Charles Walton (murder victim)
Charles Walton (1870–1945) was found murdered on the evening of 14 February 1945, (St Valentine’s Day), at The Firs farm on the slopes of Meon Hill, Lower Quinton in Warwickshire, England. The case is notable as the foremost police detective of the era, Chief Inspector Robert Fabian, led the investigation into Walton's death. The chief suspect for the murder was the manager of The Firs, Alfred John Potter, for whom Walton was working on the day he died. However, there was insufficient evidence to convict Potter and the case is currently the oldest unsolved murder in the Warwickshire Constabulary records. The case has earned some notoriety in popular culture due to its supposed connection with the local belief in witchcraft.
Walton's Restaurant bombing
After the 1975 PIRA–British Army truce began to break, the IRA's Balcombe Street ASU stepped up its bombing and shooting campaign on mainland Britain. On the night of 18 November 1975 the unit picked Walton's Restaurant to bomb. Two civilians, Audrey Edgson (aged 45) and Theodore Williams (aged 49), were killed when a bomb was thrown by one of the IRA Volunteers through the window of Walton's Restaurant in Walton Street, Chelsea. The device injured 23 other people, the oldest of them 71 years of age. In the bomb the IRA used miniature ball bearings to maximise injuries. Two persons, a man and woman, died at St. Stephen's Hospital shortly after being taken there.
According to Dr. Laurence Martin the consultant in charge of the casualty department in St. Stephen's Hospital said that four of those injured required emergency operations.