The Blandford Express

Operation Countryman was an investigation into corrupt practices in both the City of London and Metropolitan Police Forces.  It was led in the late 1970s by the Assistant Chief Constable of Dorset, Leonard Burt (above). When younger, he had played a key role in the uncovering of the Portland Spy Ring. This resulted in the conviction and imprisonment of local spies Ethel Gee and Harry Houghton.                     The investigation was set up following allegations that police officers in the capital were accepting money from criminals. In return, it was believed the officers were interfering with evidence, giving advance notice of police raids and assisting with payroll robberies. At the time many workers had their wages paid weekly in cash. This necessitated the transfer from banks to businesses of large amounts of cash required  to make up wage packets. During the 1970s, London was awash with meticulously planned robberies man...

Leonard Burt was a Dorset Constabulary policeman whose groundwork led to the arrest of five members of the Portland Spy Ring in 1961. During the autumn of 1959 the Detective Officer became aware of Harry Houghton, a Portland Naval Base clerk whose lifestyle and excessive drinking were incompatible with his clerk’s salary. Burt found it quite incredible that this man, who had been sent back from Poland because of his excessive drinking and black market activities, had been posted to the Portland Underwater Establishment. Here, some of Britain’s most secret submarine defence activities were carried out. Houghton had been involved in selling penicillin, a drug which was in short supply in Poland. He also frequently boasted about his invitations to attend parties at the Polish Embassy where he met up with old Polish friends. Burt’s discreet observations led to him finding that Houghton spent many evenings drinking heavily in the Elm Tree public house, Langton Herring. He would then make hi...

At one time members of the Dorset Constabulary were subject to regulations that today would not be acceptable and possibly illegal. A  Dorset police constable could not marry without obtaining the permission of the Chief Constable, Lieutenant-Colonel Samuel Symes Cox. He was worried that so many of his constables were married men that he issued the following instruction. ‘The number of married police constables being out of all reasonable proportion to the total strength of the Force so much as to be increasingly inconvenient to the efficient working of the police, No constable for the future will be allowed to marry until he has served at least twelve months and then permission will not be granted until he satisfies the Chief Constable he has saved a sufficient sum of money to enable him to start in life with respectability as a married man.’ (Dorset Constabulary General Orders – August 1864) When the Force had been established in 1856, it had been determined, unless there wer...

Richard Hann (1830-1904) was Constable No. 1 of the Dorset Police . He served at Blandford’s newly opened Police Station, located at the corner of Edward Street and Salisbury Road, from 1865-1867. Among his cases were: Isaac Newton of Blandford was brought up before the Court, in custody of PC Hann, summoned with leaving his wife and family chargeable to Blandford Workhouse. The prisoner was committed for one calendar month with hard labour . (Dorset County Chronicle 13 th July 1865) George Paul of Blandford was summoned by PC Hann for allowing his horse to stray on the highway at Pimperne on the 13 th August last.   The case was adjourned till the next Court sitting. Later, George Paul was fined five shillings (25p) for allowing cattle to stray on the highway. (Dorset County Chronicle Thursday 7 th September 1865) Edward Foster appeared to a summons charged with being drunk and riotous in the public street. Although he pleaded not guilty the case was proven by Constables ...

Drunkenness was an issue both within and outside the Dorset Constabulary in the mid 19th century. Dorset Constabulary Records - General Orders: 23 rd January 1862. ‘The conveyance of prisoners is one of the most important duties connected with the Constabulary. On 24 th December last a prisoner named Jeremiah Fudge was brought into Headquarters by PC Collins under the influence of liquor. The Chief Constable finds upon inquiry that he was given over to PC Marsh at Buckland Newton who took him to the Royal Oak Inn and gave him a pint of ale having been marched from Sturminster. He then brings him onto Piddletrenthide (4 miles) to PC Collins, who directs PC Marsh to go with the prisoner to the Green Dragon Inn where they were served with two pints of strong beer and PC Collins marched him on from there to Dorchester, going into a public house on his way and of course brings him in drunk. Persons in custody are to be allowed ordinary refreshment and nothing more but it appears that ...

