Rogue's Progress
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X6603900313 |
| Date | 01 March 1966 |
| Author | F. J. Smith,J. C. Higson |
| Published date | 01 March 1966 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
CriDlinal
Investi~ation
DET.
SGT.
F.
J.
SMITH
AND
DET.
(";ONST.
J.
C.
HIGSON
Bradford City Police
ROGUE'S
PROGRESS
Our story commences at 4.30 a.m. on Monday, September 27,
1965.
At that moment of time, P.C. 1064 Wadcock of the Lanca-
shire county constabulary was on duty in the Pennine township of
Littleborough, in the company of Sgt. Gregory, when they heard
the sound of breaking glass on some spare land adjoining Tod-
morden Road, Littleborough.
The officers made their way to the spare land, where they saw a
parked mini Austin saloon with two men and a woman in attend-
ance. The persons were subsequently identified as Peter Claude
Harrison, 28 years, no fixed abode (the principal figure in our saga),
Paul Robert Fisher, 20 years, no fixed abode, and Iris Smith, 17
years, a person missing from her home at Morecambe.
The men had broken a milk bottle they found at the scene and
with the broken glass were trying to cut through a piece of corru-
gated rubber piping in order to syphon petrol from a second
vehicle parked nearby. Questioning revealed that the mini car had
been taken without consent from a street in Bradford a few hours
earlier with the intention of travelling to Manchester. Unfortu-
nately, or fortunately, as the case may be, it had run out of petrol
a few seconds before P.C. Wadcock's attention had been alerted
by the sound of the breaking glass.
Harrison, Fisher and Smith were taken into custody and detained
to await an escort from Bradford. Later the same day the three
prisoners were conveyed to Bradford and charged with taking the
mini without consent of the owner.
Our story is so far commonplace, the kind of thing that goes on
daily throughout the kingdom, and it was no surprise to the in-
vestigating officersthat other offences had been committed and the
three were jointly charged with an additional housebreaking offence
in Bradford.
It
was whilst obtaining details of the prisoners' antecedent history
that there was unfolded, so far as Harrison was concerned, a tale
of crime which led one to believe that during the first nine months
of 1965 he was engaged in committing crime on a professional scale.
On January 12, 1965, Harrison was released from Winston Green
prison, having been sentenced to two years' imprisonment at Bir-
mingham quarter sessions in September. 1963, for housebreaking
March 1966 162
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