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Sidney Slaney

Age: 42

Sex: male

Date: 18 Jan 1959

Place: Villas Road, Plumstead, London

Sidney Slaney was murdered on 17 January 1959 in Plumstead, London.

He was a scrap metal dealer and was found dead in a wooden office in his yard in Villas Road, Plumstead. He had lived in Myra Road, Abbey Wood.

There were signs of a struggle having taken place in the office which was covered with bloodstains. A chair had also been knocked over and Sidney Slaney's glasses were found some way from his body.

A bloodstained iron bar, thought to have been the murder weapon, was found next to his body.

It was noted that his murderer had left £100 in notes in Sidney Slaney's pockets and a further £14 that had been in a drawer in his office.

It was said that he had left his home in Myra Road, Abbey Wood as usual at 9am on 17 January 1959, kissing his wife goodbye and hugging his two children, aged 8 and 4 and to have then driven a mile and a half to to his yard in Villas Road. It was said then that he would have followed the same routine, first releasing his three-year-old Alsatian guard dog Chas which was kept on a running lead all night and locking him up in a room adjoining his office, which was his usual daytime routine. It was said that Chas was trained not to bark during the day which was thought was why it didn't bark when the murderer called a sometime between 10am and 11am.

It was said that the police believed that the killer either knew Chas, who was said to never bark at friends, or that he knew that Chas only barked at night.

The police found lead ingots in Sidney Slaney's yard with the letter H stamped on them and appealed for manufacturers and metal dealers to help trace where they had come from.

The police said that they were also trying to trace two men that had called at a garage near Villas Road on the Saturday morning. They were described as:

Man A:

  • About 20.
  • 5ft 8in tall.
  • Fair hair cut in a Tony Curtis style.

Man B:

  • About 20.
  • Dark-haired.

It was suggested that Sidney Slaney had been a police informer and that he had informed on a man that had been sent to prison.

It was reported that the police had checked on a list of more than 20 men released from prison in the previous two months, all of them coming from the South and South-east London areas.

A newspaper report detailed an interview with a second-hand dealer who shop was in Plumstead Road, just around the corner from Sidney Slaney's yard, who said, 'It was strongly rumoured that Slaney was a police informer. He had a lot of enemies'.

A car salesman who worked at a showroom in Plumstead Road said, 'It was said that if anybody took anything 'hot' to Slaney he would tell the police'.

However, Sidney Slaney's brother, who ran a motor-cycle shop in Plumstead Road, denied that Sidney Slaney was a police informer.

On Saturday 24 January 1959 an appeal for information was made at a Charlton vs Everton Cup Match at the Valley, Charlton, London in front of a 44,000 crowd that were watching the game, the Valley being about two miles from Sidney Slaney's office.

Appeals were also made at cinemas in Plumstead appealing for landladies to report any lodgers that had suddenly vanished. It was reported that Scotland Yard's murder squad had flashed messages on the cinema screens on the night of Tuesday 20 January 1959 that said, 'If you had a lodger who has left you suddenly since Saturday, please tell the police'.

However, no further developments in the murder investigation were made.


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

see www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

see National Archives - MEPO 2/9890

see Sunday Independent (Dublin) - Sunday 25 January 1959

see Coventry Evening Telegraph - Saturday 17 January 1959

see Daily Herald - Wednesday 21 January 1959

see The People - Sunday 18 January 1959

see Daily Mirror - Friday 30 January 1959

see Weekly Dispatch (London) - Sunday 18 January 1959