40th anniversary of the shocking murder of DC Jim Porter

And on March 4, 1982, he was again at the scene first, responding to a 999 call about an armed robbery at a Bishop Auckland factory.

DC Jim Porter and his wife, Eileen

He spotted two men running across fields at the rear of the wallpaper factory. When he intercepted them near the hamlet of Woodhouses, one of them climbed onto a stile and shot him at point blank range through the chest.

He was the last County Durham police officer to be killed in the line of duty and on Friday, the 40th anniversary of his death, the force will hold a memorial service.

The murder of DC Porter robbed his wife, Eileen, of her husband and their children, Brian, eight, and Tracey, five, of a father. It also profoundly affected several of his fellow officers who witnessed, and somehow survived, the shooting.

And it shocked, horrified and repulsed the North East.

“Things like this aren’t supposed to happen in a quiet little market town like Bishop Auckland,” Eileen told The Northern Echo.

Even though 40 years have elapsed, the crime is still truly shocking. The unarmed officer walked out of the door of his happy family home that fateful morning and never returned. Instead, he walked into the warped political fantasies of a pair of gunmen and, showing great composure and dedication to public safety, he confronted them.

But, as Mr Justice Mustill said during the trial of his killers, he “paid the highest price for his courage”.

The Charrington Phipps factory where the armed robbery took place on March 4, 1982

The murderer was Eddie Horner, 24. He had grown up on Tyneside but when his parents had split up, he moved with his mother to Woodhouses, where they tried to start a market garden. He worked at a nursery in Darlington and then got a job at Chamberlain Phipps, a vinyl wallpaper factory at Tindale Crescent, just a walk down Greenfields Road from Woodhouses.

Horner was a loner. He never drank, he never smoked and he never had a girlfriend. He liked books and chess – and guns. He joined Spennymoor Gun Club, got a gun licence, and in December 1980, he bought a Ruger .22 pistol from Windrow Sports in Bishop Auckland for £138. In May 1981, he returned and bought a second-hand Russian-made semi-automatic Vostok gun for £75, and on January 11, 1982, he went back once more to buy 10 rounds of ammunition.

By then, he had been radicalised. In September 1981, Chamberlain Phipps had introduced a new bonus scheme which meant a £10 pay cut for its workers. Forty of them walked out on strike and, on September 22, they were all instantly sacked. The manner of their dismissal meant they were unable to draw the dole, and in the politicised 1980s, a “mini-Grunwick” industrial dispute brewed on the picket line outside the factory.

Horner the murderer on the picket line - the sacked workers at Chamberlain Phipps called themselves "wallpaper warriors"

Horner was a stalwart of the picket, always singing John Lennon’s Working Class Hero. He volunteered to walk 288 miles to London – deliberately invoking the idea of the Jarrow March – to present a 3,500-name petition to the Labour leader, Michael Foot.

On October 29, 1981, Bishop Auckland MP Derek Foster pleaded with the Government to intervene in the dispute and get negotiations reopened. He told the House of Commons that Chamberlain Phipps “will reap a bitter harvest if they try to browbeat working people in this way. The situation will explode in their faces”.

With political tensions growing, the Socialist Workers Party bussed in flying pickets from Newcastle. Among them was Paul Standen, 21, an unkempt misfit with swastikas tattooed on his arms who had drifted north from his home in Sussex. He struck up a friendship with Horner, and they began to feed each others’ political fantasies about creating a “Workers’ Army” which would bring down the state. At a Militant tendency meeting in the Two Blues Hotel in Bishop, Horner shouted about the need to arm the workers.

Also on the picket line was 53-year-old former paratrooper Tommy Bright, of Oakley Green, West Auckland. He was a lovely fellow, very generous – known as “Teabag Tommy” as he always handed out cuppas – but barely literate and very emotional. He took his dismissal from the factory badly, and allowed Horner and Standen to meet in his home to hatch their plans.

Neither of them could drive, so he became their getaway man.

