The Black Panther – 1977 | 102 mins | Drama, Thriller | Colour

Plot Synopsis

Uninspired thriller based on the case of Yorkshire serial killer Donald Neilson, who killed three sub-postmasters and 17-year-old heiress Lesley Whittle. Made in 1977, when the memory of the Panther was still vivid in the memory of the British public, this dull but earnest docudrama doesn’t exploit its subject but neither does it permit any insight in Neilson’s mind. Sumpter does fine portraying the central character but the film merely follows the facts chronologically and charts Neilson’s criminal exploits.

Bullied ex-soldier and jobbing joiner Donald Neilson (Donald Sumpter) decided his building business would never accrue the money he desired, so he ascended from years of petty burglaries to armed robbery. In 1972, whilst committing an armed robbery on the sub-post office on Rochdale Road in Heywood, Neilsen was confronted by the postmaster, his hood being removed during the ensuing struggle, and police were able to ascertain a photofit image.

Neilson he wore a black hood with eye slits which earned him the moniker the Black Panther. On 15th February 1974, during a raid on a Harrogate sub-post office, the likely outcome manifested itself when Neilson shot dead the postmaster. A £5,000 reward was offered for his capture. He was now telling his family he was working away on constructions sites, when in fact he was sleeping rough in between robberies. That same year, during a raid on another post office in Higher Baxenden, a second postmaster was shot dead during a bungled robbery. Weeks later a third postmaster was murdered during a raid in Langley, West Midlands.

Dissatisfied with the meagre bounty from robbing post offices, in 1975 Neilson plotted on kidnapping 17-year-old heiress Lesley Whittle. On 14th January 1975, Neilson broke into the Whittle family’s Shropshire home and abducted Lesley from her bedroom without incident, leaving a ransom note that demanded £50’000. In it, he gave detailed instructions for its delivery by Lesley’s brother, Ronald, and included a warning not to involve the police. Lesley Whittle was held in a drainage shaft beneath Bathpool Park, in Staffordshire. A composed Whittle was held hostage in a drainage shaft beneath Bathpool Park, in Staffordshire, but due to police incompetence and press intrusion, the teenager’s dead body was recovered weeks later. Neilson was now Britain’s most wanted, and his reign of terror was drawing to a close.