World's Most Evil Killers - Season 1, Episode 11 - Michael Ryan - Full Episode | Forensic Files

-The 19th of August 1987, was a warm summer's day in the idyllic market town of Hungerford in Berkshire,
a town that truly encompasses the spirit of the British countryside. -A bright, calm, lovely High Street, delicate shops,
the epitome of a south of England, self-effacing and yet rather proud town. -But this rural idyll was about to become the setting for
one of the worst mass shootings in British history, perpetrated by one lone individual.
-When we look at spree killers, we look at what drives them, it's often an underlying,
simmering resentment that is often years in the making. It's a very unique form of mass murder.
-A gun-obsessed local man named Michael Ryan had taken to the streets, firing randomly at strangers,
intent on killing anyone who crossed his path. -People were deeply shocked at the way this chaotic violence had erupted
into what were small-scale, placid English lives. -By killing 16 people in less than 2 hours,
Michael Ryan had undoubtedly become one of the world's most evil killers. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪
It was a day that shocked the nation. On Wednesday, August the 19th, 1987, a lone gunman took to the streets
of the countryside town of Hungerford in Berkshire and terrorized the residents.
Armed with a collection of deadly weapons, 27-year-old Michael Ryan began his rampage in nearby Savernake Forest
by killing a young mother in front of her children. By the time Ryan turned the gun on himself
just before 7:00 p.m., 14 people were dead. Two others would later die in hospital.
-There couldn't have been a more unlikely setting for the senseless carnage of August the 19th, 1987.
To the townspeople of Hungerford, "massacre" was the sort of word used in history and fiction.
-30 years later, in February 2017, a small number of the locals gathered to mark an event of great importance,
but equally one they'd all rather forget. -Let's pray, shall we? We meet in the presence of God.
We pray for all who in bereavement, disability, or pain continue to suffer the consequences of the tragedy.
We remember with thanksgiving and sorrow those whose lives have been taking away.
-Hungerford resident and ex-policemen Trevor Wainwright lost his father during the tragedy.
-The ceremony was really a rededication of the memorial plaque for those that were killed in the Hungerford Tragedy.
They put the plaque on the wall of the local football club, and it remained there for 20 years plus,
and I think the local council thought that perhaps it wasn't the right place to have that plaque,
and it might be more fitting to put it on the wall of the war memorial. -The tragedy was an event that affected the whole town,
including former mayor of Hungerford Ron Tarry. -I think it's important that we don't forget it.
It is part of our history whether we like it or not, and I think that it's important that we do remember it,
and that tragedy memorial is a remembrance of what happened on that day. -Because of my involvement with my own family
and being a local policeman, I've not wanted to forget what happened, but in my position,
I like to think I sometimes represent the town to discuss these issues for them.
It's very difficult. People in the town have always kept away from publicity, I suppose probably because of what happened on the day
and the way the media invaded the town back in 1987. -The story of the Hungerford Tragedy
begins almost 60 years ago. Michael Ryan was born just 10 miles from Hungerford in Marlborough, Wiltshire, on the 18th of May, 1960.
His 55-year-old father, Alfred, was 20 years senior to Ryan's mother, Dorothy, who doted on their young son.
-Michael was a bit of a mummy's boy. She really did pander to him and tended to insulate him quite a lot from the outside world.
But I think in insulating him, she tended to isolate him a little bit, as well, so he didn't really develop the skills of social interaction
with his peers all that well. -Ryan was an only child who struggled to fit in with the other kids at school.
-I think because he hadn't had those relationships with siblings that most children have,
he found it difficult to relate to other people, so he didn't really make any connections
with others at school, and I think he got a bit of a reputation as being the odd one out, the slightly strange kid.
-Aged 16, Ryan left John O'Gaunt secondary school and began his working career as a part-time handyman.
His mother continued to dote on him, even as he grew older, reportedly buying him everything he wanted,
including his first air rifle. ♪♪ He began a collection of firearms, which he kept on proud display in his room.