An Echo graphic from 1983 showing how the murder of DC Jim Porter unfolded

On March 4, 1982, this unhinged trio seems to have arrived at the factory around 9am, waiting for the security lorry to deliver the week’s wages. It was late, and it wasn’t until after 2pm that they saw it leave. Then they launched their attack.

Wearing balaclavas and toting the two guns, Horner and Standen burst into the factory, firing “frighteners” into the walls and ceilings, while Bright drove round to Greenfields Road to wait for them.

Staff immediately dialled 999, and manageress Margaret Gibson and cashier Joyce Wilkinson locked themselves in an office. Standen used the butt of his gun to smash his way in and grab the wages bag containing £4,789. Horner then began targeting people, one bullet narrowly missing accountant Bill Crosby. Assistant manager Colin Bellis gave chase as the gunmen fled from the building, and Horner shot at him twice.

Bishop Auckland police were swiftly on the scene, searching for the fugitives. A policewoman spotted Bright beside his van in Greenfields Road with a spanner in his hand. “My clutch is broke,” he said when asked if he’d seen two men running by. Spooked, as soon as she’d left, Bright got into his van and drove home to walk his dogs.

This left Horner and Standen with no getaway vehicle, and they were in a field that was quickly becoming surrounded by police. They headed north towards Horner’s home in Woodhouses – and DC Jim Porter spotted them go.

DC Jim Porter when a police cadet aged 15

Jim – also known as “the Big Feller” partly because of his size and partly because his motorcycle patrol partner DC Jim Muter had been noticeably smaller – was the son of a South Shields bus driver. From the age of eight, he had wanted to join the police. He’d become a cadet at the age of 15 and had joined the Durham force in 1969 when it merged with South Shields. He was happiest, said his colleagues, on motor duty where he seemed to have a nose for crime. The police radio would broadcast details of a stolen car and he’d look up and spot it going past.

DC Jim Porter in his police uniform when aged 19

“Lucky Jim” had won four commendations from the Chief Constable for good police work, had joined CID in February 1981 and was tipped for promotion. He’d worked in Bishop Auckland for a year and had become well known, not least for his smart Saab car with the registration JPT 113N – the first three letters were said to stand for “Jimmy Porter’s Toy”.

Eileen told the Echo: “I once asked him why he wanted to be a policeman and he said: ‘Because I like people’.” They’d met at a Boys’ Brigade dance in South Shields when they were 15 and had married at 20, setting up home in Meadowfield, near Durham City.

“There was something about him – a coolness and a calm that made people go out to him,” she said. “I know that is how he would have approached the gunman, in the same way, just calm and sensible.”

As he and his partner, DC Bill Simpson, got out of their unmarked CID Metro car on the roadside near Woodhouses, DC Porter shouted at the two men running across the field. He approached them and Horner climbed a stile and shot him through the chest.

The stile which Horner stood on to shoot DC Jim Porter, with the wallpaper factory in the background

Horner then fired at DC Simpson, who fell to the ground and writhed as if in agony.

His playacting worked. Horner and Standen turned their attention to the unattended police Metro. As they started running towards it, dog handler PC Jim Mulgrew neared the scene in his dog van. Horner aimed the pistol directly at him.

“I hadn’t realised it was a proper revolver,” said the policeman later. “I thought it was an air pistol, I realised it was a far more serious situation, hit the accelerator and got out.” Just in time: a bullet slammed into the rear of his van as he sped away.

DC Brian Stewart, left, and DC Bill Simpson

At that moment, DC Brian Stewart, 31, a scientific aids officer from Bishop Auckland, arrived at the scene in an unmarked Fiesta van. He saw PC Mulgrew trying to wave him away – but ignored him. He kept edging forward until he saw coming towards him the CID Metro.

“I immediately recognised that the persons inside weren’t police officers,” he later told a court. “I knew this vehicle and the persons who should have been driving.

“I moved towards the centre of the road to try and stop it. I decided to ram it.”

