British Transport Police Detective Inspector Viv Head and the Midlands Divisional Collator, Detective Constable Charlie Thornton, were attending a Regional Crime Intelligence conference taking place at Northamptonshire Police Headquarters. Around ten police forces were represented and some twenty-five officers squeezed around the table in the meeting room. It was close and stuffy; were too many people the room. The chairman, Detective Superintendent Brian Martindale, from West Midlands Police, was addressing the meeting when the telephone rang. The room paused while the nearest officer picked it up.
Is there a Detective Inspector Head in the room?
It was Pc David Wickham from the BTP Divisional control room at Birmingham New Street Police Station-
There’s been a murder at Wolverhampton and you asked to attend
D.I. Head made their excuses and he and Dc Thornton left the meeting for the two hour drive to Wolverhampton. When the officers arrived at Cannock Road Railway Sidings they found the area deserted except for a lone West Midlands Police constable, everyone else had left for the incident room set up at Wednesfield police station.
Earlier that day, Thursday the 18 March 1982, a disused permanent way cabin at the sidings was found to be ablaze and the fire brigade had been called. Once the fire was extinguished, the charred remains of a young woman were found inside.
When the officers arrived at Wednesfield nick they found a hive of activity, but the only BTP officers there were the two local Wolverhampton CID officers, Detective Sergeant Russ Brown and Detective Constable Brian Preece. No extra officers had yet been brought in and when DI Head rang the control room he found that nothing had been organised either. Well, that’s about par for the course he thought, and set about arranging for a few extra detectives to be sent from Birmingham. He met with the officer in charge of the enquiry, Detective Superintendent Arthur Bucknall of the West Midlands Police (West Mids) and he could tell immediately that the presence of BTP officers was being tolerated rather than welcomed. As the enquiry unfolded, it would show that the events leading up to the murder were all within the jurisdiction of West Mids Police but nevertheless the deed itself had been committed in the railway sidings within the jurisdiction of the British Transport Police.
At the time, it was usual for the Home Department Force to have primacy for the investigation of murder cases, but often working with a contingent of BTP detective officers. It was abundantly clear in this case though, that it was never going to approach anything close to a joint investigation.
It did not take long to identify the body as that of Jennifer Rose Hudson, an attractive twenty-year-old local girl of mixed-race origins. She lived at home with her thirty-six-year-old mother, Jamaican born divorcee Shirley Hudson and her five younger brothers and sisters. Jennifer had set out for work from her home in Coleman Street, Whitmore Reans the morning before, on Wednesday 17 March, but had not returned. She had been working for more than three years as a typist for the West Bromwich magistrate’s clerks department in Lombard Street.
A post-mortem examination revealed that Jennifer had died from strangulation and several heavy blows to the head with a blunt instrument that was likely to have been a ball peen hammer. Her body was also badly burnt from the fire. It was also soon established that Jennifer had a West Indian boyfriend, twenty-year-old Junior Montague Dehaney who was not at his home in Ellerton Walk, Park Village, Wolverhampton and could not be found at his usual haunts. One of the first priorities for the enquiry teams therefore was to find the whereabouts of Dehaney.
The following morning, the attention of BTP officers at Birmingham New Street station was drawn to a bag and several other items of property lying beside the main railway line at Proof House junction, not far outside the city centre. It was likely that the items had been thrown from a train and since there was a mention of Wolverhampton, it was possible that they may have been discarded by the murder suspect. D.I. Head attended the scene later that afternoon and also recovered a copy of that morning’s local daily paper, the front page of which carried news of the killing. Proof House is a very busy railway junction and at one point the inspector found himself hopping across the tracks playing noughts and crosses with seven different inter-city trains. He made a mental note to always wear his high visibility tabard in future!
With the news that there may be a London connection, Superintendent Bicknall made a request to the Metropolitan Police for a couple of addresses of Dehaney’s London associates to be searched. It was hoped that the searches would be done that day but nothing came back from the Met and the Wednesfield incident room eventually closed down for the day. Superintendent Bicknall had not seen fit to reveal the existence of these London addresses to BTP, nor did he circulate the information to BTP police stations in London. D.I. Head however sent a telex to all the London mainline stations and the underground, giving Dehaney’s description and the fact that he was wanted for questioning about Jennifer Hudson’s murder.
Earlier the same day, before the telex arrived, officers at London Euston station had been called to a train from Wolverhampton to deal with a ticket fraud dispute. A young West Indian male answering Dehaney’s description had given the address of a men’s hostel in London called Centre Point. When he read the telex, the night inspector at Euston, Peter Clark, made the connection with the ticket dispute and visited Centre Point to make a search of the premises but no one resembling Dehaney was there.
