| Flowers in Gods Garden
- Articles |
28/07/95
- Police explain delay in arresting girl's killer
BY PAUL WILKINSON AND KATE ALDERSON
The Times
POLICE who investigated the murder of Rosie Palmer in
Hartlepool rejected criticism yesterday that they had
failed to act on suspicions that Tony Armstrong was
responsible for her disappearance.
Local people say that they repeatedly warned police
that he was the most likely suspect when the three-year-old
failed to return home from buying an ice cream. They
were angry at the failure of police to find her body
until their third visit to the killer's flat, 50 yards
from Rosie's home.
Armstrong was jailed for life yesterday at Leeds Crown
Court after pleading guilty to murdering the little
girl. Detective Superintendent Doug Smith defended the
actions of his team during a press conference after
the court hearing.
"There was a lot of misinformation moving around.
On the very first night Rosie went missing, certain
members of the public did come forward and suggest that
a certain man was responsible for her disappearance.
"That man was eliminated from the inquiry on the
very first evening and that man was not Shaun Anthony
Armstrong."
Mr Smith went on "There has been a complete misapprehension
by certain members of the public, picked up by the media,
which sent around the wrong signals suggesting that
the police should have concluded this inquiry more quickly."
Within an hour of Rosie going missing on a fine day
in June last year. she was dead in Armstrong's flat.
However it was not until the police made their third
visit, and the second search of a landing cupboard,
that they found her.
Mr Smith said that on the day after Rosie vanished,
officers first called at the flat as part of routine
door-to-door inquiries, in which local residents were
asked to answer a questionnaire aimed at tracing her
last movements.
They returned next day during an operation in which
homes in the area were subjected to cursory searches,
providing occupants approved. While the officers were
at Armstrong's flat on those two occasions he had been
"very co-operative, friendly and helpful".
Mr Smith said that on the third day of the inquiry,
two experienced detectives operating in the area happened
to speak to Armstrong again and this time it was noted
"his demeanour had changed". He was "very
shifty, on edge and looking very worried. His appearance
was dishevelled, which he put down to heavy drinking".
The switch in his behaviour aroused suspicion and, as
a result, Armstrong was arrested. A more thorough search
of his flat led to discovery of Rosie's body. Mr Smith
conceded that the body should have been found on the
second visit, if it had been in the cupboard all the
time.
He added: "Prior to Armstrong's arrest, there was
not one piece of information forthcoming, from any member
of the public, who were very helpful to the police.
Nor was there any information from any other source
... which indicated that Armstrong was the person responsible.
Had that been the case we would have been round there
immediately. "The arrest of Armstrong resulted
purely from routine police inquiries. No member of the
public, no other sources, said he was the person responsible.
The fact that he was responsible was discovered by the
police and police action and nothing else."
Armstrong had moved on to the Headland estate eight
months before he had killed Rosie. He was a loner, disliked
or distrusted by all those who knew him. He had convictions
for petty crimes, including theft, but had no background
as a sex offender.
At the time of the murder. local people expressed anger
that the council estate was being used as a "dumping
ground" for single men. Hartlepool council, which
had recently rehoused Armstrong on the Headland, was
accused of splitting up problem estates and "dumping
the dregs among decent, responsible tenants.
Council officials attended a rowdy public meeting on
the Headland at which much of the anger and sorrow at
Rosie's death was vented on them. There was little sympathy
for the officials claim that they were merely applying
housing policy even-handedly by putting eligible tenants
into empty properties.
In a march and public meeting, hundreds of people demanded
answers from civic chiefs. They were not impressed with
rejections of their claims that there was a policy of
moving single homeless men on to the estate. Placards
reading "Clean up the Headland" and "Get
rid of the scum" were brandished in a public demonstration.
Several people spoke of "taking it into our own
hands". Their sentiments had been intensified by
Rosie's murder. But on the day her daughter. disappeared,
Beverley Palmer had no worries about letting her daughter
slip out to the ice-cream van.
There seemed no reason to-expect danger: she often played
with other children in the cul-de-sac on the Headland
estate. But the much-loved girl with the cheery, broad
grin vanished within minutes of skipping out into the
street.
Gary Amerigo, 32, the ice-cream seller, recalled the
little girl with red hair, wearing red-and-white checked
shorts and a white T-shirt with a daisy motif. Rosie
had been watching nursery videos at a neighbour's house
in Henrietta Street when she heard the familiar jingle
from his van.
"Only Rosie came up to my van that day. She didn't
have enough money but I gave her the ice-cream anyway.
She seemed just her usual self bright and cheerful.
She loved ice-cream and was a regular, coming out perhaps
three times a week."
It was 3.30pm and Rosie did not return to Henrietta
Street.Neighbours looked for her and at 8.45pm police
were called. The distress of the family and the close-knit
Headland community deepened in the three subsequent
days of fruitless searching.
Martin Palmer, 35, a lawyer, who was separated from
his wife, made an emotional appeal for Rosie's abductor
to let her go."I just hope whoever has her is someone
with a benign problem, someone who wants a child to
look after. That is the best hope we have got."
Mr Palmer, who was living in Bristol had last seen his
daughter four weeks before when he took her for a day
out to the Yorkshire seaside town of Whitby. "It
was a beautiful day and Whitby was jam-packed. I parked
two miles out and carried Rose to the beach," he
said.
"She had been car-sick and I had cleaned her up,
but once we got to Whitby she was fine and we built
sand castles. She was so very precious to me. When her
mother and I separated I wanted to keep in contact.
It is an investment for the future, your own daughter."
Hours after his appeal, detectives found Rosies body
in a cupboard in Armstrong's flat. The post-mortem examination
showed she had died within an hour of being abducted.
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