Sgt Paul Brightwell,was a section and platoon leader of the Thames Valley Police departments,Tactical Firearms Unit-who were the equiverlant of a typical American Swat team.
Brightwell and Ryan’s conversation, which was to last almost an hour and a half, began when the gunman finally confirmed that he had heard the police message that he was surrounded. But the exchange hardly seemed to get off to a promising start.
SERGEANT: What is your first name, Mr Ryan?
RYAN: It is nothing to do with you. Mind your own business.
SERGEANT: That’s OK. I just want to talk to you and get you out safely. Do you understand?
RYAN: Yes, I’ve nothing against you.
SERGEANT: What weapons do you have with you?
RYAN: One 9mm pistol and ammunition.
SERGEANT: Mr Ryan, this is very important. Do not come to the window holding any weapons. Do you understand?
RYAN: I understand. I also have a grenade.
SERGEANT: Do not come to the window with the grenade. Do you understand?
RYAN: Yes.
SERGEANT: What type of grenade is it?
RYAN: Israeli fragmentation type.
SERGEANT: I want to get you out of the building safely.
RYAN: Yes.
SERGEANT: It is important that you do not come to the window with any weapon. Do you understand?
RYAN: Yes.
‘It was a bit of a relief when I was immediately answered,’ Sergeant Brightwell would later reveal. ‘He was actually easy to talk to. The whole enormity of what he had done didn’t dawn upon me at the time. I had met George Noon on the way down though, and seen Douglas Wainwright slumped over his car - so I knew what he had done all right. I just wanted to keep him talking - to get him out of the building, as you can see from my report. I didn’t want him to be shot. That’s the training. Although I’m not a proper police negotiator, we do learn how to negotiate with someone in a building as part of our overall tactical training. I was nervous but not shaking. So at this stage I switched my radio off, in order to be able to concentrate more effectively. Another PC with me was in radio contact and reporting back all the time to Mr Lambert.’
Chief Inspector Lambert, leading the Support Group, had by now moved out of his Portakabin outside Hungerford police station and headed towards the school. Accompanying him on this short journey was a trained police negotiator, expert in psychological tactics and techniques, who had been standing by for some time. But Lambert was soon satisfied that the dialogue between Sergeant Brightwell and Ryan was going well. It was his judgement that no useful purpose could be served by a sudden change of personnel. In fact he was more worried about Ryan’s claim to have a grenade, so he ordered additional police armoury to cover the window of the classroom where the gunman had been seen. As the Chief Inspector continued to monitor the dialogue, he became convinced that Ryan was going to give himself UP.
Just as the head of the Support Group was happy for Sergeant Brightwell to proceed with the negotiations, so the Assistant Chief Constable, Charles Pollard, was content to follow the judgement of his firearms adviser.
‘While I was in overall charge of the police operation, you do have to be able to delegate,’ Charles Pollard would later insist. ‘So I let Paul Brightwell get on with it via Glyn Lambert. Because once I knew that we had the school contained, it became, in some respects, a routine policing matter. We now had the situation under control. It was at this stage that I too went down to the school.’
‘Although the conversation went on for well over an hour,’ Sergeant Brightwell would later explain, ‘it seemed more like five minutes. All the time he was both lucid and calm. There were the odd gaps in the dialogue, but other than that it was almost continuous. On several occasions I really did think that he was going to make a move and come out. I knew precisely how I wanted him to come out, because of the training. But he did keep on asking about his mother.’
Altogether, Ryan would ask the Sergeant about the plight of his mother, Dorothy, well over a dozen times. Indeed it was the central theme of their conversation.
RYAN: I want to know how my mother is. Tell me about my mother.
SERGEANT: I will try to find out about your mother. Just bear with me.
RYAN: I must know about my mother.
SERGEANT: Mr Ryan, do you have any other weapons?
RYAN: I’ve got a.32 CZ pistol but that is in for repair. I must know about my mother. Tell me. I will throw the grenade out of the window.
