Harry Roberts, notorious police murderer who was caught after a sensational manhunt – obituary
Harry Roberts, who has died aged 89, was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of three unarmed police officers in London; in the mid-1960s he became Britain’s most wanted fugitive whose eventual capture ended the biggest manhunt of modern times.
The judge at his Old Bailey trial said Roberts should serve at least 30 years. In the event, he served 48, being paroled in 2014. Mr Justice Glyn-Jones called the murders “the most heinous crimes to have been committed in this country for a generation or more”. He inspired a notorious chant from football hooligans: “Harry Roberts is our friend/ He kills coppers.”
In the high summer of 1966 the cold-blooded killing of two detectives and their uniformed police driver stunned the nation. Britain was still basking in World Cup glory, London was in mid-Swing, and The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine had made its chart debut at No 8.
On the warm, sunny afternoon of August 12 Roberts, together with two criminal cronies, Jack Witney and Jock Duddy, turned their stolen Standard Vanguard car into Braybrook Street, Shepherd’s Bush, in the shadow of Wormwood Scrubs prison. They were looking for another vehicle to steal. When approached by an unmarked Triumph 2000 police patrol car – call-sign Foxtrot Eleven – the trio panicked.
As Det Sgt Christopher Head, 30, and Det Con David Wombwell, 25, climbed out of their car, they were each killed by a single shot from a 9mm Luger pistol, one in the back and the other beneath the eye. PC Geoffrey Fox, 41, the driver, was shot dead through the windscreen as he hit the accelerator in a vain attempt to ram the assailants.
