The Deptford Terror
he George Cross – ‘for acts of the greatest heroism or of the most conspicuous courage in circumstances of extreme danger’ – has already been fleetingly mentioned, and it ranks next to the Victoria Cross – ‘for valour’. Both medals can be awarded to the armed forces for acts of the highest bravery. However, the Victoria Cross is reserved for armed forces personnel only, while civilians can win the George Cross.
The plain silver George Cross, 48mm high and 45mm wide, hangs from a 38mm dark blue ribbon. On the obverse there is a circular medallion in the centre, depicting St George and the dragon, surrounded by the words ‘FOR GALLANTRY’. On the reverse, in the centre of the cross, the name of the recipient and the date of the award are engraved. The cross is attached by a ring to a bar ornamented with laurel leaves through which the ribbon passes. The recipient is permitted to use the letters ‘GC’ to follow his or her name. It can be awarded posthumously, and although bars to the award are permitted, none have been awarded to date. The cross was intended to replace the Empire Gallantry Medal (first struck in 1922), and the holders of this award were invited to exchange their medal for the George Cross. Holders of the cross are entitled to an annuity, which at the time of writing amounts to £1,495. The cross has twice been issued collectively, firstly by King George VI in 1942 to the people of Malta for their heroism during sustained air attacks; secondly to Northern Ireland’s Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) in 1999 by Her Majesty The Queen in recognition of the bravery of the Province’s police force during the thirty years of an unrelenting campaign of terrorism. Anyone who has worked with them – as I have – knows that the honour was thoroughly deserved. Unfortunately, two years later a supine British Government caved in to political demands and cravenly renamed the RUC the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
In all, just over 160 George Crosses have been issued and four have been awarded to London police officers. The first was awarded in 1953, thirteen years after the cross had first been struck; and the second, five years later, was presented to an aid to CID who was one of the three-man crew of a ‘Q’ Car. The vehicles were the Metropolitan Police’s divisional counterpart of Flying Squad vehicles. Anonymous, fast cars, driven by a Class I or Class II uniformed driver in plain clothes, the cars were crewed by a CID officer and an aid to CID. First introduced in 1934, the cars patrolled the division to which they were assigned, on the lookout for criminals, and were in radio contact with the Yard.
But on the evening of Saturday 29 March 1958, as ‘P’ Division’s ‘Q’ Car, a big Wolseley 6/80 saloon, drove through the darkened streets of Bromley, Kent, little appeared to be happening – until 7.55 pm when the radio crackled into life to inform the crew that there were intruders at Genden.
Genden was a large detached house, situated on the junction of Bickley Park Road and St George’s Road, in Bickley, Kent. A driveway in Bickley Park Road allowed access to Genden, and surrounding the property (and extending down St George’s Road) was a weatherboard fence over six feet high.
The owner was an American company director, Frederick Pickles, and earlier that evening he had secured and left the premises. In addition, Mr Pickles had set his burglar alarm, installed after the house had been broken into previously. It operated on a record/telephone method direct to the local telephone exchange and was undetectable to an intruder.
Within four minutes of acknowledging the call, the ‘Q’ Car arrived at Genden; two of the crew, Detective Constable Bill Moody and the driver, Police Constable 203 ‘P’ Harold Wanstall, ran into the front garden of the house, circling the outside of the premises in opposite directions. Meanwhile, the aid to CID, Police Constable 558 ‘P’ Henry William Stevens, a thirty-year-old former member of the Fleet Air Arm with five years’ service with the police, ran into St George’s Road to cover the perimeter fence. Having run some thirty yards along the road, he suddenly saw a tall thin man, dressed in a dark trilby hat and a grey overcoat, appear on top of the fence. The man was approximately five yards away from Stevens when he jumped down on to the footpath. His face was clearly illuminated by a street gas lamp, and Stevens shouted, “I’m a police officer – stop!”
The man ran off down St George’s Road towards a footbridge which crossed railway lines 100 yards away, with Stevens, a slim, fit, six-footer in hot pursuit. As the man crossed the road he was illuminated by a second gas light and, with Stevens gaining on him, he half turned, pointed a gun at the officer and shouted, “Stop, or you’ll get this.” But Stevens disregarded the threat and was almost within striking distance of the man when there was a flash and a loud report from the gun; Stevens felt a severe blow to his mouth and his face lost all feeling. He threw himself on the gunman from behind, grabbing the pistol from his hand and at the same time grasping him round the neck. By now, the two men were at the iron railings by the railway bridge and Stevens forced the gunman against them. “All right, I’ll give in,” gasped the man. “I’ve had enough.”