-The Freudians would say that was a significant thing because of his own lack of masculinity
and had to use a gun to confirm his own masculinity. He lived in a fantasy world of gun magazines,
and he used to wear a strange kind of camouflage hat as though he was really Rambo.
Someone have speculated that he was spoiled, some that he was just overindulged,
but there is no doubt that he turned into a tragic loner. -In 1985, 25-year-old Ryan lost his father to cancer
and became even more withdrawn from the society around him. He immersed himself in his passion for guns,
spending more and more time at the firing range. -Often when we look at spree killers,
we look at what drives them. It's often a underlying, simmering resentment that is often years in the making,
and because they don't have those social connections with other people, they simmer away, and they just get worse and worse,
and they spend a lot of time on their own ruminating and planning. -On the 19th of August, 1987, the 27-year-old was unemployed
and still living at home with his mother. The frustration simmering inside Michael Ryan
was about to boil over. -No one can say whether he got out of bed that morning and decided, "I think I'm gonna shoot 16 people today,"
though there could be no doubt that he took out two semi-automatic rifles and a Beretta handgun
and by 12:30, had killed his first victim. -Ryan had loaded his car with guns and driven out to Savernake Forest,
7 miles west of Hungerford. 35-year-old Susan Godfrey was picnicking there with her two young children.
-Ryan approached Susan Godfrey and her two children, instructed her at gunpoint to put her children into the car,
then took her into the bushes in the forest and shot her 13 times in the back. -Ryan had callously and brutally committed
his first murder. -Indeed, it was her children who subsequently first raised the alarm
when they told a passerby, "A man in black has shot our mummy." -Mrs. Myra Rose told for the first time
how she was asked for help by two young children who had just seen their mother shot dead.
-And she said, "A man in black shot my mummy." I don't think they realized what death was.
-But Ryan wasn't done for the day. Susan Godfrey was his first victim, but would not be his last.
-He set off down the A4 towards Hungerford, stopped at the petrol station to fill up his car,
waited for another car to leave, and then tried to kill the lady behind the counter.
-From the forecourt, Ryan opened fire through the glass at the cashier as she ducked for cover.
When he entered the shop to finish the job, his gun jammed, and he fled. The fortunate woman immediately dialed 999
and alerted the police. Ryan got back into his car and continued on with his journey.
His day of murder and destruction had begun, but he was nowhere near finished as he headed directly towards his hometown of Hungerford.
At around 12:45, Ryan arrived home to number 4 South View. -He got there about quarter to 1
to load up the rest of his collection of guns into the back of his car. He duly did so, and then the car,
for whatever reason, failed to start. Ryan was so furious, he shot the car five times.
He then killed his dog for reasons, again, no one can explain, set fire to the house,
and he killed two neighbors who happened to be in their back garden. -Ryan's next door neighbors Roland and Sheila Mason
were both killed instantly. With his house in flames, 27-year-old Ryan took three guns from his car -- a Beretta 9 mm pistol,
an M1 carbine assault rifle, and an AK-47 machine gun. He then headed east on foot.
-He took two semi-automatics and a handgun with him and started to walk towards Hungerford Common,
then began what you could describe as almost a spree. -Ryan shot and injured two more people at the end of South View,
one of them a 14-year-old girl. He seemed intent on causing mayhem on the streets
of the small rural town. -We will probably never know what Michael Ryan's intentions
were when he left the house on the day that he carried out these killings. I think when we look at some of his behavior around it, though,
we can perhaps speculate that he was suffering from some kind of mental illness.
Some of the things, for me, that would support that would be how close together these killings were.
When killings are further apart, when there's time in between them, the person is thinking about it.
The person is deciding to do it again, but when it's in a continuous spree like this,
there's less of that decision making going on and psychosis or schizophrenia do come into the picture.
-One of the injured women who Ryan had shot at through her living room window had managed to dial 999.
Reports of the shootings had even filtered through to newsrooms across the country.
