Wolfenbuttel city, Lower Saxony, N central Germany, on the Oker River. It is an agricultural market and an industrial centre. Manufactures include agricultural machinery, chemicals, and musical equipment. Wolfenbüttel developed around an 11th-century castle that became (c.1280) a favourite Guelphic residence. It was the residence of the dukes of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel from 1432 to 1753. The city's noteworthy buildings include the former ducal palace (15th-18th cent.; now a museum), a 17th-century church, and numerous 17th-century half-timber houses.

LesSPADES ARE NOT TRUMPS Tommo

Bernie (Tommo) Thompson and Les Hooper of Celle Detachment, Special Investigation Branch, Germany, stood irritated and frustrated in the cellars of a block of service flats in Kopernikus Strasse, Wolfenbuttel. They had already spent days and sleepless nights in the area and were almost at their end of their tether.
     An anonymous young lad from the flats came up to them. ‘There’s another hiding place under there,’ he said, pointing to the small door of an alcove under the stairway.
     ‘We know,’ Tommo explained. ‘We’ve tried everywhere.’
     ‘You don’t understand,’ the lad went on. ‘It’s right round the corner.’
     Tommo and Les eyed each other, trying to absorb the information. Meanwhile the lad took off. ‘I’ll take a look,’ said Tommo, without much enthusiasm. He ducked low to open the door and crept into the alcove.
     A few seconds later he reappeared, his face a mask of shock surprise. ‘It’s him. He’s there.’
     Les said nothing and crawled into the alcove himself. Farther in, what appeared to be an end wall was not an end wall. He had searched there several times already without realising another very low, small hidden alcove had been built for no apparent reason. It could only be entered on all fours. On the cold concrete floor stretched the lifeless body of a small boy on his back with his feet crossed. A blood-stained newspaper shrouded his head and shoulders.
     The time was 7.40pm, Thursday, April 17, 1961. The boy had been missing for a little over five days.


     The dead boy was 7-year-old Paul Friend, the son of a sergeant in the Queen’s Dragoon Guards stationed at Wolfenbuttel and living in married quarters near the flats. He was first reported missing on April 12 and despite all efforts by the military police and German police, no trace of him was found until that moment.
     Les made enquiries amongst the families living nearby and discovered the last person to see Paul alive was 15-year-old Billy Wibberley, son of a QDG corporal who lived on the top floor of the block. Meanwhile the searches continued.
     On April 15, Les interviewed Billy. He told him he knew he had been with Paul about the time he disappeared so what were they doing?’
     Billy said, ‘I was digging a garden and broke the spade. I was on my way to ask my Dad for some glue to mend it. I met Paul on the road and had a little game with him.’
     Les asked him, ‘What kind of game?’
     ‘Just a bit of fun,’ Billy told him. ‘I said, “Paul Friend’s round the bend,” and he chased and hit me.’ Billy ended by saying he went indoors afterwards and did not see Paul again.
     The significance of the spade became apparent later.
     Les and Tommo searched the flats time after time. They even raked out the ashes of the central heating boiler fire but found nothing to help in the quest for Paul, now becoming desperate.
     Later Les and Tommo searched the rooms, attic and cellar of the Friend’s house. A job that had to be done but nothing was found that would help. Paul’s parents were frantic with worry and grief by this time.
     Les interviewed Billy again in the presence of his mother after searching his room. While he was talking to Billy, his mother suddenly spurted out with, ‘My Billy didn’t kill him and bury him.’
     It seemed she intended to protect her son to the last.
     Les asked her, ‘What ever made you say that, Mrs Wibberley?’
     She replied, ‘Oh, all these questions and you’re asking Billy if he has hidden Paul, and looking through his things.’
     Les took a statement from Billy including all he said he knew about Paul Friend.
     By 16 April they heard Billy Wibberley was alleged to have tried to strangle a younger boy about three weeks before Paul vanished.
     The investigation was now ostensibly under the command of Warrant Officer Doug Hateley, SIB. He reckoned someone abducted Paul and carted him off in a car. There existed no firm basis for this theory.
     That evening during the daily progress conference, Hateley decided all the work carried out by the SIB, the great help given by the military police provost company, and the extensive enquires made by the German police, although having achieved nothing as yet, should be considered complete.
     Les and Tommo disagreed. Their gut feelings told them the answer lay close to where Paul had disappeared. Gut feelings are not evidence but a strong finger of suspicion pointed directly at Billy Wibberley. Les wanted to grab him by the scruff of the neck and shake the truth out of him. But Hateley refused Les permission to arrest and interrogate him. He agreed to Les and Tommo remaining in Wolfenbuttel to continue enquires while he called a halt and returned to Celle with the remaining SIB men.
     The orchestra leader had gone, leaving Les and Tommo to play their own tune. They shrugged. So be it.


