Author Matt Johnson in conversation with contributor John Murray to talk about how this book came about.
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| Matt Johnson |
Matt: John, perhaps we should explain who we are first, about the campaign and how this all got started?
John: April 17th 1984, a day that will forever live in our memories. Yvonne and I were both uniform PCs at Bow Street. On that day, we were scheduled to do some routine work but were re-assigned to a demonstration outside the Libyan People’s Bureau in St James’s Square. You were driving the local traffic car, as I now know.
Matt: That’s right, and although I’d never met you at that time, I knew Yvonne quite well. Not too long before, she’d been at my house warming party with Mick Liddle, her fiancé. Matt: John, perhaps we should explain who we are first, about the campaign and how this all got started?
John: April 17th 1984, a day that will forever live in our memories. Yvonne and I were both uniform PCs at Bow Street. On that day, we were scheduled to do some routine work but were re-assigned to a demonstration outside the Libyan People’s Bureau in St James’s Square. You were driving the local traffic car, as I now know.
Matt: That’s right, and although I’d never met you at that time, I knew Yvonne quite well. Not too long before, she’d been at my house warming party with Mick Liddle, her fiancé.
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| John Murray |
John: Mick was on the demonstration as well, just a few yards from us. We were standing facing about fifty noisy demonstrators who were venting their anger against Colonel Gaddafi. I remember hearing a noise like fire crackers going off and then everything went silent, not a sound. Then, from the crowd somebody screamed.
Matt: When did you first realise Yvonne and many others had been shot?
John: It took a while; I mean who would ever have expected a man to open up on us with a Sterling machine gun from the first floor of the Embassy? Yvonne and I had changed position several times and it was only a moment earlier when she’d come across to me and offered to swap. The people in front of me were particularly vocal so she was doing me a favour. She was in my line of sight and I saw her go down. I thought she’d tripped over but it was only as she writhed in agony that I realised it was more serious than that. Our Sergeant, Howard Turner, helped me with her and it was then we saw the blood and her wound.
Matt: So, you knew then you’d been shot at and many people had been hit?
John: We all realised, if they opened up again we were sitting ducks. But there were injured people who needed help and, as we know, that sometimes means risking it all to do that. Together with another PC called Pete Rogers, we lifted Yvonne and carried her to Charles II Street where it was safer. And that’s where you came in. When the ambulance arrived, you were assigned to escort us to the Westminster Hospital.
Matt: Were you able to speak to Yvonne during those moments?
John: I was. She was hurting and I used a pair of scissors to cut the waistband of her skirt. There were two Libyan students with us who’d also been shot. One was really crying. Yvonne talked to him, calmed him down and reassured him.
Matt: She realised she’d been shot?
John: By then, yes. And I promised her I would not rest until I’d helped he get the people who’d done it.
Matt: And an hour later came the awful news, that she had died?
John: Yes, and as we know, what followed was the longest siege in UK policing history. At the end of which our Government decided everyone inside, even those suspected of involvement in the murder, would be allowed to leave without being prosecuted.
Matt: Because they had diplomatic immunity?
John: They had nothing of the kind, as we now know. Some of those Libyans were killers, bombers, terrorists. They were in the UK to murder people.
Matt: And now the full story behind what happened that day is about to be told in this book.
John: Yes, and if you don’t mind me saying, you’ve done an incredible job. This was a three dimensional jigsaw of information, some related, some apparently quite random. You’ve pieced it together with the skill of a detective.
Matt: Do you recall how the idea to write it came about?
John: The Victoria Derbyshire show had the idea to mark the anniversary of the murder with a reunion. They wanted to talk to me about what was a 36 year campaign at that time, and to bring me together with you, with Tony Long from the firearms team and with Clive Mabry, that legend amongst police officers.
Matt: Clive being the PC who sneaked into the Square late at night and under cover of darkness to recover Yvonne’s hat from the street outside the Libyan Embassy?
