Great Train Crimes: Murder and Robbery on the Railways (20 page)

The first compartment which McBain entered was the one occupied by Dr Laing among others. McBain also invited a friend into the compartment, too. Dr Laing commented, ‘He was certainly drunk and a little belligerent and I said to someone in the compartment that I would not be surprised if we had some trouble from this fellow during the journey.’ As the train travelled southward, McBain decided to go into the compartment next door.

He rattled on the door and saw there was a vacant seat. He took it. Mrs Lewis had been sleeping and she now awoke. McBain’s eyes were half closed and his speech was slurred. He sat between McKay and Lennon; the three women were sitting opposite. McBain put his feet up on the seat opposite and asked Mrs Lennon if she minded. She said
not. McKay, however, did, and told McBain that he did. McBain replied that he had paid his rail fare, so he was within his rights to put his feet where he liked. But he desisted shortly afterwards.

Once the train had passed Carlisle, Mrs Lewis reached for a cigarette. McBain put his feet on the seat opposite again. They hit her arm and dirtied her clothes whilst she was lighting up and she remonstrated with him, ‘You should watch where you put your feet.’ McKay spoke out against McBain, too, saying, ‘You are not allowed to put your feet up there. After all, look what you did to the girl’s cardigan.’ McBain lit a cigarette, had second thoughts and flung it towards the ventilator. However, it bounced back and hit Mrs Lewis, who retorted, ‘For crying out loud’. McBain apologised and said he hadn’t meant to do it. Mrs Lewis accepted his apology and told him to forget it. ‘I don’t want to forget it’ he replied. He asked the others why he couldn’t put his feet up on the seat.

McKay rose to the challenge again, saying, ‘You are not allowed, so let’s forget it, and have a bit of peace and quiet.’ McBain countered, ‘You shut up or I’ll make you get peace and quiet for the rest of the journey.’ Both men were fully aroused to do battle. They stood up and squared off.

McKay then gave another version of events to that he had given previously:

I got the impression that the other people in the compartment were scared of McBain and I thought I would have to persuade him to get out of the carriage to get some quiet. I stood up and pointed the gun at him, thinking he would realise it was a gun and be frightened. But he did not say anything and he was trying to hit the gun out of my hand. As he did so, I squeezed the gun to make sure if he did knock it, my hand would only swing away. I had no idea there was a shell in it. I was quite shocked.

Mrs Lewis then recalled, ‘I saw McBain had staggered back to his seat. And McKay standing with a small gun in his hand.’ At first she had thought that the small metallic object in McKay’s had was a cigarette lighter. McBain clutched his side where he had been shot and lay back on his seat, smiling at McKay. Mrs Lewis fled the compartment. Miss Lewis pulled the communication cord in the next
compartment. Mrs Lewis said that she had not seen the gun beforehand, thought that McBain was being objectionable and that McKay was being considerate in his behaviour hitherto.

Other facts emerged about McKay. He had had a previous conviction for possession of a firearm without a licence. In his flat was a small gun holster and various shooting magazines. There were a few spare bullets there and these exactly matched those which had been fired into McBain. There was no doubt that the gun used to kill McBain was McKay’s.

Mr Cantley QC of the prosecution told him, ‘You are entitled to take reasonable measures in your self defence, but not to shoot an unarmed man even if you think he might inflict some minor violence to you.’ He then outlined the events of that fatal night. However, counsel for the defence said that McKay had been provoked and fired in self-defence. On the following day McKay was found guilty of manslaughter and was sentenced to four years in gaol. The interesting question to ask is why McKay was carrying a loaded gun in the first place. He had had no prior intention of shooting McBain, nor anyone else as far as is known. Clearly he had a fascination for firearms and this was to prove his undoing.

‘it was a very brutal murder, a completely motiveless attack
on this young girl for no reason’

Michael Szczup was 12 years old and a train spotter from Bracknell. He and three friends had spent Monday 29 June 1964 at Basingstoke station, noting down the trains which arrived at that busy station. Yet it is what happened afterwards that would prove more memorable. He later described the first stage of what should have been his return voyage:

We intended to return home by the 4.17 Basingstoke–Reading train. As soon as that train came in we got into the second class compartment in the first coach. Immediately the train left the station I went into the toilet compartment at the front end of the coach. When I opened the door of the toilet compartment I saw the legs of a lady on the floor. There was blood on the floor. I rushed into the coach and called out about what I had seen.