Stevens, who by now was exhausted and traumatised, instinctively relaxed; the man took the opportunity to stretch out his hand behind him and grab Stevens’ genitals. The excruciating pain caused him to release his hold on his assailant, who ran off back along St George’s Road towards Bickley Park Road. Although Stevens was feeling extremely weak and disorientated – he could feel broken teeth inside his mouth – he nevertheless continued the chase. After the man had run forty or fifty yards along St George’s Road he stopped, inexplicably, and started to retrace his original route towards the railway bridge. As he approached Stevens and tried to pass him, Stevens confronted his assailant. With blood running down his chin on to his shirt front and jacket, Stevens said, “You bastard. I’ll know you again, wherever you go. I’ll get you.” The man dashed by, but as he did so Stevens lunged at him and grabbed hold of his collar, at the same time calling out for assistance. He was utterly determined not to let go, even though by now he was in a very bad way indeed. The man dragged him along and then escaped by wriggling out of his topcoat and jacket. Stevens collapsed. As he struggled to his feet, he saw the man run across the footbridge and disappear into the darkness. Again Stevens took up the chase, but his quarry had vanished.
Meanwhile, Moody had discovered a window which had been broken open at the rear of Genden, when he heard Stevens calling for assistance. Wanstall also heard Stevens’ shout and climbed over the fence into St George’s Road, where he saw his colleague grappling with a man some seventy yards away. The man disappeared over the footbridge, and by the time Wanstall arrived at the bridge there was no sign of him. Stevens was bleeding copiously from the mouth and was on the point of collapse. Moody (who, en route, had picked up the black trilby hat worn by the gunman) also collected his topcoat, jacket and pistol and summoned assistance to organise a search of the area, while Wanstall rushed Stevens to Bromley Hospital. Dr John Samuel Tweedale Cox MB, BS discovered that Stevens was suffering from a penetrating wound to the left side of his lower lip; the lateral incisor and the canine tooth on the left side of his lower jaw were both broken, and there was also a penetrating injury to the left underside of Stevens’ tongue. Within an hour Dr Cox had operated, removing what he described as ‘a mass of metal’ from Stevens’ tongue – it was, of course, a flattened bullet – and extracting fragments of teeth and metal from his lower jaw. With masterly understatement, he described Stevens’ injuries as ‘being consistent with having been shot’.
Detective Inspector Harold Bland, in charge of the CID at Bromley, now arrived at Genden. He was no stranger to crimes involving shooting at police officers; nine years previously, he had been awarded the last King’s Police and Fire Services Medal ever to be issued, for arresting a man who, whilst attempting to escape from a police car, had shot at Bland, the bullet passing through his clothing.
Now he took possession of the gunman’s clothing and a .22 revolver, which contained one spent bullet and other live ones in the chamber. When he later examined the gun, he saw that the bullet which had been fired was of the longer type, whilst the remainder were of the short type. In addition, the rim of the bullet adjoining the spent cartridge had been struck by the revolver’s hammer point but had not discharged. It thus appeared that a further attempt had been made on Stevens’ life. Bland also searched the discarded jacket and, amongst other items, he found a pair of scissors.
And that, for 29 March, was that. Quite enough for one day.
The following morning, David Caulfeild-Stoker, the owner of ‘The Firs’, a house in St George’s Road, was walking near the iron railings by the railway bridge when he found a muddy cotton glove on the ground. He handed it to DI Bland, who had arrived with other detectives to carry out a further examination of the scene of the burglary and the surrounding area. A Ronson table lighter was also found lying in the mud in the vicinity of the railway bridge. Both the lighter and the scissors found in the discarded jacket pocket were identified by Mr Pickles as his property, and the hat and topcoat worn by the gunman were positively identified by Harold Arthur Lewis, of ‘Uplands’, 23 Shawfield Park, Bromley. His house had been burgled ten days previously, and property including his coat and hat had been taken.
