Man jailed for killing three policemen freed after 48 years

The decision to release a man who has served nearly 50 years in jail for killing three unarmed policemen in London in the 1960s has been condemned by the Police Federation of England and Wales

. It said officers would “feel badly let down” that he had been freed.

Harry Roberts, now 78, was jailed for life for his part in the killings of Det Const David Wombwell (25), PC Geoffrey Fox (41) and Sgt Christopher Head (30) in 1966. He was released on Tuesday and spent his first night of freedom in a hostel for ex-prisoners in Cambridgeshire.

The three officers, who were in plain clothes, surprised Roberts and two other men as they sat in a van near Wormwood Scrubs prison.

Later, Roberts said he had shot them because he feared they would discover guns they were planning to use in a bank robbery.

Roberts, who was sentenced to life, was told by the judge that it was “very unlikely” the authorities would “ever think fit to show mercy by releasing you on licence”.

Long campaign

Roberts has long campaigned to be freed. In 2006 he applied for a judicial review, claiming that the parole board was delaying a decision on his application. He was eventually turned down, but he returned to the High Court the following year asking judges to investigate that refusal.

Two years later, he was back again, arguing that he could not be regarded as a risk to the public because of his age and that he had served 12 years longer than the minimum term set down by the judge in his trial, which was one of the most high-profile during the 1960s.

The killings – which have never prompted Roberts to issue a word of remorse, according to some of those who have met him in jail – would have earned him the death penalty if he had committed them earlier in the 1960s, but they happened just months after its use was suspended.

An angry Police Federation chairman, Steve White, said police officers – who are campaigning for a change in the law to ensure that those who kill police officers are given full-life terms and are never released – will “feel badly let down” by the criminal justice system.

Roberts, who first used violence in a robbery aged 19 when he attacked a shopkeeper with an iron bar, has served nearly 50 years in jail, Mr White acknowledged.

“But we must not lose sight that he was involved in the brutal murder of three unarmed police officers; their families have been condemned to a life sentence without their loved ones,” he added.

“The public outcry also demonstrates the strength of feeling among the law-abiding British public who understand that police officers put themselves in dangerous positions to protect their communities, but rightly expect the backing of the law and criminal justice system in doing so.”