Murder of Stephen Tibble - Death

Death

Four unarmed plain-clothed police officers, Temporary Detective Constables Derek Wilson and Kenneth Mathews and Police Constables Adrian Blackledge and Les White in two teams, had spent the day on the lookout for burglary suspects in the Fairholme Road area of Hammersmith. At one point during the course of the operation, Blackledge noticed a man behaving in a suspicious manner outside house number 39 on Fairholme Road; when he spotted the same individual thirty minutes later he decided to question him. Blackledge approached the suspect and introduced himself as a police officer and requested that the man empty out his pockets. The suspect was Liam Quinn, a U.S. citizen from an Irish Republican family in San Francisco who had immersed himself in all things Irish, including adopting an Irish accent. A Provisional IRA volunteer, he had replaced Brendan Dowd as a member of the IRA's active service unit operating in London at the time.

Blackledge noticed that Quinn was carrying a lot of Irish money on him, and so told Quinn he wanted to escort him back to the address he had been seen leaving in Fairholme Road to see what he had been up to. Quinn then attempted to flee, running west down Charleville Road, pursued by Blackledge, heading toward where Wilson and Matthews were sitting on a bench. The pair joined the chase and Wilson later stated that he heard the sound of a motorbike approaching from behind. The rider was 21-year-old off-duty PC Stephen Tibble, who was married and had been a serving officer for six months.

Initially flagged down by Wilson, Tibble gave chase on his motorbike, riding past the pursuing officers and the running Quinn, and pulled to a stop at the junction of Charleville Road and Gledstanes Road. Tibble dismounted his motorbike, crouched and spread out his arms to block the path of the suspect and catch hold of him. At that point, Quinn pulled a gun out and shot Tibble twice in the chest at point-blank range with a .38 Long Colt revolver.

Tibble died three hours later in hospital. It is often erroneously believed that Quinn fled into the tunnel at Barons Court tube station, but in fact he had been pursued by Wilson on Tibble's motorbike and evaded capture by running through the ground floor of a tower block off Talgarth Road.