-I was a general news reporter in the news room at the "Times" on the eastern side of London,
and the news came in... Even in those days, news got around very quickly... that there had been a major shooting incident
in this small Berkshire country town of Hungerford, and I was sent by the office from London to Hungerford,
which is about between 80 and 90 miles, and I was dispatched I think probably some time
after 1:00 and I just shot down the M4. -News had also reached the mayor of Hungerford, Ron Tarry,
who was at a meeting in a nearby village. -I was in the Lambourn area, and I had the car radio on
when I heard there had been a shooting in Hungerford, a number of people had been killed.
My first thought was, "There are a number of Hungerfords. There's one down in Hampshire, and it's probably not ours,"
and then it said, "Hungerford is a small market town in Berkshire." Suddenly, the shock came in.
It was -- it was my Hungerford, if I like to call it that. How can it happen in a place like Hungerford?
-At that point, I had an antique store in Hungerford, and so I knew the town really very well.
I used to go there every week without fail, Saturday and Sunday. It was very comfortable and warm and an enjoyable place to be,
which makes the juxtaposition with Ryan all the more dramatic because we're not talking about
the mean streets of Chicago here. We're not talking about East Los Angeles. We're talking about Hungerford,
a delightful, charming English county town with no real worries and equally no history of violence.
-Ryan's spree continued. On a footpath that ran between South View and Hungerford Common,
he encountered a family walking the opposite way. While the rest of his family ran away,
the 51-year-old father, Kenneth Clements, put his hands up as if to surrender, but Ryan cold-bloodedly shot him in the chest,
killing him instantly. Kenneth had become Ryan's fourth victim. -There doesn't seem to be a pattern
to Michael Ryan's behavior on the day that he carries out these shootings. It appears to be indiscriminate.
They are every day people doing every day, normal things, and I think Michael Ryan never felt
that he was part of that normal, part of that every day, so perhaps there is a pattern underlying it
in that the people that he's taking his rage out on are the people that he wants to be like.
-Another Hungerford resident, police officer Trevor Wainwright, was out of town enjoying a day off, when he heard the news.
-On the 19th of August, I can remember very clearly it was a beautiful hot summer's day.
I heard that there'd been a shooting or a hold-up at the filling station at the Savernake.
-Because the reports from the petrol station were coming from the neighboring county of Wiltshire,
Trevor didn't draw any association to his own patch in Hungerford until he received a distressing call from home.
-It was my wife saying, "Trevor, you'd better get home. "Don't know what's happening,
but there's gunfire going across our garden." So I thought, "Mm, what's all that about?
Could it be connected with this Savernake thing?" You know, I didn't know, but obviously,
I'd like to get back to Hungerford. -As Trevor raced home, the true severity of the situation was revealed to him.
-As I drove across Hungerford Common, I could see, on the edge of the town, a couple of houses on fire.
You know, you could see the smoke, and I could see, in a clump of trees, there was a group of people shouting in the trees.
So I pulled up, and I knew a couple of the people, and I said, "What's going on?"
And they said, "Oh, it's a bloke gone mad with a gun." And I just didn't know what to think, you know?
And you could smell the cordite from the weapon in the air, which I've never experienced that before,
not like that, you know? Just you could hear the sound of a gun going off, but I think the smoke and the fire from the house
was the thing that was quite frightening. -By now, police were beginning to arrive in Hungerford,
still unaware of the scale of the ongoing devastation. Trevor's colleague, 41-year-old Roger Brereton,
was the first constable on the scene at South View. -Roger Brereton was a lovely lad.
He was a local lad, I think, come from Wantage way, originally. He came to Hungerford as a PC.
We used to go out, crew a car together on many occasions, going round the rural area.
He was always a laugh and a joke. He was good police officer. He was out in the Newbury area, and the call came up
there was a shooting in Hungerford, and bravely, he said, "I'm on my way." -But by now, Ryan had turned back towards his home
and spotted Roger Brereton in his police car as he arrived. -He just went to do his job and drove up into South View,
and, tragically, he was shot whilst he was in the car, several times, and he didn't stand a chance.
♪♪ -Ryan fires 23 rounds at Brereton in his police car, hitting him four times. He was unarmed.
He was doing no more than responding to a call that there were reports of gunfire.
