Chapter 19
The Scissors Punch
orty years ago I attended the Initial (Junior) Course at the Metropolitan Police Detective Training School, one of the last to be held at Peel House, Regency Street, SW1. The course for fledgling detectives lasted ten weeks, and it was necessary to make the grade in a series of examinations, including the final one in which a pass-mark of 75 per cent was required. If one faltered, then it was the end of one’s embryonic career in the Criminal Investigation Department. But even with a pass, it still required the skilful negotiation of two terrifying selection boards and the necessity of keeping up an impressive return of arrests for crime, before permanent entry into the CID was achieved. I – and many of my contemporaries – believe it was the finest course we ever attended. We were instructed in over seventy aspects of the criminal law and investigation, from ‘Abduction – Procuration’ to ‘Wounds (other than firearm)’ by a variety of instructors, the majority of whom really did not want to be there for their two-year posting; they were working detectives and had been press-ganged into the role of instructors. But they buckled down to the job, and we learnt from their tremendous experience. My instructors were two of the finest: Detective Inspector (later Detective Chief Superintendent) Lou van Dyke, who was already a legend, having been part of the Flying Squad’s arrest team on the Great Train Robbery investigation; and Detective Inspector Jeff Southeard, a tall, slim northerner with a quiet voice and enormous charm. It was Southeard who instructed us in the art of taking a dying declaration: a statement to be taken only when a person was in imminent danger of death, in which the content contained the facts and circumstances of how they came by their injuries. The statement would commence with the ominous words:
I, (name) having the fear of death before me and being without hope of recovery make the following statement …
And a whole (very complicated) rigmarole would have to be sedulously adhered to before that statement was admissible in court as evidence. All of us shuddered at the thought of having to write those dreadful words.
Years later, Lou van Dyke told me why Jeff Southeard gave such a competent lecture. “Jeff had to take a dying declaration from a nurse who had been badly attacked by her boyfriend,” he told me. “It was a very emotional time, with Jeff quietly and very compassionately coaxing every bit of evidence from the poor woman, in order to convict the man responsible. Eventually, the declaration was completed, the woman signed it, as did Jeff and all the necessary witnesses, and the nurse died shortly afterwards. Jeff got up, blew his nose and wiped his eyes and went out and nicked the boyfriend.” Lou smiled. “It appears he resisted arrest,” he added, “because when he arrived at the nick, he’d sustained some facial injuries!”
I was thinking of that when I spoke on the telephone to Bill Griffiths. “I’m in my study, Bill, and I’m looking at a photograph of a very young you and me.”
“I know the one you’re talking about,” replied Bill. “I’ve got one on my study wall as well. In fact, I’m looking at it, right now. Our hair was darker then.”
“Our hearts were lighter then,” was my rejoinder, pinching a line from Richard Brooks’ 1966 film The Professionals which was too good to miss.
Bill and I laughed, but I – and I am sure, Bill too – recalled that within two years of that photograph being taken he would be experiencing the actuality of both ‘Wounds (other than firearm)’ and ‘Dying Declarations’, following a savage assault which almost cost him his life.
The story begins on 20 January 1973 when Police Constable 768 ‘E’ Colin Smith, attached to Hampstead police station, stopped a car containing two occupants. The car had been stolen, although Smith was not aware of this at the time; it was the behaviour of the occupants which had prompted him to stop and question them, which he did as a matter of routine.
The pair were unprepossessing enough; the driver was Keith Richard Ravenhill, who was known to the passenger, Yolanda Maria Standen, as ‘Joey’. Both were in their early twenties, white, thin, with dark hair. Ravenhill was approximately five feet nine, Standen shorter, but there were several matters with which PC Smith was unacquainted. Firstly, both were drug abusers. Secondly, both had serious criminal records; Ravenhill had made one appearance before a juvenile court and had eight other previous convictions, three of which were for possessing offensive weapons. He had been sent to a detention centre, received a period of Borstal Training and, fourteen months previously, been released from an eighteen-month prison sentence. Standen had appeared before the juvenile courts on three occasions and had seven previous convictions, one of which was for possession of an offensive weapon, a sheath knife.
Thirdly, both of them were circulated as being wanted: Ravenhill at Hackney, for inflicting grievous bodily harm – his mother was the victim – and also at Vine Street for attempted theft and possessing an offensive weapon. On that occasion, when a police officer had endeavoured to arrest him for attempted theft from a car, Ravenhill had threatened him with a pair of scissors and had made good his escape. He was also wanted at St Ann’s Road, for unlawful taking of a motor vehicle. Standen was wanted on two counts: firstly, for shoplifting and failing to appear at Marylebone Magistrates’ Court and secondly, again for shoplifting, and on this occasion for failing to appear at Tower Bridge Magistrates’ Court.