Paul Ramshir, a London chemist, had also seen what Szczup had and he had pulled the communication cord. Szczup jumped off the train, which had just left the station, and went to find a porter. After he had told him what had happened, he and his friends took the 4.37 train to Reading. The murder carriage was put into a siding.

The corpse was that of a teenage girl, dressed in her school uniform. Her throat was cut. Although at first it was wondered whether this was a case of suicide, such impressions were short-lived. PS Douglas Boekee was one of the first police officers on the scene and related:

There was a lot of blood on the floor which appeared to come from a severe wound in the throat. Her dress and jacket did not
seem to be disturbed but I later saw that her stockings were badly laddered.

There were a number of clues in the compartment. There were pieces of broken glass near the body. Although fully clothed, the victim’s shoes and beret were missing. In the compartment itself was a torn envelope addressed to ‘David Manders, C3’. The address was missing. Inside were torn pieces of a birthday card, with the following message, ‘To David, with love from Barbara and John’. Behind a seat was a brown carrier bag. In this was a cucumber and lettuce roll and a partly eaten packet of crisps. There was also a paper wrapper of a loaf, ‘Midland Maid Farmhouse Bread’. This was only made in the Midlands.

What were the events leading up to this dreadful event? It had begun at Southampton station at 3.25. Yvonne Laker, a 15-year-old schoolgirl, was dark haired and shy. Her parents lived in Singapore, where her father, Peter, was a sergeant in the RAF. She had just spent the weekend with her grandparents, Major and Mrs Cyril Laker, in Burton on Sea and was about to return to her convent school in Maidenhead. They had taken a photograph of her before seeing her off at the station, for her father’s benefit. She sat in the second class compartment of the first of three coaches on the train. Major Laker recalled, ‘I recall no one being in the compartment but her when the train pulled out.’ It was an open Pullman carriage, that is to say, it was a carriage with seats, but without partitions and there was no access to any other carriage.

The first stop on the train’s journey was at Eastleigh. It was here that Peter Barnes, a recent graduate, and two friends, got on the train. He remembered seeing her and recalled, ‘As far as I know no one sat besides her during the journey nor did I hear anyone speaking to her.’ The second was at Winchester at 3.58, where Barnes and his friends alighted. The next was at Micheldever at 4.08. Just before the next stop, the train slowed down considerably. Then Basingstoke was reached at 4.22 and by then the murder had been done.

Detective Chief Superintendent Walter Jones of the Hampshire CID was in charge of the murder hunt. He had 70 detectives from Hampshire and Berkshire under him. A large blue mobile police headquarters was set up outside Basingstoke station. He stated at a press conference on the Monday of the murder, ‘This appears to be the work of a maniac. As far as I can ascertain it was a very brutal murder, a completely motiveless attack on this young girl for no reason. There is no question of sexual
assault or theft.’ The chief constable was afraid the killer would strike again and urged Jones, ‘Find this killer – quickly’.

Jones made a start. Forty of the train’s passengers were interviewed. Tracker dogs found Yvonne’s brown shoes and beret near the track between Micheldever and Basingstoke. A few pieces of green glass – the same sort which had been found on the train – were also found. These were pieced together and were found to almost make up a complete bottle. It was a half-size Cuesta sherry bottle. Jones made appeals for anyone who had seen anything relevant to come forward. He tried to locate the David Manders whose name was on the torn envelope. He also thought the label on the bread packaging was important and said, ‘We are making enquiries in the Midlands to try and trace its origin, but we would like any of the train’s passengers who saw this bag or the man who carried it, to come forward.’

The corpse was identified officially by her grandparents and by her father who was flown home from Singapore. Dr Keith Simpson, a Home Office pathologist, concluded that death was due to ‘haemorrhage and shock due to a cut throat’. There was bruising on her forehead, probably caused by her being hit with a bottle and knocked unconscious. It was thought that she had then been dragged to the toilet and then had her throat cut by the now broken bottle. Death had occurred at about 4 pm. Her funeral was on 8 July at the Roman Catholic church at New Milton.

