There can be no denying that 1914 was a pivotal year in the Oscar Slater affair. It was to see – in a sort of preternaturally extended Ides of March, stretching from that year’s April right on until the following year’s May – the downfall of Good Policeman Trench, and the groundless calumniation of a hardworking GP.
Trench would accuse, be accused, and end up disgraced and dismissed.
On a wider canvas of tragedy, the shooting of an Austrian Archduke by a Serbian student on 28 June 1914, would trigger the explosion of the bloodiest, most terrible war that the world had ever known.
That momentous year began for John Thomson Trench in quiet triumph. On 1 January in the New Year Honours, he was awarded the King’s Police Medal, citing the fact that he was ‘Conspicuous for gallantry in arresting dangerous criminals on several occasions, and has a distinguished record in the detective service’. His fellow-recipient of that honour was Superintendent John Ord. They travelled down to Buckingham Palace, where, on 12 February 1914, they were presented with their medals by King George V. Only seven months later, at the age of 45, Trench was out on the hard, unyielding pavement, out of a job, out of pocket – £170 per annum – and with a wife and six children to support.
Although Trench’s fate has been described as a self-engineered predicament, the result of deliberate self-sacrifice in the cause of justice, there was actually nothing intentional about what turned out to be self-destruction. He never sought martyrdom. It was thrust upon him. It was a condition which, paradoxically, he had taken every step that he could think of to avoid. The received vision of him as a tragic, stainless figure offered up on the altar of a malevolent, corrupt even, establishment, and pursued thereafter with relentless spite, partakes of wishful fantasy.
Animated by the praiseworthy desire to protect the innocent, the authorities supervising the production of the 1914 White Paper, Case of Oscar Slater (the Stationery Office publication presenting the ‘Copy of Statements submitted to the Secretary of Scotland, and of the Evidence taken at the Inquiry held by the Sheriff of Lanarkshire, on the 23rd, 24th, and 25th April 1914’), substituted for the name of Dr Francis James Charteris the randomly selected letters ‘AB’, and wherever in the printed document material occurred which would plainly have indicated the identity of Charteris, showers of asterisks were inserted in its stead.
It was, as is so often in life the case, with the best of intentions that the worst of results was achieved. For, as it transpired, the effect was virtually the direct opposite of what was intended. It raised and perpetuated the suspicions of the press and public mind against the mysterious, innominate AB. Not only that, but it meant that many of the most telling rebuttals of Trench’s allegations against Dr Charteris landed on the cutting-room floor. The full, unbowdlerised version of the 1914 evidence did not come into the public domain until 1990.
The device may perhaps have succeeded within a relatively narrow frame, but the alleged implication of Dr Charteris, as proposed by Trench – and he would seem to have been the doctor’s sole accuser – appears to have been an open secret in certain quarters. It was known to sundry members of the police and the legal profession. The doctor’s name was being bandied back and forth, with winks as good as nods, between Roughead, Doyle, Shaughnessy and Cook. Moreover, the challenge of ‘AB’ and the teasing of the asterisks were guaranteed to set the guessing-game addicts and the armchair arm-chancers naming names down the years.
The White Paper was published on 26 June 1914. Ten days earlier the Secretary for Scotland had closed the door on hope for Oscar Slater once again, telling the Commons: ‘After careful consideration of the information obtained in the course of a full and searching inquiry, I am satisfied that there is no case established to justify my advising interference with the sentence.’
The whistle-blower’s reward followed swiftly. On 13 July Chief Constable James Verdier Stevenson wrote to the Town Clerk, John Lindsay:
I have to report to the Magistrates’ Committee that I have suspended Detective Lieutenant John Thomson Trench for the offence of communicating to a person who is not a member of the Glasgow Police Force, viz. to Mr David Cook, Writer, Glasgow, information which he had acquired in the performance of his duty, and copies of documents from the Official records in the case of Oscar Slater, convicted of the murder of Miss Gilchrist on December 21st, 1908 …
It is contrary to public policy and to all Police practice for an Officer to communicate to persons outside the Police Force information which he has acquired in the course of duty without the express sanction of the Chief Officer of his Force; and the giving of information is expressly forbidden by the instructions to the Glasgow Police in the following words, ‘He should not divulge his instructions nor give information which he may acquire in the performance of his duty to any person outside the Force’ (Instruction Book, page 33) …
If he was acting with an honest purpose I cannot conceive why he should not have made his communication to his Chief Constable. He cannot say that he would not have received a hearing, as he was always treated with confidence by me …
I can no longer consider Detective Lieutenant Trench as a trustworthy officer, or fit to hold a position in the Police Service. I have, accordingly, suspended him from duty, awaiting the decision of the Magistrates’ Committee.