How could he possibly have expected to encounter a man who would shoot at him 23 times?
-It could've been anyone, you know, but, you know, it was pretty tough it was him.
-PC Roger Brereton had become Ryan's fifth victim of the day. -I mean, nowadays, you know, we're used --
This is an age of terrorist attacks. They'd be armed to the teeth, the people who were --
But they were just policeman. They didn't carry sidearms. They didn't have rifles.
So if Michael Ryan had wanted, he could've gone due west, and he could've gone into Hungerford High Street
and he could've got up and down the High Street shooting people left, right, and center, and no one could've stopped him
'cause there was no policemen with any weapon. -Town Mayor Ron Tarry was desperately trying
to return to his home and find out if his family was safe, but the increased number of police had made that difficult.
-Well, I drove to Hungerford. Everything was closed off. The police were on every entry into Hungerford,
and there was no way I could get into Hungerford. My wife was here, and my daughter and grandson were here,
but I went just out of town to a farm manager that I knew and was able to ring and speak to my wife here,
be assured that they were all okay, and that was the first concern, but I couldn't get into Hungerford for some time.
-With Hungerford in lockdown, Ryan continued with his bloody spree on South View,
shooting at passing cars. First he fired at a mother and her daughter, who managed to escape by driving away.
Then he shot and killed driver George White and another neighbor, 84-year-old Abdul Khan,
who was in the back garden of his home on Fairview Road. -He shoots at a neighbor. He shoots at an ambulance
which has also responded to the concept of shots fired. The man disassembling, disintegrating before your very eyes,
falling apart, shooting at people entirely at random, and then, of all remarkable coincidences,
his mother drives into South View. -Ryan's mother, Dorothy, arrived to a scene of complete devastation.
-It's almost impossible to imagine what she must have thought. Her house is on fire.
There are bodies in the road. Her neighbors are dead, and there's her son carrying two rifles and a handgun,
clearly having done something absolutely terrifying. His mother gets out of the car,
puts her hands up and pleads with him. Ryan shoots her, kills her. -It could be theorized that he accidentally shot his mother.
I mean, if he was experiencing some kind of psychosis, some kind of mental health condition
where he wasn't in control of his actions, he could well have just been targeting people randomly,
people who appeared in his line of his sight, and his mother happened to be one of those people.
-As this scene of absolute tragedy and terror continued to unfold on South View, Trevor Wainwright
reported for duty at Hungerford Police Station. -It was quite bedlam, to be honest.
In those days, we only had two phone lines into the police station, and there was a lot of movement.
The first thing I wanted to know is who this was that was shooting people because, you know,
I'd been at Hungerford as a bobby 15 years. I knew all the kids. I played football with them.
I took them for football, and I had a wonderful relationship with people in the town,
and this name Michael Ryan came out, and it didn't mean anything to me. I thought, "Well, who the hell is that?"
-At 1:30 p.m., the specially trained Tactical Firearms Unit were brought in to support the local police.
-Yeah, the adrenaline was running through me, and I knew what I wanted to do was
to accompany the armed police when they arrived because I was the local bobby, you know, and I thought,
"Well, they didn't know where he was." You know, the location of him at that time, and so I said,
"Well, I'll go down to the news agents' and get local maps, Ordnance Survey maps.
I drove my car down into the High Street, and I was amazed to see a row of ambulances,
a PC who stopped the traffic and a couple of fire engines, more police cars, and there was people shouting in shop doorways.
I just went straight into the news agents'. I said, "Let me have your street maps.
Let me have your -- all the map's you've got." So I was able to get some, grab them,
drove back to the police station, and by that time, there was lots of senior police officers
coming in and armed response vehicles that were coming in. -We knew something pretty serious was going on,
but we didn't really know the scale of it. The telephone system was overwhelmed.
I think it was very difficult for the police to find out where he was and what he'd done.
-Even with the help of the maps, the police were struggling to locate Ryan. -At that time, there was conflicting reports
as to his exact location because the communication problem with the phones... Calls were coming in saying he was in one street,
but, of course, he'd moved on by the time that call had been processed, so nobody knew where he was,
but all the time he was shooting people as he went round the streets. -Ryan was on the move.
