Dean Hancock and Russell Shankland

Reginald Dean Hancock and Russell Shankland were two Welsh miners who killed a taxi driver named David Wilkie by dropping a concrete block onto his car. The trial of the two men, R v Hancock, has since become a leading case in the United Kingdom regarding the degree of intention needed to prove murder.

Killing of David Wilkie

Background

During the 1984-85 miners' strike, Hancock and Shankland were two of the miners who refused to work in the coal mines of South Wales in protest against the Thatcher administration's closure of many coal mines. During the strike, many miners who continued to go to work in the few remaining coal mines faced violence from miners who remained on strike.

Killing

On November 30, 1984, a miner named David Williams (one of the mine workers who refused to stop working) was being driven to the coal mine in Merthyr Vale by a taxi driver named David Wilkie. He was accompanied by several police officers to avoid violence from the strikers. As Wilkie always took the same route, the strikers knew where Williams was going to be taken. Shankland and Hancock stood on a footbridge along the route with a third man, who attempted to discourage them from attacking the taxi. When the car passed underneath the bridge, Hancock and Shankland threw a 21-kilogram concrete block onto it, hoping to stop the car and prevent Williams from breaking the strike. Wilkie sustained multiple injuries and died at the scene; Williams was slightly injured but escaped with his life. Police began a manhunt for Hancock, who was seen running from the scene, and all three suspects were taken into custody. The killing seriously damaged public support for the striking miners.

Trial

Hancock, Shankland and the third miner were charged with murder and brought to trial in 1985. Hancock and Shankland were convicted on May 16 and sentenced to life imprisonment; the other miner was acquitted as he had tried to stop them from throwing the block. The harsh sentence caused many of the workers at Merthyr Vale to walk out despite the end of the strike. However, there was a problem: Hancock and Shankland had been convicted of murder using the complex concept of oblique intention (they had not intended Wilkie to die, but the prosecution claimed they must have known he would be seriously injured or killed). This concept was outlined by the so-called "Moloney" guidelines, which were extremely poor and did not require Wilkie's death to be in any way likely. Hancock and Shankland appealed their conviction on these grounds, and successfully got it changed to a manslaughter conviction. A further appeal by the prosecution failed to change this decision, and the two men served four years in prison before being released on the anniversary of Wilkie's death.