The Wrong Man: The Shooting of Steven Waldorf and The Hunt for David Martin by Dick Kirby Page A

Detective Sergeant Tom Martin, Detective Constables Jim Francis and Fred Arnold and also Police Constable Peter Van-Dee.
    Martin, who was struggling furiously, suddenly dropped the black Smith & Wesson .38 Chief Special revolver (which was loaded with five bullets and had been fitted with the Pachmayer grips, purchased earlier that day) and appeared to surrender. Instinctively, Finch relaxed his grip; it was the moment Martin was waiting for. He produced a second firearm, a silver Star 9mm self-loading pistol, loaded with fifteen rounds, with one in the chamber, ready to be fired, from his waistband and pointed it at the detective. PC Lucas shouted, ‘He’s got a gun!’ and PC Van-Dee, having no doubt that he was about to witness a colleague being murdered, shouted ‘Freeze, armed police!’
    ‘Pete [Van-Dee] later told me that, convinced Martin was going to shoot, he drew his service revolver, placed the barrel against Martin’s head, looked aside and pulled the trigger,’ Steve Fletcher told me. ‘He told me, everything froze for a split second. He looked back, expecting to see ‘‘strawberry jam’’ (Pete’s words) where Martin’s head had been. Not so. He resumed his struggle, slightly less ferociously than before as his collar bone was broken. It transpired that the bullet that Pete fired pierced Martin’s scalp, then travelled down between skin and bone, down to his shoulder, fracturing the collar bone.’
    Both Martin and Finch crashed to the floor, with Finch on top, but still Martin continued to kick out and at the same time, with his right hand, tried to grab one of the two handguns. Finch, by now almost exhausted, drew his gun and hit Martin in the face with it. DS Martin, who had also drawn his revolver, ran up and swept the two handguns away. Apparently, Finch was initially annoyed at Van-Dee for firing his revolver, thinking that he too could have been shot, but in the circumstances there was little else that the officer could have done. As Finch told me, ‘Peter [Van-Dee] told me afterwards that the end of the barrel was close to my head and that’s why he fired his gun.’
    In spite of being shot, Martin continued to fight ferociously, even after being handcuffed, telling the officers, ‘I could have killed the lot of you, I could have had you all! Why don’t you just finish me off?’ And then, as Fred Arnold recalled, he looked the officers in the eyes and said, very calmly, ‘You cunts can’t do anything right. Come on, give me another one.’
    Other officers who had been in nearby Macready House, a police section house, rushed to the incident, including the then Police Constable 532 ‘D’ Martin Power, attached to the crime squad. As a crew member of ‘Q’ Car, ‘Delta One-one’, he had been one of the first on the scene when PC Carr had been shot. The sight that confronted him now was that of David Martin, with blood pouring from him, with officers trying to restrain him. ‘My DS appeared and told me to get a first-aid kit,’ recalled Power. ‘I ran down as the area car, ‘Delta-one’ turned up and grabbed the kit; when I got the kit up to Martin, the DS tied his legs together with a bandage!’ Martin’s legs needed restraining; he had kicked DC Arnold in the face and chest, causing him to fall awkwardly, resulting in injuries to his back, rear ribs, spine and shoulder which later required surgery.
    A resident on the same floor offered Finch a large scotch; ‘Greatly appreciated!’ he told me and a couple emerged from a nearby flat and offered the use of their telephone; an ambulance was called and DC Jim Francis telephoned Inspector John Devine, Marylebone’s duty officer, who arrived and saw Peter Finch. ‘I could see he was covered in blood spatters and not really ‘‘with it’’,’ recalled Devine and arranged for Finch to be taken back to the police station. Finch had acted commendably. In justifiably hitting Martin in the face with his revolver, he made no