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British Murders with Stuart Blues

Interview #32 | The Untold Story: Matt Johnson and John Murray Discuss 'No Ordinary Day' and the Murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher

British Murders with Stuart Blues

Stuart Blues

True Crime

4.7699 Ratings

🗓️ 25 June 2023

⏱️ 45 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

I welcome former police officers Matt Johnson and John Murray to the show in this interview episode to discuss their new book 'No Ordinary Day'.


On April 17, 1984, as demonstrators gathered outside the Libyan embassy in London, two gunmen waited inside. At 10.18 am, automatic gunfire rained down on the protestors, and WPC Yvonne Fletcher fell, mortally wounded.


As his friend lay dying, PC John Murray made her a promise that he would not rest until those responsible had been brought to justice. Thirty-seven years would pass before he was able to fulfil that undertaking.


While researching this moving account of one man’s dogged pursuit of justice for a murdered colleague, Matt Johnson uncovered secret-service deals and government duplicity, all part of a plan to force an end to the National Union of Mineworkers strike. He discovered the real reason Yvonne’s killers were allowed to go free and how events that day led to thirty years of growing political control of policing, resulting in the disarray increasingly evident today.


The book pulls seemingly unconnected threads into a coherent and shocking whole. It provides startling insights into how decisions taken by our politicians and the actions of our intelligence agencies, supposedly in our best interests, may be anything but.


'No Ordinary Day' was released on June 8, 2023, and is available to purchase here:

No Ordinary Day | Ad Lib Publishers


***This interview was recorded on June 5, 2023.


For all things British Murders, please visit my website:

https://www.britishmurders.com/


Intro music:

David John Brady - 'Throw Down the Gauntlet'

https://linktr.ee/davidjohnbradymusic


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This podcast contains elements that may be alarming to some listeners.

0:04.2

Listener discretion is advised.

0:06.4

You are now listening to British Brothers.

0:09.8

This will cry podcast. Okay, everybody, so I have John Murray and Matt Johnson with me here today.

0:30.1

We are here to discuss No Ordinary Day, the new book that comes out.

0:34.6

As of recording, this will be out when the book is out,

0:37.3

but the book comes out

0:38.0

three days from now on June 8th, published by Adlib. Who should I start with first, you think?

0:43.9

Should I start with Matt or John? Who wants to go through their career first before we get

0:48.4

onto the book? I think you should always start with the character upon which this story is built and that is John.

0:56.0

Let's start with you, John, then.

0:57.6

So let's talk about your career, your career in the police.

1:01.4

How did that come about?

1:03.0

Is that something you always wanted to be when you grew up?

1:06.3

Yes, it was.

1:08.1

I mean, I joined the police cadets when I was 16-year-old, straight from school.

1:15.0

Now, Aberdeen in Scotland, a long way north, came down to London, saw the bright lights,

1:20.4

and I decided that was for me. That was because Aberdeen, at that particular time time before the oil and the sort of expansion

1:30.3

there, there were no jobs.

1:32.5

So it was either leave school and go to the local factory or do something else.

1:36.2

So I decided that I would come down here.

1:39.2

It's actually strange because as a kid, we used to go to the Saturday morning cinema,

...

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