After wounding another of his neighbors on Clarks Gardens, he'd headed back across Hungerford Common,
where he murdered Francis Butler, a young father who was walking his dog. His 10th victim of the day was taxi driver Marcus Barnard,
whom he gunned down on Bulpit Lane. But Ryan wasn't nearly finished. He was heading towards
the heavily populated town center. On Priory Avenue, he'd shot and injured two more people
before heading north towards Fairview Road. -As he walked along, he was shooting
at pretty much anyone that he came across. Some he killed. Some he simply injured.
-Local police officer Trevor Wainwright was in the midst of working to bring Ryan's killing spree
to an end when tragedy struck devastatingly close to home. -I got called into the sergeant's office,
and he said to me, "Trevor, I don't know how to tell you this." I said, "What?" He said, um,
he said, "Your dad's been shot and he's dead." -Trevor's parents, Douglas and Kathleen Wainwright,
were in their car just where Fairview Road meets Priory Avenue, unaware of the danger
that awaited them as they drove to see their son. -I didn't even think about my mum and dad
coming to Hungerford that day. They lived in Kent, and they traveled, what, 120 miles that day,
and they've driven 300 yards from my house, and they drove straight into Michael Ryan,
who shoots into the car, and he shot my dad in the head, and he died instantly. -Kathleen was able to pull herself out of the car,
where she hid from Ryan until a local resident bravely took her into the safety of their home.
-The sergeant told me my dad had died. At that point, he said, "Your mum's also been shot,
"but she's been taken to hospital. We're gonna get you to the hospital," so it was...
Really, that was me out of doing any more work at Hungerford. -By now, more and more journalists
were arriving at the police cordons, desperate to find out exactly what was going on in the town.
-You couldn't get into the town center, but you could see there was a police helicopter overhead,
and there was smoke in the distance. Well, I checked in with the office, and they told me there had been multiple shootings,
and they knew even then that it was in this street called South View, which was on the eastern side of the town,
and they wanted me, obviously, to get there as soon as I could. But you couldn't get within half a mile of it.
I mean, there was no way on Earth you could get anywhere near it at that time. -It soon became apparent to the press
that something horrifying was happening within the town, but no one was really sure just what was going on.
-Even the police didn't know what had happened. The whole incident consisted of three locations.
10 miles away in Savernake Forest, it all began when he shot that poor woman who was picnicking with her children.
Then he drove down the A4 to Froxfield where the service area was, and he tried to shoot the woman on the till.
And then he came into Hungerford, and gradually, these reports of these different things came in,
and it was immensely confusing. And if it was confusing for the police, it was doubly confusing for journalists
who were trying to put together a picture of what had happened. -Gradually, Mike and his fellow journalists
began to build a bigger picture. -It was starting to become clear that there was a man on the loose
with what looked like automatic weapons who had killed more than one person. There were perhaps two, three, four, even five people dead.
He was just shooting, shooting, shooting with a fully automatic assault rifle. So, you know, piecing that together for the police,
never mind for journalists, was a very difficult task to do. -But the media and the police had no idea
of just how much the body count was rising. Van driver Eric Vardy became Ryan's 12th victim of the day
when he was shot on the junction of Priory Avenue and Tarrants Hill. The gunman then crossed through Orchard Park Close,
killing 22-year-old Sandra Hill in her passing car. After heading onto Priory Road, Ryan forced his way into a house
and killed both Victor Gibbs and his wife Myrtle, bringing his tally of victims to 15.
-Most spree killers feel kind of quite hard done by. They feel that they are victims.
They feel that other people have been out to get them for their entire lives, and they often begin fantasizing about one day
getting their revenge on these people. -Ryan continued south on Priory Road, now heading away from the town center
and towards his old school, John O'Gaunt. He shot at a family who were driving by in their car.
34-year-old father Ian Playle was hit in the neck and died. In less than 90 minutes, Ryan had killed 16 people.