I do not make any comment on the statements made by Detective Lieutenant Trench as given in the Parliamentary White Paper, as they may form the subjects of litigation.
On 21 July Trench addressed a most humble and quasi-apologetic reply to Stevenson:
Knowing as I do the Oscar Slater case and having a firm belief that he is innocent of the crime for which he was convicted, the matter pressed upon my mind for a considerable period until latterly I could not sleep for thinking of it.
I felt I must do something and not knowing how to act one day in January last I met Mr David Cook, Writer. In the course of conversation with Mr Cook I decided to ask his opinion about the matter. I told him what my belief was and he then informed me that Dr Devon had been consulted by the Secretary for Scotland in regard to the case and that he would speak to him about it.
Some time afterwards I was invited by Mr Cook to meet Dr Devon in Mr Cook’s house which I did. I told Dr Devon that I had been worrying myself about Slater’s case and explained to him certain things which I knew and which had come to my knowledge through inquiry and otherwise.
Dr Devon wrote to Mr McKinnon Wood about the matter and it was pointed out to me that he was the proper person to receive any information bearing upon the case as he was the only person who could deal with same.
On 13th February, 1914, a letter from Mr McKinnon Wood to Dr Devon was handed to me by Mr Cook. I was assured that it completely protected me against any breach of Police Regulations. Some time afterwards Mr Cook prepared on my behalf the evidence in my possession and I posted same at the General Post Office to Mr McKinnon Wood... From the time that I posted the information to Mr McKinnon Wood I have taken no part in the matter except to give evidence before the Sheriff at the inquiry …
I have time and again bitterly regretted that I did not consult my Chief Constable in the matter. Looking back I can only wonder why I did not do so, but having once committed myself I was helpless …
This explanation cut little ice with an implacable Stevenson, who forwarded it, on 30 July, to the town clerk:
In his first explanation Trench attempted to justify his action by the statement ‘that the information and copies of documents were handed by him to Mr Cook, for transmission to His Majesty’s representative the Secretary for Scotland, in obedience to a written request from that gentleman for same’.
In his statement of 21st instant, he abandons this attitude. He now admits that his action was wrong, he expresses deep regret, and he pleads in extenuation that having once committed himself he was helpless. I can only take this to mean that having committed himself into Mr Cook’s hands, he was compelled to acquiesce in any action which Mr Cook chose to take, such as the publication of the newspaper articles to which by his own showing Trench apparently objected.
He also pleads that he was assured (he does not say by whom) that the letter from Mr McKinnon Wood to Dr Devon, handed to him by Mr Cook, completely protected him against any breach of the Police Regulations.
I believe both of these pleas to be true, and that the information supplied by Trench was used, as he suggests, in a manner that he never anticipated. I cannot, however, regard these pleas as extenuating his offence, and I adhere to the view of his conduct expressed in my letter of 13th inst.
He did not act from any sudden impulse, but in a deliberate and calculated manner well knowing that he was acting improperly, as is fully shown by his statement. If his purpose was honest and if his statements could bear examination, there was no need for the secret and underhand course which he took.
He gives no satisfactory reason for taking this course, and now says he bitterly regrets that he did not consult the Chief Constable in the matter, and looking back one can only wonder that he did not do so.
There remains also the fact that according to the White Paper the witnesses positively and explicitly denied that they did the acts or made the statements attributed to them by Trench.
Trench also despatched – on 1 August, 1914 – a precautionary letter to Mr McKinnon Wood, an appeal to the Secretary for Scotland that, with the risk of dishonourable dismissal now a very real possibility, that august personage should come to his aid.
Right Honourable Sir. – Mr Shaw, SSC, 53 George Street, Edinburgh, has forwarded me copy of communication which you addressed to him on 29th ult. relative to my case …
I relied entirely on the invitation contained in your letter [of February 13th] when I forwarded through Mr Cook the information.
