The Wrong Man: The Shooting of Steven Waldorf and The Hunt for David Martin (30 page)

Steven Waldorf recovered from his gunshot wounds and sued the police, who did not fight the case. He was reputedly awarded £120,000 – and that wasn't all. Following his retirement, Commander Frank Cater wrote his memoirs entitled
The Sharp End
. In it, there was an account of the Martin case, which contained the words ‘… the injured man was in fact, not David Martin – he was a friend of Martin's, Steven Waldorf'. Of course, this was untrue; in fact, everyone had been at pains to say that the two had never met and once more, Waldorf sued, this time for libel against Cater and his publishers, The Bodley Head. Cater and his co-author Tom Tullett agreed there was no truth in the suggestion, saying that the libellous piece had been added during the editing, after the authors had delivered the manuscript to the publishers, but the fact remained it had appeared in published form. On 19 January 1990, Waldorf's barrister Geoffrey Shaw told the High Court before Mr Justice Popplewell, ‘The effect of that wrong statement, in its context, was to convey the suggestion that Mr Waldorf had been assisting Martin to avoid arrest' and Waldorf received substantial damages plus costs.

Susan Stephens too had taken legal action. A writ dated 23 April 1985 was served on the commissioner, Jardine and Finch, demanding ‘exemplary damages' stating that she was an innocent bystander in ‘a reckless, precipitous and random ambush' and as a result of the bullet wound to her back had been obliged to stop her lucrative career as a model. This action, like the others, was not defended and Stephens received substantial damages, reportedly £10,000. Coincidentally, that was the amount awarded to PC Carr by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board for being shot in the groin – and almost losing his life – by Martin.

The BBC
Panorama
programme with the title ‘Lethal Force' was televised on 9 December 2001, featuring the presenter Tom Mangold and Steven Waldorf.
Open Fire
, a 1994 made-for-television film directed by Paul Greengrass, depicted the case where David Martin was played by Rupert Graves, whose performance was very compelling. Susan Stephens and Don Brown both assisted in the film's making.

The police kept hold of the yellow Mini for far too long; the Portobello Car Hire Company successfully sued the police for thousands of pounds worth of loss of rental, far more than the car was worth. It led to a change of policy; nowadays in the event of a similar unhappy incident, the police purchase the vehicle immediately.

So what happened next?

There was such a public outcry following Waldorf's shooting that the government knew that something decisive had to be done with regards to police firearms training and on 22 March 1983, it was. It might be thought that action taken almost two months after that near-fatal shooting was not particularly fast, especially when compared to the split-second decisions which had to be made by armed police officers, but by governmental standards this response was akin to greased lightning.

A Home Office circular 47/1983 was sent to every chief constable in England and Wales, together with new ‘Guidelines on the Issue and Use of Firearms by Police' and in addition those chief officers were informed that in the next few days, copies of this circular would arrive in the libraries of both Houses of Parliament. It was a clever bit of back-covering by the Home Office. By taking this course of action, the message conveyed was that these guidelines were not negotiable, they were in the public domain and whatever instructions those forces had observed before they had better change to this new national version immediately. And if anyone did not, they would be on their own; it would certainly not be the fault of the Home Office.

Therefore, from now on the issue of firearms had to be authorised by an officer of Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) rank, commander in the Metropolitan Police, assistant chief constable in provincial forces. If a delay might result in loss of life or serious injury, the authorisation could be granted by an officer of superintendent or chief superintendent rank, although in that eventuality, a senior officer of ACPO rank had to be informed as soon as possible and then any authority which had been granted could be rescinded, if, for example, the threat level had diminished or through the ACPO officer's general unwillingness. The exception was that a standing authority was given for those officers on protection duty, those who were responsible for the safety and well-being of politicians, including the Home Secretary.

For the Home Office, who with a large sigh of relief had metaphorically passed the queen of spades, the next step was to appoint a national working party and this was discussed at the ACPO Joint Steering Committee on 5 May 1983. Geoffrey Dear, Assistant Commissioner ‘D' Department, was asked to chair the party and their brief was ‘to examine and recommend means of improving the selection and training of police officers as authorised firearms officers, with particular reference to temperament and stress'. The Dear Report was published that November and its recommendations stated that all officers selected for training should undergo psychological written tests, the duration of the basic course should be extended to ten days and that refresher training should be increased to four times per year on two consecutive days.

The Metropolitan Police policy committee sat in May 1984 and the recommendations of the Dear Report were split into two; the first phase agreed the psychological testing, the increase of the basic course plus one extra refresher day, although there could be no increase in the budget. A decision on phase two, including additional staff and facilities, was deferred until December. It was estimated that a budget of between £3 and 10 million would be needed; however, a few days later it was decided that the majority of the funds would be allocated to the building of police stations and a miniscule amount would go to ‘phase two'. In 1985, a mock-up ‘street' was constructed at Lippitts Hill training centre by the instructors themselves. Some single-storey plywood building facades were added in 1993, scarcely an improvement. The following year, nearby residents complained about the levels of noise generated by the camp and so training was restricted and in 2003, it closed and a new training area was opened.

