Local reporter Tony Bishop recalls how the whole Black Panther case unfolded.

THE nationwide murder hunt for the Black Panther, as Donald Neilson came to be known, was sparked off in Kidderminster with a chance word about the kidnap of heiress Lesley Whittle.

Freelance journalist Bill Williams, whose office in Coventry Street was next to Whittles Coaches, was given a tip by an employee curious about intense police acitivity at the Whittle home in Highley.

Bill, a reporter of many years’ experience, tried to check out the story with the police.

He was told “no comment” but as he already had most of the facts, he filed to local radio stations.

Horrified detectives, realising that the story was out, hastily called a press conference at Kidderminster police station.

Detective Superintendent Bob Booth, head of West Mercia CID, revealed the dramatic ransom tape and the fact that 17-year-old Lesley had been spirited away in the dead of night.

He hoped that the kidnapper would get in touch at a telephone kiosk in Kidderminster’s Swan Centre but when this location was also printed in the evening papers, it began a series of mistakes which dogged police until the eventual arrest of Neilson.

I myself, a veteran Worcestershire journalist who covered the case until the conviction of Neilson in 1976, recall the desperation in police tactics and occasional animosity with the press.

This followed a series of blunders, often from neighbouring forces, and in the end Commander John Morrison was called in from Scotland Yard to superintend the operation.

Neilson, by a quirk of fate, evaded all police investigations until he was finally caught by chance by two unformed officers outside a fish and chip shop in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire.

The trial at Oxford Crown Court was in the height of summer.

It was so hot that the judge started proceedings early in the morning, finished mid-afternoon and allowed barristers to appear without their traditional wigs and gowns.

There was a gasp as Neilson, an insignificant little man neatly-suited, made his appearance in the dock of the ancient courtroom.

He was to show little emotion during the six-week trial, which also encompassed the shooting of three postmasters.

Mr Justice Mars-Jones decreed that Neilson should spend life in a top security prison and never be released.

A school friend who became a prison officer once revealed how Neilson was under constant watch.

All staff were aware that the man who had eluded capture for many months had an irrepressible desire to break free.

For him, the life sentence became just that.