In the communication which accompanied the information the stipulation was expressly made that ‘I was not to be victimised’.
I trust that you will allow me to say that I regarded your invitation to send the information, and your acceptance thereof, as ample protection against any breach of discipline that might be alleged against me. Perhaps on a reconsideration of the terms of your earlier letters you will agree that I had ample grounds for my belief.
Moreover, I was advised that your authority was an ample safeguard and your letter was handed to me as such …
My feeling in the matter … is that a communication from you to the Magistrates or to me direct so that I might produce it would exercise considerable influence in their deliberations regarding me.
I, therefore, venture to make this appeal to you to intercede with the Magistrates on my behalf. I trust to have a reply before the date of the Magistrates’ inquiry, viz., 12 August.
I have the honour to remain, Right Honourable Sir,
Your Obedient Servant,
John T. Trench.’
Honourable Sir remained dishonourably silent.
Prior to his arraignment before the Magistrates’ Committee, and in response to the report against him furnished to the magistrates by Chief Constable Stevenson, Trench himself prepared a ‘reply’ for submission to the Glasgow magistracy:
I must seek to clear your minds of the impression which the Chief Constable seeks to convey to you in his letter … that I had all the information regarding Slater’s case for a number of years, did nothing with it, and then suddenly revealed it. Such a suggestion casts a sinister aspect over my conduct. No one could avoid drawing the conclusion from such a suggestion that there must have been some strong incentive or motive to reveal the information.
The Chief Constable has also declared in his letter – ‘If he was acting with an honest purpose I cannot conceive why he should not have made his communication to his Chief Constable’, and regarding which I desire him to state exactly and in definite terms what this charge is in this connection.
These two statements combine, as I have said, to cast a suspicion over my conduct, and which, I regret to say, have been uttered without investigation on his part to justify its utterance.
The first mistake he makes is the allegation that I possessed the information all along. I respectfully deny that …
None of the information was known to me except the incident which is now known as the A.B. incident. All that was entrusted to me at the time of the murder, independent of the A.B. incident, was a search of Slater’s house in company with other officers, and the rendering of assistance in the identification proceedings in February, 1909.
The inquiries relative to the other matters were conducted either by officers of the Western or Central District. I did not make personal inquiries until December last year …
I have always had grave doubts concerning the guilt of Slater.
My inquiries into the case relative to the A.B. incident did not permit me to hold any opinion definitely regarding the charge alleged to have been made in that direction. I was, as a matter of fact, assured that there was nothing in it, and I accepted that …
Trench then related how his success in 1912 in pulling off the rescue of Charles Warner, the suspected killer of Miss Milne in the celebrated Broughty Ferry murder case, stirred up memories of Slater’s case.
I made inquiries. I gained information that made me doubt more still. I never intended to probe too deeply at all but the remark of a brother officer showed me that there were suspicions elsewhere than in my own mind. I then went thoroughly into the case and was shocked to find that there was nothing in the case that would stand open investigation …
I found that the thought of an innocent man lying in Peterhead proved too much for me. I was worried, could not sleep nor get if off my mind.
It was all to no avail. On 14 September the magistrates of Glasgow held a special meeting ‘to consider the case of Mr John Trench’. They unanimously pronounced him guilty under Section 78 of the Glasgow Police Act 1866, and dismissed him from the force.
There are in the Slater case a number of satellite mysteries subsidiary to the central – and still unresolved – question of who did kill Marion Gilchrist. One of those minor – or perhaps not so minor – mysteries is why Chief Constable James V. Stevenson, in the lee of the 1914 inquiry, was so implacably determined that Trench should be sacked. It was a decision which, in terms of police discipline, seems, at least on the surface, to have been somewhat harsh; in its effect on public perceptions of the case it may also appear almost crass.
The dismissal of Trench was certainly to have repercussions that can scarcely have been unpredictable. It served further to fuel the indignation behind the vigorous newspaper campaigns then being waged against Slater’s conviction and the refusal of the Secretary for Scotland to reopen the case. Furthermore, it was to bestow upon Trench the martyrdom that he strove so carefully to avoid. And with that martyrdom it was to confirm in the minds of the conspiracy theorists that John Trench had most certainly been telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth – and that there had plainly been a cover-up.
