The Wrong Man: The Shooting of Steven Waldorf and The Hunt for David Martin (26 page)

Lawrence objected to Carr reading from his notes. A police officer may refer to his notes in court, providing they were ‘made at the time or as soon after as reasonably practicable'. Of course, because of his injuries, this was impossible and although the judge ruled that Carr should not be able to refer to his pocketbook, it made little difference. When one is shot at point-blank range by a gun-toting, borderline psychopath, the sequence of events is indelibly imprinted upon one's memory and Carr experienced little difficulty in providing a comprehensive testimony.

Martin's defence barrister insinuated that PC Carr had been shot by accident; however, the evidence suggested otherwise, especially after PC Steven Lucas gave evidence of Martin's arrest the previous 15 September. He stated that Martin and Finch were struggling, and when Martin shouted, ‘I'll have you – I'll blow you away,' Lucas added, ‘It sounded as if he meant it.' As other officers flooded on to the seventh floor of the block of flats, Lucas said, ‘I moved out of their line of fire. The black gun which Martin was holding fell from his grasp on to the floor. Then I saw him produce a silver gun from somewhere. He was holding it in his right hand. I shouted to my colleagues, ‘‘He's got a gun!'' Then I heard a shot which I believe came from PC Van-Dee. Martin fell to the ground with DC Finch on top of him.'

In cross-examination, Lawrence accused Lucas of not telling the truth as to what had actually happened and suggested that he had given his account as ‘an attempt to justify the shooting of Martin – perhaps in a panic'. ‘As far as the shooting,' stated Lawrence, ‘what actually happened was that Martin came up in the lift, turned right out of the lift and right again into the corridor. He collided with DC Finch and was promptly shot by PC Van-Dee.'

‘No, sir,' replied Lucas. ‘That is totally untrue.'

Lawrence insinuated that Martin never had time to draw any guns but Lucas firmly replied, ‘He drew two guns, sir.'

I spoke to Peter Finch about these allegations over thirty years later. ‘When I approached Martin,' he told me, ‘I told the young PC to wait whilst I had a word with ‘‘her''. I think we were all taking the situation very lightly and were not scared or uptight about it. So there was no ambush.'

Lawrence suggested that Lucas was ‘practically lost' without reading from his notes which he had made later that night, but this was bluster, an old chestnut usually seized upon by defence barristers, even those as experienced as Ivan Lawrence. It was effectively countered by PC Lucas stating that they aided his memory so that he could get his account correct.

It was a ploy used again when Bob Cook gave evidence with Lawrence suggesting that he had ‘collaborated' with other officers in compiling his notes, the intention being to convey to the jury that it was an improper thing to do. Cook replied that he disliked the term ‘collaborated' since it suggested wrong or dishonest practice and that further it was quite permissible under the Judges Rules for officers to confer when writing up notes.

Lawrence was scathing regarding Martin's arrest at Crawford Place, saying that the officers knew in advance full well who he was and acted in a ‘laidback' manner in carrying out his arrest. He went further; when officers denied seeing Finch hit Martin with his revolver, he suggested that they were lying on oath. They were not and now is as good a time as any to discredit this suggestion.

When a prisoner was committed for trial the prosecution were obliged to serve all of the pertinent statements on the defence, usually prior to the committal at the Magistrates' Court. The defence, in those days, did not have to provide any details whatsoever of what their defence was likely to be. So in between committal and trial – in Martin's case, just over six months – the defence solicitors and barristers had ample opportunity to pore over the prosecution papers, gleefully noting every inconsistency and adding them all together so that in the quiet and calm of a courtroom, accusations could be bellowed at the police officers. Although Finch would not be giving evidence, nevertheless his statement – in which he admitted hitting Martin with his gun – was served on the defence, together with statements from officers who agreed with Finch's statement.

