Great Train Crimes: Murder and Robbery on the Railways (19 page)

On Friday 22 August, before going to work, Dean warned his wife that he might be late home because he had some accounts to work on. As on the previous two days, Alcott visited the station. Harrington remembered seeing him using the telephone there at 5.30 pm. Two hours later, he was seen standing by the telephone. Richard Hill was at the booking office answering the telephone.

At a quarter to nine that evening, Kenneth Vincent, an army corporal from the nearby barracks, called at the booking office in order to buy a train ticket. He recalled:

I went to the booking office window, the booking office window was shut and the window partition was down and I couldn’t see in. There was some disturbance going on inside the booking office. It appeared to me not to be too aggressive, it appeared to be the type of sound heard in a barrack room, like two men playing around together. There was a muffled voice but I couldn’t discern what it was and couldn’t distinguish any words. I had a coin in my hand and I rapped on the till of the window with the coin. There was no response whatsoever and the noise inside continued. I must have stood by the window for half a minute or so.

Vincent evidently gave up on his quest for a ticket and walked away. At 8.55, Cedric Bull, the junior porter, returned to the station after having
his supper of fried fish. He went to the booking office, where he noticed that the lights were still on. He then looked through the grill ‘and when I looked through I could see Mr Dean’s feet and some blood on the floor’. He then raised the alarm, but he and his colleagues were unable to open the door. Bernard Luck, the stationmaster, was at Aldershot. He was told of the situation by Bull by telephone, and he arrived at 9.02. He ordered that the door be broken open and Dean’s dead body was found there. There were empty cash bags and keys on the floor. Leonard Marsh, a railway clerk, discovered that a total of £168 1s 11 ½d had disappeared. The police began to arrive at 9.30, first PC Cedric Shirer, then his senior colleagues. Dr Arthur Mant, first assistant to the Department of Forensic Medicine at Guy’s Hospital, was on the scene at 11.30.

Meanwhile, sometime after 9 pm, a bus took Alcott into Aldershot. He went to a pub, the Rat Pit, and had two pints. He began talking to a woman there. He was looking for accommodation. She took him to Edith Dagger’s house in Victoria Road, arriving at 10.20. Mrs Dagger took guests for bed and breakfast. Mrs Dagger recalled, ‘He came with a lady.’ She asked if Alcott could stay, and was given a bedroom on the first floor for a week. Alcott paid the £2 12s 6d which was demanded. He lacked any kit, but said he was going to France. He signed his name in the guest book and wrote his address following it – Eltham Palace Road, South-East London. Alcott had breakfast there on the following morning, leaving at 9 am. That day he bought a pair of new shoes. He returned at 11.07 pm.

He must have been surprised at who he saw on his return. As part of the police investigation into Dean’s death, all boarding houses and hotels in the Aldershot district were being searched. DC William Mann had, coincidentally, arrived at the guest house just after Alcott had left. He searched the house and found, in Alcott’s room, his blue jacket. On it were bloodstains. There were two pound notes in it, both covered in blood. A knife was found hidden in the chimney.

It was Mann and his colleague, DC Riordan, who confronted Alcott on his return that evening. Mann addressed him thus:

‘What’s your name?’

‘Alcott.’

‘You know why we are here – we are police officers.’

‘Yes, I know. I expected you, I thought there was something wrong when I returned home.’

Alcott was arrested, handcuffed and was told he was being detained on suspicion of murdering Dean. He was cautioned and then searched. A roll of bank notes and some coins, amounting to £11 4s 6d were found in his trouser pockets. Alcott explained, ‘That’s some of the money.’ He then volunteered further information about himself:

You know about my previous trouble, don’t you? I did a murder in Germany and was reprieved by the King. Since then I have been worried about it.

It transpired indeed that Alcott had been sentenced to death on a previous occasion. When he was doing his National Service in the Grenadier Guards in Germany, he had deserted. In September 1948, he and a Sudeten Czech had beaten a German caretaker, Peter Helm, to death, in Montabaur. A court martial found Alcott guilty of murder on 4 January 1949. The sentence was not confirmed and so he was reprieved and then discharged.

The wider police investigation found other clues. A mackintosh and three empty cash bags were found in a garden in a house in Victoria Road. Joan Quinn of Upper Waybourne Lane, Farnham, recalled selling a knife on 18 August, but could not recall to whom she sold it. Bus staff were quizzed about any passengers they took from about 9–10 on the previous night. Old trousers were later found on Gun Hill.