On Monday, 31 March DI Bland visited a tailor’s business, Sidney Charles, at 36 Deptford High Street. The owner examined the gunman’s discarded jacket and declared that he had made the jacket, part of a single-breasted, two-piece suit made in ‘Braetwist’, a two-fold worsted cloth. The customer who had personally collected this suit on 3 June 1957 was well known to Mr Charles, who had been making his suits for a considerable time. His name was Ronald Leonard Easterbrook.
Easterbrook had been known to the police since 1947 and was referred to locally as ‘The Deptford Terror’. He thoroughly disliked being crossed in any way and possessed a pathological hatred of police officers, equalled only by his love of firearms. The tall, thin offender was a former Borstal boy, who had received his sentence for housebreaking, theft and attacking a police officer with a length of lead-filled rubber hose. A further confrontation with the law was reported in the Kentish Mercury of 13 June 1953, which reported that Police Constable 216 ‘R’ Roy Hobbs had had to move on a group of youths on two occasions for causing a disturbance in Deptford High Street. Easterbrook, the ringleader, took umbrage at the officer’s insistence and, handing his jacket to one of the group, said to PC Hobbs, “Get out of it, I’m good enough for you, any day. I’ll soon do you.” What might have happened next is anybody’s guess, because PC Hobbs was a tough veteran of the Second World War, but PC 506 ‘R’ Kellet arrived in a patrol car and the young man was arrested for threatening behaviour. Easterbrook later told the local court that PC Hobbs “had got a vivid imagination and got the needle”, but the Magistrate, Mr Stevenson, fined him twenty shillings, telling him that the officer had acted in a perfectly reasonable way “and tried to shut you up, but you wouldn’t take the hint.”
Just how much the officer had ‘got the needle’ and how little Easterbrook had failed to take the Magistrate’s prescient advice are matters for conjecture, but following this encounter, PC Hobbs, by now an aid to CID, arrested Easterbrook for warehousebreaking. Hobbs was commended and Easterbrook was sentenced to twenty-one months’ imprisonment. This was followed by a four-year sentence for stabbing a man with a knife. At the time of his attack on Henry Stevens, Easterbrook should have been keeping a low profile. On 23 August 1957 he and his brother Thomas had been drinking in the Star and Garter, New Cross Road, SE8, when a confrontation had occurred between them and William John Mills, a labourer. Ronald Easterbrook, a small glass in his hand, walked over to Mills and said, “You’ve knocked my gin over me, you cunt.” Mills started to apologise but he was instantly attacked; Easterbrook smashed the glass on the counter and cut Mills badly in the face. Frank Henry Dunn, a casemaker, intervened and was attacked in turn by Easterbrook, who slashed his cheek open. The two brothers then fled. Out of all the customers in that crowded bar, only one came forward as a witness; the barmaid was so terrified that she vanished, never to return. Both the injured men, who had lost a considerable amount of blood, were examined at Miller General Hospital, SE10. Dunn had sustained a deep, three-inch cut across his right cheek and required eleven sutures. Mills had suffered two main injuries: an irregular incised wound in front of his ear which had severed the temporal artery, and a half-inch long cut above the other wound; these required six and three sutures respectively. Both men were scarred for life.
An hour and a half later Thomas Easterbrook was arrested at the family home at 6 Holden House, Deptford Church Street, SE8 by Detective Sergeant Len Mountford, a very tough customer and a former Flying Squad officer. Of Ronald Easterbrook there was no sign, but Mountford took possession of his jacket and shirt which bore bloodstains. Since that time, Ronald Easterbrook was circulated as being ‘wanted’; when his brother appeared at the Old Bailey on 8 November 1957 he was acquitted on both charges of causing grievous bodily harm.
In the meantime, Henry Stevens was visited in hospital by DI Bland. He was carrying a number of photographs of criminals and without saying a word he showed them to Stevens; as soon as Stevens saw the ‘mugshot’ of Ronald Easterbrook he immediately identified him as his attacker.
And Easterbrook? He had been staying in Albacore Crescent, Lewisham, under the name of Ronald Leonard, but had left on Saturday, 29 March 1958. And on Monday 31 March Joyce Maud Wicks, the manageress of the Goodwood Hotel, 61–67 Queensborough Terrace, W2, welcomed a new guest to room 24. He signed the register as R.L. Joseph of 44 Brookdale Road, Brockley, but he was better known to the authorities as Ronald Easterbrook. Although the police were carrying out the most painstaking of enquiries in order to find him, Easterbrook managed to elude them for the next ten days.
