The Wrong Man: The Shooting of Steven Waldorf and The Hunt for David Martin (23 page)

Detective Constable Mark Bryant was another of the officers who, gun drawn, searched the train. ‘A left-wing woman stood up and shouted, ‘‘You can't do this!”,' recalled Bryant. ‘A black member of London Transport witnessed the altercation. ‘‘Quiet, woman!'' he thundered. ‘‘Sit down! I'se working with the po-lice!'”

Alan Branch had also heard what the boy had said; he and Detective Sergeant ‘Nobby' Clarke went to enter the tunnel which led southbound, towards Belsize Park Underground station but at that moment a train arrived at the station. Branch could see Martin's silhouette in the lights of the train. After the train had left, both officers entered the tunnel and discovered there was a connection which led into the northbound tunnel; unbeknown to them Martin had discovered this too.

Mick Geraghty was seriously out of breath and walked over to the northbound tunnel mouth and sat down. ‘John Redgrave came up to me and gave me his gun, saying the radios didn't work and there were problems with communicating up top. I stayed getting my breath back when I heard a noise in the tunnel. As I turned, I saw Martin approaching me from the tunnel.'

Martin had doubled back through the connecting tunnel, doubtlessly hoping to lose himself in the embarking passengers from the train which had already been checked by the squad officers. ‘I pointed the gun at him and shouted ‘‘armed police!'',' said Geraghty. ‘He stopped, looked at the gun and turned and ran. I shouted after him, then turned and shouted to the arrest team, ‘‘He's here!'”

Martin had ducked back once more through the recess and into the southbound tunnel; he was now running towards Belsize Park Underground station, three-quarters of a mile away. If he could outpace his pursuers; if he was not electrocuted; if he was not run down by a tube train – if, if, if – then it was quite possible that once more, he would have outwitted the police and added another chapter to his ever-expanding escape CV.

T
he most senior officer present was Detective Chief Superintendent Don Brown. At the time, he was two months away from his 50th birthday and in his twenty-ninth year of service. This was his third tour with the Flying Squad; during his first, twelve years earlier, he had been commended by the commissioner for performing secret and dangerous work in Northern Ireland and eighteen months later gained another for courage in arresting a gang of robbers.

The years had not dissipated his bravery; shouting for the current to be switched off, he jumped down into the tunnel and set off, in pursuit of Martin. He was followed by Nicky Benwell, Davy Walker and other officers. Steve Holloway recalls the late Detective Sergeant Graham Newell grabbing a London Transport employee by the throat because he was dithering about contacting his control room to have the power turned off.

In an emergency situation, as indeed this was, the station staff would contact the the Northern Line Traffic Controller at Euston to shut off the potentially lethal traction current – 600 volts DC – who in turn would contact the station staff at Belsize Park or train crews in the affected area. In fact, it appears that the current was not immediately switched off, because when this is done, the emergency lighting automatically comes on in the tunnel; but none did either at Hampstead or Belsize Park.

And of course, neither Don Brown nor any of the other intrepid officers were aware that the four-foot-eight-and-a-half-inch-wide track was still ‘live' as they made their way through the gloom of the twelve-foot diameter tunnel in pursuit of London's most dangerous criminal towards Belsize Park.

Meanwhile, Fred Arnold who had witnessed Martin's arrival – and then his departure – from OP3 was tasked to patrol between the two tube stations. This was because it was feared that Martin might escape through one of the shafts containing ventilator fans to remove hot air from the tunnels, which were covered with manhole covers in the roadways.

Being part of the tide of officers rushing down that circular staircase was very much like being immersed in a sink where the plug had just been released and now the water was swirling into the waste pipe. By the time I reached the platform, my heart was beating so fast that if it had suddenly popped out of my mouth and rolled around at my feet I shouldn't have been particularly surprised. If I had been told to follow the officers into the tunnel, of course, I would have had to go; but when I was directed to get down to Belsize Park, to cut off Martin's escape, I must admit to experiencing a feeling of relief.

Steve Holloway and Gerry Gallagher were two more of several other officers directed to get back up to Hampstead High Street and go to Belsize Park Underground station, which compared with Hampstead was a mere 119 feet below street level. It would, of course, have been much easier to use the radios to alert the remaining officers who were outside the station of the current situation but because we were so far underground the radios simply could not transmit or receive. It is a situation which, to date, has never been rectified.

