The Wrong Man: The Shooting of Steven Waldorf and The Hunt for David Martin (22 page)

Long before the meet, Mick Geraghty, wearing a body set (together with other officers) staked out the plot. OPs were set up, one in the Nag's Head public house at 81 Heath Street which overlooked the restaurant. At 5.30 p.m., squad officers had approached the manager Steve Ellis to ask his permission to use a private room upstairs. ‘They didn't tell us why they were there and we didn't ask,' said the manager's wife Christine. The pub was designated OP 1.

Inside the premises were Detective Inspector Brightwell, Detective Sergeants Bradley, O'Rourke, Yeoman, Benwell and Burnell, and Detective Constable Chapman; these last three officers were armed. Also present was Detective Constable Francis from Paddington Green police station, who knew Martin well.

A second OP was set up at Kingswell Flats at 58 Heath Street. This was situated south of the restaurant and on the same side of the road but a curve in the road would permit the watchers there to see both the front of the restaurant and also OP 1. This was manned by Detective Chief Superintendent Brown, Detective Chief Inspector Street, Detective Sergeants Branch and Suckling and Detective Constable Gallagher. These last three were armed. In addition, Detective Constables Clarke and Geraghty were present, as was Police Constable Lucas from Paddington Green police station, who, like DC Francis in OP 1, was there for identification purposes.

A map showing the location of police at The Milk Churn restaurant.

There was a third OP; this was situated at the Nationwide Building Society premises, right at the junction with Holly Hill and Heath Street. Detective Constable Arnold from Paddington Green was there as was the squad driver, seconded for surveillance purposes, Police Constable Colbourne.

Flying Squad cars were kept well out of the way. Central 959 with Police Constables Neilly and Gould, and Detective Sergeants Wood and Hider (who was armed) was parked just off Hampstead High Street, at Flask Walk at the junction with Back Lane.

Central 943, driven by Police Constable Sutherland, with Detective Sergeant Newell and Detective Constable Bryant who were both armed, was parked at Holly Mount at the junction with Hollybush Steps, to the north-west of the restaurant.

Central 949, driven by Police Constable Childs and crewed by Detective Sergeants Miller and Cooke, who were both armed, was parked at the end of Streatley Place Passage in New End; this was to the north-east of the target premises.

To the north of the restaurant, in Hampstead Square at the junction with Elm Row, were two squad vehicles: Central 951, driven by Police Constable Howells and crewed by Detective Inspector Harvey and an armed officer, Detective Constable Walker. Central 954, driven by Police Constable Freeman, contained me, Detective Sergeant Redgrave (armed) and Detective Constable Holloway. From this position, either or both vehicles could swing south into Heath Street.

Four more squad vehicles were parked up: Central 942 and Central 809 in Jack Straw's Castle car park, and Central 801 and Central 944 in Maresfield at the junction with Netherall Gardens.

At the briefing, all this was explained by a senior officer. It seemed fine to me, except for one thing. I remembered how Martin had got away from me ten years previously, via Upton Park Underground station. ‘Guv'nor,' I said. ‘There's no one covering the route to Hampstead Underground station. If he gets through, he can go straight down the unders and we'll have lost him.'

The senior officer sighed theatrically, as if to say, ‘There's always got to be one, hasn't there?' Wearily, he replied, ‘Dick, once he's outside the restaurant, he's bollocksed. He's had it. There's enough of us to eat him. You follow?'

I shrugged my shoulders and sat down. One or two sycophantic officers rolled their eyes at this bit of self-centred stupidity in an effort to ingratiate themselves and I heard someone mutter, ‘Mr Thicko!'

So there you had it: thirty-five officers, thirteen of them armed, nine Flying Squad cars plus an unspecified number of C11 personnel and vehicles, secreting themselves in and around a very small area – all for the arrest of one man. A tad excessive? A bit over the top? Don't you believe it!

During this tense time, a little light humour evolved, about a mile away. Detective Constable Gordon Harrison and another officer were manning the OP – a flat above the NatWest Bank – opposite Susie Stephens's flat. This was necessary since Martin could of course pay a visit to the premises at any time. There were two twelve-hour shifts and at 7 p.m. Harrison's tour of duty had finished and he and his companion were relieved by two other officers.

Telling the two new officers that they would stay in the area to savour the moment when Martin was arrested, they stated they would adjourn to a nearby pub and return later and, because of the security involved, locked the bank's door on the two fresh observers.

However, Harrison then decided that the pub which they intended to visit was too close to Stephens's flat so he and his companion wandered off to another pub in Hampstead where they enjoyed a little refreshment, became engrossed in their conversation and lost track of time.

By the time they returned, matters had taken a decisive turn of events. ‘We returned to the OP to find two very irate colleagues who were pretty pissed off,' Harrison told me. They had had to shout, through the bank door's letterbox to a passer-by, to request that he enter the pub which they believed Harrison and partner had entered and to see if two men fitting their descriptions were ensconced therein and if that were the case, to ask them to return immediately. ‘I often wonder what that member of the public thought about someone shouting through a letterbox from what they would believe to be inside a bank, at 9 p.m.!' Harrison wryly told me.

