Church bells torment of tragic pensioner
He’s found dead in blazing car in centre of his village
A RETIRED senior police officer has died in a car inferno near his £1million home after sending letters complaining about the noise of church bells.
Edwin Williams, who was in his 70s, was found dead in the remains of his vehicle on Saturday, which he is thought to have deliberately set alight after parking next to his neighbours’ cars.
The former detective superintendent, who led a series of high-profile Scotland Yard investigations into child abuse and murder, had been involved in a number of disputes with residents after moving to the picturesque village of Cavendish, near Sudbury, Suffolk.
He sent a blizzard of ‘abusive’ letters to officials, complaining bitterly about the noise of the bells in the 14th- century St Mary the Virgin church opposite his home.
Witnesses heard a huge explosion around 7.30am on Saturday and saw Mr Williams’s grey Hyundai ablaze with up to 30ft flames, sending black smoke over the village. Firefighters later discovered his body in the driver’s seat. It is thought he started the blaze after parking near his neighbours’ cars, which were also badly damaged.
Church warden Dr Graham Jenkin said: ‘We are deeply shocked by what happened. There was an issue over the bells and that was dealt with at the time... recently there was quite a lot of abusive mail that came from him.’
Mr Williams and his second wife, an employment tribunal judge, moved to the Grade II-listed property in 2004. He lived alone after the couple split up several years ago. One villager said: ‘He was always falling out with people and was not a very popular man.’
They added: ‘He tried to get a petition started about the bells and would go and hammer on the doors of the church warden and the vicar to complain about them.’
Another resident said: ‘I heard the most enormous bang first thing in the morning and looked out to see this car on fire with flames shooting in the air.’
Mr Williams first started complaining about the bells after they were rung for three hours in 2017 to commemorate a soldier who died in the First World War.
He wrote in a letter: ‘It was certainly prejudicial to my health, because, after one hour of it, I was reduced to a frazzle.’
Villagers said he was often incensed by others parking at the front of his house. One said: ‘I think he deliberately torched himself in front of the neighbours’ house, knowing that their cars and perhaps their home would be damaged. It was his final message.’
West Suffolk councillor Peter Stevens said the former police officer had a reputation as ‘a combative character’ and ‘has at times been difficult to deal with’.
Mr Williams became one of Scotland Yard’s top child abuse experts having captured the paedophiles who killed Daniel Handley, a nineyear-old abducted in east London in 1994. He retired in 1995.
Suffolk Police said his death is not being treated as suspicious.
‘Deliberately torched himself’