There was something scary about him.'