THE right man was hanged for shooting dead two policeman, says a former bobby.

Ex-Pc Carl Tipling says he has no doubts that Alfred Moore killed Insp Duncan Fraser and Pc Gordon Jagger - and he was serving at the time and went to the scene.

Mr Tipling, 78, of Golcar, spoke out after reading a look back at the case in the Examiner after the names of Insp Fraser and Pc Jagger were inscribed on a national monument in London, alongside all other British police officers killed in the line of duty.

Moore, 36, of Cockley Lane, Kirkheaton, was hanged in February, 1952, after he was found guilty of the two murders.

Police knew he was a prolific burglar and had staked out his home one night in July 1951 in a bid to catch him red-handed returning with his haul.

But when he was confronted by Pc Jagger, who shone a torch in his face and asked if he was Moore and he replied he was, he shot the bobby and the inspector, who had rushed to help his colleague.

Insp Fraser died at the scene.

Pc Jagger was shot in the stomach and died two days later in Huddersfield Royal Infirmary after desperate attempts by surgeons failed to save him.

Before he died, an identity parade was organised at the hospital after a doctor said Pc Jagger was mentally alert enough to take part.

He picked Moore out as the man who had shot him.

Mr Tipling said: "Pc Jagger knew there was no hope for him and that he was dying.

"He was a God-fearing man and an excellent policeman. He would only have picked Moore out if he was sure he had shot him that night.

"He would never have done it just to get a conviction. I swear before God that they got the right man. I have absolutely no doubts at all. None.

"Pc Jagger and Insp Fraser were both very decent men. They were gentlemen and I've never forgotten them."

Mr Tipling said Moore was well-known to the police and suspected of a spate of burglaries across Huddersfield in the late 1940s, targeting mills, offices, shops and homes. His lifestyle was far too lavish for a poultry farmer.

Mr Tipling was called in after the killings to help seal the area off.

He joined the police in 1949 and revealed that Insp Fraser had taken a shine to him as a keen young bobby.

He presented him with a pair of handcuffs, which he still treasures.

And he also gave him a book, A Police Constable's Guide To His Daily Work, by former superintendent Benjamin Gregg.

"It was published in 1929, but it was Insp Fraser's Bible. He always told me it had everything in it I needed to know," said Mr Tipling.

Over the years odd doubts have surfaced about the deathbed identification parade - Moore was not legally represented at it - and the fact that the murder weapon was never recovered.

Moore claimed to be in bed in the farm at the time of the shooting and one theory mooted was that the gunman was a fence - a dealer in stolen goods - who was going to the farm.

But Mr Tipling has not a single doubt.

"They got the right man," he said. "Moore was evil."