Ham bank murder

Ham bank murder
Metropolitan Police circular distributed in the manhunt to locate Woolliscroft's murderer
Location	51.4313°N 0.3073°W / 51.4313; -0.3073 Barclays Bank, Upper Ham Road, Ham, south-west London
Date	10 November 1976 c. 2:31 p.m.
Weapons	Sawn-off 12-gauge Reilly shotgun
Victims	Angela Mary Woolliscroft (20)
Perpetrator	Michael George Hart (38)
Motive	Robbery Eyewitness elimination
Charges	Murder
Verdict	Guilty

The Ham bank murder was a fatal shooting at a suburban branch of Barclays Bank in the Ham district of London on 10 November 1976. The victim, bank clerk Angela Mary Woolliscroft, was fatally shot by a career criminal named Michael George Hart during an armed robbery in which approximately £2,500 was stolen.

Hart was arrested for the crime two months later; he was convicted of Woolliscroft's murder at the Old Bailey in November 1977 and sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommendation he serve a minimum of twenty-five years. He was released from prison in November 2002.

Background

Woolliscroft

Angela Mary Woolliscroft was born in Surrey on 21 August 1956, the first child born to William Walter and Juliana (née Roberts) Woolliscroft, who had married in Wallasey in 1953 and relocated to South East England prior to her birth. She lived with her family in Hook, Chessington. She had two younger sisters: Jackie (b. 1958) and Sally (b. 1960).

Woolliscroft completed her schooling in 1972 at age sixteen. The same year, she obtained employment with Barclays Bank as a trainee clerk. By the autumn of 1976, she had worked for Barclays for four years and worked as a cashier at a suburban branch on Ham Parade, Upper Ham Road, Richmond, and had recently passed her driving test. Her mother would later recollect that by the mid-1970s, her daughter "had reached the age where she was a friend. We were not just a mother and daughter, but really great friends ... she was a very loving and affectionate girl. She used to take the mickey out of me. The last film I saw with her was Jaws ... she wanted to see if she could scare her mother."

An athletic young woman with a passion for hockey, Woolliscroft often represented Barclays Bank at sporting tournaments and trained at the bank's sports ground in Ealing, London, with ten other young women who worked for other London branches of Barclays Bank on a weekly basis. These hockey tournaments were hosted around the United Kingdom and frequently required Woolliscroft to travel considerable distances. Hours after close of business on 10 November 1976, she was due to fly to Jersey to participate in a further hockey tournament.

Hart

Michael George Hart was born in 1938. He was a painter and decorator by trade, but a violent career criminal who had amassed an extensive criminal record dating back to his teenage years with numerous convictions for offences such as car theft, robbery, assault, and fraud. Beginning in 1966, several of these convictions had resulted in Hart's incarceration, although he had invariably reverted to criminal activities shortly after his release from prison. By 1976, Hart had been at liberty for three years, having served three years' imprisonment for attempted burglary and attacking a police officer with an iron bar. He lived with his wife, Maureen, and three children in Basingstoke, Hampshire, approximately thirty-five miles (56 km) from Ham.

By 1976, Hart was wanted by police in Paris for the attempted murder of a policeman, whom he had attempted to shoot near Charles de Gaulle Airport in August that year after stabbing and seriously wounding a taxi driver. This incident had occurred in August, and French police—having become aware of Hart's identity—had recently contacted Interpol in efforts to trace him and extradite him to France. Furthermore, on four occasions in the months prior to November 1976, Hart had been arrested and charged with various offences including burglary, robbery, and car theft. On each occasion, he had appeared before magistrates in Basingstoke and although investigators had requested he be remanded in custody until trial on each of these four occasions, on each occasion, he was granted bail.

One of the conditions of Hart's bail was that he report to the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary on a twice daily basis. The last occasion Hart would do so before going on the run was the afternoon of 10 November 1976.

10 November 1976

On the morning of 10 November 1976, Woolliscroft drove from her parents' home to work in her Ford Cortina, arriving shortly before 9 am. By 9:30 am., the bank opened for business as normal.

Hart's precise movements on the morning of 10 November are unknown, although he is known to have reported to a police station close to his Basingstoke home early in the morning, as stipulated by his pretrial bail conditions. Shortly afterwards, he is believed to have driven to a multi-storey car park in Kingston upon Thames, where he had parked a stolen maroon Austin A40 earlier that morning; he parked his own car at this location, entered the stolen vehicle and drove to the Barclays branch on Upper Ham Road. Before exiting the vehicle, he applied brown make-up to his face and neck in the hope of being mistaken for a Pakistani, then donned a dark wig, framed sunglasses and gloves and entered the premises with a stolen sawn-off shotgun concealed beneath a woman's yellow raincoat he had found in the stolen Austin. Hart loaded both barrels of the firearm prior to entering the bank.

