Hitmen (11 page)

But Florence was determined to get what she wanted. Next day she phoned hardman Gerry Smithers and told him that her husband was in the aviation business and could get hold of a private plane and fly him and their daughter out of the country at a moment’s notice. ‘Oh, Gerry, you’ve got to do something for me. Even if you can’t do it, you must know someone who could help.’

So when Gerry Smithers read that Florence’s husband had been stabbed dead in an alley behind their house that icy January morning, he felt compelled to visit his local police station. Detective Superintendent Younger later explained: ‘He was prepared to put pen to paper.’ It was the turning point in the case. Smithers’ statement was enough for
detectives to get a warrant for the arrest of Florence, who was then charged with soliciting murder.

Then arcade owner Rudy Drummond came forward and told officers he’d slung Florence out of his premises after she kept talking about her husband’s cruelty and how she’d one day kill her husband. Drummond never forgot the phrase she used: ‘I’d take a knife and push it in.’

Detectives then located more than 20 men who’d paid for sex with Florence. This wasn’t a crime in itself, but investigators wanted to know if she’d ever asked any of these men to arrange a hit on her husband.

Police then interviewed a man called John Cheetham, who was chairman of the the Citizens’ Police Consultative Committee and knew Florence through her work for Croydon Council. Flamboyant Cheetham – who favoured bow-ties and rimless specs, and had vast protruding Bugs Bunny teeth – saw himself as a prominent do-gooder in the community. He was a paid official of Church Action with the Unemployed and chairman of a Croydon voluntary group. He described Florence as a charming, bright woman who was very good at her work – which seemed to contradict everything else the police had heard.

So for the moment, detectives had failed to find out who Florence had paid to kill her husband.

Then four months later – just before Florence’s committal hearing – Cheetham contacted detectives and said he’d been ‘less than frank’ about his connection to Florence. Cheetham, 47 and single, admitted using hookers from time to time and even boasting to them about his police connections as well as
knowing SAS people trained to kill. So one prostitute friend of his, called Jacky Bartlett, took it upon herself to take Florence with her when she went to Cheetham’s home in December 1991.

Within minutes Florence poured out all her most outrageous lies about ‘abusive’ husband Sam and his plans to steal their daughter. Florence ended the conversation by saying to Cheetham, ‘I’d be willing to pay £500 to have somebody do away with him.’

Cheetham was rather taken aback and pointed out, ‘It’s not as easy as that. Why don’t you think of some other option like divorce?’

‘Are you kidding?’ responded Florence. ‘He’s so clever, he’s bound to find some way to get custody of our daughter.’

‘If I can think of someone I’ll let you know,’ said Cheetham, who later told police that the two met again a few weeks afterwards, but he still wasn’t able to find her a hitman.

So by the time Florence Samarasinha appeared in the dock of the Old Bailey in December 1993, police still had no idea who’d killed her husband for her. For important legal reasons Florence was charged with murder as well as soliciting murder. For without a murder charge, information about the actual murder would have been kept out of the trial so it didn’t prejudice any future trial. That might have helped Florence escape justice. Now with the murder charge the jury could hear the full sordid details behind Florence’s many attempts to recruit a hitman.

Florence, now 41, looked distraught and stressed as witness after witness took the Old Bailey stand and revealed their role in the case. The court was even shown the videotape of
private eye Yousef Ghida hiring Florence as a hooker. Client John Cheetham was given a rough ride by the prosecution after admitting he’d been ‘economical with the truth’ during his first interview with the police. He explained to the court, ‘My concern was that my involvement with prostitutes for paid sex would become public.’

Outspoken defence counsel Michael Mansfield then emphasised to the court Cheetham’s sexual peccadilloes. Cheetham eventually lost his cool and snapped back, ‘Your questioning this afternoon seems to have focused more on my involvement with prostitutes than the murder of Mr Samarasinha.’

