Mervyn Samuel Fletcher was born in New Invention, Willenhall, Staffordshire on 28^th April 1935 to father Samuel Harold Edwards Fletcher (1894-1964), a Steel Cabinet Lock Maker from New Invention, and mother Ruth Fletcher (nee Clewley, 1905-1993), also of New Invention.

After leaving school in 1950, Mervyn joined the family lock making business H.E. Fletchers (est circa 1825), and in 1954 completed his basic training with the Royal Corps of Signals at the Signals Training Centre, Bedford from where he was later stationed in Hong Kong in order to fulfil his compulsory 2 year Government National Service. He returned home in 1956.

Upon his return, Mervyn re-joined the family business and went on to marry Short Heath Secondary Modern schoolfriend and Fruit & Veg Stock Taker Margaret Rose Pratt (1936-1991) at New Invention Methodist Chapel on 28^th September 1957. Although the couple never had any children together, on the 29^th September 1979, Mervyn and Margaret formally adopted sisters Theresa Westwood aged 9, and Sonia Jayne Westwood aged 6, both born in Bloxwich and welcomed them into their lives. Margaret sadly passed away at Compton Hospice, Wolverhampton on 5^th August 1991 following a short battle with cancer.

In 1962, Mervyn and his brother Harold Edwards Fletcher (1920-2013), who lived next door, purchased the family business, the premises of which was located just to the rear of their two homes, and continued to produce locks there until their joint retirement on 30^th March 1999.

Mervyn was Sonia’s father and would have been my father-in-law. He was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 1986 and was Insulin dependant.

At approximately 7:00pm on Wednesday 20^th October 2004, Mervyn spoke on the telephone with Sonia, who at the time was living in Redditch, before heading to his local Co-Op Food Store, just a short distance from his home… Little did they know, but this would be the last time the pair ever spoke to one another.

On the morning of Thursday 21^st October 2004, Mervyn’s body was discovered lying in a pool of blood in a flower bed in the back garden of his home by his sister Joy Clewley Parton (nee Fletcher, 1934-2005), who had arranged to call on Mervyn in order for them to go and finish paying for a holiday the pair had booked together. Upon the discovery, Joy went straight round to brother Harold’s house next door to call for the emergency services, who were quick to respond.

Unfortunately, neither Joy nor Harold had contact details for either Theresa or Sonia in order to inform them of Mervyn’s death, but a passer by who knew where Theresa lived volunteered to go to her home and give her the sad news. She immediately telephoned Sonia who returned home from Redditch that same day.

After her train journey, Sonia headed straight for her fathers home where she was met by police who refused to allow her access to the property, as at the time, Mervyn’s death was still considered to be ‘unexplained’. At 2:00pm the following day, Sonia went to see her fathers body at the mortuary at Walsall Manor Hospital following a post-mortem earlier that day.

The post-mortem concluded that the most probable cause of death was that of ‘head injuries caused as a result ofa diabetes induced fall’, despite the pathologist stating that there were injuries which she was ‘not entirely comfortable with’, injuries which she had the foresight to photograph in great detail.

On Tuesday 26^th October, Theresa and Sonia were permitted entry into Mervyn’s home where Sonia picked up his mail and placed it in her bag to sort later. The pair then proceeded to search the house for Mervyn’s wallet which the police had informed them wasn’t on Mervyn’s body or found anywhere in the vicinity when they’d attended the scene initially, and in order to inform his banks of his death, but despite a thorough search of his house, Mervyn’s wallet was no where to be found. Sonia did however find a bank statement which contained the details she needed in order to contact his bank.

Whilst on the phone to Lloyds Bank that afternoon, the advisor that Sonia spoke to had the unfortunate task of having to inform her that Mervyn’s bank card had in fact been used that very afternoon in an attempt to withdraw money from his current account, but the transaction was declined due to insufficient funds, as the account had already been all-but emptied over the 4 day period following Mervyn’s death, not over a ‘number of weeks’ as later stated in the press.

