A Golfing Murder

Guy uncovers violence on golf courses and allotments.

Transcript

Welcome to the one-hundred-and-eleventh episode of The Undercover Intern podcast, coming to you live from the centre of London Luton Airport. I'm your host, Guy Snapdragon, and today is Monday the 17th of March 2025.

We are sponsored this week by The Maywentery Golf Course. Welcoming men of all abilities since 1923. If you’re listening with children you might want to turn the volume down because there is going to be graphic and, at times, gratuitous discussion about mutilation. Garry Rafferty’s autopsy has revealed that he did not drown, but in fact that his head was hacked off with what police believe was a bunker rake, and that this likely caused his death. This certainly helps to explain why his head was discovered just off the green on hole 16. The bench installed in Garry’s memory remains on hole seven, where the main elements of his body were discovered, with a sign that now reads: Garry Rafferty 1980-2025. A valued member since 2003. Beheaded here during the local floods of January 2025. End. It’s good that they’ve corrected the year, but I do hope Garry’s family have been consulted about that dedication. It seems less of a celebration of Garry’s life and is altogether too factual to me. 

Given the news, I think it’s appropriate to take a minute to reflect upon the brutal way that Garry’s life was cut short. If possible, please join me in silence now. But if it’s not safe, if you’re a swimming instructor or a helicopter pilot or in a combat situation or recording a YouTube video, please just imagine the silence. But for everybody else, let’s reflect on the fragility of Garry’s life and the brutal way that it was curtailed [whistle then Silence for 15 seconds] .. If you’ve just joined us, we’re in the middle of a minute’s silence [silence for 10 seconds] please do not adjust your iPod, we are just having a minutes’ silence [silence for 5 seconds next quietly] Maybe we should do applause instead, we don’t want to lose listeners in the silence? [Me clapping for a few seconds, then the whistle]. Absolutely beautiful. Thank you.

Now, like me you are probably wondering why murder was not immediately suspected. Well, I have been told by an anonymous police source that suicide was the initial hypothesis, which makes no sense even though Garry had a reputation around the course as a bit of miserable sod, and then they thought that a stray alligator had taken advantage of the floods and dragged Garry underwater. My source says that Garry’s death is now finally being treated as murder, but that because Garry did not have private criminal insurance, he is on a waiting list for the investigation to begin. It’s already almost two months since Garry’s head was ripped from his body and apparently it’s going to be August at the earliest before a detective will be assigned to the case. I wasn’t around when the police were invented in 1948 but I am old enough to remember the 1990s when major crimes were investigated immediately and even minor crimes like stealing a six-pack of Curly Wurlys or writing too often to Bianca from Eastenders were prosecuted. Latest figures show the degraded state of policing in the UK, for example that over 750 murder victims in the UK are waiting for an investigation to begin, and that 320 have been waiting for over 18 months. Shocking.

I didn’t know Garry personally, but I for one am not willing to allow his slayer to breathe the sweet air of freedom during the beautiful Spring months. For next week’s episode I am going to Maywentery to find the killer.

Today’s episode was supposed to be about a new charity that Carpet Culture have established, and actually it seems even more relevant now. You’ll know from episode 105 that Ross Manley, the legendary CCO of Carpet Culture was massacred on his allotment back in August 2023, just three days after he was forced to retire from Carpet Culture due to his increasingly erratic behaviour. Well, I am excited to announce the establishment of the Carpet Culture Center to Prevent Allotment Violence which has been set up in Ross’s memory. The center will take a three-pronged approach to preventing allotment violence - first seeking to change laws, next the allotment industry itself, and finally culture. Examples include advocating for onion-growth licencing, holding allotment tool companies accountable through litigation, and public education campaigns.

You’d think that this gesture would make Mrs. Manley happy, but she’s honestly one of those women who’s never satisfied. You can’t help some people.

