One of Kent’s most horrific murders has featured in a new television series of real-life crimes.
A Killer Makes A Call, made by Channel 5, documents the brutal murder of Gary Pocock.
Gary, a 34-year-old caretaker from London’s East End, was clubbed and kicked to death while on holiday at Leysdown almost 11 years ago.
He was lured to a deserted beach by a gang he believed were his friends.
During a frenzied midnight attack with two baseball bats he was stripped, punched, stamped on and beaten with such force that one of the bats snapped in half.
His lifeless body was then dragged into the water, hoping it would be taken out to sea.
The murder could have gone unsolved had it not been for an amateur metal detectorist who stumbled upon the body the next morning.
The corpse had been washed back onto the shore by the incoming tide.
Police cordoned off the beach and set up an incident room in the nearby village hall.
There was nothing to identify the mystery man except for a distinctive silver signet ring in the shape of a dragon with red eyes found nearby.
When officers issued an appeal to the public to help solve the crime, one of the first to call the police was Mark Terry.
He said he suspected the dead man was his friend, because Mr Pocock always wore a similar ring.
He said Mr Pocock, who had recently bought a chalet on the Island, had spent the night drinking with mates in the now abandoned Merlin’s night club and then moved to the former Talk of the Town, now a fish bar, before wandering off with a mystery woman.
“We thought he was back in Barking,” Terry told detectives, in a bid to throw police off the scent.
He also callously agreed to be filmed by BBC TV near the exact spot where the vicious attack had taken place – and recorded an emotional interview as he, his wife Lisa and son Matthew laid flowers on the sand.
But police remained suspicious and trawled through hours of CCTV footage both on Sheppey and in London to slowly pick apart the killers’ versions of events on that deadly night in August 2013.
The one-hour programme, available to view free on the catch-up channel My Five, forensically pieces together the clues using television footage taken at the time and interviews with those involved in the hunt for the murderers.
Among them are Detective Chief Inspector Jon Clayden and Detective Sergeants Alastair Worton and Gavin Moss from Kent Police.
Criminologist Dr Honor Doro Townshend and journalists Jeff Edwards, chief crime correspondent of the Daily Mirror, and John Nurden, formerly of the Sheerness Times Guardian and KentOnine, also take part.
Londoners Mark Terry, 44, his son Matthew, 21, and friend Christopher Bones, 21, along with 16-year-old Islander Ritchie Zborowski were eventually jailed for life for the killing after a 10-week trial at Maidstone Crown Court.
Jamie West, 19, also from Sheppey, was convicted of manslaughter and given seven years in youth custody after detectives found his fingerprint on one of the bats.
Maidstone Crown Court heard that Mr Pocock, who had been holidaying on the Island with his fiancé Wendy Polley, had been lured to the beach because of unconfirmed rumours he had sexually assaulted a teenage girl.
The gang meted out its own punishment in the early hours of August 7, 2013.
Mr Pocock suffered 62 devastating blows to his head, face and body.
CCTV footage later captured Bones apparently cheering as he left the scene of the murder.
The jury returned unanimous verdicts on Mark and Matthew Terry, of Grantham Road, Manor Park, east London, and Bones, of Dorothy Gardens, Dagenham, Essex.
Zborowski, of Sea View Gardens, Warden, and West, of Cliff View Gardens, Warden, were convicted by a 10-1 majority.
All five were unanimously found guilty of perverting the course of justice. They denied all the charges.
The Sheppey story is episode six of the series.
