UK UK - Suzy Lamplugh, 25, Fulham, 28 Jul 1986 #8

[AfricanGrey]

I’ve had another look at AS chapter 3, in which he writes that two young detectives were sent to the PoW to collect the items. AS implies this happened on the Tuesday, however the items were collected on the Monday night, by the police.

 

[tes1984]

I find it quite distasteful that DV can publish a complete character assassination of an innocent man, who is not difficult to identify, knowing that it could leave him open to abuse or attack.

This is what I meant by people having an ethical issue with DV's book.

DV has been accused before of omitting things to suit his theory.

 

[AfricanGrey]

The calls were genuine, my involvement does not extend to knowing what happened to the phone number

 

[rvlvr]

Genuine in what sense though? That the relief landlord received two calls, one from ‘Sarah’ and the other purporting to be from a policeman, or just that that was the relief landlord’s recollection of events?

Perhaps AS didn’t get the story quite right (I’m not disputing your input but obviously we only have your word for it) but was he right that none of this was satisfactorily explained?

 

[WestLondoner]

Is there a solid source for the diary etc being lost and found on the Friday? KH reckons he found them and phoned the bank the next day, which he could not have done on a Saturday in 1986. AL said they went to the PoW on Friday and the stuff was stolen, but he later denied ever going to the PoW. He can't have noticed the diary was stolen or lost on the Friday while with SJL at the pub so when and how did he hear about this loss? He didn't see her on Saturday and she seems to have blanked him all day Sunday. She could have mentioned it in the alleged Sunday phone call, but if so, why did she not inquire at the pub on Sunday? She had driven right past it to get home from her parents' house. And if they were found on Friday by MH, the permanent landlord, why did the police not take a statement from him?

It's also interesting that the police went to the pub for them on Monday evening. That says someone at the Sturgis office besides SJL knew what she had lost and where it was; nobody else could have told them.

Were the two calls satisfactorily explained? The one from "Chelsea police" in "the afternoon" could easily have been Fulham police at 6pm, so that one is easily dealt with. But who was the woman who called wanting "Susan" kept there if she showed up?

 

[Konstantin]

It's also interesting that the police went to the pub for them on Monday evening. That says someone at the Sturgis office besides SJL knew what she had lost and where it was; nobody else could have told them.

I think her colleagues did know about it at the time. She was making phone calls about it that morning in the open plan office and must have mentioned it to colleagues. I think one of them mentioned it somewhere. Incidentally, if SJL was in such a good mood on the Monday morning, she can't have been that worried about her diary etc! Maybe she didn't realise had lost it until she got the call from the pub or the bank?

Were the two calls satisfactorily explained? The one from "Chelsea police" in "the afternoon" could easily have been Fulham police at 6pm, so that one is easily dealt with. But who was the woman who called wanting "Susan" kept there if she showed up?

Given her office were looking for her that afternoon and knew her stuff had been lost at the pub, it's really plausible -- even expected maybe -- that someone would call the pub and ask for her. KH was probably just busy running the pub for perhaps the first time on his own and dealing with punters and whatnot and not really forensically listening to the call. "Susan" is explained easily, he would not have been really thinking about the name of the lady who lost her diary there, Susan is close enough, his wife I think had spoken to her on the phone not him?

People get the names wrong of those they are not super close to e.g. colleagues all the time, let alone someone he'd never met.

I think the Met messed up the investigation quite badly and I am not inclined to believe them when they say that their DCs never got a piece of paper with a phone number on it. They probably just dismissed it and lost it, then later perhaps made stuff up to cover themselves.

 

[WestLondoner]

That makes a lot of sense. Someone recalls she said she had to go to the pub; calls the pub on the off-chance but no dice; later tells the police, who make their own call to see if she ever turned up there; then go to pick the stuff up themselves.

 

[rvlvr]

The call purporting to be from a policeman isn’t so innocently explained though, is it? Not if the call came in before police were notified SL was missing, which didn’t occur until 6.45pm. This would’ve likely rang alarm bells with actual police. I’m often quite critical of the Met but even I find it hard to believe they would’ve dismissed this and lost the number. Perhaps it was investigated and turned out to be a dead end, but in which case AS could’ve simply wrote it up as such, as he did with other leads that turned into dead ends. It’s a peculiar thing to allegedly sensationalise.