In short, the dismissal of Trench, besides being a personal tragedy for the man himself, may be seen as a public relations disaster for the Glasgow police, which is perhaps to assume that Glasgow’s finest would have lost any sleep in 1914 about such an esoteric concept as public relations.
The Chief Constable’s action in calling for the dismissal of one of his brightest officers may be interpreted, of course, simply as that of a martinet, smarting under a challenge to his position and determined to reassert his authority. Another explanation – namely revenge – is given by William Roughead in his Classic Crimes, first published in 1951:
Trench’s chiefs had never forgiven him for the disloyalty to his caste shown by him in the matter of Warner’s waistcoat, whereby he spoilt a fine case of circumstantial evidence. The time had come when, in the vulgar phrase, they could get some of their own back.
Roughead’s explanation here may be based, literally speaking, on slightly false premises. The Broughty Ferry case had, after all, been handled by the constabulary in Dundee, on the east coast of Scotland – not those in Glasgow on the west. Nevertheless, the general allegation that Trench’s dismissal was a blatant case of revenge and retribution for his whistle-blowing persists strongly to this day.
It has also been suggested by some people with police force connections that there must have been another reason for the dismissal of Trench besides his conduct – right or wrong – in the Slater case. They may have a point. What is clear is that in 1914 there had already been question-marks set against Trench which had nothing to do with the murders of either Miss Jean Milne or Miss Marion Gilchrist. And these reservations may have served to influence Stevenson’s decision.
Detective Lieutenant Trench has been sung by every writer on the case as the uncanonised saint of the Slater redemption. He has become an icon, regarded just this side of idolatry. He has been presented over and over again as a character noble and stainless; self-sacrificial in the cause of justice. Doubtless, there is some truth here, but it is only part of the story.
What follows is totally new, and for many who have known only Trench’s Sunday-best profile, the exposure of this sinistral – or sinister – aspect will be, as it was for me, a thoroughly disconcerting revelation. I anticipate hands and eyebrows raised in horrified criticism. But I am not making it up. I am providing facts, not offering opinions.
The first disconcerting hint that I received that all was not quite so rosy as I had always believed in the Trenchian garden of remembrance came in a conversation which I had in 1986 with a former Assistant Chief Constable of Glasgow, William A. Ratcliffe, who was by then living in retirement in Kent. Mr Ratcliffe, who died a few years ago, had a number of novel insights to impart on the Slater case. One of these concerned the probity of Detective Trench. He told me that, without a doubt, John Thomson Trench’s dealings with the criminal underworld had been far from above board. In fact, he indicated that Trench was corrupt, a ‘bent copper’, whose behaviour had, indeed, been causing disquiet among a number of his colleagues for several years before the events of 1914 that led to his dismissal.
It must, I think, be at this point emphasised that I was not prepared to rely solely upon Ratcliffe’s testimony, however apparently disinterested and sincere-seeming. It would require subsequent research in archives, both official and private, to provide confirmation that Mr Ratcliffe was neither mis-remembering nor, with advancing years, unknowingly inventing.
The rumblings against Trench had, so the evidence indicates, been going on for as long as five years, which takes us back to 1909, the year of Slater’s conviction. In 1914, in the weeks between Sheriff Millar’s inquiry and Trench’s dismissal, a worried John Ord was to gather some rather unexpected background material about Trench. At the age of eleven he had appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court and, on 12 April 1880, had been convicted of the theft of wood, and dismissed with an admonition. On the same date, his mother, Margaret Thomson or Trench, had been found guilty of the reset of the stolen wood, and sentenced to 15 days’ imprisonment. Revealed, too, was Trench’s Army record. During the first four and a half of his seven years with the colours, his conduct was rated ‘very bad’. In August 1886 he was sentenced to 21 days’ imprisonment with hard labour for absenting himself without leave and losing his uniform. He was five times convicted for being drunk, and on two occasions the charges were aggravated by his creating disturbances in the barracks.
These might seem to be, indeed were, relatively minor infractions – the regrettable excesses of youth – but, in the prevailing climate of growing suspicion, even such remote misdemeanours were obviously regarded as worthy of note.
