Convicted murderer and kidnapper, born near Bradford, West Yorkshire, N England, UK. He was convicted of four murders, three of which occurred in 1974 when the victims interrupted him as he was robbing their houses. Because of the black hood he wore as a disguise, he became known as the Black Panther. Three murders were followed by a kidnapping. Seventeen-year-old Lesley Whittle was taken from her home in January 1974, and a ransom demand of £50 000 was accompanied by a death-threat. Lesley's body was found at the bottom of a ventilation shaft two months later. Neilson evaded the police until late 1975, when a security guard he had shot and wounded was able to provide a description. He received life-sentences for the murders and 21 years for kidnapping.
Donald Neilson (born Donald Nappey on August 1, 1936, nicknamed the Black Panther) was a jobbing builder who turned to crime when his business failed to make money—and became a murderer, kidnapper and Britain's most wanted man.
By the time Neilson kidnapped a teenage heiress from her home in Shropshire in 1975, he was already a multiple murderer, having previously supplemented his meagre earnings as a builder by robbing Post Offices at gunpoint. A decade of robberies had led to three postmasters being fatally shot, others being wounded and amounts of money taken, but little of the publicity which Neilson craved was generated from them.
Criminal beginnings
Neilson married at the age of 19 and had a daughter, Kathryn, in 1960 — it was at this point he changed his surname from Nappey to Neilson because he had been teased about it while at school and while doing national service, and did not want his daughter to suffer the same humiliation. Neilson had no criminal history in his youth, but in 1965 he had turned to burglary and then robbery when his carpentry and building business, plus an abortive attempt at a taxi firm, hit hard times.
He developed a technique that was to become familiar to the West Yorkshire constabulary, using a brace and bit to drill a hole in the window frame and using a screwdriver or coat hanger to open the catch.
While combining dishonesty with running his business, Neilson became obsessed with the discipline and routine of army life.
The sub-post offices
In 1967, he branched out into robbing sub-Post Offices.
On February 16, 1972, Neilson broke into a sub-Post Office in Heywood, Rochdale, Lancashire. During the struggle, the shotgun Neilson was carrying went off, making a hole in the ceiling. Mr. Richardson managed to remove the hood and get a good look at Neilson. Neilson managed to escape out the rear of the building. the first one of six, none of which managed to resemble any of the others or Neilson.
In 1974, Neilson targeted a sub-Post Office in Harrogate, North Yorkshire. Mr Skepper attempted to apprehend Neilson, who shot him as he leapt towards him, Neilson then fled, empty-handed, and Mr Skepper died of his wounds.
By the following September, more than 30,000 people had been interviewed in the search for a man whom the media had labelled the Black Panther.
Neilson lay low for six months before breaking into the sub-Post Office in the Higher Baxindale locale, of Accrington, Lancashire. Mr Astin died in hospital of his wounds, while Neilson fell down the stairs but managed to recover and flee.
Police quickly established that this was the same perpetrator as the killing in Harrogate, due to identical methods of entry, clothes and bullets.
Another two months passed before Neilson struck again, this time choosing a different and more cunning method of entry after his previous tussles with sub-postmasters. Neilson was waiting, hooded and carrying a torch with a bottle of ammonia attached, but he only succeeded in squirting himself, forcing him to rip off his mask and reveal his face, just as Mr Grayland's wife entered the scene.
This prompted Neilson to attack her, fracturing her skull, while also shooting her husband.
The abduction of Lesley Whittle
By 1972, Neilson had decided he needed to step up his criminal activity if he was to gain the big payout he wanted and receive the publicity he craved. Neilson continued with his sub-post office raids while also concocting a way to kidnap Lesley and extract a large ransom from her family.
By the beginning of 1975, Neilson was ready to carry out his plan. On the lounge table, Neilson left a ransom demand on a box of chocolates which he'd punched out on a roll of Dymo-tape.
The ransom demand read:
When Lesley failed to come downstairs for breakfast the next morning, her mother went to her room and saw the empty bed.
Meanwhile, Neilson had taken Lesley to a disused drainage shaft in a beauty spot (see Bathpool Park), in the town of Kidsgrove, Staffordshire.
However, during the next few hours, a freelance reporter had heard that a kidnap incident was underway and gave the story to a radio station which, with some disregard for Lesley's safety, broadcast it.