 

[Konstantin]

That makes a lot of sense. Someone recalls she said she had to go to the pub; calls the pub on the off-chance but no dice; later tells the police, who make their own call to see if she ever turned up there; then go to pick the stuff up themselves.

If my colleague didn't come back from lunch after they mentioned and I'd heard them on the phone about picking up some very important lost property at a pub, I'd definitely think that's where they might have gone.

 

[rvlvr]

If my colleague didn't come back from lunch after they mentioned and I'd heard them on the phone about picking up some very important lost property at a pub, I'd definitely think that's where they might have gone.

Did they know what pub she was going to? It seems possible they knew her belongings were at *a* pub but I don’t recall anyone saying they knew which one. In AS’s book he details where MG went, and who he called, when trying to trace Suzy prior to reporting her missing, but the PoW isn’t mentioned. I’d have to re-read DV’s write-ups of his interviews with MG but I don’t recall him saying that MG said anything about the PoW either.

 

[rvlvr]

I’ve re-read the chapters in which DV details his interviews with Gurdon, Nigel Hindle and Stephanie Flower.

He interviewed MG and NH together and when asked if they recalled Suzy mentioning losing her chequebook and diary they both said no. NH suggested that perhaps Suzy might’ve mentioned it to SF. DV tracked down SF and asked her about these lost items. SF claimed to have a “vague recollection” about a lost chequebook but couldn’t remember when that might’ve happened and said she didn’t know where Suzy was going when she left the office.

DV interviewed MG a second time and asked him to clarify what he thought Suzy was doing that lunchtime and whether she might’ve been doing something other than conducting a house viewing. MG replied: “I thought she’d gone off to have her lunch and then go shopping, in Putney or something, where she lived, yeah…”

Memories do fade with the passing of time but I’m certain that if any of these three individuals had known about - never mind called - the Prince of Wales pub then they’d remember it.

The two individuals DV doesn’t trace are James Calvert, the office junior, and Kathleen Reidy, the temporary Australian secretary. JC was said to be living abroad, and possibly KR doesn’t reside in the UK these days either. JMO, I find it doubtful that Suzy would’ve confided in these two, but if she had, surely one would have piped up about the pub and the lost belongings during the afternoon when MG was driving back and forth to 37SR and also phoning Suzy’s parents and local hospitals in a bid to locate her. If they did, no one seems to have any memory of it.

It’s all very odd. As DV writes in chapter 37:

Our research had shown the police recovered a pocket diary, a postcard and chequebook from the Prince of Wales pub in Putney, all belonging to Suzy, though there seemed to be some confusion as to exactly when these items had been collected from the pub.

Our research indicated that police themselves didn’t even seem sure exactly when they’d come into possession of the items. Nor could we establish how the police came to know the items were at the pub in the first place. Everyone we’d spoken to denied knowing anything about them being lost – except for Adam Leegood.

 

[RichardKimble]

I’ve re-read the chapters in which DV details his interviews with Gurdon, Nigel Hindle and Stephanie Flower.

He interviewed MG and NH together and when asked if they recalled Suzy mentioning losing her chequebook and diary they both said no. NH suggested that perhaps Suzy might’ve mentioned it to SF. DV tracked down SF and asked her about these lost items. SF claimed to have a “vague recollection” about a lost chequebook but couldn’t remember when that might’ve happened and said she didn’t know where Suzy was going when she left the office.

DV interviewed MG a second time and asked him to clarify what he thought Suzy was doing that lunchtime and whether she might’ve been doing something other than conducting a house viewing. MG replied: “I thought she’d gone off to have her lunch and then go shopping, in Putney or something, where she lived, yeah…”

Memories do fade with the passing of time but I’m certain that if any of these three individuals had known about - never mind called - the Prince of Wales pub then they’d remember it.

The two individuals DV doesn’t trace are James Calvert, the office junior, and Kathleen Reidy, the temporary Australian secretary. JC was said to be living abroad, and possibly KR doesn’t reside in the UK these days either. JMO, I find it doubtful that Suzy would’ve confided in these two, but if she had, surely one would have piped up about the pub and the lost belongings during the afternoon when MG was driving back and forth to 37SR and also phoning Suzy’s parents and local hospitals in a bid to locate her. If they did, no one seems to have any memory of it.

