Sheffield True Crime Stories: The Christmas Eve murder of Alan Greaves
A beloved husband and father was killed as he walked to church in Sheffield to play the organ on Christmas Eve.
Alan Greaves, a 68-year-old married father-of-four, was on his way to St Saviour’s Church in High Green to play the organ for the Midnight Mass service, as he had done for the previous 40 years, when he was targeted.
Alan Greaves, a 68-year-old married father-of-four, was on his way to St Saviour’s Church in High Green to play the organ for the Midnight Mass service, as he had done for the previous 40 years, when he was targeted.
Transcript
00:00 He had some kind of a rage, he felt angry, we don't know why.
00:04 And poor Alan Greaves was simply identified as a suitable victim.
00:12 They were really, really affected.
00:14 I think, you know, it was one of those cases that was really, truly heartbreaking
00:19 and it really did get to them.
00:21 [Music]
00:42 Yeah, well it was a case that shocked Sheffield, not only Sheffield, it shocked the entire nation.
00:48 Alan Greaves, 68 year old, married man, a grandfather, he was walking to his local church
00:54 to play the organ on Christmas Eve.
00:57 He'd done that for years and years.
01:00 He was a volunteer there, he was a pillar of the local community, he'd set up a food bank.
01:06 He was a very, very well respected, well loved local man.
01:10 Obviously, the entire community was devastated at his death.
01:15 The Star found out about it, not on Christmas Eve when he was attacked.
01:20 We found out a couple of days later when the police said that he had been attacked
01:25 and then sadly died a couple of days later.
01:29 Obviously, the Star went straight up to High Green, spoke to the local community,
01:33 spoke to the local church, national newspapers, they also flooded the area.
01:38 Christmas is a traditionally quiet time for newspapers
01:42 and this shocked the entire country.
01:46 What was the feeling up there in the High Green community at the time?
01:50 Shock, devastation, disappointment.
01:55 You know, Christmas is traditionally a time to be with your family, a time of celebration
02:02 and the atmosphere in that little Sheffield suburb was...
02:08 I've never known anything like it.
02:11 So, can you tell us how the police eventually caught Alan's killers?
02:15 Well, one of the methods of identifying the killers was a CCTV trawl in the area.
02:22 Whether it was one resident or numerous residents,
02:25 but the police managed to get some footage of two males walking along the street where Alan was attacked.
02:34 One of the men that was on that CCTV, Ashley Foster, he came forward, he handed himself in
02:42 and he did that because he didn't think he'd done anything wrong.
02:46 He wasn't the attacker, so he thought he was in the clear.
02:50 His stepbrother was the attacker, Jonathan Bowling.
02:53 Both these men were 22.
02:55 Jonathan did actually admit murder, he pleaded guilty.
02:59 Ashley, the one that thought he was going to be in the clear,
03:03 he maintained that stance throughout.
03:06 He went to court, stood trial.
03:08 He was charged with manslaughter as opposed to murder because he didn't actually inflict the fatal injuries.
03:14 But the police said, well, he was there, he knew about it, you're just as guilty.
03:19 And he was found guilty of manslaughter.
03:22 He got nine years, so he'll be out now, he'll be walking the streets again.
03:26 The killer, he got life with a minimum of 25 years,
03:30 so he still has a considerable amount of time still behind bars.
03:34 So I was court reporter at the start, at the time of the murder.
03:40 My first involvement, I went up to High Green and I actually did,
03:46 door-knocked Alan's widow, Maureen.
03:50 And the idea of the door-knock is that you go and speak to the bereaved person
03:54 and you find out a little bit more about the person who's died
03:57 so that you can explain to the readers what they were like as a person,
04:03 why it's such a big loss, that kind of thing.
04:06 So I went up to High Green and I think I must have put a letter through Maureen's door
04:10 because I remember she wasn't there the first time.
04:13 But then we arranged by appointment for me to go back and see her
04:16 and I went back up with a photographer and she gave a lengthy interview
04:21 about her relationship with Alan and what a wonderful person he was.
04:26 Maureen and Alan were both social workers in the Sheffield area.
04:30 They were heavily involved with the church.
04:32 They had set up a food bank three weeks earlier
04:35 and this was ten years ago at a time when food banks didn't really exist.
04:39 And they were very well known in the local community.
04:42 They were both involved with the church.
04:44 Alan was a lay preacher, so he used to occasionally go and take services at the church.
04:49 And they also had a family, so they had children and grandchildren.
04:55 So Maureen was really unusual in that she was very open to giving media interviews.
05:01 She was very welcoming.
05:03 She invited us into her home.
05:05 She wanted us to be there. She wanted to talk about Alan.
05:08 She wanted people to know the kind of person that he was
05:12 and what a terrible loss it was, not just for her and her family,
05:15 but for the wider community.
05:18 So she was really lovely, chatty, friendly.
05:22 We got on very well.
05:24 We did end up staying in touch for quite a long time after that first visit.
05:29 And then the next time I saw her was at Alan's funeral.