While Harrison and his partner were indulging in the type of light refreshment that a mile away to the east thirty-five of their fellow Flying Squad contemporaries were dreaming of, matters were rather taut as all of us got into position – and we waited. And then a thought occurred to me. No one had given consideration to Martin intercepting police radio transmissions. Criminals, especially armed robbers, were using monitoring devices, such as the ‘Bearcat' range, more and more. Among the enormous amount of property stolen from Eurotell Security Specialists the previous March, had that included monitoring equipment? Of course, much – but not all – of that equipment had been retrieved after the raid on the basement flat at Ladbroke Grove almost a week previously but then again might Martin have held on to just one such piece of equipment for just this type of eventuality?

Well, if he had, it was too late now. And after about an hour, at 7.40 p.m., the radio crackled into life. ‘All units, stand by … all units from OP3, a brown Sierra entering the plot, towards the target premises – Index: Bravo, Yankee, Golf, seven, eight-er, zero, Yankee.'

‘That's the one!' I whispered excitedly.

‘It may not be,' said Tony Freeman doubtfully.

‘It is! That's the index number that Cam came up with!' I hissed. ‘That's Martin!'

I wonder why we were talking in whispers? Probably because by now we were convinced that Martin possessed some supernatural powers whereby he could overhear whispered conversations a couple of hundred yards away – that's how this job gripped us!

Yes, Martin it certainly was; he drove through the plot and parked the car in a small car park, right next to a C11 vehicle. Through his body set, Mick Geraghty could hear the car's female C11 occupant whispering her information to the team. Martin got out of the Sierra and strolled down Heath Street to the restaurant, where he looked inside. Susie Stephens was not there so he continued walking down the thoroughfare. He was positively identified by Jim Francis, one of the watchers inside the Nag's Head, who passed this information on to OP2; in fact, he passed so close to Tony Yeoman, who was also in the pub, ‘I could've reached out and touched him!' he told me, ‘but I was awaiting the attack call. Then suddenly Don Brown stepped out of his OP, tried a textbook training school-type arrest, missed, and Martin was off.' The attack call from the OP came too late, or the radio was defective or it wasn't given at all, but for whatever reason, Martin darted down the hill. There was nowhere else for him to go; he had passed the two side turnings so dodging the cars Martin dashed straight into Hampstead Underground station, where, of course, nobody was waiting to intercept him. It's likely that the officers in the OP were the only ones who had heard the vocal attack command; they rushed out into the street and the other officers on the observation saw them. This was no time for me to say ‘I told you so!' and we emerged from our hiding places and roared down Heath Street after him.

Hampstead Underground station from the ticket hall down to the platforms is 183 feet, making it the deepest station in London. There are four lifts down to the platforms but Martin disregarded them, as we did. Both Martin and pursuers chose the spiral staircase containing 320 steps.

To the astonishment of Charles Wehner from Queen's Park, West London, he saw, ‘at least twelve armed men' burst into the station's ticket hall. ‘They were all carrying pistols,' he said, ‘and they raced down the escalators [
sic
] to the platforms.'

‘We got the buzz from the first OP,' Alan Branch told me, ‘but the attack wasn't given. I ran after Martin and I could almost touch him, but I was lumbered by wearing a bullet-proof vest. I was just in front of Don Brown and as we ran down the spiral staircase, I ricked my ankle but I didn't feel it at the time because of the rush of adrenaline.'

‘I never saw anybody run so fast,' commented Tony Yeoman, no slouch himself.

‘As he got to the station, I nearly grabbed him, but he was quicker,' recalled Mick Geraghty. ‘He leapt the first straight stairs in one leap. I was the first after him. We both ran down the circular steps but at the bottom, he was about ten yards ahead of me and turned right on to a platform. He ran towards a tunnel and as he entered, a train came in. I shouted at the travellers and told the train driver not to move off. I told him to get the power off on that line.'

‘I don't know how many stairs there are, but there are a lot!' remembered Gerry Gallagher who ran into the station with Tony Yeoman. ‘I tripped and rolled down the last dozen or so. By the time we got to the platform, a train had pulled in and by now Tony and I were joined by Nicky Benwell and Tom Bradley. There was no sign of Martin and as passengers were getting off the train, we were shouting at them to get back on. There was a bit of screaming and shouting as I was in plain clothes, waving a gun and shouting, in a broad Northern Ireland accent, ‘‘get back on the train, get back on the train!'' Nicky Benwell told me later that many passengers thought it was the IRA hijacking the train, as they could only hear me roaring like a bull. Nicky walked the length of the train, explaining to everyone what was happening: he even got a round of applause. The train guard was useless and it was a young boy who told us that Martin had gone down the tunnel, squeezing between the end of the train carriage and the tunnel wall.'