Nowadays, Ravenhill and Standen would refer to each other as their ‘partner’; then, they were known as common-law husband and wife. It was a common-law marriage made in heaven; apart from a liking for drugs and dishonesty, this charmless duo shared a passion for sudden, mindless violence, as PC Smith was about to find out.
Having provisionally questioned the two, Smith asked to look in the boot of the car. Ravenhill accompanied him to the rear of the vehicle and opened up, then Standen suddenly grabbed hold of the officer, pinioning him, and Ravenhill snatched an iron bar from the boot. As Standen held the officer, Ravenhill used the bar to hit him violently on the head, seriously injuring him. With great resolution, Smith struggled free from Standen, drew his truncheon and struck Ravenhill on the head with it before collapsing, whereupon the pair made good their escape on foot. The car was taken to Hampstead police station and was forensically examined and searched. Two receipts were discovered relating to a transaction at Harvey & Thompson’s Pawn Shop, 389 Walworth Road, London, SE17. The investigating officer at Hampstead contacted the pawnbroker, William John Burke, and asked him to contact the police if the holder of the receipt returned.
Meanwhile, although Ravenhill had sustained painful injuries as a result of coming into sharp contact with PC Smith’s truncheon, he nevertheless had not sought treatment because he believed that police enquiries would be made at nearby hospitals, as indeed they were. However, three days after the incident he was in such discomfort that he attended King’s College hospital, Camberwell, several miles away from Hampstead and south of the Thames, where he was admitted and kept under observation until 26 January, when he was discharged. He and Standen made straight for the pawnbroker in an endeavour to raise some money. It was whilst they were in conversation with an assistant, Albert Victor Ernest Keeble, that Mr Burke quietly telephoned the nearest police station – Carter Street.
Detective Sergeant Daniel Jackson was one of the officers who volunteered to attend the pawnshop; the other was Detective Constable William Ian Griffiths. Born in 1947, Griffiths had joined the Metropolitan Police in early 1967, and in June 1970 he had been appointed temporary detective constable (TDC) at Woolwich. A few months later, whilst on night-duty patrol, he and two other TDCs stopped some men who they thought were in the process of breaking into a shop. In fact, the men were urinating in the shop doorway but, drink having been taken by the urinators, matters suddenly escalated out of control. There was, as Griffiths told me, “an almighty fight and one of them hit me so hard from the side that my jaw broke away in two places and I lost some teeth, as well as consciousness.”
But there was a positive side to this confrontation; during the period of sick leave which followed, Griffiths used his time productively, to study for – and pass – the sergeant’s promotional examination.
Now, as he and Jackson made their way 100 yards along the Walworth Road to the pawnshop, Griffiths was a recently appointed (just four days previously) detective constable on ‘M’ Division. However, what neither officer knew was the true extent of their mission; they had been told purely that there was a suspect for theft or criminal deception in the pawnshop. They were completely unaware that they were about to confront two very dangerous criminals wanted for a variety of offences, including a serious attack on another police officer.
As the two officers entered the shop, Ravenhill and Standen were still talking to Mr Keeble. Jackson introduced himself, told them that they would be detained and went into a back room in order to telephone for police transport to convey all of them to Carter Street police station. “Had we known anything of the story, or that there were two suspects,” Griffiths told me later, “I think we would have had uniform back-up, and there is no way that Danny would have left me to call the van.”
Standen asked Griffiths if she might leave the shop in order to tell a friend outside that they would be delayed, and not unnaturally Griffiths refused, positioning himself in front of the door to prevent their escape.
Standen suddenly pushed Griffiths violently, at the same time shrieking, “Give it to him, Joey – we’ve got to get out!” and with that, Ravenhill punched Griffiths in the neck. What was not immediately apparent to Griffiths was that this was no ordinary punch; protruding between Ravenhill’s fingers was a pair of sharp-pointed nail scissors which cut his jugular, the vein which carries a large volume of blood from the brain. As Griffiths staggered, Ravenhill hit him with two more blows from this ‘scissor punch’ – one on the left temple, the other over his left ear. Falling to the ground and bleeding heavily, Griffiths, with commendable presence of mind, kept his feet pushed against the front door of the shop to prevent the two escaping, but with only limited success. Both Ravenhill and Standen viciously kicked at his body and legs until the pain forced Griffiths to move, enabling Ravenhill to open the door wide enough to squeeze through. His departure caused Standen to scream, “For fuck’s sake, do him, Joey – don’t leave me!” By now, Jackson had heard the commotion and was trying to re-enter the pledge room, but as he did so, Griffiths, due to the pain in his legs, was forced to release his foothold on the door. Nevertheless, he managed to grab hold of Standen’s ankle, but Ravenhill pulled her through the gap in the door and common-law husband and wife both dashed off along the Walworth Road.