In a letter addressed to Mervyn that Sonia had picked up earlier that day, the Coventry Building Society had grown suspicious of activity relating to Mervyn’s savings account, and were enquiring as to why Mervyn was suddenly withdrawing such ‘unusually’ large sums of money, and to inform him that his account had been frozen until they’d spoken to him.

Someone had Mervyn’s bank cards and they were using them to access his bank accounts.

Armed with this new evidence, Sonia went straight to Bloxwich Police Station and spoke to one Detective-Sergeant Dave Godwin, who failed to take it seriously, stating that Mervyn ‘must have lost his wallet’, and that Sonia was a ‘drama queen with an over active imagination’, and that if she didn’t stop ‘pestering him’, he would arrest her ‘for wasting police time’. He made no comment of the fact that Mervyn’s bank cards were still being used some days after his death.

At around 11:00pm that same night, Sonia received a telephone call from one Detective-Inspector Sarbjit Johal of Bloxwich CID, requesting that the family postponed any funeral arrangements that may have already been made, and that a new team were taking over the investigation into Mervyn’s death. He asked Sonia to meet him at Bloxwich Police Station at 7:00am the following morning.

Sonia met with D.I. Johal on Wednesday 27^th October as arranged and was introduced to the new investigating team who had taken over her fathers case. This team was made up of Detective-Sergeant Richard Cook, Detective-Constable Neil Lewis, and Detective-Constable Stuart Berry, as well as D.I. Johal himself, all of Bloxwich CID at the time.

At 9:00am, both D.I. Johal and Sonia attended Lloyds Bank in Bloxwich High Street in order to confirm Mervyn’s death and to discuss the fraudulent transactions which had been made in relation to Mervyn’s current account following his death, before later returning to the police station, where D.I. Johal informed Sonia that a full Home Office forensic post-mortem would now need to be carried out on Mervyn’s body.

At 7:00pm on Saturday 30^th October, Sonia received another telephone call from D.I. Johal, this time to inform her that one Mustafa Abdullah (real name Georgeson Nwabuko, aka George Nwabuko) of Beechdale Estate, Walsall had been arrested in relation to the use of Mervyn’s bank cards following his death, whilst also under investigation for two separate street robberies in Willenhall, the first a teenager in the Rose Hill area, and the second an elderly lady on the Lodge Farm Estate, the former of which he would be appearing before Walsall Magistrates Court on the 1^st November 2004.

George Nwabuko is the brother of Joseph Nwabuko, a 28 year old student from Walsall who had previously been shot at close-range near to the Nationwide Building Society in central Birmingham on 9^th February 2004 by one Lynton Fletcher (no relation), after he had witnessed Fletcher and two other men commit an armed raid on a Securicor van just moments before. He died during the early hours of the morning on the 10^th February 2004 from a single gunshot which had pierced both lungs.

During interview, Nwabuko continually denied using or even having possession of Mervyn’s bank cards at any time, and he was remanded back into custody pending further investigation.

Sonia first caught a glimpse of George Nwabuko from the public gallery of Court 1 of Walsall Magistrates Court on the 1^st November 2004 where he stood accused of the robbery of a teenage girl in the Rose Hill area of Willenhall the previous week. The case was adjourned for sentencing at Wolverhampton Crown Court at a later date, where Nwabuko was found guilty of Robbery and sentenced to 5 years and 6 months behind bars.

An Home Office forensic post-mortem (the second post-mortem), was carried out on Mervyn’s body later that week by Home Office Pathologist Dr Peter Acland, the results of which concluded that Mervyn’s injuries were ‘consistent with a heavy fall’, but said ‘there was no convincing evidence of a direct assault, although it could not be discounted’. Despite Acland’s ‘inconclusive’ finding’s following the post-mortem, D.I. Johal and his team continued to investigate Mervyn’s death and the use of his bank cards by George Nwabuko.

Mervyn’s body was later released to the family following the Home Office post-mortem, and he was laid to rest along side his wife Margaret at Willenhall Lawn Cemetery on the 9^th November 2004 surrounded by his family and friends. This however was not the end, as there was yet more heartbreak to come for the family…

To be continued…