Out & About …

… on the North York Moors, or wherever I happen to be.

A view from the upper slopes of Carlton Bank, North Yorkshire, looking north-west across open moorland of dead bracken and heather towards the patchwork of green fields in the valley below. A conifer plantation runs along the right-hand side, bordered by a road with a small car park. Low cloud and mist hang over the hills in the distance.

Not Guilty: The Carlton Bank Case, 1972

Carlton Bank. Even on a dreich day there was a surprising number of folk around. Yet, in May 1972, it was the scene of one of the more extraordinary legal cases the North Riding has ever seen.

A potato merchant named Kenneth Saddington drove five miles up to these moors one Saturday night with a body in his car. He walked 1,000 yards out into this bracken and heather, found a natural hole fourteen feet deep, dropped the body in, packed five feet of soil on top, and finished the job with a dead sheep he had found nearby1‘A man charged with murder.’ Newcastle Journal – 23 May 1972. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0002240/19720523/027/0003.

The victim was his neighbour, John Arthur Thomas, aged 49, managing director of a haulage firm, struck with a hammer in his own garage in Great Broughton.

Eight days later, Saddington walked into a police station and told them everything.

At Durham Crown Court that October, a last-minute accountant’s evidence suggested Thomas had been pocketing cash from lorry sales. The jury decided Saddington had indeed acted in self-defence and cleared him of both murder and manslaughter2‘Haulage Chief murdered with Hammer—Q.C.’ Newcastle Evening Chronicle – 24 October 1972. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000726/19721024/113/00093‘Cleared of murder, but jailed for burying body’. Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail – 28 October 1972. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000637/19721028/146/00124‘Hammer killer cleared of murder’. Newcastle Journal –  28 October 1972. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0002240/19721028/152/0009.

He served twelve months for burying the body. Not a murderer, in the eyes of the law.

Local memory, though, has never quite let the matter rest. Around the villages, it is still remembered, rather bluntly, as the Carlton Bank murder.

Somewhere beneath this moorland view, for eight days in May 1972, a man lay hidden under five feet of soil and a dead sheep.

What other secrets do the moors still keep?

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6 responses to “Not Guilty: The Carlton Bank Case, 1972”

  1. Peter Astle avatar
    Peter Astle

    I knew Ken and kept my horses with him for a while in 1973. When I first met him it was just after his release from prison. He was leaning on a shovel at the time. He told me the tale telling me that he hit Thomas with a shovel!

    Reply
  2. Fhithich avatar
    Fhithich

    Fresh from prison and already revising his story.

    Reply
    1. Peter Astle avatar
      Peter Astle

      I think not. His story was that he was working in a shed with a shovel when Thomas came at him with a hammer. He hit him with the shovel in self defence, a story which the court accepted. He disposed of the body in panic and out of fear that his family would discover it. I believed his story and still do.

      Reply
  3. Fhithich avatar
    Fhithich

    ‘Haulage Chief murdered with Hammer—Q.C.’ Newcastle Evening Chronicle – 24 October 1972. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000726/19721024/113/000934.

    Reply
  4. Peter Astle avatar
    Peter Astle

    Newspapers are never wrong!

    Reply
  5. Simon Grimes avatar
    Simon Grimes

    I was in my final year at Friends School Great Ayton at that time, and also a member of the Cleveland Search and Rescue Team. We were involved in the search for the missing man, scouring hedges and streams around the village.
    The irony has remained in my mind for the last half century; searching for someone you hope never to find. I heard a tale that the village policeman jokingly said “Ah, you got rid of him at last”. Saddington turned white as a sheet, and the policeman then said do “Would you like to come down to the station and talk about it.”

    Reply

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