SERGEANT: Don’t do that. I’m trying to find out.
RYAN: That is ridiculous. You must know. I want to know.
SERGEANT: Mr Ryan, when I tell you to, I want you to stand up and look out of the widow to the front of the school.
RYAN: What for?
SERGEANT: If you stand up, we will know what door you are coming out of.
RYAN: I’m not standing up, Have you found out about my mother yet?
SERGEANT: Not yet, I’m still trying.
RYAN: I’m not coming out until I know.
‘As you can see; Sergeant Brightwell would later explain, ‘he kept on asking about his mother. But I can tell you that she was as dead as a doornail. It seemed to me that by asking about her continuously he was almost trying to let himself off of the hook in some way.
The conversation continued.
SERGEANT: I want you to leave all your weapons in that room. Do you understand?
RYAN: Yes. My pistol is tied to my wrist with a lanyard. I have one round of ammunition.
SERGEANT: Can you undo the lanyard?
RYAN: No.
‘I must say that I was perplexed by this man,’ Ryan’s interlocutor would later admit ‘I just wanted him to do as I was telling him. I still thought that I was going to get him out. It seemed to me as if he wanted to come out. I was shouting because of the distance between us. A couple of times I had to ask him to speak up. But what he said about the gun being tied to his wrist with a lanyard worried me. Because I knew that if he did come out he could easily have been shot, had the gun been misinterpreted, for example. But he still seemed to be happy to talk. He asked about my rank and so on. So we carried on talking.’
SERGEANT: It is important that you come out with no weapons.
RYAN: I had an M1 carbine which I left in the park. It was on a gravel path near the body of a mate I shot near the swimming pool. There should be a thirty-round magazine with it.
SERGEANT: Thank you for that, Mr Ryan.
RYAN: Also, there is my dog. Has anybody found that? It is a black labrador. I shot it. I had my eyes shut the first time and I just winged it. I have undone the lanyard. I also have body armour.
SERGEANT: Thank you. Will you come out?
RYAN: I am not coming out until I know about my mother.
SERGEANT: I am trying to find out. But I want you to come out leaving all your weapons in the room.
RYAN: Where shall I leave them - on the window-sill?
SERGEANT: Don’t come to the window holding any weapon. Just leave them on the floor. Do you understand?
RYAN: Yes.
SERGEANT: Just leave all your weapons in the room and come out.
RYAN: I will come down the stairs outside.
SERGEANT: The stairs with the rifle out in front?
RYAN: Yes, those stairs.
SERGEANT: When you come outside look to the left and you will see me. Do not make any move towards the rifle. I want you to leave your body armour in the room as well, Mr Ryan.
RYA N: Why’s that?
SERGEANT: I need to be able to see you have nothing concealed, that you understand my position.
RYAN: Yes, I understand. I am not going to come out until I know about my mother.
SERGEANT: I am doing my best, Mr Ryan. I am still trying to find out about your mother. If you come out, we will be able to sort it out much quicker.
Sergeant Brightwell later explained: ‘All the time I was trying to play down what he had done. To give him the impression that we could sort everything out - that I was a sort of friend who he could talk to - even though it was obvious that the bloke was completely nuts and needed locking away for the rest of his life. So when he asked about the casualty figures, I again tried to talk the whole thing down.’
RYAN: What are the casualty figures?
SERGEANT: I don’t know. Obviously you know you shot a lot of people.
RYAN: Hungerford must be a bit of a mess.
SERGEANT: You are right. They know you have been through. Do you know how many you have shot?
RYAN: I don’t know. Its like a bad dream.
SERGEANT: It has happened. The sooner you come out, the easier it will be to sort out.
RYAN: I know it’s happened. I’m not stupid.
SERGEANT: I know that, mate.
RYAN: How’s my mother? She’s dead, isn’t she? That’s why you will not tell me. I am throwing the magazine of the pistol out. I still have one round left, though.
SERGEANT: Why do you have that?
RYAN: It is obvious, isn’t it?