Just a bit of background about the scourge of allotment violence in the UK. In London alone, 17 out of 112 murders in the year 2023 took place in or within a potato’s throw of an allotment. And there were thousands of other acts of violence ranging from children being force-fed unripe tomatoes, to carrots being inserted non-consensually into orifices, to fingers being cut off with secateurs. Statistically, allotments are among the most dangerous places to be in the UK, alongside northbound motorway service stations and high-street Primark stores during Boxing Day sales.

The first campaign from the Carpet Culture Center to Prevent Allotment Violence is an amnesty on allotment-based tools and weapons. You can take your spades, forks, hoes, hand trowels, wheelbarrows, watering cans etc. to any UK mainland branch of Carpet Culture between today and the end of March, and place them in the specially marked skips for safe disposal. You will not be arrested or questioned. By all means bring bunker rakes too. The fact is that allotment-based violence is the result of opportunity, and arguments will inevitably escalate to murder given the limited plots available and the ready access to these deadly weapons. We need as a society to make allotments safe places, to meet the needs of everyone, be free at the point of delivery and be based on clinical need, not ability to pay. This is the Mission of the Carpet Culture Center to Prevent Allotment Violence.

There has, perhaps inevitably, been a response from the National Rake Association who have released the following statement. Quote: The NRA cannot and will not support senseless rake control measures that some in parliament have already said is just a first step that 'paves the way' for additional rake control that will only infringe on the rights of the law-abiding allotment dwellers. The Small Holdings and Allotments Act 1908 protects the individual right to keep and bear rakes. The Carpet Culture Center to Prevent Allotment Violence is yet another example of a carpet manufacturer getting involved in a topic about which they know nothing. The only thing that stops a bad guy with a rake is a good guy with a rake. The NRA is made up of millions of law-abiding men and women. We are parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters, whose hearts break every time an allotment crime is committed or a tragedy occurs. Golf courses could not exist without bunker rakes and you will face the wrath of eternity if you try and ban them. Mass wheelbarrow murders are a mental health problem, not a rake problem. End quote. The NRA is alluding at the end there, I think, to the 1994 events in Rochdale town centre when Clive Baxter repurposed seventeen ordinary wheelbarrows and six rakes into a combat vehicle and caused havoc and 12 deaths in a little under three hours. It happened on the same day as the OJ Simpson chase, unfortunately, so barely got reported.

This is undoubtedly a complex topic, and I respect the NRA. But I take a science-based approach and am guided by data. The Carpet Culture Center to Prevent Allotment Violence is not calling for the eradication of all allotments, but we surely must question why the UK is the only country in the world that allows allotment-based violence to continue unabated. We’re all familiar with the murder of 80-year-old Lea Adri-Soejoko at the Colindale allotments in London in 2017. Adri-Soejoko, who was the secretary of the allotment association, was found dead in a mower shed. She had been strangled with a lawnmower starter cord by a fellow plot holder who was fearful of being kicked out. But what about the more mundane cases involving blunt force trauma by spade or asphyxiation via kneeling mat? We don’t hear about this, but it’s happening on a monthly basis just in London. And it’s happening because we accept this as part of UK life, like a Sunday roast or a lovely cup of tea. Well Ross Manley won’t ever drink tea again, because he is dead. His Sunday roasts are all behind him, eaten while his head was still connected to his body.

I do worry about this trend for decapitation. I remember when murderers were happy just to poison or at worst to stab the torso, and would generally leave the head in place for an open casket funeral. Nowadays, everything seems to be about the entire removal of the head from the body. I’m no criminologist, but can we blame the media for this? That Grand Theft Auto game? Doom?

Maybe it’s just a symptom of society’s wider demise. These are dark dark times aren’t they? I do try to look on the bright side of life but even I have a problem finding the light. There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in. Which idiot said that? Tell Garry about all the light now getting to his exposed organs, and see if that cheers him up.

Don’t have nightmares, do sleep well.

I’ve been your host, Guy Snapdragon. My producer is Lee Buckingham. Michael Webb is Chief Legal Officer and Legal support comes from Paul Tout, Simon Warwick and Matthew Rook. Accountancy from Graham Cree. Security from David Jarrett. May you use your time wisely, and may your use of wise be timely.