It’s all very odd. As DV writes in chapter 37:

It's probably been answered before but hey age doesn't come alone, were these said items recovered from SJLs possessions after her disappearance?

 

[SteveH]

My break from this case has been shorter than anticipated but there have been some interesting recent contributions.

This is what Andrew Stephen writes about SL's missing items on p25 of The Suzy Lamplugh Story. Just in case anyone doesn't know you can read the book for free on the Internet Archive but you have to sign up (it is free) and then "borrow" the book:

As a fellow contributor has written Stephen implies that the cops collected the items on the Tuesday. If the commenter is certain that this actually happened on the Monday night then they must have information that the rest of us are not privy to.

"Meanwhile two young detectives were sent to the Prince of Wales pub in Putney, where Susannah's chequebook, pocket diary and a postcard were waiting. Was this significant? The landlord had found them the previous Friday night, soon after Susannah had apparently dropped them after having dinner with Leegood at Mossop's restaurant in Upper Richmond Road. The publican contacted her bank on Monday morning, who duly rang her at Sturgis. She then spoke to the landlord's wife at around 12.40 that lunchtime, in other words immediately before she left the office - and arranged to pick them up at six o'clock on Monday evening. But she never turned up. The diary was important to police, because it might contain crucial names and appointments. It was duly collected and rushed to the investigation team."

As for the police being certain about the appointment with "Mr Kipper" quite the opposite was true. On the same page Stephen continues:

"What they needed to know more than anything was where Susannah had gone the moment she stepped out of the door of the estate agency. Did she actually go to her car parked in Whittingstall Road, as colleagues supposed? Did she then drive it away? Did she really go to Shorrolds Road? Was Riglin's recollection accurate? Was it a genuine appointment with 'Mr Kipper'? Or did she make up the name because she was up to something she did not want her office to know about? If so was it personal or professional? If she did meet 'Mr Kipper', where?"

So DV's assertions that the cops accepted from the outset that 'Mr Kipper' was a real person, if not a real name, is wholly false. He needs to set up a "straw man" - ie the Keystone Cops - in order to make himself look like he is taking a completely new angle. Stephen's words make it patently clear that the fuzz had considered that Suzy might have had a secret "errand" at the time of their earliest investigations. This was well before JC came into the picture.

Another fellow contributor states: "The original investigation was steered from day one in a particular direction and didn’t appear to deviate much from that." (my bold lettering) This is nonsense of course. DL - a Cheltenham girl (which might tell us something about her character!) - was certain from the start that Suzy had been kidnapped but that wasn't true of the police. Senior officers came to despair of her interference, especially SIO Hackett. The press also ran with the kidnapping story involving 'Mr Kipper' before DL became a media celebrity, with typically sensationalist headlines and stories. Later, as Stephen puts it "The Lamplughs had now become public property. The realities of their situation and the fulsome fantasies of the tabloid press began to merge, and the two soon became indistinguishable." (p33)

On p128 of The Suzy Lamplugh Story Stephen writes:

"That afternoon, he [the former acting landlord of the PoW] now told police, someone who said her name was Sarah had telephoned him and left a message for Susannah (apparently for when she turned up at the pub) to ring her at a number which he wrote down. Some time later a man also spoke to him on the phone, claiming to be a policeman."

Stephen himself asks whether the "Sarah" call might have been Suzy herself, "possibly under duress from 'Mr Kipper'". He also says the policeman might have been "the abductor himself"'. JC, after all, made Shirley Banks phone her workplace the morning after she was abducted - of course he denied any involvement in her murder to his death. Or it might have been a member of the Sturgis staff, but it's odd that no-one seems to have remembered making such a call.

Of course we don't know how much time elapsed - "some time later" - between the two calls. Maybe it WAS a real policeman, but in the early evening and not the afternoon. We simply have no way of verifying KH's story or of assessing his memory, but he claimed he had told all this to the "two young detectives". If so why did they not relay this to senior detectives - or did they? Either KH or the two detectives were lying about the scrap of paper unless one or more of them had seriously defective memories. Our fellow contributor, who has some "involvement" somehow, states: "Instead the police collected them [Suzy's items}, on Monday 28th, not a couple of days later. They took a brief statement from the bar staff at that time. A further statement was taken later that week, and again at each re-evaluation of the case. The temp landlord’s statement has never changed. AS’s claim that it was altered in 1987 is wrong."