The CID officers from Bromley police station were not the only policemen interested in tracing Easterbrook. Scotland Yard’s top crime-busting arm, the Flying Squad, were also hearing whispers of information about him, one being that he had acquired another gun and that any police officers who were rash enough to try to detain him would receive five of the bullets, the last being kept for himself. In addition, through their informants, the Squad had discovered where Easterbrook was holed up.
The raid, early on the morning of 10 April, was led by Flying Squad officer Detective Sergeant Peter Vibart. This very tough ex-soldier had served in the Metropolitan Police for twenty-two years and by that time had been commended by the commissioner on no less than thirty-four occasions. With the Goodwood Hotel surrounded, and having obtained the master key, Vibart, together with Detective Constable John ‘Polly’ Perkins and other officers, crept up to the third floor. But when Vibart inserted the key into the lock of room 24, he discovered the door would not open; Easterbrook had taken the precaution of barricading it. Vibart smashed the door off its hinges, and as he and the other officers dashed into the room Easterbrook sat up in bed in the corner of the room. “We’re police officers!” shouted Vibart, and Easterbrook, who had a pistol under his pillow, started struggling violently to reach it. This was a mistake, it being one matter to shoot, cosh, stab or slash an adversary and quite another to confront an unarmed police officer as tough as Vibart, who punched Easterbrook very hard indeed on the chin, whereupon all resistance ceased.
Perkins handed a .455 calibre Colt automatic pistol to Vibart, which was later identified as being one of six firearms stolen from the artillery museum at Woolwich some six months previously by means of a storebreaking, and then discovered that the pistol was unloaded. Telling Easterbrook in rather formal police parlance, “We are all police officers and I believe you to be Ronald Leonard Easterbrook who is wanted for the attempted murder of a police officer at Bickley on the 29th March, by shooting him,” Vibart cautioned him and received the reply: “Fuck the copper. If that had been loaded, you would have got it as well.” Vibart searched the drawers of a dressing table and found a small canvas holster and a hatchet, also a single cotton glove.
DI Bland interviewed Easterbrook at Bromley police station an hour after his arrest. After being told that he would eventually be charged with Stevens’ attempted murder, Easterbrook replied, “I know it’s down to me. I bought the gun and the one you found tonight from a man for a pound. He had eight. I’ve had it. You carry on. You’ve got my jacket. If I come the old story it was nicked from me, it still boils down to the same. You can do what you like.”
Bland later showed Easterbrook the hat, jacket and overcoat and said, “These were left behind by you when you ran away after the shooting. The overcoat and hat are the proceeds of a case of housebreaking at Bickley.” Easterbrook replied, “That’s my jacket. I don’t know anything about the overcoat and hat. I’m saying my jacket and trousers were nicked from me on the morning when the job was done.”
Bland then showed the prisoner a number of other items. He said, “This gun is the one you used on the PC. The knife, pen, torch and scissors were in the jacket pockets. The lighter was found in the road where you struggled with the PC. The scissors and lighter had been stolen from the house, Genden, which you had broken into.”
Easterbrook replied, “I bought that gun as I told you. There was one round in it then. I weeded some more bullets at a funfair at Southend and loaded it up. The knife, pen and torch are mine and were nicked with my suit and the gun.”
“Where,” asked Bland, “do you say your suit was stolen from?”
“I’m not saying,” replied Easterbrook. “If I told you where, somebody else would be in for trouble. What can I lose? I am sticking to it; that jacket, gun and other things were nicked from me. If you ask where I was when the job happened, I was in a pub on my own where I knew nobody and nobody knew me.”
Bland showed Easterbrook the muddy left-hand cotton glove found in St George’s Road and also the other right-hand cotton glove, saying, “This other glove, which matches it, was found among your other stuff in your room at the hotel.” At that Easterbrook shrugged his shoulders dismissively. “There’s hundreds like them.”
Later that morning Easterbrook appeared at Bromley Magistrates’ Court and was remanded in custody; on 24 April 1958 committal proceedings took place. He was charged with shooting at Henry Stevens with intent to murder him, breaking into Genden, Uplands and the Artillery Museum and inflicting grievous bodily harm on William Mills and Frank Henry Dunn. Evidence was called to support these charges, and at the conclusion of Bland’s evidence Easterbrook replied, “I have nothing to say,” adding, “There is not a word of truth in it.”
