Gerry Richardson
Murdered British police officer (1932–1971)
Superintendent Gerald Irving Richardson (2 November 1932 – 23 August 1971) was a British police officer in the Lancashire Constabulary and is one of the highest-ranking officers to be murdered in the line of duty in Great Britain. In 1972 he was posthumously awarded the George Cross.
Early years
Gerry Richardson was born in Blackpool, Lancashire, in 1932 to Irving Richardson and Lilian Pugh and had always aspired to join the police force.
Murder
On 23 August 1971, Richardson assisted in a car chase of a gang of five armed robbers who had attacked a jeweller's shop in Blackpool. As the gang split up and attempted to escape on foot, he and PC Carl Walker, who also later won the George Cross, chased one of the raiders, Frederick Joseph Sewell (known as "Fat" Fred), down a dead-end alleyway. Sewell shot Walker in the thigh before Richardson tackled the gunman and attempted to persuade him to surrender his weapon. However, Richardson was shot twice in the stomach at point-blank range and died of his injuries later that day at Blackpool's Victoria Hospital.
Funeral
His funeral was attended by around 100,000 members of the public; Richardson was buried in Layton Cemetery.
Conviction of murderers
The five armed robbers were all convicted and sentenced to a combined total of 93 years in prison, including Sewell who escaped after the shooting but was tracked down to a north London flat and jailed for 30 years for murder. Sewell said of Richardson at his trial: "I shall see him every day of my life.
“Gerry Richardson” enters the record as murdered British police officer (1932–1971). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Gerry, Richardson and Murdered can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5553008. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1932, 1971 and 1972.
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This entry incorporates text from “Gerry Richardson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.