05:35 So obviously this was a huge occasion.
05:38 It was held in the church where he'd been going to play the midnight mass.
05:43 And there was a huge turnout.
05:45 There were people on the streets.
05:47 The service was broadcast outside the church for people to listen to.
05:51 There were police officers there, senior detectives involved in the case.
05:57 Practically the whole high-green community turned out for Alan's funeral.
06:03 And it was a really emotional event, as you would expect.
06:07 The senior detectives involved in the case,
06:11 how touched were they by what happened to Alan?
06:13 How did it affect them?
06:15 So they were very open and honest, actually,
06:18 about how awful they'd been--how badly they'd been affected
06:22 and what a terrible and upsetting case it was for them to investigate.
06:26 And I remember after the end of the trial,
06:29 the SIO, the senior investigating officer, spoke to me.
06:35 And he said that after the first appearance of the two young men at Magistrates Court,
06:40 he'd got into a lift with Alan Greaves' wife Maureen
06:43 and one of her daughters and some police staff.
06:46 And he said that they all just broke down in tears
06:49 because of the pressure of the hearing in the Magistrates Court
06:52 and all the media attention, because obviously there was huge media attention at the time as well.
06:57 So they were really, really affected.
07:00 I think it was one of those cases that was really, truly heartbreaking,
07:06 and it really did get to them.
07:08 The relationship that you had with the victim's family was very unusual.
07:12 Can you tell us what it's normally like when you do a death knock in these horrific circumstances?
07:19 Well, it's the one thing that reporters absolutely dread doing.
07:22 They hate having to go up and knock on people's doors when, you know, somebody has died.
07:28 It's known in the trade as a death knock.
07:31 It's upsetting. It's nerve-wracking.
07:34 You never know whether you're going to get the door slammed in your face
07:36 or if somebody's going to invite you in and give you a cup of tea
07:39 and want to talk about their loved one.
07:41 So Maureen was unusual in that, you know, she was lovely,
07:45 she was very polite to all the media, really friendly, really kind,
07:49 and she made that job a lot easier to do.
07:52 Can you take us back to the trial and how were the two, you know,
07:56 how did you find covering the trial?
08:00 So the trial happened at Sheffield Crown Court in July 2013.
08:05 The Star covered it pretty much every day.
08:09 So it was Ashley Foster who was on trial for manslaughter.
08:15 It went on for weeks.
08:18 There was a lot of very graphic evidence because Alan had been hit over the head
08:23 with an axe handle, a pickaxe, so the jury were shown Alan's hat.
08:29 So he'd left the house that night, walked down to church, forgot his hat,
08:33 so he'd gone home to get his hat because it was a cold December night,
08:37 put his hat on, set off back down towards the church.
08:42 And so the jury were shown the hat, and in the hat you could see
08:46 where the pickaxe had gone into, you know, through the material.
08:51 And that was one of the pieces of forensic evidence that the jury had to consider,
08:54 and they had to look at, you know, the sort of marks and the damage done to the hat.
09:00 So the case went on for several weeks.
09:02 There was a lot of forensic evidence.
09:04 There was CCTV footage of the two men walking down the road in High Green,
09:13 which put them at the crime scene a few seconds after the attack had happened.
09:19 So, again, it was unusual.
09:22 Families often in murder trials are looking for, you know, justice,
09:27 and, you know, they are pleased to see attackers put behind bars.
09:31 Maureen's approach was different. She was very forgiving.
09:34 She was a Christian. She believed in forgiveness.
09:38 I think on the day that Ashley was found guilty, she said that she forgave him and Jonathan.
09:47 Interestingly, he did write her a letter, which he gave to the CPS,
09:54 and on the day of the conviction, Maureen said that it was too little too late
09:59 and she wasn't going to read the letter.
10:01 Now, whether in the interim period, you know, the last ten years,
10:04 she has opened that letter, we'll never know,
10:07 but, yeah, she was very forgiving towards, you know, the two men that had taken away her husband.
10:13 Can you tell us what it's like to be a court reporter
10:15 and how you go home at night and switch off after hearing some of the horrific things that you come across at court?
10:22 Yeah, so I was a court reporter at the start for about ten years,
10:26 and during that time I covered lots of cases, lots of murder cases, domestic violence, rapes.
10:32 You know, you do hear some pretty horrific and graphic evidence.
10:38 As a court reporter, you don't tend to see images that the jury see,
10:44 but, you know, you hear the evidence, and there are some cases that do get to you.
10:50 I mean, obviously, the case of Alan Greaves is one that stayed with me for a long time,
10:54 and I won't forget it, you know, till this day, just because I was involved with the family.
11:00 You know, I could see how devastating their grief was.
11:05 It was a real loss, you know, he was obviously a community stalwart
11:10 and a very sad and tragic death that he suffered, and violent as well.
11:19 The poor Alan Greaves was simply identified as a suitable victim.
11:25 The judge who jailed him for life said it was a gratuitous, reprehensible and horrific attack.
11:34 [Music]