DONALD Neilson turned from cat burglar to deadly Black Panther when he gunned down Baxenden sub-postmaster Derek Astin and sparked one of Britain's biggest ever manhunts. In the first of a series of six features retracing the steps of some of East Lancashire's most notorious killers, crime reporter NICK EVANS looks back at the case and talks to one of the detectives who helped bring him to justice.

JUST before four in the morning on September 6, 1974, Baxenden sub postmaster Derek Astin woke to find a hooded intruder in his bedroom.

He cried out and leapt out from his bed to tackle the man, pushing him along the corridor and into the bathroom.

As he did so the intruder pulled out a shotgun and blasted the postmaster at point blank range in the shoulder, before fleeing through a downstairs window.

Despite the best efforts of his wife Marion and ambulance crews, Derek Astin died from his wounds in Blackburn Infirmary later the same morning.

The killer was later unmasked as the notorious Black Panther, Donald Neilson, convicted two years later of the murder of Derek Astin, two more sub postmasters and Shropshire heiress Lesley Whittle.

Derek Astin's two children, Susan, 13, and Stephen, 10, were both sound asleep when they were awakened by the gunfire on that fateful night.

After watching horrified as their father lay bleeding, they ran with their mother to a neighbour's house to raise the alarm because the telephone wires in the post office had been cut. During Neilson's trial at Oxford Crown Court, Marion Astin described the night the Black Panther shattered her life.

"I woke up and saw a small figure, dressed all in black, standing near the wardrobe," she said.

"Derek immediately got out of bed and pushed the intruder out of the bedroom. I picked up a small vacuum cleaner and said 'hit him with this.'"

"By this time he had pushed the hooded figure into the bathroom. I saw him seem to stumble back then as he came forward again there was this terrible bang and flash. I knew he had a gun and had fired."

The murder sparked a massive manhunt in Accrington and throughout East Lancashire, with road blocks set up across the region.

Forensic experts from Preston were called in to help with the enquiry and police dogs were used to scour the scene around the shooting.

Sixty police officers, some of them authorised firearm users, took part in the investigation, led by Det Supt Joe Mounsey, head of Lancashire CID. An incident room was set up at Accrington police station to collate the information. One of the policemen assigned to the case was newly promoted Detective Sergeant Jim Oldcorn. Now retired and living in Great Harwood he recalls the murder as if it were yesterday.

"I recollect it all vividly," he said. "Derek was a well liked and well respected member of the community and many of the policemen on the case knew him personally because they used to go into the shop.

"On that first morning when Joe Mounsey briefed the troops, there was a feeling of sadness and outrage that this man had been killed in wicked circumstances. It reminds you how wicked and evil people can be."

The murder investigation was a thorough and painstaking process lasting more than 15 months. Ironically Neilson was eventually arrested after a routine stop by two patrolling bobbies in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire.

PCs Tony White and Stuart Mackenzie were parked in a panda car in a side street when they spotted a man walking past.

Without knowing it was the notorious Black Panther the two bobbies stopped him and asked where he was going.

It was at this point that Neilson's nerve faltered. He produced a sawn off shotgun and forced the two PCs into the panda car at gunpoint.

There followed a terrifying drive which only ended when White and Mackenzie managed to jump Neilson at a road junction. Jim Oldcorn said: "It's important to remember that after all those months of painstaking work he was caught by two bobbies on the street, much like the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe.

"There was certainly a feeling of relief and elation when he was arrested after such a long investigation."

When police scoured Neilson's stone built house on the main road from Leeds to Bradford, they found a strange sealed attic room.

Inside the lair was a model of a black panther and scratched on its body the initials of Lesley Whittle -- the heiress Neilson kidnapped and killed. There was also a copy of the police photofit, pictures of guns and hoards of weapons.

One doctor who examined Neilson after his arrest said although he was 39 he had the body of a 20-year-old. He would roll, cat-like from his cell bed and do 50 fingertip press ups with no sign of exertion. Another said the muscles on his back rippled like those of a panther when he leaned forward.

The Black Panther was convicted in July 1976 of the murders of Derek Astin and postmasters Donald Skipper, 56, of Harrogate and Sidney Grayland, 54, of Langley in the West Midlands, as well as Shropshire heiress Lesley Whittle.

Neilson was born Donald Nappy on August 1, 1936 but his school nickname of Nappyrash prompted him to change his surname.

His father, Gilbert, worked in a woollen mill. His mother, Phyllis, died of cancer when he was 14.

After a spell in the army where he learned to use a variety of guns, Neilson became a self-employed joiner, described by neighbours as a loner but a "nice chap."

It is a description the families of Neilson's victims would find a baffling contrast to the callous killer they knew as the Black Panther.