The Wrong Man: The Shooting of Steven Waldorf and The Hunt for David Martin (20 page)

Men like Detective Sergeant John Redgrave, a six foot five colossus who had boxed for the Lafone Cup, whom I described as being ‘as tough as woodpecker's lips'; he and Detective Sergeant Alan Branch and Detective Constable Mick Geraghty had recently been commended by the commissioner for bravery and devotion to duty, for arresting and disarming, while unarmed themselves, two highly dangerous armed robbers. These and many more like them were the calibre of the officers I had working with me. David Martin's days of freedom were numbered.

The commander of the squad, Frank Cater, was 53 years of age. The former Royal Marine had thirty years' service with the Metropolitan Police at the time of the shooting and was a career detective, having been part of the teams who had brought about the downfall of the Richardson gang and the Kray brothers. (‘I soon realised his great potential,' said ‘Nipper' Read, ‘and made him my Number Two.') This was Cater's first posting to the Flying Squad; a committed fraud investigator, he had a calm, methodical approach to enquiries. So when he said to me, ‘We need to wind this up as soon as possible, Dick,' it was out of the ordinary for him. A few days later he was interviewed by the
Daily Express
and he said, ‘How dangerous is he? Well, he stands charged with shooting a police officer. As to whether he would shoot at a member of the public … I wouldn't know,' it was the normal, laid-back Frank Cater type of reply.

Perhaps that remark was used to try to dampen down the flames being generated by the media. First, there was cross-dressing, bisexual David Martin, a serial escaper, a chameleon of disguise who had already shot a police officer. Next, there was his girlfriend, a glamorous former model and dancer who had told the press that her life had been saved in the Mini because she had been wearing a leather and metal juju charm, following a chance meeting with an African witchdoctor. There was the public concern regarding an innocent man who had been shot by police, two of whom had been charged with his attempted murder. It was a headline story that would run and run until Martin was caught.

Detective Constable Mick Geraghty was part of a Flying Squad surveillance team and at the time of being called to Paddington Green, he and Police Constable Chris Colbourne (a former 10 Squad driver) had been working to discover the whereabouts of two suspects in the Deptford area who had shot at police officers – now that inquiry had to be left to others on the team. Geraghty and Colbourne's job was to set up an OP to cover Enter's address at St Charles' Square, Ladbroke Grove and for that they used the tower of the local fire station. The OP was manned from 6 a.m. until midnight by the officers; in addition, they had technical help in the form of a time-lapse camera. Every morning, they reviewed the tape for the time not visually covered by them and informed the incident room of their findings; in turn, they were kept up to date with the progress of the inquiry.

Geraghty and Colbourne maintained watch on the premises for six or seven days; it was, said Geraghty, ‘A tiring, uncomfortable and freezing OP. The small window we watched out of was broken and when the wind blew, our eyes would water a lot.'

On Saturday 22 January, the officers came on duty and as usual checked the tape. It revealed that a man matching Martin's description had entered the address at one o'clock that morning. Don Brown and some other senior officers arrived at the OP to check the tape themselves; it appeared it was a possibility that Martin was in the building and the firearms unit D11 was called, as were available Flying Squad units.

I was in a Flying Squad car when we received the call and as Steve Holloway recalled, ‘We were at Barking and got the call to go there and Tony Freeman got us there in about twenty minutes.'

It was necessary to know if there was any other access to the flat other than the front door and Geraghty was tasked to find this out. ‘I did this by approaching a lady after she left the building from the ground floor,' Geraghty told me. ‘She walked around the corner to her car and I introduced myself as a police officer. She looked at me in horror. I looked knackered, dirty, unshaven, wearing old camouflage clothes, but after producing my warrant card and hearing my story, she agreed to let me into the flats.'

Geraghty was invited up to the woman's flat and was able to keep the basement under observation. He used his covert body set to keep the rest of us apprised of the situation while matters developed and when they did, they developed very quickly. My team, together with other Flying Squad officers, had arrived, Geraghty opened the ground-floor front door to permit access to a D11 officer to cover any escape through the building and then an armoured D11 Land Rover pulled up outside the premises. The street had been sealed off and local residents were told to stay indoors. A telephone call was put into the flat to inform them of the presence of armed police officers and for them to come out immediately, separately with their hands up, then kneel and then lie down. We then stepped in and dealt with them. Martin was not one of the three, nor was he in the building. What was in the building was some of the property stolen by Martin, deposited there just over two weeks previously. Two of the three occupants of the flat – a man and a woman – were released. The third, whose name was Peter Enter, was not.

It was not too long before Susie Stephens was arrested. She went to Paddington Green police station by appointment on 23 January and as soon as she arrived, was cautioned and charged. And on the evening of 24 January as Lester Purdy finished visiting Steven Waldorf at St Stephen's Hospital, he heard his name called from a parked car. He walked over, looked inside and made the acquaintance of Steve Holloway who without further ado, pulled him inside, informing him that he too was under arrest.

My team were armed on a permanent basis. I've mentioned Detective Constable Steve Holloway, a tough, Hoxton-born East Ender with a thick, black moustache whose complexion was so swarthy that I often suggested that Greek blood was present in his genetic make-up; coincidentally, he spoke Greek quite well. Detective Sergeant John Redgrave too has already been mentioned; he would go on to receive immense kudos when effecting the arrest of an armed robber from East London with a terrifying reputation for mindless violence; Redgrave simply picked him up and threw him against a door. However, since the door was made of plate glass, the concussion of the robber's body against it caused the door to be shattered. Amazingly, he recovered in time to stand trial.

