Police cordon - Dale Cregan murders, 2011
MURDER
MOST LOCAL
Incredibly and often overlooked, three of Britain’s most notorious crimes were committed within a small geographical area of East Manchester: The Moors Murders, Myra Hindley and Ian Brady’s abduction, torture and murder of five children in the mid 1960s, Dr Harold Shipman’s murder of an estimated 250 of his mainly elderly patients (although he was only convicted of 15) and Dale Cregan’s slaughter of two policewomen in a gun and grenade ambush in 2012.
Hindley, Brady, Cregan & Shipman
The last sixteen years of my career as a press photographer working for Guardian media titles, was centred around East of Manchester. In this era, these three infamous news stories fell right in to my lap.
The Moors Murders
(return to the moors)
In the late 1980s, Greater Manchester Police returned to the moors to continue the search for the bodies of Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett, who remained missing after the initial search in the mid 60s. Hindley and Brady were brought back to Saddleworth Moor to help police identify potential locations. The body of Pauline Reade was discovered, but Keith Bennett still remains missing.
My fellow photographers based on the Oldham newspaper, would make regular sorties on to the moor to photograph the police search and excavation . I was brought in to assist with the story, helping to keep a presence on the bleak unforgiving moor, just in case a discovery was made. The police pushed the press further and further back as the search continued, long lenses were the only solution.
Opening of Shipman’s Hyde surgery (1992)
The Exhumation of Kath Grundy (1998)
Murder scene – Abbey Gardens, Hattersley (2012)
I took voluntary redundancy from MENmedia in 2009 to begin my second career in teaching, but three years later, the third and final crime in the East Manchester murder triangle took place. The brutal gun and grenade ambush of two female police officers by gangland villain Dale Cregan – a crime that shocked the nation. Cregan had been on the run after the gangland murders of father and son David and Mark Short and was holding up in an empty house in the small village of Mottram. He planned to kill police officers as his last defiant act before his inevitable capture. Cregan dialed 999 and reported a break in at the address and waited. Unfortunately WPCs Fiona Bone and Nicola Hughes responded to the call and were ritually slaughtered.
Hearing the news of the attack, on what was my old news patch, l couldn’t resist turning out to ‘get the picture’. It took local knowledge, trespass and a long lens to nail the shot of the lone copper guarding the crime scene. A second visit luckily coincided with the victim’s police colleagues visiting the scene for the first time. These images were used nationally.
Fellow police officers visit the scene
Whenever a big Manchester news story breaks. I twitch and reach for my camera bag – before my wife reminds me “You don’t have to do this anymore”
Old habits, die hard!
Murder Triangle - Longdendale in Hyde
Brady and Hindley were both brought independently back to the moors to try to identify potential dig sights. When Brady was flown on to the moors by helicopter, the police imposed a lock-down on all press movement, so the resourceful snappers had to resort to cat and mouse games, famously yomping several miles to a ridge overlooking the landing site to get the shot of Brady and police surveying the landscape for potential dig sites.
This was a particularly harrowing time for the families of all the victims. I photographed Sheila Kilbride, mother of victim John Kilbride and Winnie Johnson mother of Keith Bennett several times. These were unforgettable experiences. These ordinary Mancunian women, managed to speak with such dignity.
Dr Harold Shipman
A decade later Dr Harold Shipman a respected GP based in Hyde hit the headlines as Britain’s most prolific serial killer. It was a local funeral director who alerted the police after noticing a spike in the number of funerals in the Hyde area. Subsequent police investigations started to reveal the extent of Harold Shipman’s crimes.
During the 1990s, I photographed Shipman several times in his capacity as a campaigning health professional. A widely respected and popular doctor, many of Shipman’s patients refused to believe he was capable of murder, but as the case unfolded it became apparent the number of victims could be in the hundreds. Shipman’s preferred method of murder was a lethal injection of morphine, administered to the majority of his victims in their own homes.
A decade later Dr Harold Shipman a respected GP based in Hyde hit the headlines as Britain’s most prolific serial killer. It was a local funeral director who alerted the police after noticing a spike in the number of funerals in the Hyde area. Subsequent police investigations started to reveal the extent of Harold Shipman’s crimes. During the 1990s, I photographed Shipman several times in his capacity as a campaigning health professional. A widely respected and popular doctor, many of Shipman’s patients refused to believe he was capable of murder, but as the case unfolded it became apparent the number of victims could be in the hundreds. Shipman’s preferred method of murder was a lethal injection of morphine, administered to the majority of his victims in their own homes.
In order to prove cause of death the coroner granted the police the power to exhume the bodies of those alleged victims who had been buried. On a cold autumn night in 1998, police began the exhumation of Kath Grundy. I was assigned the gruesome job of snatching a photo. I avoided the police cordon by sneaking through the garden of a house backing on to Hyde Cemetery and then hiding behind bushes in the darkness close to the exhumation. I waited and eventually grabbed a photo of the officers digging under arc light – a surreal and unsettling experience, but pride in a job well done. Such an experience is without doubt dehumanising – but goes with the territory.
Dale Cregan
I took voluntary redundancy from MENmedia in 2009 to begin my second career in teaching, but three years later, the third and final crime in the East Manchester murder triangle took place. The brutal gun and grenade ambush of two female police officers by gangland villain Dale Cregan – a crime that shocked the nation . Cregan had been on the run after the gangland murders of father and son David and Mark Short and was holding up in an empty house in the small village of Mottram. He planned to kill police officers as his last defiant act before his inevitable capture. Cregan dialed 999 and reported a break in at the address and waited. Unfortunately WPCs Fiona Bone and Nicola Hughes responded to the call and were ritually slaughtered.