Black Panther police chief dies at 81

A former senior Staffordshire police officer who played a key role in the investigations into two of the most notorious crimes of the 1960s and seventies has died at the age of 81.

As Staffordshire's assistant chief constable in 1967, Sir Stanley Bailey headed up the hunt for Raymond Leslie Morris, the killer of seven-year-old Christine Darby, who had been found strangled and sexually assaulted on Cannock Chase.

In 1975, by then in the post of deputy chief constable, the London-born officer played a key role in the search for Donald Neilson, also known as the Black Panther, who had kidnapped and murdered teenage heiress Lesley Whittle.

Neilson had kept her prisoner in a drainage inspection shaft underneath Bathpool Park in Kidsgrove, North Staffordshire, for almost three days, her wrists bound and a noose around her neck. Stanley Ernest Bailey, who rose to become Northumbria's chief constable from 1975 to 1991. The youngest of five children, he left school at 13 and refused to be evacuated following the outbreak of war.

He served in the 10th Battalion of the Home Guard before being ordered to take up work as a Bevin Boy in the mines. He refused – preferring to join a fighting unit – and was summoned to appear before magistrates in Clerkenwell in January 1945, where he was fined £1. Still refusing to give in, Bailey was remanded in custody for three days to think it over. After finally relenting, he worked at Ferryhill, Hordon and Easington collieries in the North East.

Following the war, he applied to the Metropolitan force in 1947. Upon hearing of his stint in the cells two years earlier, the commander who interviewed Bailey told him he was getting a second chance and hired him on the spot. This experience was said to have shaped the rest of Bailey's distinguished career, throughout which he was always prepared to give others a second chance.

He rose to the rank of superintendent in just 17 years, becoming head of the West End Central sub-division of the Met's C division, before moving to Staffordshire Police as assistant chief constable in 1965.

He was awarded the Queen's Police Medal in 1973, was appointed a CBE in 1980 and knighted in 1986. During his retirement Bailey campaigned for pensioners' rights. He suffered a stroke in 2005 but fought to regain his mobility and taught himself to write with his left hand.

His first wife, Marguerita, died in 1997 after 43 years of marriage. They had no children. In 1998 he married Maureen Shinwell, who survives him.