      The next day, April 17, proved to be a crucial date. The two remaining detectives continued interviewing and reinterviewing parents and children around Kopernikus Strasse, searching and talking, trying to discover a clue that would crack the impasse.
     Billy mentioned a tip where kids played. Les and Tommo made Billy take them there, which was at the end of a long and tiring trudge across fields and through woods. Billy watched unemotionally as they searched through stinking rubbish. It turned out to be yet another red herring.
     On the return journey Tommo asked Billy what happened to Paul. Billy answered, ‘Perhaps he was knocked down and killed by a car. The driver got frightened and took him away and hid him.’
     Had Billy been listening to Doug Hateley?
     That evening the two men decided to give the cellars of the flats at least one more thorough search. Many people had already searched the building countless times but they clung to diminishing hopes all was not yet lost. Their determination was boundless. Tommo put it into words. ‘For all we know he is alive.’
     But, unfortunately, the poor lad was very much dead.
     Upon discovery of the body the wheels of justice swiftly moved into action. Les summoned Doug Hateley; the pathologist from the British Military Hospital in Hanover; doctor; and a German police photographer to get pictures of the scene before the body was disturbed.
     The pathologist was Captain Roger Gardener, a pleasant man and good friend of SIB Celle. When he arranged its recovery, the head and shoulders of Paul’s body were a mass of heavy injuries and it did not need a forensic genius to see they were identical to blows made by a spade. Also discovering Paul earlier would not have saved him for signs of early decomposing were evident. He had obviously been dead when placed in the alcove.
     By then Les had dragged Billy from his flat. The rest of his family were sent to stay with neighbours and the flat sealed. That evening Les found the damaged spade with a bloodstained blade in a hall cupboard. The newspaper covering the body had the Wibberley’s address on the front page – 19B/K.
     Billy admitted the killing to a SIB sergeant in whose custody Hateley had placed him. The evidence was overwhelming. Billy and Paul had an argument and Billy battered him to death with the spade, which broke with the violence of the blows.
     William Henry Wibberley was tried for murder at No.1 court of the Old Bailey, after committal proceedings at Chelsea Juvenile Court. Les gave evidence as the main investigating officer. The jury found Billy not guilty of murder and guilty of manslaughter due to diminished responsibility. The judge sentenced him to be detained during Her Majesty’s Pleasure.
     Probably the biggest lesson to be learnt from this case is when carrying out searches make sure everywhere is searched. A truism as relevant today as it was then. In the long run, the few days that Paul’s body lay undiscovered did not make a lot of difference.
     But it might have done!
                                                             END

                   Les Hooper (L) with PC George Churchill-Coleman,                                                              The dead boy: Paul Friend
                   future head of Scotland Yard's Anti Terrorist Branch,                                                          in happier times.
                   and German police photographer in London during the
                   trial.

Afterwards the intervention of the lad who told about the alcove was discussed. It was assumed he must have known something about the body. Why else did he speak out? He may have made a good witness but his name was not obtained, which was an error. The attribute of hindsight is a wonderful asset.

Where does the SIB serve?
There are 190 SIB personnel serving world-wide and they are found where ever the Army are on duty with permanent detachments in Cyprus, the Falkland Islands, Belize, Canada, Germany, UK and Northern Ireland. The SIB also have a presence in Sierra Leone, Kosovo and Bosnia. A team of six is held in constant operational readiness at the SIB’s HQ, ready to be deployed anywhere in the world at short notice. In the last five years the SIB have travelled all over the world to Africa, Italy, Canada, USA, Jamaica, Belize, Cyprus, Australia, Hong Kong, Thailand, Nepal and Brunei.

The tune on this page, "Lili Marlene", was set to music by German composer Norbert Schultze in 1939 (who also wrote "Bombs on England") from a German poem by World War I German soldier Hans Leip who wrote the verse before going to the Russian front in 1916, combining the name of his girlfriend with that of a friend’s girlfriend. The song was heard while being broadcast to the German Army in Africa and adopted by the British Eighth Army. Anne Sheldon's English hit record (London) started the songs popularity with the Allied countries. Marlene Dietrich (who sings it here) featured it in public appearances and on radio.