-Finally, Ryan, I think symbolically, returns to his old school, the John O'Gaunt Community College,
and he locks himself in. By this time, the police have managed to assemble a reaction,
and he begins to negotiate. -For 5 hours, the police tried convincing Ryan to give himself up.
-He seems incredibly concerned about his mother. That seems to be what is at the forefront of his mind,
what he's most concerned with. And you could interpret that as some kind of remorse,
but actually, I think it's more indicative of his enmeshment with his mother and his dependence upon his mother,
'cause they had quite an intense relationship. He really was quite a mummy's boy,
and I think that the thought that he had killed her and taken her out of the equation was something
that he was having quite a lot of trouble with. -Very near the end of the events at Hungerford that day,
he said to the police negotiators, "Hungerford must be a bit of a mess by now. I wish I'd stayed in bed."
And that, in a way, encapsulates the tragedy of him. -Shortly before 7:00 p.m., police heard a single shot emerge from the school.
-The standoff ends with Ryan killing himself. The psychotic break is complete. He doesn't do anything dramatic.
He simply shoots himself with one of his own rifles. -Sergeant Paul Brightwell of the Tactical Firearms Unit
began a shouted conversation with him. -On many occasions, he seemed to me just to be on the verge of coming out.
It wasn't until he said about the fact that he'd got one round of ammunition left,
and so I said, "Well, why have you kept that one?" And he said, "It's obvious." -In a way, it was a sort of something of relief
that it was over then. You know, he couldn't shoot anyone else, and in a way, it sort of has brought some closure in my mind.
It didn't bring any closure to the events that happened subsequently, but it did bring closure that event.
He couldn't shoot any more out, and no more lives would be lost. -For the local residents, including Trevor Wainwright,
the news of Ryan's suicide brought mixed feelings. -One of the strangest things for me
was that the remorse had gone, you know? The fact that he'd killed himself and he was no longer alive, the hatred...
You know, if he'd have been caught and arrested, I would've hated him so much, and I would've been
at every court hearing to see him get sentenced. But the fact that he killed himself,
I didn't have that hatred. -In the wake of the tragedy, the news began to spread
of the true loss of life in Hungerford. -In the evening, we were told there'd be a briefing
by the head of Thames Valley Police, and it was about 10 past 8:00 in the evening,
and there were about 20 of us there. We were waiting just at the corner of this lane,
I remember, and this senior officer came down. And remember, we all thought -- You know, we knew that more than one person was dead.
It could be three, four, five, even six. It was an enormous shock. No one had any idea of the scale of it until that moment,
and that was the first time we had a death toll, an accurate casualty figure. -16 people were dead.
As the news became public, the face of the killer, Michael Ryan, began to circulate.
-When I saw the picture of Ryan in the papers myself, I knew it was the guy I used to see
walking his dogs on Hungerford Common in his combat jacket and his hat. But that wasn't anything alarming to me
because a lot of people wear those type of coats, you know, especially around this area.
He was a guy that was quite insignificant, to be honest. He was quite polite. When I saw him on the Common with his dogs,
we'd say good morning. The dogs would sniff each other, and he'd walk off. -I'd never really met him. I knew of him.
I mean, he lived locally, and I saw Michael Ryan spectating at football matches but didn't ever seem to mingle.
I didn't really know him at all. In fact, when I talked to people since, I don't think anybody really knew him.
-When we look at people like Michael Ryan, people who carry out spree killings, the word "loner" often comes up.
They tend to be very much kind of on their own, these lone wolves, and that's quite important for me
because I think when we have other people around us, they act as a bit of a check on our behavior,
a kind of surveillance. And when we say things that are a bit out of order, you know,
our friends and our peers will often pull us up on that. When we don't have those connections,
those feelings tend to escalate, and we tend to ruminate over feelings for quite a while.
And without that filter, I think people like Michael Ryan can escalate quite quickly.
-In the immediate aftermath, Hungerford proved itself to be a true community, pulling together to support those affected the most.
-Meanwhile, the mayor launched an appeal for a fund for the survivors and relatives of the victims
from the steps of the town hall. -The appeal is to be called the Hungerford Tragedy Fund.
