Marconi Scientists

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Between 1982 and 1990 twenty-five GEC-Marconi scientists and engineers who worked on the on the Sting Ray torpedo project are known to have died in mysterious circumstances (mostly suicide).

Police investigations found the deaths to be unconnected. The death of the British defence journalist Jonathan Moyle, who was found hanged in his Santiago hotel room on April 1 1990, has been the subject of speculation as being connected to the Marconi deaths. [1]

Contents

[edit] Overview

In 1986 a Bristol coroner, Donald Hawkins, spoke of a possible "James Bond" connection between the deaths of two computer experts involved in key underwater defence projects. Since then the mysterious deaths and accidents of other defence workers came to light.

Most incidents occurred after the men have successfully completed important projects or left one job for another.

Four of the dead men were employees of the GEC group - three at Marconi and one at EASAMS. Two others worked at separate times at the Royal Military College of Science at Shrivenham. An investigation by Computer News established that most of the men were involved in computer simulation, a key part of defence procurement.

At the time GEC-Marconi was Britain's only torpedo supplier and in 1986 was awarded a £400 million order from the Ministry of Defence for advanced anti-submarine Sting Ray torpedoes. The Royal Military College at Shrivenham is also involved in a number of Britain's leading edge defence projects. The college develops new testing devices for the Ministry of Defence and is engaged as a sub-contractor to defence companies on research and development.

All the men involved were ambitious and demonstrated a special ability in their particular field. After every death, police have given unofficial press briefings which provide journalists with plausible though unconfirmed explanations for the accidents or apparent suicides. The major problem for police has been the lack of obvious signs of depression in any of the cases. Several MPs demanded a government inquiry.

The answer to the mystery may never be known, at least in the short term. As one policeman said: "We'll probably know all the answers when the papers are released in 30 years time."

[edit] Specific incidents

  • Marconi employee Vimal Dajibhai (24), who was about to leave Marconi for a higher-paying job, was found dead beneath the Clifton Suspension Bridge in 1986.
  • Ashad Sharif, another London programmer, was found dead in Bristol. He was about to take over the running of a department at Marconi's Stanmore headquarters.
  • David Sands died when his car, loaded with two cans of petrol, exploded into flames as it crashed into a disused café. Sands had just returned from a family holiday in Venice to celebrate the completion of a three-year command-and-control systems project for Marconi's sister company Easams.
  • Marconi Space Systems employee Victor Moore (46) had just finished work on infrared satellites at Portsmouth when he was found dead from a drug overdose. His death is said to have instigated an MI5 investigation, the results of which remain secret. There is also a separate investigation into Marconi based at Portsmouth by the Ministry of Defence Serious Crime Squad.
  • Two lecturers on top secret projects died in separate 'accidents' of carbon monoxide poisoning. Both had recently returned from America and had conducted research at the Royal Military College in Shrivenham:
    • The first, Peter Peapell, a lecturer and underwater acoustics expert, was found dead under his car and the garage door was closed. Although an inquest returned a verdict of accidental death, police are unsure how the accident happened. Despite reports that Peapell had no connections with electronics or computers he had in fact written a book on basic computers. He also had a paper published on underwater acoustic emissions.
    • The second, Dr John Brittan, a former computer science officer at the Royal Military College was also found dead in his car. He too was involved in computer simulation.
  • In 1988 Stuart Goody (23) a post graduate at the Royal Military College at Shrivenham was killed in Cyprus while on holiday. He died instantly when his hired car collided head on with a lorry. The lorry driver was said to be unhurt. At least one senior employee at the college considered that the death could be significant.
  • Avtar Singh-Gida, a researcher working on an important Ministry of Defence underwater project, disappeared just three weeks away from its successful completion.
  • In 1988 Robert Greenhalgh, a contracts manager at ICL's defence division at Winnersh near Reading, suffered multiple injuries after falling from a railway bridge on his way to work. The firm admitted he had been positively vetted and may have had access to secret UK and NATO data.
  • Shani Warren (26) was a personal assistant in a company called Micro Scope, which was taken over by GEC Marconi less than four weeks after her death. Found drowned in 18in (450mm) of water, not far from the site of Greenhalgh’s death fall. Warren died on April 10, 1987, exactly one week after Goody's death and Greenhalgh's injury. She was found gagged with a noose around her neck. Her feet were also bound and her hands tied behind her back. Coroner’s verdict: Open. (It was said that Warren had gagged herself, tied her feet with rope, then tied her hands behind her back and hobbled to the lake on stiletto heels to drown herself.)

[edit] References

Newspapers

Magazine articles

  • (June 1989) "Who's Killing The Star Wars Scientists?". Hustler 15 (12): 67-92.

Books

  • Collins, Tony (1990). Open verdict: an account of 25 mysterious deaths in the defence industry. Sphere Books. ISBN 0-7474-0146-2.

[edit] External links

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