Considerably more seriously, Ord had, on 22 April 1914, the day before Sheriff Millar’s inquiry opened, written, in confidence, to Chief Constable Stevenson, under the heading ‘Alleged Report by Detective Trench as to the Statement made by Nellie Lambie concerning Dr Charteris’:
The first time I heard of such a report was from Detective Trench himself on Sunday 29 March and the reason I had any conversation with him on that day was as follows:–
In the Daily Record of March 24th, 1914, there appeared an article on the Slater case apparently inspired by Mr Cook.
It contained, said Ord, restricted official information, and he [Ord] suspected that someone had been furnishing Cook with excerpts, either from the book containing reports supplied to Mr Hart, or from the Slater case correspondence file.
During the day the name of an officer who had left the service got coupled with the leakage and I accordingly wrote a private note to Detective Trench (whom up to this date I had looked upon as one of the most trustworthy officers in the service) to come and see me …
Trench called at Ord’s office on Sunday, 29 March. ‘I told him of my suspicion, and asked him to have quiet inquiry made regarding the leakage of information.’
Later, adds Ord, their conversation had turned upon the points raised by Mr Cook,
when Trench surprised me by saying that Nellie Lambie had made a statement to Miss Birrell on the night of the murder to the effect that the man she saw leaving Miss Gilchrist’s house was like Dr Charteris. I told him that he was altogether wrong and that it was Mr Charteris the Writer, whose name somehow got abroad, but so far as I knew the information did not eminate [sic] from Nellie Lambie.
To this Trench replied ‘Mr Ord don’t you remember that one night after you had gone off duty, Mr Orr sent for me and told me that he had heard that Nellie Lambie had made some statement regarding Dr Charteris to Miss Birrell on the night of the murder and sent me to Miss Birrell to ascertain if anything of the kind had been said and that I told you the following morning what I had learned and that you at once rang up Mr Douglas by telephone, and that he reported that he had attended to that matter and that it was all right’.
I again told Trench that he was making a mistake and that so far as I was concerned, I never heard Dr Charteris’ name mentioned in connection with the murder. To this, he replied ‘It does not concern you, you did your part if a mistake has been made’. I resented this and said ‘You are entirely wrong, Trench, but I will enquire of Mr Douglas and ascertain whether he ever heard of such a rumour as it was himself and his officers who had precognosced Nellie Lambie, Miss Birrell and the other witnesses on the night of the murder’.
I also told Trench on the same night that some extraordinary reports were eminating [sic] from Mr Cook’s office and being circulated throughout the city and that one of them was to the effect that Mr Cook had had the assistance of two New Scotland Yard officers in getting up his case.
Trench then became very uneasy and commenced to make a rambling statement about a Newcastle case where the local authorities were not trusted to make enquiry and that two officers from New Scotland Yard had been sent to make the enquiry which resulted in it being discovered that there was blame attached to certain police officers.
I then and there told Trench that the only thing annoying me was the fact that information intended only for the Chief Constable and the Procurator-fiscal had been taken from books or documents which were at one time under my charge, and had been supplied to Mr Cook and that some one had sold the information to him, and at the same time I mentioned the ex-officer’s name who was associated with the deed. Trench promised to do what he could to discover the guilty party.
At the Publicans’ Annual Licensing Court on 14 April during an interval the law agents present … were talking freely about Trench being the person who had given Mr Cook the information in the case, and that he was suffering from remorse of conscience …
That night I rang up Trench on the telephone, and informed him of the contemptuous manner in which his name had been mentioned in my hearing by gentlemen of the legal profession, and I said to him ‘Have you made any statement to Mr Cook about the Slater case?’ and he replied ‘I have not’. I then said ‘Have you had any idle talk with him in such a way as that he could couple your name with the case?’ and he replied ‘No. No’ … I can truthfully say that I have no recollection of Trench ever having made any report to me regarding the alleged statement by Nellie Lambie; and I am quite satisfied that if Mr Orr had sent him to make an enquiry he would have insisted on seeing Trench’s report, and would have instructed him what to do there anent. I am sure Mr Orr will bear me out in this statement.
Ord’s indictment of Trench continued:
It is only since I have had heard of Trench’s assertions that his extraordinary conduct in my office on 29 March has been made clear to me, and I am of opinion that he has been led into making one false step in stealing the contents of privileged documents and is now making false statements in order to justify his position.
