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The murdered policemen, the hanged father... and a mystery that lingers on
FIFTY-eight years have passed, but Patricia Moore breaks down in tears when she casts her mind back to 1951.
Aged 10, she was the oldest of four sisters living a comfortable life on a farm on the hills above Huddersfield with parents Alfred and Alice Moore.
Each morning a chauffeur called Rupert took Patricia and younger sister Christina to a private school and the family enjoyed regular holidays to the Isle of Man and Blackpool.
But their lifestyle was obviously beyond the reach of a humble poultry farmer and Huddersfield CID knew that Alfred Moore had been supplementing his income by breaking into mill offices and shops. They were determined to catch him red-handed with the loot.
The Moore family's rural idyll was blown apart at about 2am on July 14, 1951, when the children were woken by the sound of police whistles and the flash of officers' torches.
A stake-out intended to catch Moore returning from a night-time burgling expedition had gone disastrously wrong.
Outside, one officer lay dead and a second was mortally injured and would die a few hours later – but only after he pointed at Moore on an identity parade.
The police had their man and Moore was soon found guilty and sentenced to death.
However, according to ex-detective Steve Lawson, who has spent three years researching the case, new evidence casts doubt on the conviction. Moore, he says, was an innocent man.
Yesterday, Mr Lawson drove to Birmingham to present a private application to the Criminal Case Review Commission.
He believes Moore was in bed at the time of the shooting and another man, probably a criminal acquaintance of his, killed the officers.
Moore's four daughters always thought their father was innocent, but few believed them until Mr Lawson and another police colleague looked into the case in their spare time.
In 1951, Patricia told officers that when woken by police whistles her father was inside the house. She says they chose not to believe her and claims she was bullied into signing a false statement.
Deeply traumatised to this day by the events of that July night, her interview with the Yorkshire Post is the first time she has spoken publicly.
"It had a very bad effect on me and it ruined mother. She was on Valium for the rest of her life and was never the same person again. She never talked about it; it might have been better if she had."
Patricia chokes with emotion as the memories come back.
"There are parts of that time which will live with me forever and there are other parts which I care not to remember because I was traumatised... it is hard for me to talk about these matters and quite honestly I would prefer not to."
She recalls a final cuddle with her father at Armley jail and sitting on his knee as he said goodbye the day before he went to the gallows.
After he was hanged, the family left Huddersfield, changed their surnames and ended up in poverty, with two of the sisters spending time in an orphanage.
"It has very much affected my entire life," says Patricia. "When I saw him at Armley he asked me to look after mum and she held me to it. He just said he loved us all. Mum was bitter – she didn't really like us to have a life of our own. She had gone from having everything to being absolutely destitute, losing her husband and having four kiddies."
Patricia reluctantly remained her mother's "companion" and lived with her until the 1970s.
"The only thing she ever said was, 'I'm sorry Pat' which I took to mean she was sorry about the way she had been with me. I went out to work and she took the money; she wasn't the kind of person you could say no to. I made a promise as a child – I promised I would look after her."
Her younger sister Tina, 66, who lives in Surrey, has lived her entire life fearful that strangers and friends would discover her past.
Until last year, when she met Mr Lawson, she had only told her husband and his family that her dad was hanged for killing two policemen.
For the first time in more than 50 years, she is happy to talk about what happened.
"I have worried throughout my life that people might find out. My doctor asked me why I changed my name. I worked in a school as a special needs teacher and I thought someone would find out. I used to worry about things like that but now I don't. I just hope Steve can get this review and maybe dad can be pardoned. It would be nice while we are all alive."
Tina recalls the shock of leaving the farm – which was sold to pay legal fees – and her mum's desperate fight to keep the family together.
She and her late sister Sandra were put in an orphanage while her mother went to find a place to live.
Eventually the whole family moved to Leeds and their mother remarried. Tina left home at 18 and did not see Patricia for another 30 years.
Tina was not aware that her mother had died in 1990 and has no idea what happened to relatives on her father's side, including Uncles John and Charlie.
Documents have now been discovered by Steve Lawson which reveal that Alfred Moore remained cheerful and courageous to the end and his wife stood by him.
Shortly after his death, Alice wrote down some thoughts about her husband, describing him as a smartly-dressed and well-mannered man who only ever wanted to run a poultry farm and had turned his back on crime. She visited him every day in Armley jail and wrote: "His last days were spent trying to make it easy for me and the kiddies. I shall always be proud of his courage. Those last four hours and right up to the last minute of my final visit, he told me my faith in him regarding this murder was justified.
"The only regret he ever had was that our daughter Patricia was brought into it as a witness and this did worry him and he said that he hoped given time and understanding, she would be able to forget."
Moore remained confident before his trial that the jury would see through what he called a "very thin case".
Newly-discovered documents reveal that prison officers reported that he was "confident and unworried about his case" and was busy making plans for the farm and his own future.
But he later accused police officers of twisting his statements and making things up. On the morning of his execution, February 6, 1952, he told the authorities in a letter that the police had set him up, writing: "I maintain that the evidence of arrest given by Supt Metcalfe was entirely a figment of his imagination, untruthfully supported by Inspector Cleaver."