But when police officers go into life-threatening situations there is no time coolly to assess the situation and then make a dispassionate judgement as to what's happening. Police officers being police officers have to make split-second decisions and concentrate upon what they're doing. Therefore those officers who denied seeing Finch hit Martin did so simply because they did not witness it; they were focusing on restraining the wildly kicking and struggling prisoner.

I too have been in similar situations, once in particular in a bedroom with a man running amok wielding a knife. Even though that bedroom was far smaller than the landing at Crawford Place, when it came to recording our evidence afterwards, there were some things which some officers saw and heard which others did not. All that can be done in those circumstances is simply to say what it was you did see, knowing that in months to come the defence will be making capital out of those inconsistencies. There you are – in the legal minefield of English justice, that's life!

Nicky Benwell gave evidence of Martin's arrest in the tunnel. Telling the jury he told Martin to raise his hands as he walked towards him, he stated that Martin refused to lift his hands up. Later Martin told him, ‘That would have been giving into you completely. I could never do that.'

Cross-examining, Lawrence said, ‘He was deliberately refusing to obey your order in circumstances where he had some reason to think it not unlikely he would be shot?'

Benwell replied, ‘I would agree with that.'

Although the expression ‘suicide by cop' was not in general usage at that time, this was precisely what Martin had been attempting. It describes the way in which criminals, unwilling to end their own lives, will put police into the impossible position of having to shoot them so that in that split second, they (the victim) will achieve immortality – or so they think. When the matter of the knife hidden in Martin's mouth was raised, Benwell said, ‘I wasn't sure if he had it for suicidal purposes or whether in order to try and make a further escape.'

This closed the case for the prosecution and the weekend intervened. On Monday 3 October, Ivan Lawrence made various submissions and Kenneth Richardson, perhaps surprisingly, told the judge that he had given ‘very careful consideration' to the evidence of how PC Carr came to be shot in the groin. Martin had fired not caring particularly where the officer was shot, he said, adding, ‘In those circumstances, nobody should complain if a charge of attempted murder was brought. But having said that, if one looks at the reality of the situation, it would seem that the basic intent at that stage would have been much more to escape arrest.' Thus, the charge of attempting to murder PC Carr was dropped.

Now it was Martin's turn to give evidence. Naturally, he was dressed for the part in a blue-and-white striped shirt, brown trousers with a brilliant yellow strip sewn into one leg, and brown leather slippers, trimmed in yellow. Ivan Lawrence would later describe him as possessing ‘strikingly handsome, if feminine features', although others would have begged to differ. Martin was the centre of attention in front of a packed spectators' gallery and an even more crowded press bench and for the next day and a half, he would be loving it.

The reason for being at Colour Film Services, said Martin, was to copy videos; he had done so previously, copying twenty at a time. However, this he decided would be his final run; and he had imparted this information to the unnamed gang behind this multi-million pound video piracy scam, who were displeased with him. Therefore, he had brought with him a handgun, purely for protection, in case these evil gangsters came to the office to harm him. Are you with me so far, children? Right. During the struggle with PC Carr, the gun – which had a hair-pressure trigger – went off accidentally, since Martin had no intention of shooting anyone. However, the gun which the police said had been used to shoot PC Carr did not have a hair-pressure trigger. This was a setback, albeit one of little importance: one of the handguns found in Martin's possession when he was arrested six weeks later
did
have a hair-pressure trigger; naturally, said Martin, the police had swapped the two guns over. Apparently the bullet which had been fired could not be found and a great deal of capital was made over this.

The gun which had allegedly been used to shoot PC Carr was passed to the jury for inspection; however, first it was passed to Martin, having ensured it was unloaded. It gave him the perfect opportunity for some more grandstanding, telling the jury, ‘It is unloaded, you know; I might blow my head off and make a terrible mess in court.'