Robbery

By 12:30 pm. Woolliscroft had been performing her usual duties as a cashier for three hours. Hart is believed to have entered the premises at approximately 12:29 pm. A total of eleven staff were present in the bank at the time. He immediately approached the till behind which Woolliscroft was working, took out the shotgun from beneath the raincoat and placed the barrels against the triple glass protective partition screen, demanding cash and threatening to shoot her unless she complied.

Murder

Woolliscroft wordlessly gathered several wads of money, which she placed into the tray beneath the screen as Hart maintained his aim with the shotgun. As Hart finished gathering the money from the tray into a bag, he fired the shotgun once, destroying the safety glass screen, hitting Woolliscroft in the face, neck and chest, severing her left carotid artery and blowing her seat backwards. Woolliscroft then slumped to the ground beside her counter seat. Hart immediately ran from the bank with his takings, and a cashier named Sheila Reid—who had been standing to Woolliscroft's right placing chequebook covers into a cupboard at the time of the robbery—pressed an alarm button. Despite efforts from her colleagues and paramedics, Woolliscroft died on the way to hospital. A post mortem would reveal she had bled to death from a neck wound measuring one inch in diameter.

Hart immediately drove to the multi-storey car park where he had earlier parked his own vehicle; he switched vehicles, then drove to Hampton Court Palace, where he threw the shotgun into the River Thames before driving home. The robbery and murder had netted Hart approximately £2,500 (the equivalent of approximately £17,150 as of 2026).

This bank raid was planned by a person who quite clearly thought [shooting Woolliscroft] was a clever thing to do ... but he made just one mistake: Whoever it was, could not have appreciated the utter revulsion people in this country feel at what he did.

— Coroner John Burton, speaking at the inquest into Woolliscroft's death (17 November 1976).

Manhunt

The murder of Angela Woolliscroft caused intense public outrage, and Scotland Yard launched an intense manhunt to identify and arrest the perpetrator. The individual in charge of the manhunt was Detective Chief Superintendent (DCI) James Sewell, who was assisted by Alan Wadsworth and Robert Hancock.

Extensive police and media appeals for information generated numerous leads of inquiry, and Barclays Bank offered a reward of £50,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the gunman, whom eyewitnesses described as being aged approximately twenty-five, 5 ft 8 in (170 cm) tall, of slim build, with a tanned or dark complexion and hollow cheeks. Investigators conducted extensive door-to-door inquiries at over 15,000 addresses across South East England and over 5,000 persons of interest were interrogated.

Investigators strongly believed the armed robbery had been committed by a seasoned criminal as opposed to an amateur. As such, all known armed robbers within London and the home counties were questioned, their whereabouts on the date of the murder verified and, when applicable, eliminated from the inquiry. Several of these individuals were questioned and eliminated from police inquiries following dawn raids in relation to other criminal offences, although sixty-five individuals were prosecuted for unrelated crimes. Hart was himself interviewed by detectives shortly after the murder; however, as he had presented himself at a police station in Basingstoke on both the morning and afternoon of the murder and his physical description did not closely match that of the perpetrator, he was not initially considered a strong suspect.

By 15 November, forensic ballistic analysis had determined the firearm used to murder Wolliscroft was a 12-gauge shotgun, and that the pellets within the discharged cartridge were typically used by individuals huntingwild game. As such, investigators appealed for any individual who had either lost such a firearm or had one stolen to come forward and assist with their inquiries.

One further piece of physical evidence left behind by the perpetrator at the crime scene was the distinctive yellow raincoat he had initially used to hide the shotgun. Police inquiries discovered that the coat had belonged to a Miss Marshall, and it was her car that had been used for the robbery. Her vehicle had been taken from the car park of Bentalls in Kingston upon Thames and then returned. Also found was a large pale orange plastic bag that had contained fertiliser that had been taken from Parkleys estate opposite the bank.

Forensic developments

In the early hours of 22 November, two police officers responded to reports of a robbery at a Basingstoke garage. As they approached the scene, they observed a blue Ford Consul speed away from the forecourt in the opposite direction to their travel. The officers gave chase, although the suspect soon crashed the vehicle and fled across nearby fields. Although the suspect escaped, both officers recognized him as Michael George Hart.