I do not for one second consider KH a suspect in the abduction (if there was one) but equally I don't know what African Grey's connection to the case is (perhaps they are "parroting" something they heard - sorry, couldn't resist), but I totally agree when they say "DV has no credible evidence to support his allegations with regard to the PoW." And that despite not reading his book!

So going back to the Friday night at the PoW:

I think the query that it may have been the Sunday originated from Anita Brookner's misunderstanding.

Was Leegood there or not? I don't know what he said to Videcette but he was consistent in his story from 1986 to at least the channel 5 doc in 2002. Why would he lie to DV? As the book is self-published, to be frank I wouldn't trust a single word in it.

Did Suzy drop the items or did someone find or pinch them and later leave them on the doorstep? If it was JC did he see Splodge's name in there, thus explaining his - deliberate or accidental - mention of the name Hodgkinson in connection with Shirley Banks' murder. I doubt the items had been on the doorstep very long or someone would have handed them in or stolen at least the chequebook. I once lost my chequebook in a pub on a boozy night out in Bolton in the '80s and fortunately someone handed it in and the coppers sent it down to a police station in Manchester where I was living. I was a bit surprised to get it back to be honest.

I had hoped this would be a short comment but I am obviously incapable of such a thing. I would also point out that in some of my previous comments I have merely been reporting what others have said on the various documentaries or in the articles/books I have read and keeping my own opinions to a minimum. I would also be critical of the police in this case - and more generally. It isn't just recent events that have shown that there are a lot of bad apples in the Met.

I agree totally that someone's memory years after an event is dubious to say the least, particularly if it involves stating that something happened on a particular day or date. I had previously made it abundantly clear that by the time he was interviewed about Suzy JC could not possibly have remembered the exact events of the day she disappeared - if he had no involvement in what happened. Even if he wasn't lying - and I think he was - his alibi simply doesn't wash. unless he kept a detailed diary (which could be faked at a later date anyway).

 

[rvlvr]

It's probably been answered before but hey age doesn't come alone, were these said items recovered from SJLs possessions after her disappearance?

They were recovered by police from the pub, but how police came to know they were there seems like a bit of a mystery. AL would seem like a good bet, if he hadn’t contradicted himself in his interview with DV. Also, if AL truly believed the items had been stolen from Suzy while at the pub, why would he assume they - and so possibly Suzy - might be found at the pub? If my phone or wallet or lanyard is stolen from a cafe, I don’t expect these items to turn up at said cafe - that isn’t how thieves operate.

Hopefully @AfricanGrey can get themselves verified and perhaps we’ll get a better understanding of exactly what happened here.

 

[lee sumner]

By accepted narrative it’s clear to me he means the ‘murderous cold-calling pseudo-house viewer’ Mr Kipper narrative, rather than the ‘Cannan killed her’ one.

The original investigation was steered from day one in a particular direction and didn’t appear to deviate much from that. To the point where, when peculiarities concerning the pub came to light later on, police just seemed to shrug their shoulders and move on.

From AS’s book, pages 164-5:



So uneasy they did… nothing. Good job, boys.

Likewise, as set out by WL above, there was a further line of inquiry that wasn’t pursued at the time and possibly wasn’t pursued even by the team that had convinced themselves that Cannan did it. So even if DV is wrong about where Suzy ended up he’s correct that a sort of tunnel vision has blighted this case throughout. And this is why they’ll never find her.

i think DV is a conspiracy nut. the landlord of the POW was filling in, so he was being trained on how to run the pub, yet DV wants us to believe the landlord would use the pub to dispose of SL body. to use the pub as a deposition site is madness.

 

[rvlvr]

i think DV is a conspiracy nut. the landlord of the POW was filling in, so he was being trained on how to run the pub, yet DV wants us to believe the landlord would use the pub to dispose of SL body. to use the pub as a deposition site is madness.

No one on this thread as far as I can tell shares DV’s belief that Suzy is or was buried at the pub.

 

[lee sumner]

My break from this case has been shorter than anticipated but there have been some interesting recent contributions.