Club bouncer Gerry Smithers flew back from his new home in Texas to testify at the Old Bailey. He admitted making ‘a few suggestions’ to Florence. These included faking her husband’s death as a suicide or leaving drugs beside his body to suggest an underworld killing. Smithers even alleged to the court that one supposed hitman had been paid to kill Sam and then disappeared without carrying out the job. The police were never able to find out any further evidence of this.

Naturally when Florence took the stand, she insisted that every witness had lied. Then she was asked why Smithers went to the police about her.

‘I don’t know why he did it,’ she responded. ‘But he’s lying. It’s not me who’s lying.’

Florence also branded arcade owner Rudy Drummond a liar. ‘I never said that the best thing I could do was to stick a knife in him. That’s a lie.’

She even denied working as a prostitute, insisting she was
doing undercover work to expose housing fraud as part of her job with Croydon Council. But surely she’d tell her colleagues about such a sensitive aspect of her work? ‘I did not tell anyone I was behaving as a masseuse or taking my clothes off,’ she replied. ‘But I told them I was handling an investigation and it was very dangerous.’

Florence also claimed that she’d put down all those false qualifications on her application form for the Croydon job ‘because I didn’t really want the job’. She insisted she’d made sure she was the last person interviewed so she wouldn’t get the job.

But despite all the counterclaims and lies there was precious little substantial evidence linking Florence to the actual hit on her husband. Even the couple’s bank records showed no evidence of a large withdrawal of cash. Detective Younger told the court: ‘We were looking for a large sum of money being paid out. But no matter how much we trawled we didn’t find it. We can only figure she had a large amount of cash.’

So the police were extremely relieved when the Old Bailey jury found Florence guilty of soliciting her husband’s murder by a majority 10–2 verdict. Then followed an 11–1 majority on the murder charge which was even more unexpected. Florence let out an emphatic ‘No’ from the dock after the verdicts were announced. Mr Justice Phillips sentenced Florence to life imprisonment after telling the court the killing was ‘not committed in the heat of the moment, but was deliberately planned and carried out in cold blood.’ Florence insisted she would mount an appeal against the jury’s verdict. She had the incentive of a
£190,000 life insurance payout if she could overturn the Old Bailey decision.

But ultimately, more than anything else, Florence Samarasinha’s unsubtle efforts to get her husband killed helped to convict her. As DS Younger pointed out after the case, ‘She might as well have gone around with a loud hailer asking if anyone was willing to murder her husband.’

Florence went off to prison still insisting she was an innocent victim. And her daughter Michelle also believes it to this day. As DS Younger explained: ‘She lost one parent; she didn’t want to lose two.’ Michelle was placed with some of Florence’s friends following her mother’s arrest and refused to accept that one parent had murdered the other. Michelle even believed the police were the real villains. ‘Some day I hope she discovers the truth,’ Younger later explained.

Now with her mother incarcerated, Michelle is left with little else but the memories of when they were together as a family. She’d certainly never forget her father’s last day on this planet. How he’d reminded her not to forget her homework. How the front door slammed behind him as he went out to get the car to take her to school. How her mother sat in the kitchen with a distant, glazed expression on her face drinking a cup of coffee and trying to read the newspaper. Michelle knew their marriage had been falling apart but why did he have to die?

N
oeleen Hendley’s affair with the handsome father of her daughter-in-law inevitably ended up involving a number of useful accomplices. Eventually, she even told her own
22-year
-old daughter Michelle who, rather conveniently, happened to be moving down to London to live. That gave Noeleen the perfect excuse for even more clandestine meetings with her skilful widowed lover. ‘Just off to London to stay with Michelle for the weekend,’ she told husband Tony in the second week of September 1991. ‘You don’t mind do you, love? Bit of shopping and a good natter. Just the two of us.’

Terry nodded his head and waved goodbye to his loving wife on the doorstep of their modest home on the outskirts of Derby as Noeleen took off in a taxi for the station. Noeleen didn’t bother catching a train because lover Terry McIntosh was waiting in the station car park with his camper van.
Within an hour they were heading into the Welsh mountains and a picturesque bed and breakfast break where the couple signed themselves in, naturally, as Mr and Mrs McIntosh. That afternoon they walked hand in hand through the hills, stopped by the side of fresh water streams and even made passionate love under an oak tree. Noeleen and Terry never wanted their love for each other to end. But was it possible to be together forever?