I was still unaware of the existence of the lifts at the station, so I wearily plodded my way, back up those rotten 320 stairs. Alfie Howells was the remaining squad driver left, so together we set off for Belsize Park.

Meanwhile, Alan Branch and ‘Nobby' Clarke were in the tunnel, following the other officers. ‘We were checking every recess in the tunnel,' Branch told me. ‘It was pitch-black down there.' At some stage, the power was shut off because one of the pursing officers later said, ‘There were dim lights in the tunnel' and this, of course, was the emergency lighting. It had also brought the southbound train, which had just left Hampstead station, to a halt. Don Brown and the other officers entered the train via the guard's door; Sarah Thompson, a 27-year-old civil servant recalled, ‘Police ran from carriage to carriage shouting ‘‘Armed police – stay where you are!'' Later, we had to walk through the tunnel by police and London Transport workers to Hampstead station.' Michael White, also 27 and a passenger on the stranded train said, ‘The carriage was in semi-darkness. Everybody remained very calm – they all thought the system had broken down again. Then after about twenty minutes, three armed policemen with guns in their hands burst through the carriages. They shouted ‘‘armed police – nobody move!'' Then other police followed, all in plain clothes.' Carol Vince of Edgware also recounted the police officers invading the carriages and added, ‘They went through on to the tracks but came back a short time later to announce, ‘‘We've got the guy we were looking for.'''

By now, police, some with dogs, were arriving outside Belsize Park Underground station, as were large numbers of pedestrians who were told to get to the other side of the road: ‘He may have a gun,' they were told by the officers.

Paul Sanderson, a cinema worker, was in the station forecourt when police cars screeched to a halt. ‘Men with guns started to run into the station,' he said. ‘We stood back amazed at the confusion and the shouting. It all happened so quickly.'

Meanwhile, Peter Brod, a 31-year-old BBC radio producer had just arrived at the station and had ascended in the lift to street level, to dine with friends. ‘When I got out of the lift, there were several armed detectives and uniformed men. One plain clothes man had a drawn pistol and was shouting, ‘‘Get out! Get out!'',' he recalled, adding, ‘they seemed very tense!'

Down on the platform, Margaret Owen, a 24-year-old civil servant, was sitting on a bench waiting for the train to take her home. ‘There was only one man on the platform with me,' she said. ‘Suddenly, this detective came rushing down the steps and told us to get off the platform and out of the station as quickly as possible. Then he hurried along the platform. A few seconds later, I saw him flinging a youngish man in jeans against the wall. The man was pressed up against the wall with his hands above him. He didn't seem to struggle and I didn't see any guns. Then I ran as fast as I could.'

It was quickly ascertained that the young man was not Martin and upon being unpeeled from the wall, was dusted down and allowed to go on his way.

‘When I got to Belsize Park, I was joined by a DS called Billy Miller,' recalled Gerry Gallagher. ‘Billy and I went down to the southbound platform. I recall the brilliantly lit platform area and the overwhelming silence. I was aware that I couldn't see into the tunnel and equally aware that anyone exiting the tunnel towards the platform could easily see me. Billy stood with his back to the tunnel wall exit and I grabbed a red fire bucket, full of sand and dog-ends, put it on the platform near the edge and got down behind it. I was shitting myself. I had my gun out resting on the lip of the bucket, pointing at the tunnel. After what appeared to be a lifetime, I heard Nicky Benwell's voice coming from the tunnel. I initially thought they had lost Martin but then I clearly heard him say, ‘‘Detective Sergeant Benwell, coming out with a prisoner'' and Nicky came out of the tunnel with little Dave Walker, another C8 guy who had a ‘‘seek & search'' style lamp with him. They'd found Martin in a small recessed area, no more than a couple of feet wide along the length of the tunnel wall.'

Further back in the tunnel, Alan Branch saw Martin arrested. ‘He wouldn't put his hands up,' he told me.

