Latest news with #PamMills
BBC News
3 days ago
- BBC News
The first Kent Police officer killed in Snodland in 1873
On Sunday 24 August, 1873, residents in a Kent town woke to find themselves at the centre of a grisly moment of policing in a field in Snodland was the body of PC Israel May, the first member of the Kent constabulary to be killed on with gruesome head injuries, PC May's death shocked a community and marked another tragedy for the officer's beside his grave, Kent Police Museum volunteer Pam Mills told Secret Kent that PC May's death was "so, so sad", and that more could be done to continue to remember him. She said: "PC May's head was so severely battered that the two people who discovered him didn't realise it was him."They went to tell PC May that they had found a body." When it was realised that the body discovered at 06:15 BST that morning, along with a police cap, was PC his truncheon, the weapon with which he was killed, was been a bobby on the beat in Snodland for around 20 months, suspicions immediately fell to people known to have had run-ins with PC people, privates from the Royal Engineers, were initially arrested having been in the area, but later it was Tommy Atkins, a well-known adversary of PC May's, who was arrested for the officer's previously told a ferryman that he was "going to get" the officer, Atkins was charged with his murder after a second cap found in the field was identified as belonging to the evidence against him, Atkins escaped the noose. At trial, he argued that he had acted in self-defence, and that PC May had struck him with the truncheon was sentenced to 20 years in jail. As well a shocking a community, PC May's death came as the latest in a string of tragedies for his suffered the deaths of their daughter in 1871, and son in 1872, the death of PC May the following year came as another blow to his wife, grief was so much that she was forbidden from attending her husband's funeral, taking away her chance to say a final goodbye. Funds were raised to help her Ms May, with 504 pounds, 12 shillings and threepence donated in total. Of this, 500 was invested in a mortgage for all that remains to remember PC May is a small grave in All Saints Graveyard, in Mills said: "It's so, so sad, but I have put in a request to the Police Benevolence Fund to clean up this grave to honour him."He is definitely not forgotten. We have a memorial wall and a national police roll of honour, and I know that come the anniversary of his death the page of that roll will be turned to honour him."
BBC News
16-06-2025
- BBC News
Gillingham bus disaster: The day disaster struck Medway
Just before Christmas in 1951, tragedy struck Medway. Twenty-four children were killed and 18 others injured after being hit by a double-decker bus outside Chatham Dockyard in what was then the most deadly road accident in British the evening of 4 December, the children, all Royal Marine cadets, had been marching in military formation down Dock Road. They were excited as they were on their way to a boxing match, local historian Pam Mills told Secret Kent. Marching in line with the traffic, not opposed to it, the boys wore dark blue military uniforms, it was foggy, a streetlight light had failed and they did not have a red light behind them, she detailed. That was when the bus, without its headlights on (something that was legal at the time), ploughed into the back of one column of marching children. Driver John William George Samson "didn't realise what he'd done," said Ms Mills. "Reports show he felt like he was going over rubble." The vehicle came to a standstill and the 57-year-old jumped out, then the "sudden realisation hit", she said. 'Everybody felt it' Seventeen cadets, all aged between 9 and 13, died at the scene but, said Ms Mills, not all were killed by the impact and were trapped under the bus. She said it "must have been horrific" for people there who were part of the rescue operation "and for the families, my goodness".Ms Mills told Secret Kent the emotion in the community after the incident was "palpable"."Everybody felt it," she added. At an inquest, the coroner ruled the crash an accident and recommended that no criminal charges be brought against Samson, a bus driver of 25 years, owing to the circumstances that night. Despite this, police prosecuted him for dangerous driving and he was found guilty, though the jury recommended leniency. "You could actually feel how sorry he was," said Ms Mills. "He was a local man. He knew these boys and they knew him.""In effect, he was another victim of this tragedy. He was absolutely traumatised and he lived with it for the rest of his life."Sampson never drove a bus again but he was kept on at the company and remained in the area for the rest of his life. Standing in Gillingham Cemetery looking at the graves of the cadets, Ms Mills told Secret Kent any parent would look at the ages on the headstones and feel heartbroken. "These boys, they shouldn't be forgotten," she said.