‘There is a way we could make it permanent,’ said Terry, as the couple sat at the edge of a noisy stream.

‘Don’t be daft. There’s no future in this,’ Noeleen snapped back.

‘But if Tony wasn’t around…’

‘What do you mean? Not around? He’s here.’

‘What if something were to happen to him?’

‘What are you on about?’

‘You know. Something…’

‘Do you mean if he was struck by lightning or something?’ She paused. ‘That’s not going to happen, Terry.’

‘But I know a bloke who…’

Noeleen stopped dead in her tracks as they sat by the side of the stream and looked right into Terry’s eyes.

‘What bloke?’

‘A bloke who’d do anything for the right amount of cash.’

‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’ she asked intently.

Terry nodded.

‘How much cash?’ she asked, carefully.

Tony was surprised Noeleen hadn’t laughed in his face.

‘Couple of grand, I suppose.’

Just then a broad smile came to Noeleen’s face. ‘Come off
it, Terry,’ she grabbed his hand like a lovesick teenager. ‘Come on, race you back to the van.’

But Noeleen had a feeling that Terry was deadly serious and she wanted time to think over his proposition. Over the following few days, she kept waking up in the middle of the night thinking about what life might be like without Tony. Having Terry making warm, passionate love to her seemed so much better a proposition than her current, dull life in the suburbs. Maybe Terry’s ‘idea’ wasn’t so crazy after all.

Not long afterwards, Noeleen and Terry met up for yet another secret rendezvous near both their homes in Derby and it quickly became obvious Terry had also been giving the matter a lot of thought.

Terry even named the man ‘who’d do it for the cash’: Paul Buxton. ‘I’ve known him since we were nippers,’ said Terry. ‘He owes me five hundred quid does Paul. We’d have to pay him another thousand quid up front. But it’s not that much, is it?’

Less than an hour later, Noeleen found herself withdrawing two lots of £250 from two of her building society accounts. What the bloody hell am I doing, she asked herself. But all she could think about was Terry and making passionate love to him for ever and ever.

By the time she handed over the cash to her secret lover, she was shaking like a leaf. However, she did inform him it was all in a plastic bag ‘so there’ll be no fingerprints’. She can’t have been that scared.

Noeleen and Terry then had sex at Terry’s place. Noeleen
felt more sexually excited than ever before, knowing that soon he’d have her all to himself.

A few minutes later, Terry got up from the bed to wash himself and he called out to Noeleen: ‘I’ve been thinking about when’s the best time to do it.’

Noeleen was admiring herself in the mirror. I haven’t got a bad figure for a 46-year-old mum of three, she thought to herself. ‘What d’you mean, love?’ she asked.

Terry was drying himself with a towel as he walked back into the bedroom. ‘You see, I got this plan, like. You know the UCI cinema, don’t you?’

‘Yeah. Course I do.’

‘Well, when you come out of there you have to walk over a piece of waste ground to get back to your place, right?’

Noeleen nodded slowly, not quite sure where all this was leading.

‘Well, that’s when my man pounces. Bang. Bang. Think about it for a minute, love. This is important.’

Noeleen didn’t really want to consider the cold, hard reality of the situation but she eventually agreed. ‘Right, I see what you mean.’

Terry continued. ‘If you can let me know when you and Tony are going to the pictures, say next Saturday, I can have Paul waiting there. You just give him your bag and jewellery, like it’s a robbery. Then he just bashes Tony over the head. It’s all over in a flash.’

Noeleen flashed a picture of the attack up in her mind. It was scary, but it forced her to think about a few important issues. ‘But how will he know it’s us?’ she asked.

‘Good point. I hadn’t thought of that.’