Yet what appeared to be a major breakthrough came through quite an unexpected fashion. On 2 July, Derek Pye, a 27-year-old unemployed farm worker of Hyde Road, Long Sutton, and a married man with children, was arrested by PC Myhill at 8.30 pm in Farnham and he was taken to Aldershot police station. He was charged with stealing a car belonging to a Mr Moss earlier that day. He was due to appear at the magistrates’ court, but before he did, on the following day, he spoke to PC Eggleton. He told him, ‘I am worried, I was on the train where the girl was murdered. I saw a man drag her along the corridor to the toilet.’ He added, ‘That train murder, I think I know who did it. I was on the train.’ He was asked why he had not come forward earlier, and replied, ‘I read it happened in a crowded train. As there was only us there. I didn’t think it could be the same one.’

This seemed to be very important news indeed. Pye was asked about his movements on the day of the murder. Pye had taken a bus to Basingstoke at 9.30. At 11 am he was in the Anchor Inn, looking for a solicitor, who he later found. Pye explained that at 1 pm he had taken the
wrong train from Basingstoke – he wanted to go to Winchester, where he planned to visit the army recruitment centre, but had gone on the wrong train and arrived at Reading. So he went back to Basingstoke. Then he went to Winchester, arriving at about 3 pm, and then took the train to Basingstoke – the same train as Yvonne Laker was travelling on. He entered the same compartment as her, in fact. He said that there was another man there, too.

When the train stopped at Micheldever, Pye went to the toilet, he said, and on his return, when the train was on its way again, he reported:

When I came out, the man was helping her up. Her head was hanging down. I asked what was wrong and he said she had been sick. He took her into the toilet and was in there two or three minutes. He came out and started looking out of the window. I asked him if she was alright and he said it was none of my business. I went to the other end of the carriage and saw glass on the seat. I thought this is dangerous if a kiddy got hold of it. I picked it up and threw it out of the window.

The man was ‘about five feet eight inches, black hair, aged 30 to 32 with full face and very smart’. When the train had stopped, Pye alighted and took a train from Reading to Hook at 6 pm and then a taxi to Odiham, where he had left his bicycle and cycled home, arriving between 8.30 and 9 pm. A neighbour saw him at this time and thought Pye looked normal. He also had a drink at the Grapes in Basingstoke and bought a half bottle of Cuesta sherry there. On the Wednesday after the murder, Pye was having a drink in his local, the Railway Arms. The publican started talking about the killing and said how terrible it was. To this Pye merely replied, ‘Yes’, lowered his head and then left the pub.

The police investigated Pye’s stories and found some inconsistencies. Although there was a train to Hook at 5.41, Pye did not take it, as he was seen by John Hogg, an old schoolfriend, at Reading station at 7.30 pm. No taxi driver at Hook recalled taking anyone to Odiham that night. There was also uncertainty when Pye bought the half bottle of sherry for 10s; he claimed it was in the evening, but the licensee thought it was at 1 pm. And sherry bottles were found at his home. But Pye denied he had anything to do with the crime, stating, ‘I never touched the girl. I had nothing at all to do with this thing.’ Margaret Perira, a science officer at the Police Laboratory, examined his clothes, and though some blood was
found on his shoes, this was his own.

Yet the police thought Pye was guilty. He was remanded in custody on several occasions, before finally being brought to trial at the Hampshire Assizes in Winchester on 26 November. Pye pleaded not guilty to the accusation of murder. His barrister argued that it was the other man in the train who committed the murder. The prosecution argued that this man did not exist and was merely a fiction. They said that the idea of someone committing a murder just yards from another man, albeit killing the girl in a toilet, was simply absurd. They also pointed to the pieces of broken glass in Pye’s pocket, and alleged he bought the sherry bottle in the pub at 1 pm. Although they could not supply a motive for the murder, this was not required of them.

Yet a man had been seen leaving the train just before it stopped at Basingstoke station. It was slowing down and so it would certainly have been possible for someone to leave the train then. Railway workers saw a man acting suspiciously and seeming disconcerted when he saw them. He went in the direction of Winchester, and then turned north, running. Mrs Janet Agnell, working at a nearby factory, also saw this man. Finally, Ronald Bridges, a tractor driver, who was working nearby, stated, ‘I started cutting the field about 4pm. About 4.30 pm I saw a man. He was walking up the side of the field from the direction of the railway line.’ So perhaps Pye’s story was true, after all. Yet we cannot be certain that this man was the killer. He may have been leaving the train for another reason, though if so it was certainly a coincidence. It was further noted that the glass in Pye’s pocket did not have any traces of the victim’s clothing on it.