PAUL Stickler of the Hampshire Constabulary History Society, spoke to a packed Guildhall about ‘The Hunt for Percy Toplis’, the alleged murderer of Salisbury taxi-driver, Sidney Spicer, near Andover in 1920.

Using his extensive research and personal experience as a detective — including five years in Andover 1990-5 — he described the course of the murder enquiry.

On Sunday, 25 April 1920, Spicer’s body was found in a roadside ditch on Thruxton Down. He had been shot and robbed and his car was missing.The investigation was led by Andover Police Superintendent Cox. Further information soon came to light. The previous evening, Spicer had picked up Toplis in Amesbury. Around 10.30pm, Private Harry Fallows had been pressed by Toplis into a joyride which ended up in Swansea. There, Fallows saw a newspaper report of the murder, and, concerned about his own situation, returned without Toplis. The inquest on 26 May named Toplis as the murder suspect: he was never convicted of the crime.

Francis Percy Toplis was aged 23 at this time. He had a series of criminal convictions from age 11, including theft, false pretences and attempted rape. He was a serial Army deserter, who kept re-joining different regiments.

Paul had found no evidence that he was the so-called ‘Monocled Mutineer’ of the cruel Étaples British army training camp, as portrayed in a 1986 BBC series. There is a photograph of Toplis sporting a monocle, but no evidence that Toplis was ever in France. But the official records are to be opened to public scrutiny next year.

The hunt moved slowly because of the speed of communications of the time. Toplis was featured in the April 30 1920 edition of the Police Gazette. This helped identify him first at Tomintoul in Scotland, where he shot a gamekeeper and policeman, then in Aberdeen and Edinburgh. At Carlisle on 5 June, he reported to the guardroom at the barracks, posing as an escort who had lost his prisoner. The next day, PC Alfred Fulton identified Toplis walking along the road between Carlisle and Penrith. The Chief Constable authorised two policemen to be armed, and his adventurous son to go with them to arrest the suspect. The armed police hid behind a farm wall on the A6, there was an exchange of gunfire and Toplis was shot and killed.

He was buried in an unmarked grave in Penrith Cemetery. Found among his effects, Toplis’ diary entries matched the sightings. His monocle was given, it is said, in part payment of his funeral expenses and later deposited in Penrith Museum. On the other hand, the family of Superintendent Cox gave another monocle to the local branch of the Police History Society, claiming it also had belonged to Toplis. This minor mystery remains unsolved.

Warmly thanked for his lively presentation, Paul went on to answer questions from which it emerged that the Guildhall where the Society was meeting may have had a small part in the wider drama.