THIS spring marks the 40th anniversary of a Worcester murder for which no-one has ever been convicted.

What was known at the time as The Commandery Road Killing happened late at night on Saturday, April 8, 1961 and must, I presume, be filed in police records as "Unsolved," despite the high-level involvement of Scotland Yard.

I remember all the dramatic events of 40 years ago very vividly indeed because, as a young reporter, I and colleagues covered them as they unfolded.

The front page lead story in the Evening News of Monday, April 10, told how "a trail of blood led from the public conveniences in Commandery Road to the spot in Sidbury, where 21 years-old Irish labourer Patrick Mulligan was found at 11.40 pm dying of a stab wound."

He had somehow managed to stagger several yards from the lavatories to the place where he was discovered, lying in a pool of blood. The ill-fated young man had been lodging in nearby Hamilton Road.

Within hours of the killing, three young Birmingham men were arrested and appeared before the City Magistrates Court on April 10, charged with Patrick Mulligan's murder.

The police launched a major search for the "long-bladed knife" used to inflict the fatal wound and also stopped traffic on Worcester Bridge to interview drivers and passengers.

And, though three men were already in custody, a nationwide hunt was begun for a tramp, allegedly spotted near the scene of the crime.

This development came only midweek after the murder and, at the same time, Worcester police called in Scotland Yard which sent D/Spt Denis Hawkins and D/Sgt Kenneth Oxford to Worcester, to head the investigation.

There was a big surprise too, when the three Birmingham men appeared again at the City Magistrates Court on April 18, after a week's remand. Mr D. Prys Jones, for the director of public prosecutions, withdrew the murder charges against the three and asked they be released immediately.

The next development in the search for the murder weapon was an operation to drain a 1,000ft stretch of the Worcester-Birmingham Canal between its Sidbury and Mill Street bridges.

Local firemen were called in and set up three pumps, each capable of handling 900 gallons a minute - but the first attempt at total drainage ended in failure.

The firemen had spent 16 hours pumping out nearly a million gallons when the dam erected in the canal by the Mill Street Bridge suddenly collapsed and re-filled the almost empty stretch of waterway.

The second attempt a few days later was, however, a success, aided by members of the Worcester and District United Anglers Association, who scooped out thousands of fish as the section of canal was being drained.

Even so, the emptied stretch presented a very sorry sight with big accumulations of rubbish and debris, obviously cast indiscriminately into the canal over a number of years.

Alas, too, the painstaking search by police teams amid the silt and debris failed to find the knife.

The nationwide search for the tramp continued and, on May 11, a 39 year-old marine engineer of no fixed address, appeared in the dock at Worcester Magistrates Court and was charged with Patrick Mulligan's murder. He had been arrested in London after appearing in a magistrates court there, charged with begging.

Well-known Worcester solicitor of the time, Hugh MacNaught appeared for the defendant at his first court hearing for murder and told the city justices at the outset: "I am instructed that he is completely innocent. He denies he was at Worcester at all."

During the man's subsequent murder trial, a senior transport policeman gave evidence of having definitely seen the defendant at a railway station many miles from Worcester at the time of the killing. The man was therefore acquitted of the crime.