Billy Miller recalls being at the end of the platform at Belsize Park when he decided to relieve himself. Just as he was about to do so, he saw Martin approaching from twenty feet away and drew his police issue revolver. Martin stopped in his tracks and it was debateable which of the protuberances held in Miller's hands caused him the most consternation. As he remarked to me over thirty years later, ‘Good job I needed a slash, eh?'

Martin, dressed in a dark jacket and shirt and casual trousers, with a mixture of dirt and grease on his face, had been arrested at 8.43 p.m. ‘Take it easy, guys, you've got me,' he said, and after thirty-four days on the run, they had.

Ten-year-old Jude Campbell had been out rollerskating near his home in Belsize Park and saw Martin being escorted from the station. ‘He looked very scared and nervous,' said Jude. ‘He was walking slowly. I couldn't see whether he was handcuffed because of the policeman so close around him. They put him in a red Ford and drove away very fast with the sirens wailing. To think I was looking at Martin's picture only this morning,' he added. ‘It was on a poster outside Hampstead police station. I never thought I was going to see him arrested tonight!'

Police Constable John Barnie was driving the local area car and was told to cover the exit from Belsize Park station. He and his RT operator PC Kevin Rose were besieged by the press demanding information regarding Martin's arrest but they were unable to assist. A London Transport employee had chalked up ‘Station closed until further notice' on a blackboard outside the station; fed up with the persistence of the press, Barnie borrowed a piece of chalk and added: ‘PS. Martin's bin nicked!'

Safely contained in the back of Tom Renshaw's squad car, Martin was taken to Paddington Green police station, where he was thoroughly searched. He did not have a firearm in his possession but he did have two knives, a bottle of ammonia, pick locks concealed in his hair and when Davy Walker noticed that Martin had problems speaking, he told him to open his mouth. When Martin demurred, Walker took the simple expedient of pinching his nostrils together, which had the desired effect. Stuck to the roof of his mouth with chewing gum was a tiny Swiss Army multi-purpose penknife. Ruefully Martin told the officers, ‘You've got to cover all angles, haven't you? You can't blame me for trying.'

By the time I made my way down to the platform at Belsize Park, it was deserted. ‘They're all gorn, mate,' said a passing London Transport employee. So I made my way up the stairs, once more and Alfie drove me to Paddington Green. There, in the charge room, I saw for the second and last time the man I had started hunting ten years previously. We had never spoken to each other and now we never would. He was sitting on a bench, looking slightly dishevelled but relaxed. Martin caught my glance; he looked up at me. I wanted to see if I could detect even a flicker of recognition in his eyes, but there was nothing; just disinterest and he looked away. ‘Ten bloody years!' I thought, ‘and still I didn't catch you!'

But what did my pricked vanity matter? Martin had been arrested, by whom it mattered not, and one dangerous member of society was out of circulation and that was the most important thing. That and my desire for a large drink, the first in fourteen days. As Gerry Gallagher recalled, ‘In true Flying Squad style, we all adjourned to the Green Man pub just around the corner from Paddington Green.'

The seventeeth-century Green Man pub at 308 Edgware Road was suddenly flooded with extremely thirsty squad officers and as the hour reached midnight, Gordon Harrison recalled the licensee demanding to know who would be accountable for the after-hours drinking. An officer asked for pen and paper and, as Harrison recalled, ‘After writing on it, handed it to the licensee and told him to place it on the window of the door.' After reading the note, the landlord proudly positioned it in the window as requested. It read: ‘I authorise this public house to remain open to officers of the Flying Squad until further notice – signed by the commander.' The signature was quite unlike Frank Cater's which led many to believe that he may not have been the authentic signatory to that profligate document.

‘Much later that night and after a few celebratory drinks,' as Flying Squad driver Tom Renshaw remembered, ‘I took DI Tony Brightwell home, where his wife told me that the following morning, he stood at the top of the stairs and shouted “We've got him!'”

Not only did this make headline television news that night, the popular crime television programme
The Gentle Touch
was interrupted to inform the viewers of Martin's arrest. When I arrived home – I was, I believe a little unsteady on my feet – it was to loud acclamation from the Kirby clan. Colourful greeting cards were in abundance and one from my 11-year-old daughter Barbara with the heading ‘Happy Families' read as follows: