Carl Bridgewater murder: Suspect’s former wife says he is ‘probably guilty’

Police are facing calls to reopen a ‘miscarriage of justice’ murder case which shocked a nation almost 40 years ago after a suspect’s ex-wife spoke up for the first time.

Bert Spencer, 77, who was convicted of a separate murder soon after 13-year-old newspaper boy Carl Bridgewater was found dead, was never charged with the killing.

But his former marital partner claimed he told her he was not at work throughout the day of the murder, which was his alibi at the time.

Janet Spencer broke her silence and called for a re-opening of the case on the Channel 4 documentary Interview With A Murderer, shown on Sunday night (June 12).

The programme is the result of six months of research and interviews by Professor David Wilson, a criminologist at Birmingham City University.

In the documentary, Professor Wilson accuses Spencer of being a callous liar and a psychopath.

He continues to deny any involvement in Carl’s death.

But the former ambulance driver can be called a murderer because he was convicted of killing a friend with a shotgun, in much the same way Carl died in 1978.

In the documentary, Spencer talks for the first time about what really happened on the night he shot Hubert Wilkes – because the farmer was making advances to Janet, he claims.

He also remembers how he met his colleagues racing to the scene in an ambulance.

When they warned him there was a gunman on the loose, he replied: “Barry, I think it’s me.”

Spencer has lived under the constant shadow of suspicion of Carl Bridgewater’s killing for almost 40 years.

The paper boy died because he disturbed a burglary at Yew Tree Farm in Stourbridge.

Spencer was a prime suspect because he owned a pale blue Vauxhall Viva like one a witness saw turning into the farm and also wore a dark blue uniform.

He told police he was at work at Corbett Hospital in Stourbridge on the day of the murder.

He did not tell police in the first interview that he knew the Bridgewater family and had been a close neighbour for years. He did not tell them he regularly hunted with a shotgun on land surrounding Yew Tree Farm.

Interest in his guilt waned when the so-called Bridgewater Four were arrested and convicted of the murder.

Ten weeks after the murder, a gang used a shotgun in another farmhouse raid just ten miles from Yew Tree Farm.

Police arrested Michael Hickey, his cousin Vincent, James Robinson and Patrick Malloy. Patrick Malloy eventually admitted to being at the farm when 16-year-old Michael Hickey accidentally shot Carl.

Despite the absence of any physical evidence against them, the Bridgewater Four were jailed for between 12 and 25 years.

But in 1997 they were freed when the Court of Appeal ruled the trial had been unfair due to the fabrication of evidence.

A month after Carl died, there was another brutal shotgun murder in Stourbridge.

At Holloway House Farm, a half-mile away from Yew Tree which Hubert Wilkes also farmed, the 70-year-old was shot dead.

Spencer immediately confessed to the killing.

In the middle of a late-night party to celebrate his 40th birthday on December 13, 1979, Mr Spencer left the room, returned with a shotgun and killed his friend.

Also at the party were Spencer’s first wife Janet and Mr Wilkes’ daughter Jean.

Spencer said Mr Wilkes used to brag about the “special cocktails” he would make for farmers’ wives to get them drunk “and then they’d have a swap around”.

He says: “Thought nothing of it. But I must’ve thought something of it.

“I’d had a lot of whiskey. I don’t now in case it makes me nasty.

“Then he stood up and he said ‘Janet! I’ve made you a special cocktail!’. And I cannot remember what happened next.

“Apparently, I took his gun from the door-jam, went to my car, got a hacksaw. I cut the barrel off, I went in and then I shot him.”

Spencer then viciously attacked Janet, hitting her head with the butt of the gun.

She managed to escape from the farm, bleeding and in a state of shock.

He says he drove off until he saw an ambulance coming down the la