The Q.G.M. "Black Panther" group of three to Constable A.J.White, Nottinghamshire Police,

Footnotes

Q.G.M. London Gazette 7.12.1976.

At 10.40pm on 11th December 1975, Constable McKenzie and Constable White who were on patrol in a panda car, saw a man in dark clothing hurrying along the road. The police car was parked just off the road and the two officers decided to question the man.
Constable McKenzie drove the car on to the road, came alongside the man and Constable White then spoke to him through the car window. As the two officers were making notes to the answers to their questions, the man, who was subsequently found to be wanted by the police for murder and robbery with violence, suddenly produced a sawn-off shotgun and ordered Constable White into the back of the police car. When the Constable had obeyed, the gunman got into the front passenger seat, pushed the muzzle of the gun under Constable McKenzie's left arm and ordered him to drive. On the man's instructions Constable McKenzie drove the car for about four miles, and as they were approaching a road junction, Constable White saw that the gunman's attention was momentarily diverted from Constable McKenzie; seizing his opportunity he grabbed the man round the neck and at the same time attempted to wrest the shotgun from him. The shotgun was discharged and the bullet narrowly missed Constable Mckenzie who then violently braked the car. As soon as the car came to a halt Constable McKenzie jumped out, shouted for help and then went to assist Constable White who was still engaged in a desperate struggle inside the car.
Eventually with the assistance of members of the public who unhesitatingly came to their aid, the two officers managed to overpower and handcuff the gunman.
Constable McKenzie and Constable White displayed outstanding courage, tenacity and initiative in effecting the capture of this extremely dangerous and violent criminal.

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Donald Neilson was previously known as David Nappey but changed the family name after the birth of his daughter to Neilson, so his daughter would not suffer the bullying and abuse he received at school and in the army. He was a jobbing builder in Bradford, West Yorkshire. He turned to crime when his business failed. It is believed he carried out over 400 house burglaries without detection during his early days of crime. Before he became notorious as the Black Panther he was sought after under a variety of nicknames such as the Phantom and Handy Andy. To confuse police, he changed his working pattern every few weeks. For example he would steal a radio from each house and abandon it nearby, then when that pattern of behaviour was established he would drop it and do something else. Proceeds from simple housebreaking were low, however and after stealing guns and ammunition from a house in Cheshire he upped his criminal activity which resulted in him turning to robbing small post offices. Neilson committed eighteen such crimes between 1971-1974. His phobia about dogs meant that he avoided post offices with guard dogs.

His crimes became progressively more violent as he sought to protect himself from occupants prepared to put up a resistance to defend their property. In February 1972 he gained entry to a sub-post office in Rochdale Road, Heywood, Lancashire during the night. Leslie Richardson, the postmaster, and his wife woke to find a hooded man in their bedroom. Richardson leapt out of bed to tackle the intruder while his wife phoned the police. During the struggle, Neilson showed Richardson his sawn off shotgun and snapped in a West Indian accent "This is loaded". Richardson saw that the gun was pointing up at the ceiling and there was no danger of anyone being shot. He snapped back, "We'll find out if it's loaded", and pulled the trigger himself blasting two holes in the ceiling. The fight continued and Richardson managed to pull Neilson's black hood off to reveal not the West Indian he had expected but a white man with dark staring eyes. Neilson then stamped mercilessly on Richardson's feet breaking several toes and kneed him in the groin. As Richardson collapsed on the floor, Neilson made his escape empty handed. Richardson gave police a description of his masked intruder which turned out to be inaccurate in many respects. Several other photo fits of Neilson were similarly unhelpful to the police but one, made by sub postmistress Margaret Grayland, was extremely accurate.

Neilson's first three murders occurred in 1974, He shot dead two sub-postmasters and the husband of a sub-postmistress as well as brutally battering sub-postmistress Margaret Grayland in post office robberies. He killed Donald Skepper in Harrogate in February 1974, Derek Astin of Baxenden near Accrington in September 1974, and Sidney Grayland in Langley, West Midlands during November 1974. The Baxenden murder gained Neilson the nickname The Black Panther when, during an interview with a local television reporter, Astin's wife, Marion, described her husband's killer as "so quick, he was like a panther". Alluding to the killer's dark clothing, the reporter ended his piece by asking "Where is the Black Panther?" and the name stuck. The Whittle case made him Britain's most wanted man in the mid 1970's and the kidnapper was irrefutably linked to the post office shootings when he shot security guard Gerald Smith six times while checking a ransom trail and forensics showed the bullets were fired from the same .22 pistol that was used to shoot Derek Astin and Sidney Grayland.