The same night, an angry Neilson shot security guard Gerald Smith while attempting to raid a security depot.In the hurry to escape the scene, Neilson left his stolen green Morris 1300 just a few hundred yards from Mr Smith’s body.
Meanwhile, on the third night of the kidnap, Ronald Whittle waited at home for the phone to ring. At this point police had not realised the connection between the wanted Black Panther (who did the Post Office murders) and this kidnap, and so Scotland Yard were in charge of the Whittle kidnap investigation.
Mr Whittle then drove to Kidsgrove, followed by several unmarked police cars. The problem was that Neilson had driven the route and worked out that Whittle should arrive at Bathpool Park at 2.30am.
Neilson had watched it all happen and, convinced that Mr Whittle was co-operating in a police trap, went into a rage.
By this point, the police had matched the findings in the abandoned car to the sub-post office murders and realised, to their horror, that Lesley had been kidnapped by the Black Panther.
The grim discovery
Previously, senior crime officers from Scotland Yard had discontinued a full search of Bathpool Park, claiming there would be nothing to find.
Almost two months had passed since the day she was abducted, though the post-mortem suggested she had been killed within 48 hours of her capture. Had the police conducted a search when Neilson issued his first demand, Lesley might well have been found alive.
As a result, there were recriminations within the two police forces investigating the kidnapping of Lesley — not least the demotion back to uniformed beat officer of the detective in charge of the case. Certainly Ronald Whittle, in an interview he gave outside the police station after being informed that Lesley's body had been found, laid the blame for his sister's death squarely on the considerable publicity garnered by the kidnap.
Arrest
Neilson remained at large for much of 1975 and returned to Post Office robberies, though he committed no more killings in the raids he carried out.
They called him over to their car and asked him what he was doing. Keeping calm and friendly, Neilson said he was on his way home from work and gave a false name. One of the policemen asked Neilson to write his name down. At this point, Neilson produced a sawn off shotgun. Neilson forced one officer into the backseat and then got into the front passenger seat.
At one point, the rear seated officer spotted that the gun was pointing away from the driver and lunged at the gun, pulling the muzzle up. The car stopped outside a chip shop, in Rainworth, and as the two policemen fought with Neilson, two customers in the shop joined in. The four men struggled with Neilson, who fought like a wild animal, but eventually was subdued and handcuffed to a handrail. At the police station, Neilson gave a false name and deliberated at some length before answering any question put to him.
It was only when Neilson's home in Bradford, West Yorkshire, was searched that police realised that the man who had violently struggled against them was the Black Panther, responsible for the murder of Lesley and three sub-postmasters.
Under questioning, Neilson admitted after 12 hours to kidnapping Lesley but said her death was an accident.
A fifth victim
In March 1976, Gerald Smith, the security guard who had been shot by Neilson during the hunt for Lesley Whittle, died as a result of his injuries and the after-effects of the incident. However, Neilson could not be charged with his murder under UK law at the time, which declared that a murder charge could not be brought in respect of a victim who dies more than a year and a day after the incident which brings about their death.
Trial
Neilson's trial at Oxford Crown Court, which started on June 14, 1976, was a massive public event, with queues stretching out on to the street as people tried to catch a glimpse of him.
On July 1, Neilson was unanimously convicted.
The trial judge also recommended that Neilson should only be released from prison due to great age or infirmity.
Immediately after the trial, police released two photographs of Neilson;
Donald Neilson became one of Britain's most notorious and infamous criminals and remains incarcerated in a high-security prison to this day.
The Lord Chief Justice set a 30-year minimum term for Neilson soon after his conviction, but successive Home Secretaries then imposed a whole life tariff. This means that Neilson has been eligible for parole since July 2006. Details of his prison record, conduct and current location are firmly under wraps, but it is understood that the 70-year-old Neilson is in good health at the end of his full recommended minimum term.
Press Opinion
Retrospective documentaries on the capture of Neilson would later lay heavy blame on the police, who didn't take Neilson's initial demands and threats seriously enough to order a press blackout, or thoroughly search Bathpool Park when Neilson first ordered a ransom drop-off there.
There was also much denouncement of the police's inability to identify or locate the Black Panther by the time Lesley's body had been found and Neilson had vanished. Ultimately, the police were saved further pressure by the actions of alert uniformed patrol officers which led to Neilson's arrest.
Had Neilson decided to end his criminal activity after Lesley's death, it is possible he would never have been caught.
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