Evidence was also given by Dr Lewis Charles Nickolls from the Yard’s Forensic Science Laboratory that when he examined the revolver which had been used to shoot Henry Stevens, it was in some respects defective, because although it could fire single shots it would not fire a second round without pushing back the trigger, rotating the cylinder and cocking the hammer. This also explained the indentation on the rim of the bullet next to the spent one which had shot Stevens.
When Stevens gave evidence, he produced this gun, and showed his wound to the Magistrates; with his evidence complete, the Chairman of the Bench, Mr J.C. Gibbs, addressed him as follows:
You acted with great bravery and great determination and I have not the slightest doubt your colleagues are aware of this and that the attention of the commissioner has been drawn to it. But the Bench would wish to say that there are others who are concerned – your fellow citizens – who must be relieved and proud to think that men like you and your colleagues are on duty at night as well as in the day time to protect them, I think that should be said.
With that, Easterbrook was committed in custody to stand his trial at the Old Bailey, which he did on 12 May 1958 before the Honourable Mr Justice Ashworth, who had previously been a junior treasury counsel. He was a no-nonsense judge, who six years later would be the last ever to utter the sentence of death, on Peter Allen and Gwynne Evans at Manchester Assizes, the last murderers to hang in England.
Easterbrook had already aired a number of defences: he had not shot Henry Stevens, nor had he broken into Genden. Then, changing his story, he alleged that both offences were the fault of the anonymous man who had stolen his suit on the morning of the shooting, whilst he, Easterbrook, had been at an unknown pub where he knew nobody and nobody knew him. And the savage glassing of Messrs Mills and Dunn? His brother had been responsible, he stated, knowing that his brother had been acquitted and therefore could not be tried twice for the same offence.
But now, in a complete turn-about, Easterbrook placed himself right at the scene when he pleaded guilty to shooting Stevens with intent to cause grievous bodily harm or to resist his lawful apprehension, and also to the burglary at Genden. He pleaded not guilty to a charge of shooting with intent to murder and two charges of receiving stolen property – the discarded hat and coat and the pistol found in his possession at the time of his arrest.
David Karmel QC, assisted by junior counsel John Hall, two experienced barristers, appeared for the defence, but unbeknown to Easterbrook he had an ally right in the heart of the enemy’s camp. Travis Christmas Humphreys was born in 1901 and in 1924 he was both called to the Bar and formed – unusually for a barrister – the London Buddhist Society. In 1950 he had been appointed Senior Treasury Counsel, and it is unlikely that a more incompetent barrister – and certainly a more controversial one – ever drew breath. He appeared for the prosecution in the contentious murder trials which resulted in the hanging of Ruth Ellis and Derek Bentley and successfully prosecuted in the case of Timothy Evans, where it was later discovered that Reginald Christie had been responsible for the crimes (plus a few more) for which Evans had been hanged. When the jury failed to agree on a verdict in the case of Donald Hume, charged with the murder of Stanley Setty, Humphreys, rather than seek a retrial on the most compelling of evidence, blithely offered no evidence and accepted a plea of Hume’s being an accessory after the fact. After serving his twelve-year sentence (and three months prior to the Easterbrook trial) Hume just as blithely admitted to the Sunday Pictorial that he had indeed committed the murder and then went to Switzerland, where during the course of an armed robbery he shot and killed a Zürich taxi driver. Humphreys would go on to become a judge at the Old Bailey in 1968; police officers collectively loathed him for his attacks on their character* and his weak-kneed sentencing. It was as though he was trying to make amends for his previous appalling oversights; but when he gave a rapist two suspended sentences in 1975, the Lord Chancellor had to defend him in the face of a House of Commons motion to dismiss him. The National Association of Probation Officers lent their support, but since Humphreys made a habit of handing out probation orders left right and centre to some of the most vicious armed robbers, it must be assumed they had a vested interest. However, a great many people – most of them police officers – breathed a sigh of relief when he resigned the following year.