Remarks like this were food and drink to the spectators' gallery and the unloaded pistol was passed around and merrily clicked by the jury members, to ensure that it did indeed have a hair-pressure trigger. When one thinks about it, it was the height of folly to have passed the firearm to Martin. He would have known this was going to happen; it would not have been impossible for an associate to have smuggled ammunition to him. In the twinkling of an eye, Martin could have loaded the gun, shot the judge and, in the confusion, escaped. You think that's too far-fetched? Then, with respect, you haven't been following examples of Martin's ingenuity as closely as you might.

When Lawrence put it to him that he had ‘in due course, escaped,' Martin replied, ‘Well … they lost me, put it that way.' Martin was thoroughly enjoying himself, saying, ‘If I shoot myself in the process of being arrested, perhaps that is resisting arrest.'

Regarding the shooting of PC Carr, he was prompted to admit, ‘Perhaps I should not have had a gun in my hand,' but his colossal ego necessitated qualifying his remarks with an attempt at justification by adding: ‘But it is his fault for actually grabbing hold of my hand and wrenching my arm about.'

Martin told the jury that many years before he had been a photographer and that during late 1982 he had been involved in security work: ‘Anything from manufacturing covert listening devices to fitting locks on doors.' Asked by his barrister about the truthfulness of the police evidence regarding how he had been approached as he had got out of the lift and inserted a key in the door of his flat and had been told, ‘Excuse me, love,' Martin's reply was immediate: ‘The only thing which was said to me, was ‘‘bang''. It never got any further than that.'

Cross-examined by Richardson, the exchanges between the two became sharper; when asked his reasons for taking five guns out of the country, Richardson was goaded into replying, ‘No doubt your criticisms of the lax gun laws in this country will be noted,' but there was also no doubt that Martin was ahead on points.

Because of Martin's allegations of impropriety by the police officers, his character could be put before the jury and his convictions were read out in court. Richardson suggested that because he had spent so many years in prison, he carried guns to shoot his way out of trouble to avoid being returned to prison. He described as ‘absolute nonsense' Martin's claim that he carried guns in order to kill himself if the prospect of arrest presented itself. ‘The reason why I suggest you were prepared to use guns to evade arrest,' said Richardson, ‘was because having been in prison many years, you were not prepared to go back there and were prepared to do anything to avoid it,' claims which Martin denied.

Following the completion of his evidence, the jury was shown photographs of Martin dressed in women's black underwear. This was because during three of the offences carried out by Martin in 1982 he had dressed as a woman. The judge told the jury, ‘We are not concerned with this man's private habits. I think it sufficient to show you photographs as corroboration that he might be mistaken for a woman. In other respects he is a perfectly normal man but it is part of his scene that he dresses himself up as a woman.'

In his closing speech, Ivan Lawrence conceded that his client was ‘no knight in shining armour' and told the jury, ‘I don't mind what you think of him as a person, probably not very much.' However, he suggested that as a result of Martin's past life of crime and now, facing a likely serious sentence, the police might have overreacted in their dealings with him. With the type of punishment likely to follow, having spent nine years in prison, might well lead him to adopt an attitude of ‘I couldn't care less, let them shoot me; I want to commit suicide,' said Lawrence.

On 7 October, Mr Justice Kilner-Brown summed up the evidence on the thirteenth day of the trial. Reminding the jury of how Martin had been shot in the neck by police and had collapsed in a pool of blood when being arrested, he warned them that before they jumped to any conclusions or found themselves being affected by feelings of sympathy, they should also remember that when he was shot, Martin was in possession of two loaded handguns. He added that the disclosure of Martin's previous convictions could be ‘a vital factor'. If a defendant attacked the integrity of prosecution witnesses, as Martin had done, said the judge, previous convictions could be referred to during the trial. He told the jury not to underestimate the seriousness of Martin's allegations – he was accusing police officers of inventing their story of how he drew a gun and as a result was shot. ‘Such information, elicited in cross-examination may be of vital importance when you hear the police being accused of scandalous and wicked conduct,' said the judge, ‘to know the sort of person it is, who is making the allegations.'