The community reaction was marvelous. It was remarkable. I mean, people said, "What can I do?
It's our problem. What can we do to help?" -The vicar held a church service the first thing
the next morning, which I went to. I think it was 8:00 in the morning. And he was very active in bringing people together.
It was a community town. I mean, it was a sort of place where everybody knew everybody,
and they did rally round. ♪♪ -In all that carnage, it seemed almost a cruel irony
to proclaim God's love. Yet by prayer and word and deed, so many people were the instruments of God's love.
-That was the great thing, the community spirit of the town, you know, and I think that's remained ever since.
-After Michael Ryan's killing spree at Hungerford on August the 19th, 1987, the whole world was coming to terms
with the events of the day, none more so than the residents of the town itself, where 16 people had died
and a further 17 had been left injured. -Well, it was silent. My mother was alive then,
and she lived just off Priory Avenue, not far from where the shooting take place,
and I walked up there in the evening to ensure she was okay, and there wasn't a soul about.
People were just shocked and just remained at home. Somebody told me after, there was a report
that people in Hungerford were cheering and singing because they'd heard that Michael Ryan had been killed,
but it was absolute nonsense. There was... People were absolutely shocked and couldn't believe what had happened,
and nor could I, for that matter. -Everyone wanted to know more about the mysterious gunman,
and the media put a lot of unwanted attention on the small-market town. -It became quite hard to talk to people
because there were so many journalists there, as you can imagine. People got sick of it.
Some of the tabloids would've had teams of five or six, so you got 40 or 50 journalists crawling over the place,
and it can't be avoided. It's just part of life, but people didn't like it. -One news report in particular left Trevor Wainwright
completely stunned. -Probably the thing that -- mm -- upset me really badly was the press coverage.
The headlines were, "PC Signed Father's Own Death Warrant." -The headline in question
referred to the unfortunate coincidence that Trevor had been the officer who helped approve
Michael Ryan's gun license renewal just weeks before the bloodbath. -I read that, and I just couldn't believe that,
and it meant to me that if I signed my dad's death warrant, then I signed the death warrants of all the other people
that got shot. And, to me, that was so unfair because Ryan was a member of a gun club.
He had several weapons, and each time you have a weapon, you have to be vetted or have the license amended and approved.
If he wasn't a suitable person, I'd be the person able to say that, but because he had no record, and nobody really knew him,
although he was a local lad, he was a loner. That doesn't prevent you from having a firearm certificate.
And, you know, clearly, there was no reason for him not to have a firearm certificate.
-Trevor was badly affected by the allegations and wanted to lay low for a while.
-I was so upset that I didn't want to go to hospital to see my mum because she was in a ward with the other people
that had been shot, and I couldn't face them. They obviously saw the paper in hospital.
My mum was told that, you know, I was very upset, and she phoned me up from hospital, and she said,
"Trevor, get your ass in here. The people want you." -The Hungerford Tragedy would, in fact, lead to calls
to make drastic changes to the firearm laws in the U.K. -As a direct result of the Hungerford Massacre,
the Home Secretary aired his new gun law proposals today. If Parliament agrees, then semi-automatic rifles like the AK-47,
similar to Michael Ryan's murder weapon, will be banned. -What's the worst invention of the 20th century?
It's the AK-47 because it has nine moving parts, it can be mended in a village workshop,
and it enables a boy of 10 to kill 30 men. An AK-47 is a terrible weapon, and Ryan had one,
and he also had an M1 carbine, which was American, so he had these assault rifles which can, you know,
go through a wall 1/2 a mile away. [ Gunshots ] -So many people thought, "Something has got to be done about this.
"Why on Earth does a man need these guns? And why on Earth is is necessary to license them?"
-What the government decided to do very quickly, in short order... I think Douglas Hurd was the Home Secretary...
they commissioned a report about this from the head of Thames Valley Police, which came in quite quickly,
and as a result of it, they amended the Firearms Act. You could not any longer be in possession
of a fully automatic assault weapon, and that was done really quite quickly. [ Applause ]
-The Home Secretary told senior officers in Torquay that the fearful events of Hungerford had added impetus
to plans to tighten firearms legislation. -I have concluded that there can be no justification
for high-powered, self-loading rifles of the type used by Michael Ryan to be held my private individuals.