This is what Andrew Stephen writes about SL's missing items on p25 of The Suzy Lamplugh Story. Just in case anyone doesn't know you can read the book for free on the Internet Archive but you have to sign up (it is free) and then "borrow" the book:

As a fellow contributor has written Stephen implies that the cops collected the items on the Tuesday. If the commenter is certain that this actually happened on the Monday night then they must have information that the rest of us are not privy to.

"Meanwhile two young detectives were sent to the Prince of Wales pub in Putney, where Susannah's chequebook, pocket diary and a postcard were waiting. Was this significant? The landlord had found them the previous Friday night, soon after Susannah had apparently dropped them after having dinner with Leegood at Mossop's restaurant in Upper Richmond Road. The publican contacted her bank on Monday morning, who duly rang her at Sturgis. She then spoke to the landlord's wife at around 12.40 that lunchtime, in other words immediately before she left the office - and arranged to pick them up at six o'clock on Monday evening. But she never turned up. The diary was important to police, because it might contain crucial names and appointments. It was duly collected and rushed to the investigation team."

As for the police being certain about the appointment with "Mr Kipper" quite the opposite was true. On the same page Stephen continues:

"What they needed to know more than anything was where Susannah had gone the moment she stepped out of the door of the estate agency. Did she actually go to her car parked in Whittingstall Road, as colleagues supposed? Did she then drive it away? Did she really go to Shorrolds Road? Was Riglin's recollection accurate? Was it a genuine appointment with 'Mr Kipper'? Or did she make up the name because she was up to something she did not want her office to know about? If so was it personal or professional? If she did meet 'Mr Kipper', where?"

So DV's assertions that the cops accepted from the outset that 'Mr Kipper' was a real person, if not a real name, is wholly false. He needs to set up a "straw man" - ie the Keystone Cops - in order to make himself look like he is taking a completely new angle. Stephen's words make it patently clear that the fuzz had considered that Suzy might have had a secret "errand" at the time of their earliest investigations. This was well before JC came into the picture.

Another fellow contributor states: "The original investigation was steered from day one in a particular direction and didn’t appear to deviate much from that." (my bold lettering) This is nonsense of course. DL - a Cheltenham girl (which might tell us something about her character!) - was certain from the start that Suzy had been kidnapped but that wasn't true of the police. Senior officers came to despair of her interference, especially SIO Hackett. The press also ran with the kidnapping story involving 'Mr Kipper' before DL became a media celebrity, with typically sensationalist headlines and stories. Later, as Stephen puts it "The Lamplughs had now become public property. The realities of their situation and the fulsome fantasies of the tabloid press began to merge, and the two soon became indistinguishable." (p33)

On p128 of The Suzy Lamplugh Story Stephen writes:

"That afternoon, he [the former acting landlord of the PoW] now told police, someone who said her name was Sarah had telephoned him and left a message for Susannah (apparently for when she turned up at the pub) to ring her at a number which he wrote down. Some time later a man also spoke to him on the phone, claiming to be a policeman."

Stephen himself asks whether the "Sarah" call might have been Suzy herself, "possibly under duress from 'Mr Kipper'". He also says the policeman might have been "the abductor himself"'. JC, after all, made Shirley Banks phone her workplace the morning after she was abducted - of course he denied any involvement in her murder to his death. Or it might have been a member of the Sturgis staff, but it's odd that no-one seems to have remembered making such a call.

Of course we don't know how much time elapsed - "some time later" - between the two calls. Maybe it WAS a real policeman, but in the early evening and not the afternoon. We simply have no way of verifying KH's story or of assessing his memory, but he claimed he had told all this to the "two young detectives". If so why did they not relay this to senior detectives - or did they? Either KH or the two detectives were lying about the scrap of paper unless one or more of them had seriously defective memories. Our fellow contributor, who has some "involvement" somehow, states: "Instead the police collected them [Suzy's items}, on Monday 28th, not a couple of days later. They took a brief statement from the bar staff at that time. A further statement was taken later that week, and again at each re-evaluation of the case. The temp landlord’s statement has never changed. AS’s claim that it was altered in 1987 is wrong."

I do not for one second consider KH a suspect in the abduction (if there was one) but equally I don't know what African Grey's connection to the case is (perhaps they are "parroting" something they heard - sorry, couldn't resist), but I totally agree when they say "DV has no credible evidence to support his allegations with regard to the PoW." And that despite not reading his book!