Late in the evening, two of the night turn uniformed officers at Euston, Pc Tom Willoughby and Probationary Pc Paul Cunningham were patrolling the car park adjoining the station when, in a poorly lit area, they saw a figure acting suspiciously. They found a young West Indian male and suspecting that it may be the wanted man, they promptly arrested him.
At Euston Police Station, Dehaney’s identity was confirmed, he was searched and documented and given a cup of tea. Sergeant Mick Byford, the duty sergeant, began an interview. It was two years before the Police & Criminal Evidence Act was to be brought in and there was no requirement for interviews to take place at designated police stations, nor had the tape recording of interviews yet been introduced.
Dehaney was happy to talk and Sergeant Byford began writing contemporaneous notes, thirty-six pages as it turned out. Once he’d begun, Dehaney seemed to want to get things off his chest. It was a long rambling interview, sometimes not making much sense, but he referred to things about which Sergeant Byford had no knowledge, including starting the fire, and on two occasions saying- I didn’t mean to kill her
A little before midnight, news of the arrest was passed to BTP Midlands Divisional control room and in turn, D.I. Head was rung at home where he had not long arrived after leaving the incident room; he asked for a car to be brought out. The inspector collected Dc Brian Preece from home, one of the two Wolverhampton CID officers involved, and set off for London. On the car radio, D.I. Head asked for a message to be passed to Wednesfield police station to inform the West Midlands Police of the arrest in London. He recognised the voice of the controller as that of Pc Hughie Rowlands, the most conscientious of officers.
At Euston police station, the officers collected the prisoner and the paperwork and with little delay, set out for the return journey. Dehaney was docile and virtually mute in the back of the car and barely spoke even when offered a soft drink during a brief stop for fuel. It was about 8.30am on Saturday morning as the officers were approaching Wednesfield police station when D.I. Head called up on the radio and asked the control room to ring the police station to tell them of their immanent arrival with the suspect. As soon as they reached Wednesfield the prisoner was taken to the cell block and booked in. The cell block sergeant was surly and monosyllabic but informed the inspector that the detective superintendent wanted to see him in his office on the top floor. Walking up the flights of stairs, uniformed and CID officers came out of their offices and mounted a silent watch at each landing and turn. It was a bizarre, silent protest that lasted until the officers reached the door marked Detective Superintendent Bicknall Inside, it was far from silent. Addressing the detective inspector, the superintendent told him in no uncertain terms that he was not pleased with his actions. The inspector sort to establish where exactly he was supposed to have gone wrong? Amidst the irate bluster, it seemed to come down to two things. Firstly, by initiating the actions taken by BTP in London he had undermined the house searches arranged with the Metropolitan police. This was patently ridiculous since it was apparent that the Met had not carried out the searches anyway, and even if they had, they would not have found Dehaney because he wasn’t there! And secondly, for apparently having the temerity to effect the arrest of the suspect without telling the West Midlands Police; this was also patently untrue because the police station had been telephoned around 1am when the officers set off for London. Superintendent Bicknall appeared disinclined to believe that this call had been made, which left D.I. Head incensed. Aware that it was Pc Rowlands who had been asked to pass the message, the inspector knew he would be able to supply the superintendent with the identity of the West Midlands officer who received the call. But even when he rang the superintendent later to let him know, there was no hint of an apology forthcoming.
The truth of this petulance is that the self-opinionated superintendent had, as he saw it, been outwitted by the railway police although this had never been the intention. No matter that the offence had taken place in railway sidings, the suspect had made his escape by train, established by the property recovered from the railway line at Birmingham, and that the suspect had been arrested by BTP officers at a London railway station, he somehow perceived that the British Transport Police had no business poking their nose into his enquiry! What arrogance. After delivering the prisoner and receiving their rollicking, the officers withdrew and left him to it.
Junior Montague Dehaney was charged with murdering Jennifer Rose Hudson and kept in custody over the weekend. He appeared at Wolverhampton Magistrates Court on Monday the 22 March 1982, clutching a small red bible in the dock. He was remanded in custody to the Crown Court and when he appeared in due course, he pleaded guilty to the murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
In due course, Pc Tom Willoughby and Probationary Pc Paul Cunningham were commended by BTP Chief Constable Kenneth Ogram for their astuteness in arresting Dehaney at Euston Station.
At a social evening a year or two later, Viv Head was approached by a detective sergeant from Wednesfield police station who apologised on behalf of his colleagues for the silent stairway protest.
by Viv Head, October 2009
Prepared from personal notes and newspaper clippings
and the assistance of retired Detective Sergeant Mick Byford