Routine call-out ended with the killing of Pc

It was a routine call-out but it ended with the killing of a police constable.

Phillip Walters and his colleague Derek Shepherd were told to attend a disturbance in a flat in Empress Avenue, Ilford, Essex, nine years ago. They did not know that inside were three Yardie hitmen administering a "punishment" beating to a man who had jilted his lover.

Ray Lee was with two other men, still not brought to justice, who were beating 29-year-old Curtis Lewis at the request of his girlfriend, to whom he had been unfaithful.

When the officers arrived, they had no reason to believe they were dealing with anything more than the sort of disturbances which are a nightly occurrence, and did not call for armed back-up.

It was a fatal omission. As they struggled to handcuff Lee, he produced a Smith & Wesson revolver and shot Pc Walters through the heart. Two bullets were fired, one of which killed the officer. Pc Shepherd, 37, who was uninjured in the struggle, managed to stop a third being fired by putting his finger in front of the gun's hammer.

In the melée one of the other suspects escaped, but Lee was so determined not to let go of the gun he routinely carried that he struggled with Pc Shepherd until another patrol car arrived. He had to be hit repeatedly, first on the arm and then on the head to let go of the firearm. Pc Walters's handcuffs were left hanging from one of Lee's wrists, but the officer himself was dying at the roadside. Despite the efforts of paramedics, he could not be saved.

The case shed light on the dark underworld of the Yardies - but failed to reveal much about Lee. The Jamaican had entered Britain illegally and had at least three aliases known to police.

They still do not know his real identity or age, and charged him under the first name he gave. The gangster, who lived in Cricklewood, may well have committed other crimes both in Britain and Jamaica and was thought to associate with other Yardie drug lords.

But it was a love quarrel which took him to Ilford. He and his associates were told by Nicole Brown, a 27-year-old Marks & Spencer checkout operator, that her boyfriend was a drug dealer who would have a lot of money which they could steal as payment for the kneecapping she wanted him to suffer.

Brown claimed she had ordered the punishment because of her partner's infidelity and was herself sentenced to eight years in prison for organising the beatings.

When Lee himself went on trial for murder, the court heard claims from the prosecution that the killing was a "cynical and calculated" attempt to avoid arrest.

He escaped conviction after a first trial which ended in farce as the "jury from hell" failed to reach a verdict, apparently more concerned that their hotel did not have a gym and about how often they could have cigarette breaks than dealing with a policeman's killer.

A second trial jury accepted Lee's claim that he had not meant to shoot the officer and that his gun had gone off "by accident".

The jury's refusal to convict Lee of murder sparked anger from his family and fiancée, 35-year-old Helen Rossiter. Speaking after the verdict she said: "I don't think any member of the public should expect an answer to a distress call if they are placing such a disgustingly low value on police officers' lives."