His wife and children were unhurt. ", PC Roger Brereton's funeral was held near Newbury. It was on August 19 1987 that loner and gun fanatic Michael Ryan went on a shooting rampage in Hungerford, a market town in Berkshire. Large crowds attended the funerals of Ryan's victims, Trevor Jackson had first heard of the shootings when a colleague asked: "What's happened to your parents?". "It was a massacre," she says. Dorothy then saw her son with a gun in his hand and called to him, saying, Stop Michael. The other three ducked down on the floor but Ryan fired at Lisa. A few moths before the massacre, Ryan joined the Tunnel Rifle and Pistol Club, in Wiltshire. On 8 October 1987, a memorial and rededication service was held for the town of Hungerford. Inside, PC Roger Brereton, a traffic officer who had volunteered to investigate, was slumped against the steering wheel, clearly dead. After some time, young Hannah unbuckled their seatbelts, so they could go in search of their mother. It was his gun cupboard. Jackson played dead and survived the shooting.He heard what happened next, as Dorothy Ryan, returning home from some shopping, arrived at the scene in her car. Ryans next victim was Francis Butler, a 26-year-old accounts clerk, out walking his dog in the Hungerford Memorial Gardens. Because Ryan burned down his home, any evidence of planning was destroyed. He put some petrol in his car and some in a canister. 9 - Marcus Barnard He can barely speak about his friend, George White. Yet another vehicle drove into the area and once again, Ryan shot at it, hitting the driver, shattering his jaw, bursting his tongue and missing his spinal cord by two millimetres. Without replying, Ryan shot his mother twice in the stomach and once in the leg. He claimed he had been taken under the wing of a retired colonel who was going to buy him a house and a Ferrari. They survived, although Alison still has a bullet inside her. 'It's a show that I'm passionate about': Will Mellor on 'Cops Who Kill'. Your dad's been shot. Mrs Jackson noticed he was holding a gun in each hand. Over 20 mass shootings have occurred in the US since the Columbine High School shooting in 1999. Pathologists determined she was killed by the first three bullets. Hungerford is a pretty canalside town famous for its antiques shops and upmarket boutiques. This powerful mix of emotions is often later expressed in an inappropriately violent response. What she found was houses on fire, people lying dead in their gardens and smashed cars lining the street. His wife and children had been in the car but were unhurt. Pic: Daily Mail / Hungerford Massacre 1987. Prof Jackson's colleague at Birmingham City University, Dr Elizabeth Yardley, has a different theory. The elder Mr and Mrs Wainwright had been about 300 yards from their son's house when Douglas Wainwright was shot in the head and Kathleen Wainwright in the chest and the hand. "In fact, I first thought it was another lad who lived there. 6 were already dead.". Trevor Wainwright says he is "haunted" by his father's death. One man was injured. Chief Inspector Lambert had sent Sergeant Paul Brightwell and his team of eight officers from the Tactical Firearms Unit to investigate the school, unaware that this was indeed the exact location of the killer. Seeing two of his neighbours, Roland and Sheila Mason, in their back garden, he shot Roland six times and Sheila once, in the head. The Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988 was passed in the wake of the massacre. Hungerford. She parked behind Whites car and opening the door and looking in, said, Oh Ivor and then hurried up the road. That was possibly even worse than hearing it the first time.". Getty Images offers exclusive rights-ready and premium royalty-free analog, HD, and 4K video of the highest quality. At age 16, he left John OGaunt School to attend a technical college, the Newbury College of Further Education, intending to learn to become a building contractor.Although he tried hard, it soon became apparent that Ryan showed no flair for this trade and soon dropped out of college. The wheelchair-bound Myrtle was totally vulnerable and Victor threw himself across her to protect her from the crazed gunman. Later, police told her they believed her life had been saved by the fact she'd kept her curtains drawn as she pottered about, doing her housework in her nightgown. He continually asked about his mother and how she was. The week before the shootings he had helped Ryan bring a heavy cabinet down the stairs. Preparing to leave for her grandmothers 95th birthday, Godfrey was packing away the picnic when a grim looking Ryan approached, dressed all in black and pointing a 9mm Beretta pistol at her. A former school friend remembers a teenage Ryan boasting of spying on and stalking people there. The town had long been a tourist destination. He walked up to where she lay in the road and, with the gun only four inches from her, shot her twice in the back, killing her. It was one of the worst mass shootings in British history. 