Black Panther Donald Nielson dies aged 75

The 75-year-old, whose four murder victims included a Harrogate sub-postmaster and a teenage girl, was one of a small group of prisoners who were told they would spend the rest of their lives behind bars.

He was pronounced dead at 6.45pm on Sunday. He had been serving his time in Norwich Prison but was taken to hospital with breathing difficulties on Saturday.

Neilson, a former soldier who was born in Morley and lived in Bradford for 20 years, was once described by police as “the most dangerous criminal in Britain”.

He was given four life sentences in 1976. In June 2008, a High Court judge ruled that he must never be released.

A Prison Service spokesman said: “HMP Norwich prisoner Donald Neilson was taken to outside hospital in the early hours of Saturday December 17 with breathing difficulties.

“He was pronounced dead there at approximately 6.45pm on Sunday December 18.

“As with all deaths in custody, the independent Prisons and Probation Ombudsman will conduct an investigation.”

Neilson, born Donald Nappey in August 1936, was a lance corporal with anti-terrorist training in the Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry and spent time in Kenya, Aden and Cyprus on National Service.

But he left the Army in 1958 after his wife Irene, whom he had married in Morley three years earlier, persuaded him to settle down in Bradford.

He then embarked on a series of failed business ventures, including working as a self-employed joiner and setting up taxi and security firms.

Turning to a life of crime, he used the covert skills and survival training he learned during his Army jungle fighting days to carry out hundreds of burglaries.

But he sought even greater cash rewards and went on to commit armed robberies at post offices, becoming known as the Black Panther because of the black hood he wore and the speed of his attacks.

He committed his first murder at 5am on February 15, 1974, when he broke into a post office at New Park, Harrogate, and killed the sub-postmaster, Donald Skepper.

Mr Skepper was in bed above the shop when Neilson came into the room, hooded and armed with a sawn-off shotgun.

The sub-postmaster tried to leap from his bed to grapple with the intruder but he was shot in the chest.

Neilson murdered two more sub-postmasters later that year, shooting Derek Astin in Accrington, Lancashire, on September 6 and Sidney Grayland in Langley, in the West Midlands, on November 11.

Police interviewed thousands of witnesses about the crimes, but the investigation gained an even higher profile after detectives were able to link the killer with a fourth victim, 17-year-old heiress Lesley Whittle, who was abducted from her home in Shropshire in January 1975.

The Black Panther left ransom notes, demanding £50,000 for Lesley’s safe return, but the girl was found dead seven weeks later in a deep drainage shaft beneath Bathpool Park, a Staffordshire beauty spot.

Lesley’s body was discovered hanging by the neck from the bottom of a ladder to which Neilson had secured her with wire.

Neilson remained on the run for another nine months before police spotted him acting suspiciously near a sub-post office in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire.

He pulled out a double-barrelled shotgun as he was approached, but police officers Pc Stuart McKenzie and Pc Tony White were eventually able to overpower him, with the help of passer-by Roy Morris.

He claimed that he had accidentally knocked Lesley off the ledge of the drainage shaft but a jury at Oxford Crown Court took less than two hours to find him guilty of the girl’s murder.

Neilson had spent three years planning Lesley’s abduction after he read a newspaper report of a will dispute involving the Whittle family, who ran a successful coach firm.

He bought masses of equipment and spent many hours searching the Midlands for the perfect hiding place for the kidnapped girl.

Neilson’s plan, plotted with the meticulous detail of a military strategist, even allowed for the possibility that he might have to face SAS units.