Both officers chased after them, with Griffiths bleeding copiously from his neck wound; Jackson caught Standen, passed her to Griffiths and continued to chase Ravenhill for over half a mile, eventually losing sight of him in Trafalgar Street, SE17. Griffiths, now feeling extremely faint from loss of blood, pushed the furiously struggling woman against a shop window; this was witnessed by a number of passers-by, including Eric Richard Lawrence, a deputy supermarket manager, who saw Griffiths holding Standen with one hand whilst attempting to stem the flow of blood from his neck with the other. Fortunately, Police Constable 330 ‘M’ Michael Watson, who was in ‘half-blues’ (i.e. with a raincoat over his tunic), was on his way to the police station to report for late-turn duty. Although he was not immediately aware of Griffith’s identity, he stepped in to take custody of the still fighting Standen.
At that moment, the local Area Car, call-sign ‘Mike Three’, drew up, driven by Police Constable 432 ‘M’ Geoffrey Lowe, with Police Constable 623 ‘M’ Reginald Dunn as the RT operator; on being appraised of the situation by PC Watson, as Bill Griffiths told me forty years later, “It was Geoff Lowe whose actions undoubtedly saved my life. He took one look at me, put the prisoner in the back with Reg the operator and sat me in the front.” There was absolutely no time to wait for the ambulance which PC Dunn had quite properly summoned; ‘Mike Three’ took off like a rocket, blue light flashing and sirens wailing, and thundered down the Walworth Road, across the busy junction with Albany Road and into Camberwell Road. Lowe slowed momentarily, then drove into Camberwell Green, against the oncoming traffic, and turned into Denmark Hill and King’s College hospital, which coincidentally Ravenhill had left an hour previously. “It was at this point,” recalled Griffiths, “that the creeping numbness which had started in the extremities reached my chest and the lights went out.”
With Griffiths fighting for his life in intensive care, Standen was taken to Carter Street police station. Now the investigation moved into top gear. Witnesses staring at the trail of blood in the Walworth Road were questioned about precisely what they had seen, and Michael Joseph Carlin, a GPO engineer, handed to police a pair of bloodstained and twisted nail scissors, mute testimony of the force which had been used during the attack on Griffiths. But finding the truly dangerous Ravenhill was now the absolute priority.
Meanwhile, Griffiths awoke to find an extremely concerned looking Detective Inspector Dave Little sitting by his bedside, notebook in hand. Griffiths had lost at least three litres of blood. Talking to me forty years later, Little – later a detective chief superintendent – said simply, “The hospital staff told me he was going to die. I was there to record his dying declaration.” It was no thanks whatsoever to Ravenhill that Little did not have to.
It was soon established that Ravenhill was known to frequent a flat in King’s Grove, Peckham, SE15, and a bare hour and a half after the incident he was seen to be approaching the front door of the premises. He had discarded his coat, but the watchers could see that he was in possession of a hammer and a screwdriver. Ravenhill shouted out to someone in the flat, and at that moment Temporary Detective Constable Peter Atkins opened the front door and Detective Constable Malcolm Goldie ran up behind Ravenhill, who chose that moment to launch an attack on Atkins. Swinging the hammer at Atkins’ head, he also attempted to stab him with the screwdriver, screaming, “I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you!” He was overpowered with the assistance of other officers and taken initially to Peckham police station, where he became so violent that over a period of almost half an hour he had to be forcibly restrained. Both Atkins and Goldie would later be commended by the commissioner for displaying courage and ability, as would Jackson.
Stitches were inserted in Bill Griffiths’ wounds and after three days he was permitted to leave hospital, although for a month thereafter he still attended the outpatients department and was off sick for a total of seven weeks.
In July Ravenhill and Standen appeared at the Old Bailey. Ravenhill was sentenced to a total of twelve years’ imprisonment – ten of those years were for the attack on Griffiths – and Standen to three years. It is slightly incredible that no reference was made to Griffiths’ outstanding gallantry by the trial judge, an omission tactfully referred to as ‘this possible oversight’ by Detective Superintendent John Swain in his report to the commander of ‘M’ Division.
However, ‘possible oversight’ or not, it did not prevent a gallantry report being submitted, and on 16 October 1973 Griffiths was highly commended by the commissioner, the late Sir Robert Mark GBE, QPM, for ‘courage and determination in detaining a violent woman suspected of theft, having received personal injury from a man armed with an offensive weapon’. Then, on the day before publication of this commendation in Police Orders, something almost unprecedented occurred.
