Get Carter killer dies.. still fighting conviction
Pal vows to continue legal battle
THE convicted killer who inspired the cult movie Get Carter has died without clearing his name after 53 years protesting his innocence.
Michael Luvaglio, 83, had been jailed for life over the notorious 1967 “onearmed bandit” killing of Angus Sibbet, 33.
The victim’s bullet-ridden body was found in his Mark 10 Jaguar under a bridge in South Hetton, Co Durham.
He collected cash from working men’s club slot machines owned by a firm operated by Luvaglio’s older brother Vince Landa, who ran London gambling houses for the murderous Kray twins.
Luvaglio and his pal Dennis Stafford, arrested with him, both denied Sibbet’s murder but were convicted and each served 12 years of their life sentences before being freed on licence.
Film director Mike Hodges was fascinated with the killing and used gangland elements from it for Get Carter in 1971.
The movie, adapted from the book
FOUND GUILTY Michael Luvaglio in year of killing
Jack’s Return Home, starred Michael Caine as Newcastle-born gangster Jack Carter who goes back there from London to avenge his brother’s murder.
Both Luvaglio and Stafford fought a long legal battle to have their convictions overturned but with no success.
Stafford, 88, who has changed his surname to Scott, said yesterday: “Michael was not capable of murder.
“It’s a disgrace that he passed away still deemed guilty of it when, like me, he was innocent.” Film-maker Neil Jackson, a friend of Luvaglio, said: “Michael had heart problems, made worse by his time in prison for a murder he did not commit.”
Jackson, of Consett, Co Durham, who spoke to Luvaglio at his London home last week, vowed to continue his friend’s legal fight.