He added: "That the depositions of all the police witnesses gave an entirely wrong account of what happened and appear to have been manufactured and are mainly untruthful in the contents."
And in a letter to the Home Secretary, he says one day his innocence will be proved.
The letter concludes: "...I am not guilty of the crime of which I have been convicted, and I beg you to show mercy and grant a reprieve. I am convinced that one day my innocence will be established."
Mr Lawson, who served eight years in the police, says anyone who reads the evidence would conclude Moore was innocent.
"The Moore family sing from the same hymn sheet in their statements. The police are all over the place. Alfred Moore was a totally innocent man and everybody seems to have forgotten about this case. If there was a public outcry it would be reviewed."
'Flimsy' case led Moore to gallows, says campaigner
THE case against Alfred Moore was "flimsy" and would not stand up in a modern-day court, according to former detective Steve Lawson who has unearthed dozens of documents from dusty archives which were not read to the jury or made public.
Mr Lawson's submission to the Criminal Cases Review Commission says:
There was no direct, circumstantial or forensic evidence that Moore had carried or fired a gun on the night in question.
The prosecution failed to disclose vital evidence to Moore's lawyer.
There are discrepancies between original police statements and what the jury heard, which would have helped Moore's case.
A police statement said the gunman was wearing a white scarf but the jury was not told this.
A newly-discovered police memo casts doubt on the times the police said the stake-out was set up.
A top lawyer may have "led" a dying police officer through his final statement.
New information contradicts claims that an officer shone his torch at the gunman and saw Moore.
Mr Lawson, whose three-year investigation took him across the country, has uncovered fresh evidence which builds a convincing picture that Huddersfield car dealer Clifford Mead was the real killer.
New evidence has revealed:
n In 1971 Mead showed friends a handgun, raised it and said: "This is the gun that shot two coppers in Kirkheaton."
n Mead's son discovered a handgun hidden in a dry-stone wall in Kirkheaton, Huddersfield, soon after the murder and was told by his visibly shocked father not to mention it again.
n Mead's son said his father was violent, surrounded himself with guns and at the time of the murder lived very close to the murder scene.
n Mead's son says he believes his father is the real killer.
n Mead's wife recalled that on the night of the murder he came home "in a right state" and Mr Lawson believes they shared the "dark secret" until the end of their lives.
n A regular visitor to the Kirkheaton farm in the 1950s was a "swarthy" man with a moustache who wore a white scarf – an item of clothing worn by the gunman.
The mystery visitor fitted the description of Mead as Mr Lawson remembers him from his time as a Huddersfield detective in the early
1970s.
ROUGH JUSTICE: WRONGFUL VERDICTS WHICH HIT THE HEADLINES
Stephen Downing
On the evening of September 12, 1973, Stephen Downing found Wendy Sewell lying in a pool of blood in Bakewell cemetery.
After an eight-hour police interrogation, Downing confessed. When the case came to trial, Downing had already retracted the statement, but it remained a key part of the prosecution's case and the jury took just one hour to reach a unanimous verdict of guilty. However, his family never gave up. Don Hale, editor of the Matlock Mercury, dedicated much of the next eight years to clearing Downing's name. The conviction was finally quashed in 2002 and Downing was released after serving 27 years in prison.
Bridgewater Four
Paper delivery boy Carl Bridgewater was 13 years old when he was shot at close range after disturbing a robbery at a Staffordshire farmhouse. His death in September 1978 shocked the public and police were under pressure to find his killers quickly. James Robinson, Patrick Molloy and cousins Vincent and Michael Hickey were arrested. At the trial the following year, Robinson and the Hickey cousins were found guilty of murder and Molloy was convicted of manslaughter. The convictions were quashed in July 1997.
Guildford Four
On October 5, 1974 five people were killed when IRA bombs exploded in two Surrey pubs, known to be popular with Army personnel. Two months later, police arrested Paul Hill, Patrick Armstrong, Carole Richardson and Gerard Conlon and almost a year to the day of the explosions, the four, who always protested their innocence, were found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. Fifteen years later, the Court of Appeal found their convictions were unsafe and the four walked free.
Birmingham Six
Paddy Joe Hill, Hugh Callaghan, Richard McIlkenny, Gerry Hunter, Billy Power and Johnny Walker had been found guilty in 1975 of murdering 21 people who died in explosions at two Birmingham pubs the previous year. A six-week hearing in 1988 – the longest criminal appeal hearing ever held – upheld the convictions, but a raft of newspaper articles, television documentaries and books brought forward new evidence. A subsequent appeal in 1991, which showed evidence had been fabricated and cast doubt on forensic tests, was successful.
Derek Bentley
Crowds sang Abide With Me as Derek Bentley walked to the gallows. The 19-year-old was sentenced to death in 1953 for his part in the murder of PC Sidney Miles during a bungled break-in at a Croydon warehouse. Bentley's co-defendant, Christopher Craig, had fired the fatal shot – but, the 16-year-old was too young to be hanged. At the trial three police officers testified they had heard Bentley shout "Let him have it" and while the accused insisted he was simply trying to persuade Craig to give up the gun, the jury came to their own conclusions. In 1998, when new evidence emerged showing the officers had lied under oath the Court of Appeal finally quashed the conviction.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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