Eastbourne Tragedy

Although the only intertitle of this Topical Budget newsreel doesn’t identify the murdered policeman by name, he would have been 44-year-old Arthur Walls, only the second police officer to be killed that year at a time when murder meant a mandatory death sentence. The cameras record the lavish funeral procession on 16 October 1912, through Terminus Road to All Saints Church and Ocklynge Cemetery, while a public appeal raised £600 (equivalent to over £60,000 a century later) for his widow and family.

Although there were no first-hand witnesses to the crime, a combination of forensic evidence and a doctor’s report to the police about a patient’s suspicious injuries led to the arrest of John Williams. To prevent him being photographed, his head was covered with a cloth, which caused him to be dubbed ‘the Hooded Man’ in the popular press. Further evidence emerged in the run-up to his trial, including the discovery of the murder weapon, and Williams was duly found guilty. After the failure of an appeal and a public petition for clemency, he was hanged at Lewes Prison on 30 January 1913.