4 - PC Roger Brereton It's testament to her own strength of mind that she did. "I think she either refused to [have sex] or resisted," he said. I believe Ryan had probably been fantasising about it on a low level, but the events that day - and his personality type - led to it. But, he reasoned, it was his day off. Instead she found Ryan, who shot her once. Paying no attention to the police or the press, Ryan seemed oblivious to anything other than his hell-bent mission to kill everyone in his path. Mrs Jackson can remember Mrs Ryan telling her about a mysterious "friend" Michael had made. He spied on them as they ate their picnic lunch, before playing a while. When he slowed down to see what was happening, Ryan shot him in the head with the AK-47 and he died instantly. "We cope by taking every day as it comes. While Ryan roamed Hungerford, murdering and maiming people he'd known for years, a woman lay dead in Savernake Forest. Over the moon at the news of his father's survival, PC Wainwright telephoned his brothers and sister. Robert, his frightened son, escaped by jumping over a fence into the neighbouring school, whilst the rest of the family literally ran for their lives. The Hungerford Report The British Home Secretary, Douglas Hurd, travelled to Hungerford on Sunday, 23 August 1987. He had lost lots of blood, had bullets in his head and chest, his lung had been shot through and his arm was barely attached to his body. Ron Tarry, Hungerfords Mayor, claimed that the locals were in shock and speaking in hushed tones and that it was the press and others who had flocked to the scene who were doing the drinking in pubs. The birds didn't sing again for five days.". It was about 10 minutes since Mrs Jackson had asked her husband to return home and the two men had no idea of the danger into which they were heading. Peter Sutcliffe was convicted of murdering thirteen women and attacking seven other women. When PC Wainwright, wearing his off-duty clothes of shorts and a Fred Perry polo shirt, was called into his superior's office, he thought he was going to be told to put his uniform on. Scenes in Hungerford, Berkshire, following a gun siege in the town the day before, the event became known as the Hungerford massacre, pictured is the. These include Lonewolf: True Stories of Spree Killers (May 2002) by Pan Pantziarka and The Encyclopedia of Mass Murder by Brian Lane and Wilfred Gregg (1993). Despite his elaborate fantasies, however, Ryan was not mentally ill. Medical reports show he had no history of mental illness - in fact, his doctor had countersigned Ryan's gun applications. AETNUK All Rights Reserved. It's not known whether Ryan spent a long time watching Sue Godfrey, a 35-year-old nurse who had stopped with her two young children for a picnic lunch. "He was trapped and didn't have a viable way out of his situation.". She scrambled into her house, where she collapsed and her mother immediately called an ambulance. It started with an assumed attempted sexual assault, but Ryan went on to kill many close acquaintances in his hometown. Read more: Amazing archive photos show the changing face of Reading in the 1960s, Read more: Caversham Park Village from the air 50 years ago. Mark Howe murdered his mother Katrina Wardle in a brutal knife attack. In addition to this, the local telephone exchange could not handle the amount of 999 calls that were being made, as Ryan wreaked havoc across the suburbs and people desperately tried phoning for help. As the brothers were cleaning up, a reporter burst in. Thirty years since the Hungerford tragedy. The local police station had only two working phone lines that day and the police helicopter was being repaired, delaying its deployment. An elderly neighbour, Dorothy Smith, 77 years old and deaf in one ear, had come out into the street to see what all the noise was about. All I could think of was the dogs. As Mr Playle rounded a bend in Priory Street, Ryan fired a single shot. Ryan's mother Dorothy was shot not far from her home in South View as she pleaded with her son to stop the shooting. Ryan then walked into Priory Road, where he found Sandra Hill, 22, driving her red Renault 5, with the window down and the music blaring. He also wanted to know if his dog had been found and if they had located his M1 carbine and its magazine, as he didnt want the children to find it and hurt themselves. Typically, by the time people got through to the 999 system, Ryan had gone elsewhere. He then went back into the house, used the five-litre can of petrol to soak everything he could, and set the house on fire.Into his car, Ryan had packed military clothing, a large amount of ammunition and a first aid kit. Ryan was lying slumped in the corner, near a window, apparently dead.The rest of the unit entered the room and checked that he was not wired with explosives as a booby trap. Not academically gifted nor particularly driven, Ryan was unremarkable at school. He got me in my lower back. "I knew Id been hit. Dean reported later that when she looked Ryan in the face, it seemed as if he was not even aware of her and was looking right through her. Sandra Hill, was shot while driving; Jack and Myrtle Gibbs, were shot in their home in Priory Road; and Ian Playle was shot while driving into Hungerford on a shopping trip with his wife and two children. Maybe he was distracted; maybe he enjoyed the power of sparing Mrs Wainwright's life. "I just thought she was delirious from blood loss.". I thought he'd come in and kill them.". Luckily she hadn't been injured. Crossing the street, shooting as he went, Ryan strode towards 60 Priory Road, the home of Victor and Myrtle Gibbs and blasted open the front door with his semi-automatic rifle.
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