So now, with Humphreys appearing as prosecuting counsel, the trial got underway. It did not take very long, firstly because Humphreys immediately offered no evidence on the charge of receiving the stolen pistol, and secondly because Easterbrook had abandoned his former assertion made at the Magistrates’ Court less than three weeks earlier that “there was not a word of truth” in DI Bland’s deposition. Indeed, there was a great deal of truth in it. Since Easterbrook had admitted shooting Stevens, the question was, did he intend to murder him? No, Easterbrook told the jury. He had only intended to hit the officer with the revolver, he said, telling them, “I always carry a loaded gun.” The gun had gone off when he tripped, and Christmas Humphreys completely missed the point that if this had indeed been the case, Stevens would have probably been shot in the foot, rather than the mouth.
When the jury returned after four hours’ deliberation, they found Easterbrook guilty of receiving the hat and coat but were unable to agree on the charge of shooting with intent to murder. Since a unanimous verdict was at that time necessary, the judge discharged them. However, at the end of the day’s proceedings, the judge called Henry Stevens in front of him and commended him with the following words:
Stevens, I would like to say this to you, and I am quite sure the jury, though they have not agreed upon their verdict on count one, will completely endorse what I have to say, and indeed, I am sure counsel for the defence will, too: in my view your conduct was of the very greatest gallantry and really is a performance of which you might be rightly proud and I hope your senior officers will take account of it.
The next day, evidence was heard in respect of the two cases of grievous bodily harm at the Deptford pub, and the jury found Easterbrook guilty in both cases.
It was then that the unofficial third member of the defence team played his master-stroke. Even though there was a mass of evidence to swear in a new jury to retry Easterbrook on the charge of shooting Henry Stevens with intent to murder him, Christmas Humphreys offered no evidence, and Easterbrook was formally found not guilty.
Before passing sentence, Mr Justice Ashworth addressed Easterbrook as follows:
In my view, you are a wicked and dangerous man, and I feel it is my duty to send you away for a long time. If you had been convicted of shooting with intent to murder the sentence I am about to pass would have been even longer. This was a vicious affair involving a police officer. You are a lucky man that Providence intervened to save you from a charge of capital murder. If I am any judge of such matters it might well have resulted in your conviction and that might well have been the end of you. You seem to have no respect for persons, law or property.
He then sentenced Easterbrook to ten years’ imprisonment for shooting Stevens, four years each for the Deptford pub slashings and twelve months’ imprisonment each for the burglary at Genden and receiving the hat and coat from the housebreaking; all sentences to be served concurrently.
“I will bet money I will never finish it,” said Easterbrook defiantly, although inaccurately, and as he was taken down to the cells he added for good measure, “I would like to congratulate the police on maintaining a high standard of collusion and perjury.” Having due regard for his own standards of truthfulness throughout the affair, it was a remark considered by many as being a bit rich.
Stevens returned to work and he, Vibart (who had been promoted to the rank of detective inspector) and Perkins were highly commended by the commissioner for outstanding courage and devotion to duty. Six weeks after the commendation, the three officers each received cheques for £15 from the Bow Street Reward Fund, from Sir Laurence Dunne, the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate.
The third supplement to the London Gazette, No. 41528, dated 17 October 1958, announced that Stevens would be awarded the George Cross and Vibart and Perkins the Queen’s Commendation for Brave Conduct. On 25 November 1958 at Buckingham Palace, to commemorate his truly breathtaking gallantry, Stevens received the Cross from Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II.
Henry Stevens served two tours with the Flying Squad and retired from the Metropolitan Police in 1983 with the rank of chief inspector, thirty years to the day after he had joined. He had been commended on fifteen occasions for outstanding police work and his character was described as ‘exemplary’.
Of course, that was not the end of the story; but with a criminal of Easterbrook’s capabilities, it seldom is, is it?
Serving his ten-year sentence, Easterbrook decided upon a path of non-communication with staff and inmates alike; therefore a fellow prisoner was surprised when Easterbrook actually spoke to him, although less so at the content of his address: “When I get out of here,” stated Easterbrook, emphatically, “all I want to do is kill a copper.” It was not through want of trying that he failed.
Following his release, Easterbrook drifted in and out of crime, but although he still displayed his hatred for authority on a grand scale, he could not be described as a particularly successful criminal. In the spring of 1981, following an unsuccessful armed raid on a cash-in-transit vehicle, he decamped and was arrested in a café by uniformed officers. He tried to grab a bag at his feet before he was overpowered; inside the bag was a loaded handgun. Interviewed by Flying Squad officers, Easterbrook stated that he had tried to grab the gun, but not to resist arrest, oh no. It was to commit suicide rather than go back to prison, and since there was no evidence to contradict this studied piece of hokum, it was accepted by the prosecution; for conspiracy to rob and possessing a firearm Easterbrook was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment.