Since the time of the Waldorf shooting and up to 2014, Metropolitan Police officers have shot dead twenty-two people. Some, like the case of Jean Charles de Menezes, unarmed and again ‘the wrong man', were heartbreakingly tragic. The majority of the other shootings were fully justified although warranted or not, the outcome has usually been differing degrees of civil disobedience. So has the police perception of wishing to be armed changed since 1883 when 70 per cent of the officers polled wanted just that? Indeed it has; in a 2006 poll, 43 per cent of the respondents wanted an increase of authorised firearms officers. However, an overwhelming 82 per cent declined to be routinely armed.

I thought that the Martin case had been a perfect example of how a dedicated team of detectives could be plucked out of their normal duties and channelled into a top-level investigation. It happened later in the year when that same team of officers supplemented the Flying Squad's Walthamstow office when they investigated the Security Express robbery at Shoreditch in which underworld luminaries such as Ronnie Knight and the Kray's henchman, Freddie Forman, would figure so prominently. It happened again that year when gold bullion valued at £26 million was stolen from the Brink's-Mat warehouse near Heathrow.

Citing these two cases, it seemed to me that inescapable logic demanded the Flying Squad should keep a central reserve. To my great dismay, within a short period of time, the remainder of the squads at the Yard were devolved and assimilated into the area offices.

Cater retired from the force in January 1985 and Don Brown, a month later. I always thought that he, plus Nicky Benwell, Davy Walker and the others who dashed into that pitch-black tunnel in pursuit of Martin, would receive gallantry awards. But they received nothing, no gongs, no commendations, no ‘well dones.' It was thought politically incorrect to praise the men who had caught Martin because of the stigma attached to the case, where an innocent man had been shot by police who were not connected in any way with the Flying Squad. It was the type of gutlessness which should have caused the mandarins at both Scotland Yard and Whitehall to hang their heads in shame.

I know that Peter Finch was also being considered for a bravery award for the arrest of Martin at Crawford Place; with the shooting of Waldorf, that went
straight
out of the window. The only semblance of recognition went to PC Carr. For wrestling with Martin to try to take the gun off him and incidentally getting shot in the process, he was awarded a Deputy Assistant Commissioner's Commendation. It was the lowest award the Metropolitan Police could bestow, and in PC Carr's case, it was an insult.

After his release from hospital, Carr was off sick for six months. He then resumed duty at Marylebone Lane but in 1985, while carrying out an arrest, he chipped his elbow and was taken off frontline duties to work in the Criminal Prosecutions Office. He then raised and ran the charge centre at Wembley Stadium until 1995 when he worked at Harrow police station. Ten years later, he retired, having served thirty years. From time to time, he still experiences discomfort from the effects of the gunshot.

George Ness was later promoted to the rank of commander, was appointed the head of the Flying Squad, awarded the Queen's Police Medal for distinguished service and retired in 1993.

Neil Dickens and Michael Taylor were both promoted to the rank of deputy assistant commissioner, were similarly awarded the Queen's Police Medal and retired, respectively, in 1994 and 1995.

Lester Purdy told me that he and Marion Waldorf had been drifting apart but the shooting brought them back together and they married in 1985. However, he experienced trauma; as he told me, ‘I had a lot of hang-ups regarding Steve getting shot and dealing with the fact that I ran and left him and Sue,' and a psychiatrist suggested that he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. For a variety of reasons, he and Marion later divorced. Purdy was employed project managing communication installations and in 1987, met his future second wife. They and their family now live in the South of England.

Steven Waldorf, Purdy tells me, is believed to be doing well in the property business in North London. Peter Enter moved to the North of England for many years but he and Purdy met up again in 2002 when Purdy employed him for a short while, using Enter's electrician's expertise to install mainframe computers; they lost touch in 2004 when Purdy moved.

As for Sue Stephens, Purdy said, ‘After the shooting, she went back to her mum's. She had health problems and I know the whole thing affected her greatly. She told me she had met a guy in Topsham.' In 2000, Stephens was believed to have moved to Europe.

One by one, several of my contemporaries on the case died; Nicky Benwell, who had been awarded a Queen's Police Medal for his sterling work in Northern Ireland, Tony Freeman, Graham Newell, Tony Brightwell, Cam Burnell, Davy Walker – and Don Brown. Don died in August 2007 from mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer almost always caused by exposure to asbestos dust; its development can take between ten and forty years to materialise. His widow Linda always believed that this had been caused by Don's exposure to the asbestos contained in tube train's brake linings from when he went down the tunnel after Martin. However, she also recalled that when he returned home after the incident, his suit was covered in white powder and it had to be taken to the dry cleaners. What she was not aware of was that in 1932, an experiment to soundproof a 430-yard stretch of the southbound Northern Line tunnel, between Golders Green and Hampstead stations, using blue asbestos had been carried out.

Since that time, Transport for London has attempted to rid the Underground system of asbestos while at the same time stating that its level in the atmosphere is far below danger level. At the time of writing, there is a new estimated date of 2017 for the tunnels to be cleaned, although Transport for London still asserts that the dust levels were ‘highly unlikely' to cause serious damage to human health. The organisation Clean Air in London disagrees; and so does Linda Brown. Was that Don Brown's reward for his gallantry – a painful, lingering death, instead of the medal he so richly deserved?