Crime - Detective Sergeant Raymond Purdy Murder - Claremont House Hotel, Queen's Gate Kensington

A small crowd outside Claremont House Hotel, Queen's Gate Kensington, where police detained a man in connection with the murder of Detective Raymond Purdy. About thirty officers surrounded the hotel and about twenty minutes later brought out a man covered in a cyclist groundsheet. He was driven to Chelsea Police Station. The hotel Manager Mr Thomas Harding said the man had arrived three weeks earlier. Guenther Fritz Erwin Podola, originally from Germany but had been living in Canada, was later charged with the murder of Detective Sergeant Raymond Purdy in Onslow Square South Kensington, following an attempted arrest on himself after he had been reported to be trying to blackmail American model Verne Schiffmann who he had earlier burgled. Guenther Fritz Erwin Podola became the last man to be hanged in Britain for killing a police officer on the 5th November 1959 at Wandsworth prison at 9.45 a.m. (Photo by PA Images via Getty Images)