Last updated 12:30, Friday, 23 May 2008

A HIGH PORTINSCALE man has reinvestigated some of Cumbria’s most notorious murder cases for his new book.

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Ex-policeman Paul Heslop spent 30 years of his working life studying the criminal mind and putting offenders’ stories under the microscope for the sort of evidence that wasn’t available to the police more than a hundred years ago.

He retired in 1995 after spending three decades in the force, some of it as a detective inspector.

Unlike the TV programme New Tricks, which is about three retired detectives who are recruited into the police to reinvestigate unsolved crimes, Paul’s investigation of murders that shocked and fascinated the public in their time, is for more personal reasons.

He is now an author of several books on subjects as diverse as crime and countryside walks.

Paul went to school in the North East and, for five years, he worked as an apprentice electrician. “I was useless,” he said. “I kept getting moved around and paid off and wanted to get out. At first I looked at the army careers office, but somehow found myself wandering into the police station, filling in a form, taking an exam, and next thing I was in the police.”

After walking the beat for five years, he went into CID and joined the Regional Crime Squad before, disappointed by the lack of promotion prospects, he moved to Hertfordshire where he spent 18 years, finishing up as detective inspector in Watford.

But what brought Paul to Cumbria – and to a new career as an author?

“Before I left the police I went to a creative writing class at night school. That got me going writing articles for magazines and I love research,” said the author of four books on the grisly subject of murder.

Paul moved to the Lake District in 1999 where he put his love of walking to good use with features for magazines and newspapers, and where at one stage he even ran his own writing classes.

He penned a biography of his own 30 years as a cop – The Walking Detective – and there followed his series on murders in Tyneside, the south of England and his latest book set in Cumbria.

“When I write about a murder I like to carry out my own investigation,” he said. “Years ago they had no DNA or prints, yet they hanged people. Once the police decided who had done it, although there was no evidence from the forensic side, that was usually it. They could not even group blood to tell if it was human or animal.”

The unique feature of Paul’s murder chronicles is that, after writing up each case based on his researches into old newspapers, any documents he can lay his hands on, and even knocking on doors in the locality, he delivers his own verdict.

He often goes back to the scene of the crime. Like a good policeman, he believes in using his eyes and ears to get a feel for the place.

He is already working on his next murder book – Murderous Women – which is due to be published nationally in about a year’s time.

“I am picking out some of what I regard as the more interesting old murders,” he said. “Of course if you ask people today about women murderers one name always springs to the fore – Ruth Ellis, who should never have been hanged.”

When the testimony of witnesses has been examined, the evidence gleaned and the grim stories told, Paul Heslop’s books not only contain his own reasoned verdict as a seasoned police officer, but invite readers to draw their own conclusions.

Murder may be a serious crime, but one thing is for certain. It never loses its fascination for the public. Nowadays capital punishment is a thing of the past. No longer do crowds gather at the prison gates on the day of an execution. But Paul’s re-examination of 15 notorious Cumbrian murders is still gripping stuff.

PAUL HESLOP’S CASEBOOK 1

A WOMAN’S body is found strangled in woods in Borrowdale. Wai Sheung Siu Miao, a Chinese national, had been married just three weeks when she met her death.

Did her husband kill her – and if so, why?

The honeymooning Chung was found guilty after a three day trial at Carlisle Assizes and hanged.

Until a chance discovery of some rings, hidden in a spool of film, there was precious little evidence to incriminate him. Paul’s verdict – difficult to prove, but guilty.

CASEBOOK 2

A jury recommended mercy in the case of 18-year-old Thomas Munroe, convicted of killing a man in West Cumberland.

Could another man have been the murderer? What of Thomas’s “confession?”

Was the hanging in front of thousands of spectators any less brutal than the murder of Isaac Turner at Kirkland in 1854?

Cumbria Murders by Paul Heslop is published by Sutton Publishing as part of its True Crime History series, at £12 99.