A search of the Ford Consul revealed a Hendaye .22 automatic pistol and seventy-two rounds of live ammunition, some jewellery recently reported as stolen, several driving licenses, and articles of clothing which could be used to conceal one's identity. Inquiries revealed the firearm had been stolen from a gun dealer in Reading on 4 November, and that an antique 12-gauge Reilly shotgun, several boxes of Eley No. 7 trap shooting cartridges, and a Webley revolver had also been stolen. These discoveries were sufficient to obtain a search warrant of Hart's home in St Peters Road, Basingstoke.

The police search of Hart's house on the afternoon of 22 November revealed a hoard of stolen items hidden beneath the stairs in addition to a box containing nineteen shotgun cartridges of precisely the brand stolen in Reading on 4 November. An initial examination of these cartridges revealed the shells to be labelled as a type of hardened trap shot typically used in clay pigeon shooting as opposed to wild game shot; however, a forensic examination of the contents of the cartridges revealed they had been filled with the type of pellets used in hunting wild game—the type which had been used to murder Woolliscroft.

A subsequent check of records at the manufacturing plant which had produced the cartridges revealed a computing error had mislabelled a batch of wild game cartridges as trap shells.

Arrest

Hart was arrested in Hounslow, West London, on 20 January 1977. He was arrested shortly after entering the offices of a London garage firm for whom he had performed painting and decorating work to collect an outstanding sum of money owed to him, and surrendered without a struggle. He was driven to Richmond police station to face formal questioning. Hours later, Hart attempted suicide by hanging himself with his belt in a police cell; he was resuscitated by officers.

Confession

Despite initially vehemently protesting his innocence, Hart was unable to explain the physical and circumstantial evidence linking him to Woolliscroft's murder throughout formal questioning. He remained consistent in his denials for several days. However, on the evening of 26 January, Hart asked for police to bring his wife and brother-in-law to the police station, stating he had important information to divulge in their presence. Upon their arrival, Hart grabbed his wife's hand and informed DCI Sewell: "It was me. I shot the bank girl. I am sorry about all the publicity." He then turned to his wife, and said, " I done it, love."

Hart then outlined the circumstances surrounding Woolliscroft's death, which he claimed to have been accidental, stating: "There were people queueing at the first till, so I went to the far one. I asked the girl for money and banged the gun against the glass to make the girl hurry up. She seemed to be ages. She was looking to the right and the gun went off as she came up. I hoped to break the glass ... the gun went off as the girl raised her head. She screamed. I had no intention of shooting anyone."

Despite claiming to have been "flabbergasted" at his shotgun discharging, Hart then claimed to have realized Woolliscroft had placed "money in the tray" before she was shot. He had then gathered this money before "walking out of the bank and back to [his getaway] car", which the then drove back to the multi-storey car park in Kingston-upon-Thames. He parked the vehicle in the same spot he had earlier driven it from before transferring into his own car and driving home to Basingstoke. En route, his car had broken down on the A3, causing him to call the RAC to repair his vehicle at the roadside.

Further developments

On 27 January, Hart revealed the location where he had buried the sawn-off shotgun barrels. An examination of the barrels revealed an expended cartridge in the right barrel and a live cartridge in the left—both cartridges were later determined to belong to the mislabelled batch stolen from the Reading gun dealer on 4 November. Later the same day, he also led detectives to where he had thrown the rest of the gun into the River Thames.

Trial

Hart was brought to trial for Woolliscroft's murder at the Old Bailey on 31 October 1977. He was tried before Mr Justice Melford Stevenson. The chief prosecutor was Michael Corkery Q.C.; Hart was defended by Mr Kennedy Q.C. He pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter.

Although Hart maintained that he had cocked the shotgun only to frighten Woolliscroft into complying with his demands, and that the firearm had discharged by accident when he tapped the glass screen. However, this claim was disproven when ballistic experts demonstrated that considerable force was needed to pull the trigger of the obsolete firearm—thus making Hart's claim to have pulled the trigger unintentionally highly unlikely.

Conviction

Hart's trial lasted four days; he was found guilty of murder (by a majority verdict of 11-1) on 3 November 1977 and sentenced to life imprisonment, with a recommendation that he should serve at least twenty-five years. He was also convicted of twenty-one other offences, with their combined total of ninety-two years' imprisonment to run concurrently.