-The Firearms Amendment Act passed in 1988, banned the ownership of semi-automatic centerfire rifles
and restricted the use of shotguns with a capacity of more than three cartridges
in the hope that such a tragedy would never be repeated. ♪♪ For the people of Hungerford, it was little consolation.
The hurt remains in the hearts of those who remember the 19th of August, 1987, so vividly.
♪♪ -The scars linger now, 30 years on, because how could they not? Entirely random neighbors were killed, people you knew,
people your children had been at school with, someone you might have seen every day at church.
It was a community, and there's no way a community could've suffered such a trauma
without having been dreadfully affected. -The press asked me, "When was the last murder
in Hungerford, do you think?" and there were two policemen murdered in Hungerford in 1876, and I said,
"Well, I think 111 years ago. I don't know anyone since then." It's not the sort of thing you would expect to hear
in a place like Hungerford. -I think the community has got stronger as a result of what's happened, and as time goes on,
you know, the anger thing fades out a little bit, but it will always be there. -To help support his family, Trevor's mother moved
to Hungerford after the attacks to be closer to her son. -I was so pleased for her, you know,
because she was brave enough to come here, you know, where other people were moving out.
My mum lived there for another 15 years before she died, and at her funeral, the church was packed with local townspeople,
and it was unbelievable, really, the love they gave to her. -Michael Ryan's actions on that fateful day in August 1987,
left the entire nation in complete shock. The pointless and random killings left many people asking, "Why?"
-One of the mysteries of Michael Ryan is that we will never know. He killed himself at the end of the events
and killed his mother as part of the killings. There was no one else. His father had long since dead.
There were no siblings. There was no other close related family. He was, in the end, just this rather isolated,
way-faced young man with a fascination with guns. -I think Michael Ryan certainly did some evil things.
Whether he consciously chose to do what he did or whether he felt compelled to act in that way
because of some kind of psychosis. Perhaps we'll never know. -But the people of Hungerford refuse to be defined
by a day that caused so much pain and suffering in such a short space of time. -I think it strengthened the community spirit.
It made Hungerford better known for all the wrong reasons. Hungerford was more than that. That was just one dreadful day.
But there's been hundreds of years of history when that wasn't Hungerford. So we don't think of Michael Ryan
and that day in August 1987, as being what Hungerford is about. -Ryan acted without reason and entirely at random.
In less than 2 hours, he murdered 16 people, including a policeman and even his own mother.
We may never know why he did what he did, but what we can say for certain is that the small community living in Hungerford
refused to be beaten by his cruelty or haunted by the nightmare of Michael Ryan's deranged killing spree.
♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪

In 1987, Michael Ryan went on a killing spree in the quiet market town of Hungerford in Berkshirem before turning the gun on himself.

An in-depth look at the lives and crimes of some of the world's most evil killers, including Jeffrey Dahmer, Richard Ramirez, Cary Stayner, Leonard Lake, Dorothea Puente and more.

Brief Summary

The Hungerford Massacre of 1987 saw Michael Ryan kill 16 people in a shooting spree, impacting the community and leading to changes in gun laws.

Key points

The Tragedy of Hungerford. On August 19, 1987, a lone gunman terrorized the town, killing 16 people.
Michael Ryan's Rampage. Michael Ryan's violent spree began with the murder of a young mother in front of her children.
A Mother's Plea. In a tragic twist, Ryan shot his own mother during his rampage.
A Father's Loss. Trevor Wainwright learns of his father's death during the shooting.
The Tragedy Unfolds. Michael Ryan goes on a shooting spree, killing 16 people in Hungerford.
Community Response. In the aftermath, the Hungerford community comes together to support victims' families.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It was a day that shocked the nation.

Describing the impact of the Hungerford tragedy.

1:39WatchJul 14, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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