Leslie Whittle was a 17 year old girl and was Neilson's youngest victim. She was the daughter of noted coach transport business owner George Whittle, who had left his entire fortune to his second wife and their children, Ronald and Leslie. After reading about a family dispute over George's will, and three years of planning, on 14th January 1975 Neilson entered the Whittle family home in Highley, Shropshire, and kidnapped Leslie from her bedroom. He calculated that the family would not materially miss £50,000 of their fortune, and so made a subsequent demand via a note left at the family home for that sum. A series of police bungles and other circumstances meant that Whittle's brother Ronald was unable to deliver the ransom money to the place and time demanded by the kidnapper. Her body was found on 7 March 1975, hanging from a wire at the bottom of the drainage shaft where he tethered her in Bathpool Park, at Kidsgrove, Staffordshire. The subsequent post-mortem examination showed that Whittle had not, in fact, died slowly from strangulation, but instantaneously from vagal inhibition. The shock of the fall had caused her heart to stop beating. He may have pushed Whittle off the ledge where he had kept her. An alternative to this scenario is that Neilson was not there when Whittle died and that he panicked and fled on the night of the failed ransom collection without returning to the shaft, believing the police were closing in on him, leaving Whittle alive in the dark for a considerable period of time before she fell to her death.

The pathologist noted that Whittle weighed only 44kg when found, her stomach and intestines were completely empty, she had lost a considerable amount of weight and was emaciated. He concluded that she had not eaten for a minimum of three days, the length of time it takes for food to pass through the body, but added it could have been much longer.

In December 1975, two police officers, Tony White and Stuart McKenzie were in a panda car in a side road keeping a watch on the main A60 trunk road leading out of Mansfield in North Nottinghamshire when they spotted a small wiry man scurrying past carrying a holdall. As he passed the police car he averted his face, drawing McKenzie's attention. As a matter of routine, they called him over to question him. The man said he was on his way home from work and that he was a lorry driver and claimed that he lived at Chapel-en-le-Frith, his manner then changed and he then produced a sawn-off shotgun from the holdall. He ordered White into the back of the car. The policeman opened the car door but the gunman snapped, "No time for that, climb over the seat!". The officer did so with alacrity and the gunman settled himself in the passenger seat, jamming the gun into McKenzie's armpit.

He ordered them to drive to Blidworth, PC White thought he was a nutter as he said Blidorth, which was six miles away and told them not to look at him. This presented PC McKenzie with a problem. Gently he explained to the gunman that they were going the wrong way and he would have to turn the car around. The gunman agreed but warned both officers if there were any tricks they would both be dead, and also told him to turn the Police light off from the roof of the car. He repeated to them not to try any tricks. He also asked if the authorities could hear what was being said in the cars on the radios, Mackenzie replied "No but if they call us we'll have to answer, sir, or they'll become suspicious and set up road blocks". The man then said "They've had me in once, I'm not going back again". As they were driving along Southwell Road the gunman asked if they had any rope, as he wanted to tie them up, Mackenzie said "No", but White said "There might be but I'll have to look around a bit to look for it. Is that all right", he replied "Yes, but no tricks or he gets it". White then moved around the back seat of the car pretending to look for some rope and positioned himself in the middle of the seat. As they travelled up Oak Tree Lane, Mansfield, the policemen began to talk about their families and the condition of the vehicle to try and calm him down. They then joined Southwell Road, Mansfield and travelled towards Rainworth. McKenzie reached a junction in the road, he asked "which way left or right?" causing the gunman to look toward the road ahead. White saw the gun drop a few inches and realised this was his chance as the gun was no longer in an immovable position between Mackenzie's armpit. White grabbed the gun barrel and put his left arm around Neilson's neck, pushing the gun upwards it went off almost immediately, he threw himself forward and grabbed Neilson and the bullet passed through the gap in the window on the driver's side. McKenzie had asked Neilson if he could open the window due to the mist in the car. McKenzie said the bullet went so close to his face that it went numb and he had a perforated ear drum. White had a piece of skin shot out of his hand and he grazed his head, the man thrashed about to get free but White managed to wrestle the gun from him but not before being hit in the face by him. White responded by hitting him in the face twice with his right elbow as he was still struggling violently and had difficulty restraining him.

They car stopped outside the Junction Chip Shop in Rainworth. White noticed that the driver's door was open and as he had been struggling with Neilson and he thought that Mackenzie had been blasted out by the gun. He shouted to Mackenzie "He's shot me", in order to let him know he was injured and that he couldn't rely on me fully. White's feet were caught in the seatbelt as he struggled and he momentarily lost his grip on Neilson. McKenzie had actually fallen out of the driver's seat, banging his head on the road. He staggered to his feet and ran towards the fish and chip shop screaming for help. A Roy Morris and a Mr Keith Wood, helped McKenzie hold Neilson who at the time had his hand under his coat, White thought that he might be holding another gun. Morris grabbed his wrists and held them for White to snap the handcuffs on (included in the Lot).