SERGEANT: I want to get you out safely. Don’t do anything silly.
RYAN: Don’t worry. I have nothing against you. You have got your job to do.
That afternoon there was another man in Hungerford with a job to do. Sergeant David Warwick, a senior firearms instructor in the Support Group, had Michael Ryan in his telescopic gun sight for a full minute. And yet he chose not to pull the trigger.
‘If I had fired,’ he comments, ‘then I would have been a murderer. I would have been no better than him. He was unlikely to shoot anybody else. Nor was he any longer a threat to the police or the public. It was also extremely unlikely that he was going to abscond or commit other offences. You have got to have the justification before shooting someone and the justification wasn’t there.’
Unaware that Sergeant Warwick’s gun had been trained on him, albeit from outside the school, Ryan continued to ask about his mother.
RYAN: You must have a radio. Get on that and find out. How many people are with you?
SERGEANT: Just a couple.
RYAN: Well, get them to do it. Have you found the M1 carbine yet?
SERGEANT: They are still looking, Mr Ryan. I have passed on all the details.
RYAN: It is just that there were some kids nearby. I don’t want them to find it. And what about my dog? Have you found it? Was it on the Common?
SERGEANT: Is it important?
RYAN: Yes.
SERGEANT: It is at Hungerford police station.
RYAN: Will you look after it?
SERGEANT: Of course we will.
RYAN: Will you give it a decent burial?
SERGEANT: Yes, Mr Ryan. If you come out, you can see the dog yourself.
RYAN: What about my mother? She is dead. I know she is dead. Have you found her yet?
SERGEANT: I am still waiting, Mr Ryan.
RYAN: I have picked up my gun again.
SERGEANT: Don’t do that, Mr Ryan. If you come out I will find out. All you have to do is walk slowly down the stairs with your hands in the air. Have you seen anybody in the school?
R YAN: No. I am on my own. I haven’t any hostages. What time is it?
SERGEANT: It is 6.24.
RYAN: If only the police car hadn’t turned up. If only my car had started.
SERGEANT: Will you come out now please, Mr Ryan?
RYAN: I want to think about it. Why won’t you tell me about my mother?
SERGEANT: I don’t know. As soon as you come out, we’ll find out together.
RYAN: I won’t come out until I know. I did not mean to kill her. It was a mistake.
SERGEANT: I understand that, mate.
RYAN: How can you understand? I wish I had stayed in bed.
SERGEANT: Mr Ryan, just come down. Leave all your weapons in the room and come down.
Within the sixty seconds that Sergeant Warwick’s gun was trained on Ryan, the gunman appeared at the window, apparently unarmed. Warwick wondered if it was perhaps Ryan’s way of asking the police to bring about the end. But still the police marksman refused to shoot. The senior firearms instructor knew very well that if Ryan had appeared at the window with a grenade, or anything remotely resembling a grenade, or indeed if he was holding a hostage, then the police response would have been totally different. But neither of these scenarios materialized.
‘All the talk was that he was going to give himself up,’ Sergeant Warwick would later explain. ‘He was in an empty school, having thrown one weapon out of the window - and I can tell you he wasn’t going anywhere. Pulling the trigger would therefore have been entirely the wrong decision.’
Still unaware that his life had been spared by the highest standards of professional policing on the part of Sergeant Warwick, Ryan began to dwell on the consequences of giving himself up. He asked if he could be taken to London.
RYAN: Will I be treated OK?
SERGEANT: Of course you will, Mr Ryan.
RYAN: Will I go to prison for a long time?
SERGEANT: I don’t know, Mr Ryan. It is not up to me.
RYAN: You must have an idea. I will get life, won’t l?
SERGEANT: I don’t know, Mr Ryan. You will go to prison for a long time.
RYAN: It’s funny. I killed all those people but I haven’t got the guts to blow my own brains out.
SERGEANT: Mr Ryan, just leave all your weapons in the room and do exactly as you are told. Don’t do anything silly. Do you understand?