Mant conducted a post mortem examination at Farnham Mortuary on the afternoon after the murder. He concluded, ‘The cause of death had been multiple stab wounds of the chest. There were 20 stab wounds.’ Two had penetrated the heart and seven the lungs. They had been ‘delivered with great violence’. Death had occurred between about 8 and 11 pm. However, we know from other witnesses that it cannot have occurred after 9 pm, nor much before that hour.

On the night of 23 August, Alcott found himself in Aldershot police station. Superintendent Roberts was on hand to question him. Alcott was all too ready to talk about what he had done. He said he had been in Hampshire for three days and told them he had thrown his knife away. He added, ‘It was obvious you would get me. We had quite a struggle and I left my fingerprints on the desk, I was going to France on holiday, I didn’t really want the money, I had my own money.’ He then began at the beginning. His holidays had begun on Monday 18 August. He had collected his wages from the Hither Green depot in South-East London.

Then he had taken a train to Farnborough to see the masters at his old school. On that night he stayed at the Commercial Hotel, Aldershot. On Tuesday and Wednesday nights he stayed at a shelter at Clapham South, before returning to The Commercial on Thursday night. He had spent each day in Aldershot and Farnborough, calling at Ash Vale for news of Turner, as has been related, though the man had actually been injured by Alcott, accidentally.

The climax came on the Friday night. Alcott explained it thus:

On the Friday night the 22nd August, having had no definite news as to Turner’s condition, I kept thinking about his injuries. I was talking and joking with the booking clerk who I know as Dixie [Dean]. Dixie had some trouble with his books and his cash which was about £10 over. I had a sheath knife in the back pocket of my trousers. As I was talking to Dixie, I again visualised the injuries of fitter Turner. As from then I took out my knife from my pocket and attacked Dixie by stabbing him. He struggled and kicked at me and shouted for Paddy the porter, but I just stabbed him one after another. He stopped kicking at me and just slumped down.

Whilst Dean was dying, Alcott picked up the money and put it either into his pockets or into the cash bags in the mackintosh behind the door. He then picked up his knife, left the office, slammed the door and ran down the steps and out by the main entrance. He crossed the road and washed his hands in a stream. Alcott took a bus to Aldershot. There he dropped the cash bags and the mackintosh into a back garden. The rest is already known to the reader.

Alcott was formally charged at the magistrates’ Occasional Court at Farnham on 25 August and was remanded in custody for a week.

Dean’s funeral took place on the afternoon of 29 August. Mr Cook, chairman of the parish council, began a fund for Dean’s widow. In addition to this, at least she was able to inherit £685 15s 11d, which her thrifty husband had been able to save during his short life.

Alcott was tried at the Surrey Assizes on 18 November, held at Kingston upon Thames. His defence put forward a plea of insanity, but this was rejected. He was found guilty and was sentenced to hang. There was an appeal, based on the fact that the jury had not been offered the verdict, ‘Guilty, but insane’. However, on 17 December this was turned
down, the Lord Chief Justice stating, ‘I dare say the appellant is abnormal . . . but there is not the least ground for saying that there is any issue of insanity’. Alcott was duly hanged on 2 January 1952.

It is uncertain why Alcott killed Dean. Presumably it was due to his need for money, but this was never stated definitively. Alcott was clearly a very dangerous young man, having killed already in Germany and unfortunately having been discharged. At least he was not given another chance to do so.

‘I stood up and pointed the gun at him, thinking he would realize
it was a gun and be frightened.’

Travelling by train usually means spending time with people one would not normally be with, and from whom, for a temporary period, there is no escape. Fellow passengers can be, and often are, annoying. Those listening to ipods and other noisy devices, and of course, those using mobile phones, can be highly irritating. Occasionally a fellow passenger may remonstrate with them, but mostly the response is to seethe in silence. It is certainly rare that the annoying passenger is killed. But that is exactly what happened on a train in September 1962.