Mark had been appointed commissioner in 1972. He loathed the CID, believing them to be a totally corrupt department, and he set about eradicating corruption with unprecedented zeal. Unsurprisingly, many of the CID detested Mark in return, because whilst they accepted that corruption existed, the vast majority of detectives were honest and hard-working. With Mark’s policy of ‘interchange’ (the routine swapping of personnel between uniform and CID) and the devolving of the the power of the divisional CID to the uniform branch, many felt that he would be the ruination of the department; in the years which followed, many former members of the CID felt that their concerns were justified. In fact, after Mark retired he admitted that he might have been wrong in tarring all detectives with the same brush, but by then it was a case of too little, too late. Nevertheless, Mark was in many ways a good commissioner: outspoken, especially with regard to corrupt defence solicitors, forthright and a man of principle. Bill Griffiths was one of his many admirers, feeling that he had taken the only possible stance to resurrect public confidence in the police.
On Monday, 15 October Griffiths was at home in Bexley, Kent. Married, with three children aged six, three and ten months, he was ready to commence a two-week tour of night-duty CID that evening, when he received a telephone call from his Detective Chief Inspector, Bernie Warren, instructing him to attend the Yard that afternoon to see the commissioner. Griffiths was duly led into the commissioner’s office by the Assistant Commissioner (Crime), Colin Woods, and Mark congratulated Griffiths on his high commendation. It was not the first time Griffiths had met Mark – he had also visited him during his hospital stay – but what Mark said next, as Griffiths told me, “almost knocked me off my chair”.
Mark told Griffiths that he had displayed such exemplary leadership that he would be promoted to sergeant immediately, and he was; Griffiths had been a detective constable for less than nine months, and this was one of only twelve ‘promotions in the field’ which had been bestowed since the formation of the Metropolitan Police in 1829.
It was later revealed that the proposal had been strongly supported by the Deputy Assistant Commissioner (Crime) (Operations) Ernie Bond OBE, QPM. Bond, a pre-war regular in the British Army, had been Sir David Stirling’s sergeant at the time when Stirling formed ‘L’ Detachment, the Special Air Service Brigade in the Western Desert in 1941. Stirling, the SAS and Bond all went on to greater things, with Bond working his way up through the Metropolitan Police, serving two tours with the Flying Squad and assisting in the formation of C11 Criminal Intelligence Department. Now, as head of operations of the CID, Bond was enormously popular and respected; he was also one of the few career detectives that Mark listened to.
With promotion, the proposed night-duty CID went out of the window; Griffiths was posted to C1 Department at the Yard, working with the central cheque squad, the murder squad and assisting with the bomb squad. Almost a year to the day of the pawnshop incident, Griffiths was awarded £20 from the Bow Street Reward Fund, and five months later, on 18 June 1974, the London Gazette announced that he would be awarded the British Empire Medal for Gallantry, for ‘displaying gallantry of a very high order’. This was one of the last of the BEMs for Gallantry ever awarded; two days after the announcement of the award, the Queen’s Gallantry Medal was instituted in its place.
For the next seven years Griffiths remained a detective sergeant, gathering a wealth of experience, until his promotion to detective inspector in 1980. As he shot up through the ranks, postings included a three-and-a-half-year tour with the Flying Squad and, after a five-year spell in uniform, the position of operational head of the Flying Squad. Just twenty-seven years after his promotion in the field, Griffiths filled the chair vacated by his hero Ernie Bond as Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Director of the Serious Crime Group, a post he held for over five years. During his thirty-eight-year career with the Metropolitan Police Griffiths found time to attend firearms courses, the advanced CID course at Hendon and the junior, intermediate and senior command courses at Bramshill Police College. He attended the Hostage and Crisis Negotiator courses, at both Hendon and the FBI Headquarters in Quantico, USA, and also passed the Advanced Forensic Science course at Hendon, Advanced Public Order at Hounslow and eight other courses; this all led to the publication of four papers based on his experience – sound, common-sense policing.
Griffiths was showered with awards; his Long Service and Good Conduct Medal in 1989 were followed eight years later by the Queen’s Police Medal for distinguished service, in 2003 the Queen’s Jubilee Medal and in the following year, the Association of Chief Police Officers’ Homicide Working Group lifetime achievement award.
Bill Griffiths retired as DAC on 31 October 2005; he took with him fourteen commissioner’s commendations for courage, leadership and detective ability, but the following day he was back in a civilian role – as Director of Leadership Development, a post he held until 2010 when he and the Met finally parted company, but not before accepting one final award. In 2007 he was appointed Commander of the British Empire for his services to policing. He now runs a consultancy business and is also the proud grandfather of seven children.
Griffiths possesses strong opinions, as do I. We both served for over eight years with the Flying Squad and we are both immensely proud of that; similarly, both of us have profound, lip-curling contempt for lazy and corrupt police officers.
But on the emotive matter of Sir Robert Mark – Bill Griffiths and I agree to differ!