From lowly copy boy to editor: Sheffield man releases book detailing life as he covered some of UK’s biggest scoops

In Neil Benson’s latest book You Can’t Libel the Dead: A Life in Journalism, he reveals a first-hand account of some of the biggest scoops he covered throughout his 45-year career, including the notorious Pottery Cottage murders in 1977.

Neil, who was brought up on the Gleadless Valley estate, got his first taste of newspapers as a 15-year-old copy boy on the Green ‘Un sports edition.

He said: “I loved the excitement of rushing around the editorial department, delivering the football reports to the sports desk. One Saturday afternoon I got chatting with the duty news reporter, who started to tell me about his job, and I knew right away that was what I wanted to do.”

Neil, aged 67, went to City Grammar School, in Stradbroke, before doing a journalism course at Richmond College, sponsored by The Star. One memory that stands out to him was one that took place in the early hours of January 1977.

He said: “My news editor called me in the early hours and asked me to drive up to Eastmoor, a tiny hamlet between Baslow and Chesterfield, as he’d heard there was a lot of police activity going on. Little did I know that, at the age of 22, I was about to cover the biggest story of my reporting career.

“Billy Hughes, a man with a long history of violence, was being taken to a court appearance when he stabbed his guards and escaped. The next day, he took a family hostage in their home at Pottery Cottage and, over the next week, he murdered them one by one.

“As he tried to make his getaway, with the last surviving family member as a hostage, the car he was driving was pursued across the moors by the police. Eventually, they put up a roadblock and Hughes swerved off the road and into a wall. He was about to attack his hostage with an axe when he was shot dead by a police marksman.

“This was the biggest story in Britain at the time and, nearly 50 years later, I can recall that night on the moors as if it was yesterday.”

Neil’s book also tells of one of his stories that made national headlines, after two girls who had been suspended from a school near Sheffield for poisoning their headmaster’s tea. “Everyone at the school had closed ranks but eventually I tracked down a school governor,” said Neil. “When I asked if she could confirm the story, she said she could…and she invited me in for a cuppa.”

From The Star, Neil moved on to the Daily Express, in Manchester, the Bradford Telegraph & Argus, the Northampton Chronicle & Echo and the Evening Gazette, in Teesside. He edited the Coventry Evening Telegraph and the Newcastle Evening Chronicle before being appointed editorial director of Trinity Mirror’s regional titles across the UK.

“In the book, I’ve tried to capture the many funny stories and the colourful characters I met along the way. Journalism is a tough job – even more so these days - but it’s also given me a huge amount of fun.”

You Can’t Libel the Dead, published by Takahe Publishing Ltd, is available for purchase from online bookshops - priced at £10.95.