RYAN: What time is it?
SERGEANT: Six-forty-five. What do you want to know the time for?
RYAN: I want to think about it. I am not coming out until I know about my mother.
SERGEANT: Mr Ryan, I am still trying to find out. If you comedown we will be able to find out together.
There followed several minutes during which time Michael Ryan did not speak. And then, at 6.52pm, Sergeant Brightwell heard a single, muffled shot from the classroom. The gunman, who had not expressed the slightest remorse for any one of his victims, was not to speak again.
‘But that was by no means the end of the matter from our point of view,’ Chief Inspector Lambert would later point out. ‘Had he shot the wall? Would we all get shot if we went in there? I kept an open mind and was determined not to rush it. But I did want to finish it before dark, only a couple of hours away. I thought that there could be a booby trap. We flew a helicopter past the window -but they couldn’t see in. Then someone got up onto the roof. We had a dog in front of us. These are the Tactical Firearms dogs who are used to training with us. So the dog went in first for us to see what the reaction would be. If there was a person in the room the dog would have reacted. The person on the roof was using mirrors on a long pole, and he saw Ryan, who appeared to be dead. I knew that we were almost home. People then went in and saw that he was indeed dead. We then used a technique to make sure that he was not wired for explosives before we touched him - and an explosives officer took over at this point. So the body was tied up and wired up and moved to make sure that there was no booby trap. Then I went into the classroom myself and saw him. My reaction was just one of relief. That it was over.’
When members of the Tactical Firearms Team entered the classroom, they found Ryan’s body slumped in a corner on the floor near a window. His back was against the wall and his 9mm Beretta pistol, hammer still cocked, remained clasped in his right hand, tied to his wrist by a bootlace. A Home Office pathologist would later confirm that Ryan had died from a single gunshot wound to the head. It had passed through his skull, shattering his brain. The bullet wound was 0.7cm at the point of entry and the skin around it blackened and as if tattooed. The bullet had fractured the skull extensively, and its heat had singed the gunman’s hair.
‘I went in with some others,’ Sergeant Brightwell recalls. ‘The doors were barricaded. And there he was, sitting beneath the window, dead. I thought, Oh - so that’s who I’ve been talking to. I didn’t feel sorry for him. I thought that’s more than he would have got if he would have come out. It’s probably as close as you could have got to justice, if you like. It wasn’t a case of brains being splattered everywhere, as you might think. But there was blood all over his face and up the wall. When it was all over I got back to the police station and phoned home. My wife, Sandy, knows not to expect me on time, and she would have known that I would have been involved. Still, she was mightily relieved to hear from me. It was midnight when I got home. The kids were in bed. You just try to play it down a bit. I’m not the hero of Hungerford. Its just that I ended up speaking to him. I was just doing the job I was trained to do. The people of Hungerford were brave - the public and the injured. When I got there, we now know, it was all over. He had shot his last person. In any case, I had a gun and a flak jacket, and I was surrounded by eight blokes. Those who got it had nothing. The local police were unarmed - Roger Brereton and the like. So compared to what some people saw, and to what they still have to deal with, you realize that you got off lightly.’
According to one of the tabloid newspapers, soon after the announcement that Ryan had shot himself, a good number of the townsfolk of Hungerford went wild with delight. It reported that some residents living near to the school ran into the street chanting: ‘The bastard’s dead, the bastard’s dead.’ The paper claimed that children, many of whom had been ordered to hide under their beds while Ryan was on the loose, cycled up and down yelling ‘Good riddance’, while in the pubs of Hungerford, drinkers toasted his death. Hungerford’s mourning had thus still to begin.
Ron Tarry formed a completely different impression as he walked around the town in the wake of the shootings. He explains: ‘I saw people shocked and talking in hushed tones to each other. My impression was that it was largely the press and others who had rushed into the town and were drinking in the pubs. Not one resident toasted Ryan’s death, and there were no signs of rejoicing. What that newspaper reported was totally untrue.