So going back to the Friday night at the PoW:

I think the query that it may have been the Sunday originated from Anita Brookner's misunderstanding.

Was Leegood there or not? I don't know what he said to Videcette but he was consistent in his story from 1986 to at least the channel 5 doc in 2002. Why would he lie to DV? As the book is self-published, to be frank I wouldn't trust a single word in it.

Did Suzy drop the items or did someone find or pinch them and later leave them on the doorstep? If it was JC did he see Splodge's name in there, thus explaining his - deliberate or accidental - mention of the name Hodgkinson in connection with Shirley Banks' murder. I doubt the items had been on the doorstep very long or someone would have handed them in or stolen at least the chequebook. I once lost my chequebook in a pub on a boozy night out in Bolton in the '80s and fortunately someone handed it in and the coppers sent it down to a police station in Manchester where I was living. I was a bit surprised to get it back to be honest.

I had hoped this would be a short comment but I am obviously incapable of such a thing. I would also point out that in some of my previous comments I have merely been reporting what others have said on the various documentaries or in the articles/books I have read and keeping my own opinions to a minimum. I would also be critical of the police in this case - and more generally. It isn't just recent events that have shown that there are a lot of bad apples in the Met.

I agree totally that someone's memory years after an event is dubious to say the least, particularly if it involves stating that something happened on a particular day or date. I had previously made it abundantly clear that by the time he was interviewed about Suzy JC could not possibly have remembered the exact events of the day she disappeared - if he had no involvement in what happened. Even if he wasn't lying - and I think he was - his alibi simply doesn't wash. unless he kept a detailed diary (which could be faked at a later date anyway).

dont worry about long comment. you have interesting points to make. i found DV book difficult to read because his theory is nuts, and as for the landlord story about the mystery call from sarah asking for suzy, i think he just made it up in his head, possibly for attention, who knows.

 

[WestLondoner]

Likewise I don't suppose anyone who thinks Cannan did this thinks so off the back of the 'evidence' usually presented.

When DV's book came out many of us here commented that he had not shown the pub was empty or closed, and that if he suspected 'CV' he must have more on him than he had disclosed, because why insinuate his involvement otherwise. Of course, there's no reason to give DV the benefit of the doubt that CV's actually a wrong 'un. The fairer-minded approach is to give CV the benefit of the doubt and assume that he isn't.

On a detail point, while the police may have been open minded on where SJL actually went, that was not the public impression they gave. On Wednesday they declared to press that she had been seen at 37SR, before taking any witness statements. Whatever other possibilities there were this is the one that got fixed. Think of how many articles about this start from the premise that she kept an appointment with Mr Kipper.

 

[lee sumner]

I think her colleagues did know about it at the time. She was making phone calls about it that morning in the open plan office and must have mentioned it to colleagues. I think one of them mentioned it somewhere. Incidentally, if SJL was in such a good mood on the Monday morning, she can't have been that worried about her diary etc! Maybe she didn't realise had lost it until she got the call from the pub or the bank?



Given her office were looking for her that afternoon and knew her stuff had been lost at the pub, it's really plausible -- even expected maybe -- that someone would call the pub and ask for her. KH was probably just busy running the pub for perhaps the first time on his own and dealing with punters and whatnot and not really forensically listening to the call. "Susan" is explained easily, he would not have been really thinking about the name of the lady who lost her diary there, Susan is close enough, his wife I think had spoken to her on the phone not him?

People get the names wrong of those they are not super close to e.g. colleagues all the time, let alone someone he'd never met.

I think the Met messed up the investigation quite badly and I am not inclined to believe them when they say that their DCs never got a piece of paper with a phone number on it. They probably just dismissed it and lost it, then later perhaps made stuff up to cover themselves.

SL did speak with lardlords wife regarding her lost items, and arranged to pick them up at 6PM when she finished work, but KH tells DV he spoke to SL and DV believes him. its obvious KH was telling lies and did not speak to SL that day.

 

[lee sumner]

No one on this thread as far as I can tell shares DV’s belief that Suzy is or was buried at the pub.

most people here agree his theory is probably wrong, but i have heard people who do believe his theory.