Michael George Hart

Background

Michael George Hart was involved in a robbery at a Barclays Bank branch on Upper Ham Road, Richmond.

The offence

Angela Wooliscroft, a twenty-year-old bank clerk working at Barclays Bank in Ham, Richmond, looked up from behind the protective glass screen at her cashier's position in the Upper Ham Road, Richmond, branch of Barclays Bank. A heavily disguised man standing in front of her was brandishing a sawn-off shotgun and ordered: "Give me some money". Angela passed some money under the screen to the man and the screen in front of her disintegrated as the man fired the gun. Angela was blown backwards by the blast and died on the way to hospital.

The incident occurred on 10th November 1976.

One item left behind by the killer was a woman's yellow raincoat that he had used to cover the gun.

Investigation

Police found in one of the pockets a piece of paper which turned out to be an entry form for a wine-making competition which had been signed with the name "Grahame".

The coat belonged to a Miss Marshall. On the day of the murder she had parked her Austin A40 in the car park of Bentall's in Kingston while she went shopping. When she returned she noticed that the car was in a different position to the one she had left it and her raincoat and sunglasses were missing. The car fitted the description of the one used in the robbery.

Detective Chief Superintendent James Sewell of Scotland Yard led the team of detectives hunting for the killer. Sewell received a tip-off that a man named Michael Hart had been seen in Basingstoke, on the day of the murder, putting a shotgun into the back of a car. Hart claimed to have an alibi for the time of the killing and this was verified.

Ballistics experts analysed the shot that had killed Angela Wooliscroft. The shot was found to be a particular make, Eley game shot, fired from a double barrelled shotgun. The murder weapon had not been found.

Sewell later described how he realised that the shot removed from Hart’s home appeared to be different from that found at the murder scene; however, when the cartridges were opened and the shot analysed, tests showed it was in fact the same, with a batch of shot wrongly labelled by the company Eley.

It was discovered that the shot that had been used to kill Angela Wooliscroft proved to be of a different type to that found in the possession of Michael Hart, but it was later discovered that Hart's shot was actually from a batch that had been mislabelled in the factory, so the types of shot matched after all. Eley Kynock of Birmingham, the manufacturers, had wrongly labelled a batch of ammunition that had gone to the gunshop in Reading that had been raided at the beginning of the month.

Arrest

On 22nd November Hart was picked up by officers following a traffic accident. A search of his car found a Hendal .22 automatic. An intensive search of his house turned up, amongst other items, a box of Eley No 7 trapshooting cartridges.

The pistol and ammunition proved to have been stolen on 4th November in Reading. Also stolen at the same time had been a double-barrelled Reilly shotgun.

Sewell then explained that Scotland Yard put out an order to get Hart, but he was arrested after he went to collect money from a building company where he occasionally worked.

Hart was arrested and charged with murder on 20th January 1977.

Trial

At his trial, thirty-year-old Hart claimed that he had killed the cashier when he had tapped the shotgun on the glass and it went off accidentally.

The forensic evidence disproved this possibility. On 3rd November 1977, Hart was found guilty of murder.

Sentencing

On 3rd November 1977, Hart was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a recommendation that he should serve at least twenty-five years.

Outcome

Michael George Hart was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommendation that he should serve at least twenty-five years.

Aftermath

Hart eventually admitted that he had killed Angela Wooliscroft, but said that it had been accidental, that the gun had just gone off. He told police where he had dumped the weapon, and it was recovered from the River Thames.

Ballistic tests showed that the pressure needed to pull the trigger on the gun, which was over eighty years old, was considerable, making it highly unlikely that it could have gone off accidentally.