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?

• 1
  ‘A man charged with murder.’ Newcastle Journal – 23 May 1972. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0002240/19720523/027/0003
• 2
  ‘Haulage Chief murdered with Hammer—Q.C.’ Newcastle Evening Chronicle – 24 October 1972. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000726/19721024/113/0009
• 3
  ‘Cleared of murder, but jailed for burying body’. Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail – 28 October 1972. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000637/19721028/146/0012
• 4
  ‘Hammer killer cleared of murder’. Newcastle Journal –  28 October 1972. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0002240/19721028/152/0009