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Michael Galvin

Age: 23

Sex: male

Date: 30 Aug 1987

Place: Westbourne Park Road, Notting Hill, London

Michael Galvin was stabbed in the chest at the Notting Hill Carnival on 30 August 1987.

He had been selling cans of Coca-Cola with his brother from a stall near his house when a gang of youths, who were said to have been clearly up to no good swept through the crowds at about 4pm. It was said that some of them had been stealing from other people and that when they had reached Michael Galvin's stall that one of them snatched a can of Coca-Cola from it and walked off without paying.

Michael Galvin then called out, 'Put that back. It cost's 40p' after which another youth insulted him and so he and his brother went round the stall to sort the matter out but Michael Galvin was grabbed by the gang and dragged into the road where he was seen to be surrounded by about eight youths who attacked him, kicking and punching him. Michael Galvin was seen to take a swing at one of the gang but the next moment he was seen to emerge from the group bleeding from the chest, having been stabbed.

The stab wound had penetrated his chest and severed a vital artery.

A 26-year-old man was convicted for his murder and sentenced to 20 years in December 1988, but his conviction was later quashed after it was heard that one of the witnesses had lied.

At his first trial at the Old Bailey the jury had been unable to reach a verdict but he was convicted at a second trial in Aylesbury. However, it was heard that the prosecution case had rested heavily on the evidence of a man that said he had been in a gang with the man being tried along with an alleged confession that Michael Galvin was said to have made to the police.

The police had not made any developments in the case until a man later came forward to say that he had been in the gang and gave evidence against the 26-year-old. One newspaper report stated that the key witness had been so appalled by the 26-year-old man's boasting over the stabbing that he had gone to the police. However, it was later found that he had been lying in order to have other charges against him dropped that might have resulted in prison time and to get a £6,000 reward.

The key witness, an unemployed chef of Skelmersdale, Lancashire who had been living in Lawson House, Australia Road, White City Estate at the time, said that when a gang member asked the 26-year-old man what had happened, The 26-year-old man replied that he had just stabbed the man. His exact words were:

I stabbed the bastard. I showed the honky.

However, the 26-year-old man tried denied any involvement in the stabbing and said that he neither knew the other members of the gang nor boasted about the murder. However, when he was shown three statements implicating him he made a confession. He had already made four statements denying any involvement and it was in his fifth statement that he confessed to stabbing Michael Galvin. However, it was later found that he had done so under police pressure.

However, two of the other alleged gang members who also made statements to the police retracted them before the trial.

It was noted that there was no forensic evidence to link the 26-year-old man to the murder.

It was also noted that although the defence produced a witness to say that she had been with the key witness throughout the afternoon of 30 August 1987 that the jury at the Aylesbury trial unanimously found him guilty.

However, in October 1989 the key witness made a sworn statement to his solicitor in which he renounced the evidence that he had given in court. He later told a Daily Mirror journalist and Channel Four News that he had been put under pressure by the police to make a statement that incriminated that man on trial. It was also heard that he had received £6,000 in reward money for his evidence against the man tried.

After renouncing his earlier claims he said that he had not even been at the Notting Hill Carnival and had in fact spent the afternoon with his girlfriend, as she had earlier testified in court.

Although the key witness had retracted his statement it was heard that there was still the question of the five statements that the 26-year-old man had made. He had made a total of five statements, and in the first four had denied having had any part in the murder.

However, it was heard that after he was shown the statements of the three other alleged gang members that had all said he was the murderer, all three of which were ultimately retracted, he had made the following statement:

I was frightened. I thought there was going to be a big fight. I pulled the knife. I don't know why. I just did it. It was in the heat of the moment. It happened quickly. I didn't mean to kill anybody. I thought he might have a knife or something. I don't really know why I stabbed him. It was like a dream.

It was also heard that the key witness had not made his statement until two months after the murder at which time he was already facing jail time for fraud charges.

It was also heard that another factor in the case was the fact that Michael Galvin's brother, who had witnessed the stabbing had said that he would never forget the murderer's face, but had failed to pick out the 26-year-old man at an identification parade.

It was also noted that the photofit issued by the police more little resemblance to the 26-year-old man.

When the appeal judges reached their verdict, they said:

On any view the key witness has perverted the course of justice by committing deliberate perjury. Either he wickedly caused a conviction of murder by voluntarily giving false evidence or, equally wickedly, he has now procured the release from prison of the man he knows to be guilty.

The key witness was later convicted of perjury at the Old Bailey and sentenced three years. When he was convicted of perjury, the judge said:

Whether the man tried was the victim of your perjury or the beneficiary of it I cannot say. It is not for me to express a view. There is no doubt that one of the consequences of your perjury was that a vast amount of public money and police time had been totally wasted. It must be remembered that when perjury is committed there is always one victim, justice.

It was heard that the key witness had been charged with a series of dishonesty charges including two counts of cheque fraud and stealing £300 and had been granted bail but had failed to turn up at Harrow magistrates' court for one of the cheque fraud cases and that a warrant had been put out for his arrest. He had also been in breach of a suspended sentence and knew that he would probably be refused bail and faced jail and that as such, he did what many people do in that situation and decided to become a police informer.