‘I know, I’ll wear my white trousers and top. I’ll be all in white. Then he can’t get it wrong. We’ll talk about all this later,’ added Noeleen, as she looked at the time and realised she needed to get home to make husband Tony his tea.

The following day, Paul Buxton was handed £1,000 in cash as he sat in Terry’s red Ford Fiesta in the car park of the Three Horseshoes pub in Morley, near Derby. Buxton stuffed it in his pocket nervously. He’d never done anything like this before in his life and was so worried he’d recruited another mate to help prevent anything going wrong.

A few minutes later, Buxton told his friend: ‘I’ll sub you £450 now with more to come when the job’s completed.’ His friend was more than happy with his share.

But the next day when Buxton went to pick up his so-called accomplice, the man lost his nerve. ‘Are you fuckin’ crazy? Kill some bloke for a few hundred quid. No fuckin’ way.’

‘But what about the money I gave you?’ pleaded Buxton.

‘Hard fuckin’ luck, mate. You owed me it anyway.’

Later that night, Noeleen and her husband Tony walked out of the cinema and across the wasteland in complete safety. Plan number one had gone completely out the window.

The next murderous scheme involved Terry taking his old mate Tony out for a drink at the Leather and Lace pub. First he’d drive him into the nearby Cock Pitt island car park. While he was out getting a parking ticket from the machine, Terry’s mate Paul Buxton would appear out of nowhere and bash Tony over the head. Terry would then intervene and Buxton would run over Terry’s legs while making his escape –
just to convince the cops he was not involved. But that plan bit the dust when kind-hearted Buxton announced he couldn’t run over his good friend.

‘You’re my mate. I can’t do it.’

‘Get outta here!’

Plan two had been aborted before take-off.

So it was back to plan A – the cinema heist – with one big difference. This time, Terry was to be his friend Paul Buxton’s accomplice.

On Saturday, 18 October 1991, Terry parked up his Fiesta at the Garden City pub. Then he and Buxton walked half a mile to the UCI cinema and waited nervously for the crowds to come out. ‘Here they come,’ said Terry, pulling down a green balaclava helmet that, by pure chance, had been knitted for him by Noeleen, who was now walking arm-in-arm with the man she wanted dead.

But unfortunately the couple were walking in the opposite direction to the plan. The two would-be killers did a quick shuffle and headed off to intersect them. Paul Buxton gripped hard on the piece of armoured cable hidden beneath his coat.

‘Good girl,’ muttered Terry under his breath as Noeleen followed her earlier instructions and dropped Tony’s arm so as to make the attack on him easier to carry out. Just as Paul Buxton stepped forward out of the darkness another man appeared nearby. The murderous moment had once again passed. Yet another mission was aborted.

Naturally, more plans were then discussed including running Tony over in the car park of the Moon pub in nearby
Spondon. But that was abandoned because the lighting was too bright and they might have been spotted by other customers. The next proposal was for Paul Buxton to let himself into the Hendley house one evening while Noeleen was accompanied by Tony to her slimming club. Buxton would then fuse the lights. On arriving home, Noeleen would tell Tony there was a torch under the sink and as he bent down Buxton would use an iron bar to hit over the head in the darkness.

But on 23 October – the night before it was supposed to happen – the phone rang and Tony answered it.

‘It’s for you, love,’ he said, handing the receiver to Noeleen. ‘It’s someone from the slimming club.’

But in fact it was Paul Buxton.

‘It’s all off,’ he told Noeleen.

‘Thanks for letting me know, love,’ she said, all cheery and bright as her husband listened nearby. ‘See you soon.’

Noeleen was incensed and Terry was so angry with Buxton for backing out that he made Buxton meet Noeleen and him at her home once Tony and her daughter had gone to work. It was the first and only time Buxton actually met Noeleen face to face. ‘I want him gone, now,’ she hissed at her lover Terry, who said they should give the would-be hitman one final chance.