Brian Stewart's Fiesta van rammed the CID Metro which had been commandeered by the gunmen, bringing the incident to an end

The force of the collision pushed his van backwards into a gate. Bleeding, he jumped out and dashed towards the rammed car.

“The driver, Standen, was holding a pistol pointing towards the back of the car,” he said. “He could not have fired.

“I opened the door and seized the gun.

“There was another silver coloured revolver on the floor on the passenger side. The passenger, Horner, was slumped down into his seat. I picked up this pistol and put it on the roof of the car.”

He pulled Horner on top of Standen “and more or less stood on them to keep them both down so they couldn’t move”. From under the policeman’s foot, Standen shouted: “Up the revolution!”

Miraculously, he had disarmed and subdued the gunmen without firing a shot. Standen grudgingly admitted that he was “a brave b-------“.

Police combing Greenfields Road looking for bullet cases and other evidence. At the top of the picture is the CID Metro car which Horner and Standen tried to make off in

Police investigating Horner's home at Woodhouses at the top of Greenfields Road

DC Jim Porter's funeral was on March 11, 1982, at St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church in Meadowfield. More than 600 people attended

Officers who were on duty that day alongside DC Porter carried his coffin at his funeral

In custody, Standen continued his anarchic stance, telling the interviewing officers: “You have killed and beaten up enough b------s in your time. It makes a change. It’s a bad break but I can’t have any sympathy. It was his job. Anyone is expendable.”

From his cell in Durham jail, Horner wrote a series of deluded letters, claiming to be a political prisoner and outlining a violent vision of a workers’ war.

All three raiders were charged with murder. The case came to court in February 1983 after psychiatrists said they were fit to face trial.

Murderer Eddie Horner

Prosecutor David Saville said: “It is remarkable even for the day and age in which we live. This is the story of how two violent and ruthless men went out quite deliberately to settle what they appeared to regard as their score with a society they hated and the factory employers, terrorising the staff in that factory and then finally gunning down an unarmed police officer without hesitation or mercy.

“It is one thing, you will probably agree, to have extreme political views and to take part in industrial action. It is quite another to kill in furtherance of these views and to declare industrial war by killing and robbery.”

Horner continued his bravado, shouting out: “I am guilty as f*** and I am proud of it, and I am guilty to all the other charges, so don’t read them out.”

But Standen pleaded not guilty. He claimed that after the shooting in the factory, in which no one had been hurt, he had put his weapon away, and had himself been scared of being shot when Horner turned on the policeman. Instead, he was found him guilty of manslaughter, and was sentenced to 12 years (he served seven and ended up in a monastery down south).

Bright was found guilty of aiding and abetting the robbery, for which he received five years in prison. Horner, the murderer, was jailed for life with the judge recommending a minimum of 20 years.

“The verdict is not going to make any difference to the future,” Eileen told the Echo. “Jim isn’t here at the end of it.”

She was left with her memories. “There’s love and pride, obviously,” she said. “We had some very happy times together. The bairns loved the way he would play with them for hours. He was such a happy person.”

Immediately after the trial, Durham Police issued a tribute to their fallen officer. They said: “He was well liked because of his friendliness and his humorous and good natured approach in all matters. Because of his jovial attitude, one was always aware of his presence.

“He is sadly missed by his fellow officers who hope that if ever called upon to do so, they will uphold the traditions of the Durham Constabulary in the way that Jim Porter did.”

Eileen Porter with her husband's posthumous bravery award in May 1984

TWO years later, Jim Porter was posthumously awarded the Queen’s Commendation for Brave Conduct. His colleagues, DC Simpson and DC Stewart were given the same award.

In May 1985, Eileen and their children, Brian and Tracey, unveiled a memorial plaque in the Bishop Auckland police station from which DC Porter set out that day.

Durham County Chief Constable Eldred Boothby said: “For generations to come police officers will come into this foyer and see a reminder to one of their number to whom great honour and great tribute has been paid.”

Eileen Porter with children Brian and Tracey in May 1985 when a memorial plaque to DC Jim Porter was unveiled at Bishop Auckland police station