It was noted that Michael Galvin's murder had been headline news for six weeks but that no leads had been made until he came forward and named the man tried as the murderer. It was heard that from then on the police at Shepherd's Bush police station had allowed him to use the station like a social club and had paid him sums of money in cash for his living expenses and so that he could drink in pubs where other people that he had named drank.

It was said that:

He was rather enjoying his new  found status, certainly he was using the money they paid him. He was allowed to play snooker at the police station and used it like a social club.

However, after the man's conviction the key witness went to the Daily Mirror and told them that his statement was a lie and that the police had beaten and threatened him, saying that they had scared the living daylights out of him. Following that the man that was convicted appealed and the Police Complaints Authority began an investigation into his claim.

At the appeal the judges said that they could not be sure which of his two statements were true and so quashed the conviction. However, they noted that they found no wrong doing on the part of the police, saying:

All the evidence shows he was not pressurised and the account he gave of violence by a detective is untrue.

A QC said:

His evidence to this Court that he gave false evidence to the jury has the ring of truth about it. If the Court disbelieves his evidence to this Court that will drive it to the conclusion, contrary to our submission that his evidence at Aylesbury was involuntary, that he is an inveterate, pathological liar. If that is the conclusion of the Court, in our submission no one should ever be convicted on the evidence of such a witness unless there is corroboration of his evidence. Here there was no corroboration. The lurking doubt in this case must be sufficiently serious, even if the Court came to the conclusion he was giving voluntary evidence, for the Court to set aside the conviction.

The QC added:

Failure to produce all his previous convictions during the trial was a material irregularity. Because the jury did not know crucial and vital facts as to his conduct between October 1987 and March 1988, it is impossible to say the conviction is safe and satisfactory.

The man that was convicted had lived in Hargreaves House, White City Estate and had had children.

There had been about 250,000 people at the carnival from all over the country and it was Notting Hill Carnival's Children's Day at the time in which hundreds of young children were taking part in the parade.

Michael Galvin had been a self-employed electrical engineer but had been selling cans of Coca-Cola with his brother from a stall to passers-by near his home at the corner of Westbourne Park Road and Ledbury Road to earn a little extra money.

A witness said that they had seen a youth that had been in a group of ten other youths grab a can of Coca-Cola from Michael Galvin's stand after which Michael Galvin was stabbed in the chest.

The police said that they came up against a wall of silence in the case and it was noted that the only person that had come forward to identify the murderer had been the key witness, who was later dubbed the 'lying witness'.

Although witnesses said they had seen a gang of black youths surround Michael Galvin's stall, it was noted that all three men that had given statements saying that they had seen the 26-year-old man that had stabbed Michael Galvin had been white, including the key witness. The man that was convicted of the murder and later acquitted had been black. Michael Galvin had been white.

Following the murder the police appealed for anyone that might have photographs or video tapes of the scene around the murder to come forward.

After Michael Galvin was stabbed he had to be carried through the crowds to the ambulance, which couldn't reach him, and was taken to hospital where he died later that day.

It was reported that there had been about 800 crimes reported at the carnival and that 250 arrests, 20 for serious assaults, were made for offences ranging from robbery to assault, drugs and attacks with offensive weapons.

A 20-year-old policewoman that had been stabbed in the back said that she thought she was going to be killed and had never been so frightened in all her life. She added that she didn't think that the carnival had been a day of fun, adding:

I thought it was quite a hostile atmosphere.

She said that she thought that she had been thumped in the back and that it was not until her colleagues noticed that her uniform was covered in blood that she realised that she had been stabbed. She said that she had been on duty for about an hour with another officer when they became separated from their colleagues as they tackled the crowd in Portobello Road and said:

We decided the only thing to do was run. I felt someone thump me in the back, it just felt like a thump. As we ran we were pelted with bottles and cans, but my thought was to keep running, running towards the shields where I knew I'd be safe.

After that she realised that she had been stabbed with something like a craft knife or some other thin bladed weapon.  She said:

We pretend carnival is a peaceful event. What we have got to be brutally honest about is the two sides of carnival. There was the fun, and there was the crime and violence which went with it. Let us not minimise the risks to police and public.

The Notting hill Carnival in 1987 ended abruptly on the Monday night after it erupted into a riot.

Michael Galvin had had a 16 month old daughter at the time and his wife had been 6 months pregnant.


*map pointers are rough estimates based on known location details as per Place field above.

see find.galegroup.com

see Court News UK

see Court News UK

see Court News UK

see Court News UK - Quash

see Independent

see True Crime Library

see a Staff reporter. "Young father dies in carnival attack." Times [London, England] 31 Aug. 1987: 1. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 3 Mar. 2013.

see Liverpool Echo - Saturday 31 March 1990

see "Death charge." Times [London, England] 17 Oct. 1987: 6. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 25 Aug. 2012.

see Kensington Post - Thursday 22 February 1990

see Newmarket Journal - Thursday 01 October 1987

see New Milton Advertiser - Saturday 26 September 1987

see Dundee Courier - Wednesday 02 September 1987

see Aberdeen Press and Journal - Wednesday 02 September 1987

see Aberdeen Press and Journal - Monday 31 August 1987

see Daily Mirror - Thursday 19 October 1989

see Daily Mirror - Wednesday 21 March 1990