We, together with our driver Tony Freeman, were on standby at Paddington Green police station to act on any tip-offs as to Martin's whereabouts from members of the public. With us were Detective Sergeant Alan Branch, another very tough customer, and Detective Constable Gerry Gallagher. Gerry was a wonderful asset to any dangerous situation due in no small part to his voice – like the Greek god Pan, whose angry shout when disturbed an afternoon nap was enough to inspire ‘panic'. He and I had bashed in the front door of a North London dwelling, frequented by an armed robber. In the hallway, the house's occupier advanced towards us, knife in hand. Gerry, who had drawn his revolver, would I suppose have been quite within his rights to have shot him; however, there was no need. Gerry simply shouted at him and his voice was so thunderous, the knifeman was frozen to the spot and dropped his weapon. I couldn't help but think that with a few more men like Gerry, there would be no need for the issue of pepper sprays and tasers and we'd have many fewer firearm incidents. Alan (referred to variously as ‘Branchy' or ‘Twiggy') and Gerry were in Central 952, driven by Police Constable John ‘Dickie' Dawson who had been awarded a BEM for gallantry after disarming a gunman who had shot at him.

Because of the amount of publicity generated by the case, there were quite a few calls into the inquiry office. A woman telephoned saying she had just seen a man dressed as a woman in Pembroke Road, close to the scene of the shooting; but if she had, there was no sign of him (or her) by the time we arrived. One telephone call came from the manager of a hotel. ‘A bloke's just checked in to my hotel,' he said apprehensively, ‘but he's dressed as a woman – do you think it could be David Martin?' We decided to find out, and a very surprised transvestite had a model 36 Smith & Wesson shoved up his left nostril. ‘Gracious!' he gasped. ‘What a fright you gave me!' Much the same scenario was enacted when a combined weight of about forty stone of Flying Squad leant heavily on another hotel room door and the occupant, a bewigged cross-dresser, found himself dragged down to the ground. ‘O-o-o-h!' he cried adding, ‘I do hope that's a gun you've just shoved in my ear!' Once we established he wasn't Martin, we helped him to his feet, dusted him down and apologised. However, we did have to shell out for a new set of black fishnet stockings because the originals had been irreparably damaged on the way down to the carpet.

On 27 January we got a very firm lead; Martin had attempted to procure a false passport from the Passport Office at Petty France, just around the corner from the Yard, using the tried and tested formula depicted in Frederick Forsyth's 1971 thriller
The Day of the Jackal
– using the identity of a dead person with a year of birth near to Martin's own. This birth certificate had been presented with an application form, together with alleged verification in the form of a North London vicar's signature. It might have worked – but it didn't. An official became suspicious and telephoned police.

A large-scale operation was set up to nab Martin when he returned for the passport: five OPs containing twelve officers, eleven squad vehicles containing twenty-seven officers (nine of them armed) plus fifteen additional C11 personnel. At that time, eight 42s (covert motorcycles) used by C11 were the total number for the whole of the Metropolitan Police District; six of them were deployed in this operation.

It was all to no avail; if Martin did arrive, his finely tuned sixth sense probably advised him to vanish down St James' Park Underground station, which did not have an OP, a car or a surveillance officer on foot covering the entrances. The significance of this oversight becomes apparent in the next chapter.

What appeared to be just as promising was the telephone call I received from the manager of a very upmarket hotel. ‘I hope I'm not wasting your time,' he said, ‘but a couple have booked into the hotel and they've given their names as Mr and Mrs David Martin.'

‘What do they look like?' I asked.

‘Oh, he's about thirty, I suppose, about five nine, slim, with blond hair,' he replied, adding, ‘and she's a pretty blond.'

‘Are they in their room, now?' I said and the manager replied, ‘Yes, but I believe they may be going out.'

I put the phone down, thinking furiously. Over the past few days, I'd been finding out quite a bit about Martin. Coolness in a tricky situation – well, I knew all about that from my previous encounter with him and he'd demonstrated it in spades at the time of the PC Carr shooting. Arrogance? Yes. A massive ego? Too right. It would not be beyond the bounds of possibility for Martin to book into a classy hotel like this one, giving his real name and if nothing happened, to telephone the press the following day, telling them that he'd put himself on a plate for the police and
still
they'd been unable to catch him.

But if something
did
happen – what then? Was Martin trying to lure us into a situation where he could have a shootout? It was possible, and there were still those five missing handguns, plus an awful lot of ammunition. The manager thought the couple might soon be going out, so no time to organise a D11 team. All these thoughts had gone through my mind in a matter of seconds with no time for prevarication.

‘Gerry! Branchy!' I called out to Gerry Gallagher and Alan Branch. ‘Grab some shooters and a driver – come on!' We got into our cars and we roared out of Paddington Green and into the heart of Mayfair.

‘Are they still in their room?' I asked the manager and he nodded, sweat beading his upper lip as he looked at the half-dozen scowling desperadoes forming a semi-circle around him in the hotel foyer. Some passing guests also gave us apprehensive glances before slotting us into the ‘bad news' category and hurrying away.

‘Perhaps … perhaps, I should telephone them and ask them to …' he started to suggest before Steve Holloway fixed him with a baleful look. ‘You go anywhere near a phone, mate,' he growled, ‘and I'll …' and I gave him a look and shook my head. A good man in a tricky situation, Holloway could be a little impulsive with his comments.

‘Just take us up to the room,' I told the manager and up we went, leaving a couple of authorised shots downstairs in case Martin was coming down as we were going up.

We were shown the outside of the room; at my request, the manager opened up a nearby unoccupied, similar room so that we could get some idea of the geography. Next, I discovered that the rooms either side of Mr and Mrs Martin's room were occupied; and since bullets can very easily go through walls, I asked the manager quietly and without any fuss to get the guests out of the rooms. This he did, and as the bemused guests left their rooms their eyes bulged in astonishment at the very determined-looking men dressed in the type of clothing which failed to conform to the hotel's dress code.