So yet another plan was set for the following Friday – 25 October. This time Noeleen would let Buxton in through the patio doors while Tony was away attending a colleague’s retirement party. Once again, Buxton would tamper with the fuses and then wait with an iron bar for Tony to return. But
then Tony went and caught the flu and never left the house for the rest of that week. This was getting beyond a joke.

But determined Noeleen decided the plan should still go ahead. When the lights went out she would send Tony down from his sickbed to repair the fuse and Paul Buxton would be waiting for him. But just as Buxton was about to slip through the open patio doors at about 10pm, the family cat jumped onto his shoulders, scaring the wits out of him so badly that he ran off in a fright.

The plan to kill Tony Hendley had long since turned into a farce. So-called hardman Paul Buxton was such a drip he was scared of cats. Yet despite the warning signs, this murderous trio agreed on one last attempt to kill Tony Hendley and, amazingly, it would come within a whisker of working.

On Friday, 1 November, Noeleen and her accomplices carried out an elaborate plan. It all started that afternoon when Terry drove Noeleen and Tony over to see a house in nearby Oakwood that her son Shane and Terry’s daughter Kay were planning to buy together. It seemed perfectly natural that the three parents would go together. Tony even considered Terry to be more his friend than Noeleen’s. After all, Terry had helped him lay paving stones in their garden as well as put up a pagoda. Tony felt sorry for Terry since he hadn’t got a wife to go home to.

So while the unsuspecting Tony took a look at the back garden of the house being viewed with Shane and Kay, Terry whispered into Noeleen’s ear: ‘It’s on for tonight. Definite.’

Noeleen rolled her eyes as if to say she’d heard it all many times before. But Terry was deadly serious.

Less than an hour later, Terry dropped Tony and Noeleen off at their home in Coniston Crescent and headed in his car for Loscoe where he gave Paul Buxton a stern lecture.

By the time Terry got home early that evening, his daughter Kay pointed out he’d missed his tea and was running late for a meeting he and Shane had arranged with Tony at the Rocket pub.

‘Never mind, love. We’ll pick up some fish ’n’ chips on the way,’ replied Terry, who definitely had a lot on his mind.

A few minutes later he bought some food from a local chippie then announced to Shane he’d forgotten to put vinegar on his chips. Instead of returning to the shop, he conveniently popped into Tony and Noeleen’s for some vinegar.

Inside the house, Terry told Noeleen: ‘It’s on. Paul will phone you when he’s on his way. Will you be alright?’

Noeleen nodded. ‘Course I will. Here, you’d better take a tray to eat those fish and chips or you’ll get grease all down the front of you.’

A few minutes later, Shane went into the Rocket pub to get his dad and then dropped the two men off at their favourite watering hole, the Moon. Tony noticed that Terry kept filling his glass up with drink but he put it down to his friend’s generosity at the time.

Back at Coniston Crescent, Noeleen had settled in for the evening in her silk pyjamas with a cardigan around her shoulders. Then daughter Dawn came down dressed up for an evening out.

‘I’ll be home about three or four, Mum, all right?’

‘You got a key?’

‘Right here.’

‘Bye love, have a good time.’

As the door closed behind Dawn, Noeleen checked her handbag to make sure the money was safe. She’d already counted it at least five times: £1,465. This time, she’d got Tony to take it out of the building society after telling him she wanted to buy some British Telecom shares. If things went according to plan there would be another £3,000 for Paul Buxton after Terry sold his house and moved in with Noeleen. Or maybe they’d buy themselves a brand new house well away from Derby. It all sounded so exciting that it helped Noeleen forget about the chilling reality of what was about to occur.

At 10:20pm she nearly jumped out of her skin when the phone rang. ‘I’m on my way,’ Paul Buxton told her. She parted the curtains slightly as the pre-arranged signal that the coast was clear.

A few minutes later, after putting on her dressing gown, she spotted Buxton walking up the path and hurried to the back to unlock the patio door for him. He looked pale and nervous. Earlier that day, Buxton had even approached a friend and asked him: ‘How would you like to waste a bloke in Derby? There’s a thousand quid in it for you.’ The friend had turned him down flat.