Bomber pilot and police inspector

Born: November 13, 1914.

Died: December 22, 2016.

LEONARD Trevallion, who has died aged 102, was believed to be the last surviving RAF Bristol Blenheim bomber pilot from World War Two, during which he was involved in combat missions over North Africa and Italy. He also served as a police bodyguard for Winston Churchill after the war and was assigned to protect Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first man to reach outer space, when the latter visited Earl's Court, London, in the late 1950s.

Mr Trevallion had signed up for the RAF from London's Metropolitan Police where, returning after the war, he helped solve the case of notorious serial killer John Christie, the "Rillington Place Strangler." His real-life character was played by an actor in the recent BBC TV series Rillington Place telling the story of Christie, who murdered his wife Ethel and at least seven other women and was hanged in 1953. After falling in love with Scotland during retirement holidays, Mr Trevallion moved to Crieff, Perthshire, in 2003 at the age of 88 where he died just before Christmas.

Leonard John Frank Trevallion, always known as Len, was born near Walthamstow, north-east London, on November 13, 1914, and brought up in the city. His earliest memory was of being badly bitten by a dog while a schoolboy and spending some time in hospital. After working for his father's building business, he was 21 when he joined the Metropolitan Police as a constable in 1935 and remained there until the London Blitz, during which his home was hit by a Luftwaffe bomb. He also helped clear unexploded bombs in Putney and Barnes, west London. He recalled that, on his very first shift as a constable in Putney, he came across a dead body, the first of many he would see during his police career, including a suicide victim lying among the deer in Richmond Park.

He was on duty at Westminster Abbey in 1937 for the coronation of George V1 (the present Queen's father). When the RAF looked to the Met (Metropolitan Police) for recruits, he enlisted in 1941 and, after training in the United States, qualified as a pilot in June the following year, eventually assigned to X111 (13) Squadron RAF, based in Malta and Egypt. "The RAF was losing so many pilots that they came to the Metropolitan police and asked if there were any 100 per cent fit men they could spare," he recalled in a recent interview. "I felt I'd be safer up there than I would be down here and so I volunteered."

As a Blenheim bomber pilot, his role was to bomb Rommel's Nazi forces in North Africa to allow British troops on the ground to advance. Before and during the allied assault on Sicily and mainland Italy, he bombed Nazi positions, as well as their Italian allies. He and his fellow bombers were somewhat unheralded war heroes but ask any soldier who was on the ground and they will tell you the sight of RAF Blenheims overhead was one for sore eyes.

Mr Trevallion's worst scrape, of many, came when he ran out of fuel on a mission to Africa and had to make a crash landing at the small airstrip in Gibraltar. He was already preparing to ditch in the sea but managed to set the plane down just a few yards onshore. He attacked many Nazi or Italian armed convoys, made many dangerous night landings and was once hospitalised for stress in Foggia, southern Italy, during the allied advance through that country. During the last year of the war, he was back in England as a flying instructor at RAF Upavon, Wiltshire, often described as the birthplace of the RAF.

After the war, he rejoined the Met in Notting Hill, including with the vice squad, eventually rising to the rank of Inspector. After police retirement in 1965, he continued to work in government service and finally as head of security at the famous Royal Garden Hotel on London's Kensington High Street. He appeared in the national media and on TV in 1953 during the Christie murder trial after he helped investigate, find and exhume the bodies at 10 Rillington Place. He also interviewed Christie in his cell and told the trial that Christie and his wife had performed abortions for local prostitutes in the flat.

In 1966, although he had retired from the Met the previous year, he was called in to help police the FIFA World Cup tournament and specifically to guard the famous Jules Rimet trophy. That led to a major embarrassment on March 20 that year when the trophy was stolen from an exhibition at Central Hall Westminster, opposite Westminster Abbey, virtually under the eyes of Mr Trevallion and his fellow police officers.

The following day, Joe Mears, Chairman of the Football Association, received a ransom demand for £15,000. The thief, who turned out to petty criminal Edward Betchley, demanded a swap at Battersea Park, where he got into a car supposedly driven by an FA official but in fact a police Flying Squad officer. When Betchley realized they were being followed, he tried to flee but was soon caught and jailed for two years before dying of emphysema in 1969.

Fortunately for Mr Trevallion and his fellow officers, a black and white collie called Pickles sniffed out a parcel on March 27 under the hedge of his owner's house in Beulah Hill, south-east London, which turned out to contain the Jules Rimet trophy, the one famously hoisted by Bobby Moore at Wembley on July 30, 1966.

Mr Trevallion first retired to Kingston upon Thames, south-west London, and enjoyed travelling, gardening and fishing until moving north to Crieff at the age of 88. On his 94th birthday in 2008, Mr Trevallion saw the publication of his autobiography Policeman, Pilot and a Guardian Angel. The latter term referred to the fact that he felt he had lived a charmed life. He also believed 13 was his lucky number, because he was born on Friday the 13th and served with XIII Squadron.

For his 100th birthday in 2014, a celebratory lunch was held in McDiarmid Park, Perth, where he was feted by members of the local Aircrew Association and given a guard of honour by 1743 Squadron Crieff Air Cadets. He died in a care home in Crook of Devon, Perthshire and his funeral took place at Crieff Parish Church on Monday January 9. His wife Evelyn predeceased him and he is survived by his daughters Ann and Julia.

Phil Davison