Upon imposing sentence, Mr Justice Stevenson remarked: "Your diligently pursued course of wickedness demonstrates beyond any doubt that you are a very dangerous criminal. The public should be protected from you for a very long time." Hart remained impassive upon hearing the judge pass sentence, with his eyes closed and head bowed.

Hart did appeal his conviction, although his appeal was dismissed on 20 October 1978. He was released on license in November 2002.

Memorial plaque to Angela Woolliscroft, located in the Richmond branch of Barclays Bank

Memorial seat to Angela Woolliscroft

Aftermath

Angela Woolliscroft was buried at Surbiton cemetery on 29 March 1977. The funeral service was held at St Catherine of Siena Roman Catholic Church, Chessington, and was attended by members of the murder squad, the local MP Nigel Fisher, the deputy mayor of Kingston, members of staff from Barclays and pupils from Holy Cross convent, New Malden; the coffin was escorted by members of Barclays Bank international hockey team.

Shortly after Hart's conviction, Barclays Bank donated a cheque for £25,000 to charities actively supported by the Metropolitan Police. A spokesperson for Barclays stated the cheque was "in appreciation of the work done by police leading to the arrest and conviction" of Woolliscroft's murderer.

While incarcerated, Hart participated in a program to educate school children and young adults about the harsh realities of life in prison in efforts to deter them from criminal activities.

A memorial plaque was placed inside the bank building at Ham with the wording "In fond memory of Angela Woolliscroft who died on 10th November 1976. A member of staff of this branch who will always be remembered by her colleagues." The bank closed in 2014 and the plaque was moved to the branch in George Street, Richmond. There is also a memorial bench outside the former bank building in Ham (now a Sainsbury's store) and three more were placed round Ham Common.

A crystal vase presented to a former colleague of Woolliscroft in 1991 and which she had filled with roses on the anniversary of her colleague's death each year until her retirement is currently stored in the vault of the George Street branch of Barclays Bank. Each year, on or about 10 November, the vase is taken from the vault, filled with flowers and placed on a table below the commemorative plaque to Woolliscroft.

Media

Bibliography

• Edwards, Jeff (1992). "Bank Raid Murder". Real-Life Crimes (6). London: Eaglemoss Publications Ltd.: 129–134. ISBN 978-1-858-75014-9.
• Honeycombe, Gordon (2014). Dark Secrets of the Black Museum: 1835–1985. London: John Blake Publishing Ltd. ISBN 978-1-782-19904-5.
• Lane, Brian (1995) [1993]. Chronicle of 20th Century Murder. Wiltshire: Select Editions. pp. 256–258. ISBN 978-0-425-14649-1.

Television

• The BBC Two television series Indelible Evidence has broadcast an episode focusing upon the Ham bank murder. This episode, titled Gunlore, was first broadcast on 6 February 1987.

See also

• Ballistics – Science of the motion of projectiles
• Crime in London
• Firearms regulation in the United Kingdom

Cited works and further reading

• Gaute, J. H. H.; Odell, Robin (1986). Murder Whereabouts. London: George G. Harrap and Co. ISBN 978-0-245-54258-9.
• Innes, Brian (1994). Real-Life Crimes and How They Were Solved: Shreds of Evidence. Oxford: Chancellor Press. ISBN 978-1-851-52594-2.
• Kelland, Gilbert (1996). Crime in London. London: Grafton. ISBN 978-0-261-66909-3.
• Lane, Brian (2004). Chronicle of Murder: A Dark and Bloody History of Our Age. London: Robinson Publishing. ISBN 978-1-841-19765-4.
• Moss, Alan; Skinner, Keith (2015). Scotland Yard's History of Crime in 100 Objects. Cheltenham: History Press. ISBN 978-0-750-96655-9.
• Nash, Jay Robert (1989). SEncyclopedia of World Crime: D-J. London: Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-0-923-58202-9.
• Tullett, Thomas (1979). Strictly Murder: Famous Cases of Scotland Yard's Murder Squad. London: Bodley Head Publishing. ISBN 978-0-370-30097-9.
• Whitaker, Joseph (1978). An Almanack for the Year of Our Lord 1978. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan. ASIN B0014IXSO2.
• Wilson, Colin (2015). Written in Blood. New York: Diversion Books. ISBN 978-1-626-81868-2.

External links

• Contemporary Evening News article detailing the trial of Michael Hart
• 2024 Richmond and Twickenham Times news article pertaining to the murder of Angela Woolliscroft