I know his weakness for notoriety for example, in getting his name into the newspapers in connection with cases likely to excite public interest, and it is very likely that he may have precognosced witnesses on the week following the murder after they had been precognosced by the detectives of the Western District with a view to learning something missed by them and it is possible that he may have interviewed amongst others, Miss Birrell.
On 29 July 1914, some two weeks after Trench’s suspension, Ord submitted another report to Stevenson.
It appears that ever since he [Trench] entered the Detective Department he has been suspected by his brother officers of giving information to bookmakers and thieves. In particular he has been suspected for a number of years by Detective Sergeant [John] McKellar, who, as far back as 1910, warned a uniformed sergeant that if he got any warrants to enter betting houses not to mention that he had such to the members of the Detective Department. McKellar has also some information of Trench’s connection with thieves.
Further evidence of Trench’s alleged dishonesty had come on 13 July from Detective Sergeant John Montgomery, who – it appears at Ord’s instigation – had furnished a confidential report to Ord’s successor at the Central, Superintendent Andrew Gow Lindsay:
While on day duty as detective constables in 1904, Detective Trench and I took possession of a large quantity of goods in a broker’s shop in Gallowgate, and took it to the Central Police Office … and the same day, or the day after, Trench suggested that we should take a pair or two of stockings each, and as he was going to dinner he took one pair away.
When I went home to my dinner I told my wife what Trench had done, and she told me to go straight back and tell Trench to put the stockings back or she would come down and report him. I returned to the office and told Trench, and he asked me to go to his house and get the stockings back, which I did. The waterproof coats which Trench suggested we should take were never removed.
Montgomery adds with a certain anguish:
I never to the best of my knowledge mentioned the matter to any person, and when Superintendent Lindsay asked me regarding the matter today I could not tell a lie. And now I have broken my promise which I gave to Detective Trench in 1904.
Perhaps the most damning of Trench’s accusers was Detective Chief Inspector Andrew Nisbet Keith, of Central District, himself an officer of unblemished record who was subsequently to become Chief Constable of Lanarkshire. In a precognition sworn by him in 1915, he says:
Although I was in the same service as Trench, I had not spoken to him for five and a half years before his dismissal. [That would be about March 1909.] I was convinced in my own mind – from information frequently received – that he was not acting squarely, and I wished to have nothing to do with him and not to be associated with him in any case.
Interestingly, papers in the Crown Office’s archive record that Trench had a brother who was dismissed from the Glasgow Police Force for obtaining a reward by a false statement. He was subsequently convicted of theft.
The years 1914 and 1915 were certainly anni horribiles for John Trench. Honoured, suspended and then sacked.
In May 1914, in the midst of it all, his widowed mother – he had lost his father at the age of four – had died.
The axe having fallen on his police career, he did the only practical thing that he could – he went back to the Army. He had, as we have seen, previously served in the Black Watch. Now he enlisted in the Royal Scots Fusiliers and, early in 1915, was promoted to Provost Sergeant of Stirling.
In April 1915, the readers of the Weekly News were regaled with a ‘great new series’ – Trench’s memoirs of ‘21 Years at ‘The Central”. Over the next months the tales of cloak and dagger derring-do were to include ‘How I Tracked Karl Graves, the German Spy’; ‘The Chase and Arrest of Paul Jules Martein for the Murder of a Lady in Paris’; ‘The Dublin North Wall Mystery – How I Tracked and Arrested the Man Who Slew Mary Carroll’; ‘The Fallacy of Honour Amongst Thieves – How I Tracked and Captured a Russian Desperado on Information Received’, and much more. There were also to be Trench’s accounts of ‘the two great mysteries which are marked with a red cross in my life story’ – the Oscar Slater case and the Elmgrove affair.
With his Army career under way again and his detective exploits being serialised, life had resumed some sort of equilibrium for ex-Detective Lieutenant Trench. But there were still surprises in store.
On 13 May 1915, a former colleague, Detective Duncan Weir, accompanied by a detective officer of the Stirling police, appeared at the camp, Allan’s School, Stirling, where Trench was busy overhauling his field kit preparatory to embarking for the Dardanelles.
‘I hold a warrant for your arrest,’ Weir told him.