John Speed

John Speed was shot in Kirkgate near Leeds Parish Church on 31 October 1984.

He had been a police sergeant and had been out with another policeman in Kirkgate when the other policeman stopped two men that had been acting suspiciously there. However, one of the men pulled out a gun and shot at them, killing John Speed.

It was noted that the suspected gunman, a garage owner, died two years later. He shot himself accidently when the police tried to arrest him and rammed his van following another raid he had been involved in. Following his death, his girlfriend gave the police information that suggested that the garage owner had been the man that had shot John Speed.

John Speed had been shot at point blank range.

It was thought that the men had been involved in a robbery, and the incident was connected with two other robberies in which the same gun was thought to have been used, the first at an Asda store in 1981 and the second in Kirkgate in 1981.

Three men were arrested in December 1984 on a caravan site in Bowesfield Lane in Stockton on suspicion of John Speed's murder. However, none were charged with his murder and were released.

John Speed was buried 50 yards from where he was shot.