I hunted psycho cop killer Barry Prudom through the wilderness for 17 days – his chilling last act will haunt me forever

SEARCHING through thick foliage at a tennis club in Malton, Yorkshire, survival expert Eddie McKee spotted a twitching foot and fell backwards in shock.

For Detective Sergeant Jim Kilmartin, standing next to him, it was the culmination of a 17-day manhunt for a "psychotic" killer, who left two cops and a farmer dead on a murderous rampage.

Seconds later Barry Prudom, dubbed the Phantom of the Forest, was dead - after putting a bullet through his own head.

The ex-special forces soldier and survival expert had been the run across the north of England for over a fortnight, in the summer of 1982, pursued by 4,000 police, many of them armed.

The incredible story of Prudom’s trail of destruction, 40 years ago, is told in a new TV Channel 5 documentary, Manhunt: Search for the Cop Killer, which airs tonight.

“There has never been a manhunt like it since," Jim tells The Sun. "Only the search for Raoul Moat comes close.”

Cold-blooded murder of PC

Britain’s largest-ever manhunt began on June 17, 1982, when PC David Haigh went to deliver a court summons to a poacher in North Yorkshire's Washburn Valley. 

When he didn't return, his colleagues went in search of him and found the police car with its doors open. PC Haigh lay dead beside it. He had been shot in the forehead.

Having cleared the poacher of suspicion, police had only one clue to the killer’s identity.

Written on a clipboard found under his body, PC Haigh had written down a date of birth, a name and a car registration number. 

The name was false and the car was found abandoned three days later 25 miles away. 

More than 5,000 people had that same date of birth – October 18, 1944. Using the fledgling national computer police trawled everyone born that day. 

Double shooting

In the meantime, the gunman fled to Lincolnshire where on the fifth day of the police hunt, he broke into the home of civilians Sylvia and George Luckett, shooting both in the head before escaping in their car. 

George died instantly but his wife survived. Covered in blood from a bullet wound in her head, Sylvia managed to crawl to a neighbour’s home to raise the alarm.

Around 5:30pm on Thursday, June 24, dog handler PC Ken Oliver was on patrol in Bickley near Dalby Forest on the outskirts of Scarborough when he spotted the Lucketts' brown Rover. 

As he asked the driver to get out of the car, PC Oliver saw a small handgun pointing at him, followed by a puff of smoke and he felt a bullet nick the bridge of his nose.

Jim, a colleague of PC Oliver, said: “The man just reached across with a pistol and fired straight at his face. Ken then turned and the man chased him round and round the van.

“Ken managed to get the back door of the van open and let his dog out. But unfortunately, the devil looks after his own. 

“The dog went towards him but the man fired at it."

PC Oliver was hit by a total of seven bullets and the dog was shot twice, and also survived.

The wounded constable ran to a house 200 yards away. A man and two small children were outside and he got them inside to safety. 

"That Ken survived was miraculous," says Jim. "There's no other word to describe it."

“The gun that had been used on PC David Haigh was the same one that had been used on Mr Luckett."

Killer identified

After the shooting the gunman drove into Dalby Forest, where he set fire to his car.

Within hours, police marksmen, helicopters and one thousand police officers on foot were deployed to the forest, which was cordoned off.

Jim, who served 32 years with North Yorks police, told the documentary: “Forest rangers in Dalby Forest had noticed smoke. It was the brown Rover (on fire).

“The dog had a good scent and took us into the forest. After following him for a while I was convinced that this guy was a man who knew how to survive in the woods.”

Then came a breakthrough. Cross-referencing the date of birth on David Haigh's clipboard with police records came up with the name ‘Barry Edwards’, wanted for wounding after a road rage attack.

His real name was Barry Prudom, a keep-fit fanatic, obsessed with weapons and the military. 

In his flat police found a manual on survival techniques written by Eddie McGee, a former paratrooper and experienced tracker. 

Electrician Prudom, a Territorial with 27 SAS, had attended one of his survival courses. PC Ken Oliver identified Prudom from a photo. 

The 'Phantom' had vanished, so police called in survival expert McGee to track down the killer who had now been on the run for ten days.

Two days later Prudom walked into the centre of the market town of Malton, where Sergeant David Winter and Constable Mick Wood were on patrol.

Wood saw his colleague challenge a man. One gunshot rang out and Sgt Winter fell down dead just 200 yards from the police station. He had been shot point-blank in the chest.

Jim says: “The population were absolutely terrified. The place was locked down. The movement of people was being inhibited. There were swarms of police about.”

Phantom of the Forest

Prudom lay low for four more days, until July 3, when he walked into the home of pensioner Maurice Johnson and held him, wife Bessie and their son Brian hostage for 11 hours before fleeing.

After he had gone, Maurice Johnson called the police. 

Jim accompanied unarmed tracker Eddie as he followed the killer's trail to a nearby tennis club.

Cop killer Prudom was hiding behind a panel of fencing leaning against a stone wall.

Jim says: “Eddie was looking for things that had been disturbed, where the spiders' webs had been broken.

"There was a patch of sand and in it was the exact footprint of a trainer shoe. Eddie was convinced that it was a new track. 

“I was standing by his shoulder. He was down on his hands and knees, lifting the foliage up. He came across the edge of a very blue polythene sheet, which was slightly out of place with the rest of it. 

“He was still probing when suddenly he did a backwards roll and an immediate reaction. He shouted, ‘Jim, Jim, he’s here’, suddenly a foot moved.” 

The firearms squad was swift on the scene and stun grenades were thrown into the hideout.

But before the police marksmen opened fire, a gunshot rang out – triple murderer Prudom had killed himself.

It is not clear what the killer's motive was, but police would later speculate that his life had been sent into a downward spiral five years earlier.

While w he was working on an oil rig in Saudi Arabia, his wife back home in Leeds had sent him a letter saying she had fallen in love with another man.

Jim says: “I think the man was a psychopath. He shot people in the back and if they had been tied up. 

“When people were at his mercy he was kingpin. But when he was at somebody else's mercy it was different."

Manhunt: Search for the Cop Killer is on Channel 5 tonight at 9pm.