Remembering Sgt David Winter 41 years since he was killed by Prudom

His tragic death marked the start of the siege of Malton with North Yorkshire's then chief constable Kenneth Henshaw ordering the largest arsenal of weapons ever issued to a British police force and threw a cordon round the town in a bid to catch the killer Barry Prudom.

David Wakeley, from Massers camera shop in Malton recalls those days when he was able to get out and about taking photos.

He describes Sgt Winter as "one of the most respected men that ever served in the North Yorkshire Police Force."

"I must say I saw hundreds of very brave police officers intent on catching the man who shot their fellow copper. A few days before David was shot he was on duty when the window of our shop was smashed in a smash and grab. My last memory of this fine man was him helping me sweep the glass up at 2:30 am in the morning. He need not have done that but that's what he was like."

Prudom's reign of terror began on June 17, 1982, when PC David Haigh was delivering a summons to a poacher in North Yorkshire's Washburn Valley.

When he didn't return, his colleague and friend Mick Clipston went in search of him.

Clipston found the police car with its doors open and David Haigh dead beside it. He had been shot in the forehead. It was the beginning of the biggest armed manhunt in British police history: one that lasted 17 days.

Having cleared the poacher of suspicion, police were left with a murder but no apparent motive - and almost no evidence. Written on a clipboard, found under Haigh's body, was a date of birth, a name and a car registration number.

But the name was false, and the car was found abandoned three days later, 25 miles away. The trail was cold.

Meanwhile, the gunman was on the move. In Lincolnshire he broke into a house. Then, 20 miles away, on the fifth day of the police hunt, he entered the home of Sylvia and George Luckett, shooting both in the head before escaping in their car. George died instantly, but his wife survived.

Two days later, up in the Dalby Forest,police dog-handler Ken Oliver stopped a car during a routine check in Dalby Forest. . He walked up to the car and asked the man inside to step out.

Instead of replying, the man lifted his hand - with a gun in it.

Ken ran to a nearby holiday cottage but the killer hadn't followed him. Instead, he had driven into the forest, where his car was later found burnt out.

He immediately alerted his police colleagues to the gunman's whereabouts.

By dawn next day, a huge operation had been mounted, involving marksmen, helicopters and 1,000 policemen.

Then came a breakthrough. In Leeds, PC Martin Hatton was cross-referencing the information on David Haigh's clipboard with police records. Working from the date of birth on the clipboard, he came across the name of Barry Edwards, wanted for wounding.

The police searched his flat and established his real name was Barry Prudom - a man known to them as a keep-fit fanatic, obsessed with weapons and the military. They also found a manual on survival techniques written by Eddie McGee - a former paratrooper and experienced tracker. Prudom had attended one of his courses.

Confirmation Prudom was their man came when Ken Oliver identified him from a photograph. After ten days, the phantom had a name. But he had vanished.

Then, on the twelfth day of the hunt, Prudom walked calmly into the centre of Old Malton. Sgt David Winter and Constable Mick Wood were on patrol when Wood saw his colleague challenging a man. There was one gunshot - and Winter lay dead on the grass, 200 yards from the police station.

But still there was no sign of the killer. Prudom was lying low: until July 3 when, perhaps driven by hunger, he walked into the home of Maurice Johnson.

For 11 hours, Prudom held the Johnsons and their son Brian hostage: and, as the hours passed, he struck up a strange relationship with them. In a poignant interview for the TV cameras, Brian recounts what happened. "As the night went on, we got talking as though we had known each other for years," he says. "He was calling me Brian and my father he was calling dad."

Eventually, at 3.15am, Prudom left - after leaving Brian with a present, a US paratroopers' ring. "He said: 'Promise me that you will wear it', and I said 'yes, I will,'" says Brian.

After he had gone, Brian's father called the police. Once more, Jim Kilmartin was on the killer's trail.

Together, he and tracker Eddie McGee, who had taught Prudom his survival skills, followed the killer's trail through the early morning dew to the back of the nearby tennis club where some pine fencing was lying against a wall behind thick undergrowth. It was Prudom's hideout.

A firearms squad from Greater Manchester, led by Chief Insp David Clarkson, was called in. Clarkson, desperate to make sure it was Prudom, climbed the wall behind the hideout and tried to prise the top open. It was too heavy. Then he tried talking to the man they believed was holed up inside. There was no response.

Suddenly, a gunshot rang out. Clarkson, believing Prudom was firing on his officers, ordered them to open fire.

When police eventually opened the hideout, Prudom was dead. But the final irony was yet to be revealed. A post-mortem into the killer's death revealed the truth.

The single shot Clarkson had heard had not been aimed at police at all. Triple killer Barry Prudom had shot himself - becoming the last victim of his reign of terror.

A few days before David was shot he was on duty when the window of our shop was smashed in a smash and grab. My last memory of this fine man was him helping me sweep the glass up at 2:30 AM in the morning. He need not have done that but that's what he was like.