The horrific crimes, dubbed the ‘massacre of Baybook Street’, saw three Metropolitan Police officers shot and killed after they stopped to question a car over an expired tax disc.
Carrington Walker GAU Writer and Tom Pettifor
15:48, 16 Dec 2025
Harry Roberts spent nearly 48 years in prison for the murder of three police officers
One of the longest-serving prisoners in British history and the orchestrator behind the Shepherd’s Bush murders in 1966, Harry Roberts, has died.
The horrific crimes, dubbed the ‘massacre of Baybook Street’, took place on August 12, 1966, and saw three Metropolitan Police officers shot and killed after they stopped to question a car over an expired tax disc.
Roberts and accomplices John Duddy and Jack Witney were carrying a Luger P08 and a .38 Enfield revolver, with which they intended to steal a car to be used as a getaway for a robbery they planned on committing later that night.
Memorial service for the three policemen, killed in the Shepherd’s Bush murders, held at Westminster Abbey.
Detective Sergeant Christopher Head, 30, Temporary Detective Constable David Wombwell, 25, and Police Constable Geoffrey Fox, 41, all suffered serious gunshot wounds, with two of them dying instantly at the scene.
Roberts shot DC Wombwell through the left eye, leading DS Head to run back towards the police car before being shot by Roberts himself, evidence given in court detailed.
Duddy and Witney were arrested by police in the hours and days that followed, but Roberts, an ex-soldier with experience in jungle warfare from the 1948 Malayan Emergency, used his survival skills to evade capture for three months.
He hid in Epping Forest in Essex, living in a makeshift camp until he was eventually apprehended on November 15, 1966, near Bishop’s Stortford. He would be convicted of murder, alongside Duddy and Witney, just under a month later, on December 12 of the same year.
Harry Roberts spent nearly 48 years in prison for the murder of three police officers
Judge Mr Justice Glyn-Jones described the incident as “the most heinous crime for a generation or more.”
The men were spared execution, as capital punishment had been abolished in Britain only a few months prior, and were instead sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommended minimum term of 30 years. Roberts was released from prison in 2014.