In the early days of the Dorset Police Force, the arrival of the bicycle made quite a difference to the working life of the average copper. To perform his constabulary duties, he would have to walk many, many miles every day. This was the case particularly when he had to accompany a prisoner part or all the way to Dorchester Jail. The County Force issued its first bicycle to the Dorchester Division in 1894. It had solid tyres and cost eight pounds & ten shillings (£8.50). The next year another six were bought for other Divisions. Then in 1896, officers were paid an annual allowance of three pounds to use their own machine. By then it was reckoned that half of Dorset’s constables could ride a bike. Wary of the safety hazards of the new machine, Chief Constable Captain Amyatt Brown insisted strict compliance with the following regulation. ‘Upon overtaking any cart or carriage, horse, mule or other beast of burden or any foot passenger every such person shall within reasonable d...

When Chief Inspector Hambrook and Detective Sergeant Bell from Scotland Yard arrived in Blandford to investigate the crime, it was like a scene from Midsomer Murders. They had arrived at Blandford Station after a long and uncomfortable train journey down from the capital. Two successive managers at the Coverdale Dog Kennels in Tarrant Keynston had lost their lives from shotgun injuries. Both bizarrely had happened in the village within two years. The two detectives soon felt they were receiving little help from the locals and were being met by a conspiracy of silence. They did however uncover tales of marital infidelities, anonymous poison pen letters and petty jealousies. Blandford's Doctor Kenneth Wilson had examined the body and concluded that the injuries could not have been self inflicted. So the Scotland Yard Chief Inspector called in the Home Office Pathologist, Sir Bernard Spilsbury who shared the Blandford doctor's opinion. The villagers were convinced that both deat...

  Three local men believed they had sound theories to identify Jack the Ripper. This was the name given to the murderer who savagely killed five women in London’s impoverished Whitechapel district in 1888. The three men with these views were Henry Richard Farquharson, Frederick George Abberline and Sydney Godolphin Osborne. Henry Richard Farquharson who has been unkindly nicknamed ‘ loose-lipped Farqie’ was the controversial and outspoken Member of Parliament for West Dorset from 1885 to 1895. He lived at Eastbury House in Tarrant Gunville. Apparently, Farquharson claimed that the murderer was the son of a surgeon who had committed suicide. Fearing libel, he did not identify him specifically but his description pointed to Wimborne-born, Montague Druitt. In February 1892, the Western Mail later confirmed that the West Dorset MP’s theory was that ‘ the author of the outrages killed himself. ’ Druitt had committed suicide in November 1888 and his body had been recovered from the Ri...

Gussage St Michael is a quiet North Dorset village with a population of few more than a couple of hundred. Yet for several months in 1913, it made headlines across the world as far away as Australia and New Zealand. William Walter Burton, a rabbit catcher, was found guilty of murdering his lover, 24 year-old Winifred Mitchell and had buried her in a lonely wood. Winifred Mary Mitchell was 5ft 5 ins tall, dark haired and was employed as a cook. She was known as ‘ Winnie ’ and ‘cookie’ . Winnie wore false teeth that had been given to her by a former employer. On the 9 th August 1913, South Australia’s Adelaide Advertiser reported. ‘ In the annals of crime, there have been few murders so carefully planned and so ingeniously carried out and it will be remembered that the judge in passing sentence of death intimated that Burton was beyond human forgiveness.’ William Burton walked alone to the scaffold and was hanged at Dorchester Prison on the morning of Tuesday 24 th June 1913....

Early Dorset Police files record some colourful instances of constables getting into hot water for ‘ wandering from the straight & narrow.’ In February 1857, Constable Charles Guy of Blandford Division was fined ten shillings (50p) for being drunk. As a punishment he was ordered to move to another station at his own expense. Guy refused to do this so as a result was given a punishment of 14 days hard labour and he was dismissed from the force by the Chief Constable, Colonel Cox. In June 1867, Constable Rolls was fined ten shillings ‘ for lying down in the road when escorting a prisoner and allowing him to wander off out of sight .’ Apparently, the constable’s defence was that he was tired and that his offence was a trivial one. This did not impress the Chief Constable. In July 1857, Constable Hodges spent several hours playing skittles in a public house at Iwerne Minster. While there he had his handcuffs stolen by a fellow drinker whom Hodges then arrested and took before a m...