The Glasgow to London express left the Scottish city at 10.25 pm as usual. It was 29 September 1962. In the fourth compartment from the front of the train were Miss Helen Lewis, aged 23, of Bermondsey, her sister-in-law, Mrs Eileen Lewis, and David Anthony McKay, a thermal engineer of Altmore Avenue, East Ham, who was aged 28. McKay had politely asked if he could share the compartment with them. At Kilmarnock they were joined by Mr Francis Lennon, a 53-year-old train examiner, and Katherine, his wife, aged 42. These two lived at Kerrimuir Avenue, Hurlsford, Ayrshire. They all settled down quietly to get what rest they could. That peace was to be rudely interrupted.

The train was approaching Carlisle. It was then that Thomas McBain, a 20-year-old rock ’n’ roll singer (known as ‘Big Tom’), entered He was an apprentice engineer from Glendevo Square, Ruchazie, Glasgow. He was carrying a bottle of wine, some glasses and some cans of beer. McBain took a vacant seat. It was soon obvious that he had already been drinking. He acted in an uncouth manner. When the train was between Carlisle and Penrith, near Wreay, McKay and McBain began to quarrel. The argument turned violent as both young men rose to their feet. Two shots rang out. Confusion reigned. Meanwhile the communication cord was pulled in the next compartment. It was 2 am.

Dr John Laing of Aberdeen was in the next compartment and came next door. He saw what had resulted and wondered whether a knife or a gun had been used. McKay gave him a version of events. He admitted to shooting McBain, and then said that he had thrown the revolver out of the window. The gun, he said, he had taken from McBain’s pockets. He later recalled that McKay had blood on his face and on his shirt; whilst McBain was lying, groaning, on the floor. Laing was with McBain when he died, but he did not tell McKay this news until later and McKay resented being kept in the dark about this.

The train stopped at Wreay and then carried on its journey to Penrith, where it halted. The carriage on which the shooting took place was uncoupled and put into a siding under police guard. Everyone on the train had their names and addresses taken. Thirty-six people, including a young honeymoon couple, were questioned. The train was only allowed to carry on with its journey to London at 6.40 am.

McKay was arrested at 3.45 am and told the police, ‘I did not mean to shoot the bloke.’ He was brought before a special court hearing at Mansion House, Penrith, on the day of the shooting. He was charged with murder. It all lasted only 90 seconds and he was then remanded in custody. He kept being thus remanded on another five occasions, each for a week. John Joseph McBain, the victim’s brother, was found and he came down to identify the corpse. A post mortem indicated that his brother died of a haemorrhage and shock at having two bullets fired into him; one to the chest and one to the abdomen. Either one would have killed him. The gun was also found near to the railway line; it was a small automatic .25 Browning pistol.

There was an initial hearing at a magistrates’ court on 1 November. Mr Guthrie Jones, defending McKay, saw the question of the ownership of the revolver as important. McKay insisted the gun had belonged to McBain and he said:

I saw the gun in his pocket and I managed to get hold of it. In the struggle it went off. I dropped it out of the window because he kept coming for me . . . I told him ‘I’ve got what you think you have got’. He turned to me on the seat so I jumped to my feet and took the gun out of my waistband and pointed it
towards him. He was still sitting down. He made as if to make a swipe and my gun went off. I don’t know if it hit him. He went forward on the seat and then back. He was groaning. I said ‘I think I had better get out of here’. He got up on his feet. I still had the gun in my hand and was trying to put my jacket on with the other hand. He tried to jump me. As he closed with me I pressed the trigger again. I had just about forgotten I had it in my hand. I fell onto the seat where the girls had been and he came down on top of me. I managed to stretch my hand up and threw the gun out of the ventilation window.

Yet it seems that McBain could not have been the possessor of a gun. His trouser pockets had large holes in them and a small pistol like the Browning would have fallen through them. Furthermore, a Mr Walker in Glasgow recalled being told there by McKay that he had a gun. McKay’s story was thus a pack of lies.

The case came before the Cumberland Assizes at Carlisle on 15 January 1963. McKay pleaded not guilty to murder. Many more details emerged about what happened that night and also about the principal participants. First, McBain, ‘Big Tom’ as he was known to his intimates, had been drinking at the Tavern Bar, Glasgow, prior to boarding the train. He had had the equivalent of seven pints or fourteen single whiskies. John McClure, the sleeping car attendant, saw McBain after the latter entered the train. He knew McBain and did not think he was drunk nor quarrelsome. However, this seems to have been incorrect, according to other witnesses. Perhaps McBain had a few more drinks on the train itself.