The son of one of the unarmed police officers murdered in Shepherd’s Bush 50 years ago has spoken of the devastating impact the event had and continues to have on his family’s lives.
Detective Constable David Wombwell was gunned down with colleagues PC Geoffrey Fox and Detective Sergeant Christopher Head on Braybrook Street on August 12 1966.
Speaking ahead of the special service held on Friday (August 12) which he attended to mark half a century since their murders, DC Wombwell’s son Daen, who was just three when his dad was shot, hit out at the decision to release Harry Roberts , who was convicted of their three murders, from prison in 2014.
He also recounts faint memories he has of his father and how he went off the rails in the years that followed his murder.
Daen, whose little sister Melanie was two at the time of the murders, says his mother Gillian also struggled to recover from her husband’s death.
And the father, who lives in Texas, America, feels let down by the release of Roberts, who fired the shots which killed DC Wombwell and DC Head.
“It’s a wound that never healed,” he said. “Our family never got over it. We never will get over it, you just bear the scars.
“They say Roberts has served his time, but when do we, as a family, get parole ? You never do. We don’t get that privilege. He does.”
Relatives of the police officers attended an anniversary memorial service in Braybrook Street on Friday (August 12)
Recalling the short time spent with his dad and their home in East Acton, he said: “All I’ve been told is that he was a good person - considerate, thoughtful, reflective - one of life’s good guys. From what I understand, he was born to serve.
“He didn’t see it as a job, he just WAS a policeman. I only have a few memories of him and I cling to them.
“I remember playing with him in the park and I remember one day he was going off to work, mum gave him a kiss and he smiled at me as he waved goodbye.”
With the absence of his dad, Daen soon went off the rails: “I was fighting and getting pretty aggressive because there was a lot of pain and anger I didn’t know what to do with. I was a little s**t to be honest with you.
“And I’d have become a thug if my mum hadn’t taken me taken me to a shrink and they said: ‘Get this kid a structured environment’.”
But his mother was also struggling to cope. Daen said: “She married and divorced a couple of times, but the trouble is no one can compete with the ghost of my father.
“And over the years my dad’s become more perfect. She was truly happy.
“They were still in the honeymoon period, the marriage was new. Dad was the love of her life.”
If the crime had occurred a few months earlier, Roberts, and his accomplices Jack Witney and John Duddy, would have hung. But the death penalty was repealed shortly before the murders.
Daen continued: “My father was my grandfather’s only son and, although he was a very gentle man, what happened just ate him up and destroyed him inside.
“If the death penalty had been in place he’d have pulled the rope himself, such was his seething anger.
“Would I have done the same thing? I’d have done it and not even blinked... you have no idea the rage I feel.”