John: I’d never met him. We knew he existed but it was the BBC researcher who tracked him down. Ex-para. Brave as you can imagine. Rescued her hat so it could sit on her coffin for the funeral.
Matt: The coffin you personally carried into Salisbury Cathedral.
John: That’s right. I repeated my promise to her that day as well. I promised I would get the men that did it.
Matt: Do you remember how the idea for a book came up that day?
John: I’ve read all your novels and loved them. And I remember you dedicated your very first novel to Yvonne’s memory. Clive suggested it as we talked about those books. He reckoned you could do it because you’d be able to get access to people that an ordinary writer couldn’t. And they’d talk you because of your pedigree.
Matt: I remember I took a long time thinking about it. It was a lot of responsibility. I’d never written non-fiction before and I didn’t want to let you down, to let down Yvonne’s memory. Even once I’d started I had many doubts.
John: It was a mammoth task. We knew there was stuff in the National Archives waiting to be discovered and there was a story to be told but it grew to even more than I expected.
Matt: Amazing to think what the Government was up to in those days, supposedly in our best interests?
John: And what they’re almost certainly up to today.
Matt; So, what is your hope for the book?
John: I’m hoping people will read it and learn the truth. Over the years I’ve talked to more people than I could count who remember where they were and what they were doing on the day Yvonne was shot. This was a national tragedy not just a police tragedy. I want people to understand what drove me to do the best for my friend and to secure justice for her. I want them to know who killed Yvonne, how they did it and why. And I want them to know why our Government wanted the killers to go free. What about you, similar I’d guess?
Matt: Yes, all as you describe. But for me there’s more. I want people to learn about you and about how brave you’ve been, the personal risks you’ve taken and the dangers you’ve faced and, despite all that, you never gave up. And I want people to read how events that day shaped policing in the UK for the next forty years, and in ways they might hardly have believed. The truth, I think, will shock people but sadly, I fear it may not surprise them.
John Murray has fought for nearly 40 years to secure justice for the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher. No Ordinary Day tells the story of that fight.
No Ordinary Day: Espionage, Betrayal, Terrorism and Corruption - The Truth Behind the Murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher by Matt Johnson with John Murray (Mardle Books) Out Now.
On 17 April 1984, as police and anti-Gaddafi demonstrators gathered in the street outside the Libyan People's Bureau in London, they had no way of knowing they were about to become part of one of the greatest tragedies in British policing history. At 10.17a.m. automatic gunfire rained down on them. WPC Yvonne Fletcher was hit in the back and later died from her injuries. Twelve demonstrators were wounded. The gunmen were Libyans, both concealed behind a first-floor window of the Bureau. Two weeks later, all those present inside the Bureau, including everyone suspected of involvement in the attack, were deported from the UK. Men guilty of terrorism and murder were neither arrested nor prosecuted. As Yvonne Fletcher lay dying, her colleague and close friend PC John Murray cradled her in his arms. Before she lost consciousness, he promised her he would not rest until those responsible for her murder had been brought to justice.
Thirty-seven years would pass before John was able to fulfil that promise. Whilst writing John Murray's story, Matt Johnson identified UK government duplicity, secret service deals and how a plan to finally defeat the all-powerful National Union of Mineworkers would place the government in an invidious position when pro- and anti-Gaddafi elements brought their fight to the streets of the UK. He was able to discover why, in 1984, her killers had been allowed to go free. His extensive research also revealed how events on 17 April resulted in a 30-year government campaign to bring the police services of the UK under political control, a campaign that has driven our police service into the state of disarray we see today. The story behind what happened outside the Libyan People's Bureau is complex, shocking and revealing. Matt Johnson's compelling account pulls together a series of seemingly unconnected threads into a coherent whole, incorporating all the inter-related elements of politics, business, secret service missions and chance. For some, this will be a very uncomfortable read. For many, it may confirm what they already suspect, that we, the public, know very little of the decisions being made by our elected representatives and the actions taken by official bodies, supposedly in our best interests.