He was released in February 1986 and eighteen months later he participated in a robbery – in fact, he would later say, he was ‘talked into it’ by a police informant – on 23 November 1987. He was in company with Tony Ash, who had twenty-one convictions dating back to 1955 and who was described as ‘a big softy’ by the third member of the team, Gary Wilson, a twenty-four-year-old criminal with eleven previous convictions, including one for robbery. After carrying out an armed robbery at Bejam’s Store, Woolwich and stealing £10,411, the three men got into a Mercedes and drove back to Sunbury Street, where a stolen BMW saloon awaited them. Unfortunately, so did the Flying Squad and the PT 17 Firearms Unit. As Ash got out of the car, gun in hand, he was called upon by Inspector Dwight Atkinson to surrender. Ash refused to drop his gun, and Easterbrook, who was lying on the back seat of the car, opened fire with a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum, shooting Atkinson in the leg; he then fired five more shots. The police returned fire. Easterbrook, wounded in the shoulder, was desperately trying to reload his gun as he was arrested, but Ash was dead.
Easterbrook would later ridiculously suggest that no barrister would accept a case where the accused claimed he was defending himself against a police ‘shoot to kill policy’ – when any one of a host of left-wing lawyers would undoubtedly have offered their services for free. But in conducting his own defence at the Old Bailey, Easterbrook unintentionally presented himself as a figure of fun. I know – I witnessed it. He was given an enormous amount of latitude by the judge, Mr Justice Turner, as Easterbrook knew full well he would be; alas, all to no avail. Wilson (who, two days before the trial began, attempted to escape from Pentonville Prison) was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment. The jury were not informed of this attempt, nor were they informed that Easterbrook had endeavoured to escape during the trial by using explosives to blow his way out of the prison van; but on 30 November 1988 he was found guilty of robbery, shooting a police officer with intent to cause him grievous bodily harm and firearms offences. It was thirty years after he had been convicted of shooting Henry Stevens and, notching up his eleventh conviction, he was sentenced to four concurrent life sentences. The judge commended the officers, especially Inspector Atkinson who fifteen years previously had been awarded the Queen’s Commendation for Brave Conduct, for his actions in assisting in the arrest of a bank robber who had fired shots at the officers who pursued him.
Although it would be a prison sentence without end for Easterbrook, he was in his element. A classic whiner and self-proclaimed victim, Easterbrook pulled every manipulative string possible. All through his criminal career he stated he was prepared to kill himself rather than face another prison sentence – except that he never did. Incarcerated, he went on hunger strikes to end his life – except that he always recovered sufficiently to take solid food. Refusing to communicate with anybody, he was still prepared to do so when it suited him. Protesting against his conviction and sentence, claiming he had been denied legal representation, he took his case to the Appeal Court, the Criminal Cases Review Commission and the European Court of Human Rights. After a Home Secretary set his life sentence at twelve and a half years he was offered parole but heroically (and because victims of criminal injustices do not accept hand-outs) Easterbrook chose to remain in jail, where, inside and out, he was almost hysterically worshipped by his band of followers. “Ronnie is a man with three hearts,” solemnly if illogically proclaimed one of his fans, a view of Prisoner No. B88459 not shared by police. As a former Flying Squad officer commented, “My impression of Easterbrook was that of a reckless, extremely dangerous and unsuccessful career criminal. I think he was more cowardly than vicious and certainly not as professional and calculating as the type I was more accustomed to dealing with. His story of attempting to commit suicide showed a degree of criminal cunning when faced with situational adversity.”
Easterbrook died in Gartree Prison on 10 May 2009, the day before his seventy-eighth birthday. For a man who hated the police so much, it would have been the unkindest of cuts to have reminded him that he was directly responsible for so many of them receiving awards for courage, including the highest civilian award that it is possible for the sovereign to bestow.
* The author endured one such attack on his veracity from Judge Humphreys; this was after the prisoner in the dock had pleaded guilty to robbery and wounding, where the elderly victim had been slashed with a knife. The defendant, who a few months previously had been placed on probation for two years for robbery by Judge Humphreys, was once again placed on probation.