Mourning Hungerford

PC Trevor Wainwright can never forget the day tragedy came to Hungerford, says Eleanor Steafel in The Daily Telegraph. As the local bobby, he knew everyone on his beat – including Michael Ryan, an unemployed handyman who lived with his mum. “He wasn’t a villain. If you went ‘boo’ to him, he’d probably have jumped a mile.” Indeed, it was Wainwright (pictured) who processed Ryan’s application for a firearms licence for a nearby gun club. Months later, on 19 August 1987, Ryan went on a killing spree – shooting 16 people dead, and wounding 15 more, before killing himself. Wainwright’s parents were among the victims. “Ryan shot into their car and killed my dad straight away. Mum was wounded. Ryan was reloading his weapon so she crouched [down] thinking he was going to shoot her again, but another car came past and Ryan shot that instead.” Wainwright, meanwhile, was off duty, with no idea of the carnage unfolding. “I was in another village, Inkpen, cutting the grass for an old lady.” His guilt at being unable to stop Ryan was exacerbated when, two days later, newspaper headlines declared: “PC signs father’s death warrant.” Luckily, the community was more forgiving. “That day I was going to see my mother in hospital, and I didn’t want to,” he recalls. “All the wounded from Hungerford were in the same ward. There was no way I could face [them]. Mum called me and said, ‘Don’t be so stupid – get your arse in here.’ When I arrived, they all put their arms around me and said, ‘Trevor, we love you.’”