They hauled Neilson to iron railings at the side of a bus stop and handcuffed him there before calling for back-up, and on searching him they found a sheath knife, a large belt containing a large sheath knife from around his waist and a cartridge belt containing a number of cartridges from around his waist. In the subsequent investigation, Neilson's fingerprints were found to match one of those in the drain shaft. In the interview at Kidsgrove police station when he confessed to the kidnap of Whittle, Neilson gave an 18 page statement to DCS Harold Wright, head of Staffordshire CID, and Commander Morrison of Scotland Yard, with the statement handwritten by DCI Walter Boreham.

During his trial at Oxford Crown Court, Neilson's defence lawyer Gilbert Gray QC contended that Lesley Whittle had accidentally fallen from the ledge and had hanged herself, and that Neilson had fed her chicken soup, spaghetti and meatballs, and bought her fish and chips and chicken legs. These claims were contested by the prosecution as lies. Neilson had provided his victim with a sleeping bag designed to prevent hypothermia, mattresses, survival blankets, survival bags, a bottle of brandy, six paperback books, a copy of the Times, the magazines Vogue and Home, a small puzzle and two brightly coloured napkins. These items were found in the shaft, and in the subterranean canal running below it, by the police. While on remand, Neilson was interviewed by a forensic Psychiatrist, Dr Hugo Buist Milne. Dr Milne's examination found no evidence of insanity. The psychiatrists told the defence team, "I've examined him and he's the classic Psychopath of all time". After the case Milne said he was convinced of Neilson's truthfulness when he said he had not murdered Lesley Whittle. However, his claims that the other four deaths were accidental were dismissed by the psychiatrists as excuses for aggressive behaviour. Neilson's defence team, solicitor, Barrington Black, junior counsel, Norman Jones and leading counsel Gilbert Gray all remained convinced of their client's innocence of murder in the Whittle case believing his conviction was simply a reflection of public opinion, a backlash of the publicity given to the hunt for the kidnapper and killer and that he should have been convicted only of the lesser charge of manslaughter.

In July 1976, Neilson was convicted of the kidnapping and murder of Lesley Whittle, for which he was given a life sentence. Three weeks later he was convicted of the murders of two postmasters and the husband of a postmistress. In total Neilson received five life sentences. The judge also gave Neilson a further 61 years: 21 years for kidnapping Lesley Whittle and 10 years for blackmailing her mother. Three further sentences of 10 years each were imposed for the two burglary charges from which he stole guns and ammunition and for possessing the sawn off shotgun with intent to danger life. All sentences were to run concurrently. The judge told Neilson that the enormity of his crimes put him in a class apart from almost all other convicted murderers in recent years.

Neilson was found not guilty of the attempted murders of sub-postmistress Margaret Grayland and PC Tony White but guilty of the lesser alternative charges of inflicting grievous bodily harm on Mrs Grayland and possessing a shotgun with the intent of endangering life at Mansfield. A charge of attempting to murder a security guard named Gerald Smith whom he shot six times while checking the Whittle ransom trail was left on file because of legal complications due to the fact that Mr Smith died more than a year and a day after being shot. Had this charge gone ahead, he would have told the court that the six bullets had been fired at a dog but instead accidentally hit the unfortunate Mr Smith. The trial judge recommended that Neilson receive a whole life tariff.

After the verdicts, his counsel, Gilbert Gray QC, visited him in the cells below court. He found his client in the corner of his cell curled up in a pre-natal position, totally broken and dejected, filled with immense remorse for Lesley Whittle and her family.

Following subsequent legal judgements in various other cases, and the implications of European Union Human Rights laws, Neilson was confirmed on numerous occasions to be on the Home Office's list of prisoners with whole life tariffs, as a succession of Home Secretaries ruled that life should mean life for Neilson.

In 2008 Neilson applied to the High Court to have his minimum term reverted to 30 years. On 12 June 2008 Mr Justice Teare upheld the whole life tariff, saying:

"This is a case where the gravity of the applicant's offences justifies a whole life order. The manner in which the young girl was killed demonstrates that it too involved a substantial degree of premeditation or planning. It also involved the abduction of the young girl. The location and manner of Lesley Whittle's death indicates that she must have been subjected by the applicant to a dreadful and horrific ordeal."

In 2008, Neilson was diagnosed with motor neurone disease, a progressive and fatal condition. He was taken from Norwich prison to Nororfolk and Norwich University Hospital in the early hours of 17 December 2011 after developing breathing difficulties and was pronounced dead the following day.


The lot comes with a substantial archive relating to Constable A.J.White's police service in particular items relating to the capture of Donald Neilson, including the original handcuffs used to apprehend him and the notebook he used at the time, and his photocopied witness statement, dated 11th December 1975. A large number of professionally taken photographs from outside the chip shop to Buckingham Palace with the Q.G.M.'s, assorted letters and related correspondence, box for the QGM, newspaper cuttings of the incident and times afterwards including the trial.