The Tragedy at Olive Road

While I was researching musicians who lived in North West London for a forthcoming online map, I found this tragic story about a Cricklewood family.

In 1971 No.17 Olive Road was the home of a family of talented musicians. The father was Winston McKenzie, a jazz bass player from Guyana. His son Michael, known as Binky, was also a bass player with blues bands such as Alexis Korner and John McLaughlin. Another son Bunny, was a musician with several bands including Aswad. Winston’s daughter was Candy (Annette) McKenzie, a singer who worked as backing vocalist for many bands including Bob Marley, Aswad, Gary Moore, Go West and Leonard Cohen. Candy married Richard Sims an American sailor in 1970 when she was 17, and they had a daughter called Tamara.

Candy McKenzie

In the late-60s Binky’s girlfriend Anne was the sister of Andy Fraser the bass player in Free. Andy said that Binky was an incredible player, ‘like the next Jimi Hendrix on bass’, but he was very intense with a chip on his shoulder. He would take away Andy’s amplifier without asking to use it himself and his behaviour was made worse by drug taking. In 1968 his parents in desperation, called the police and Binky was imprisoned for possession. He came out a very angry young man.

On Thursday 29 July 1971, Candy ran out of the house bleeding, saying her brother Binky had gone berserk and stabbed and killed both his parents Winston and Edna, and his brother-in-law Richard Sims. The local police arrived to find that Binky had barricaded himself in a bedroom using a wardrobe and two double basses to block the door. High-level permission was given for CS gas to be used. Although deployed in Northern Ireland this was the first time it had been used on the mainland. After a four and half hour siege, Sergeant James White, a specially trained policeman, went into the attic. He bored a hole in the ceiling, and after warning McKenzie to give himself up, fired a canister of CS gas into the room below. McKenzie was found with a large kitchen knife in each hand. After a struggle during which he wounded a policeman in the hand, McKenzie was overpowered by four officers wearing gas masks.

After treatment in hospital for the effects of the gas, he was taken to Willesden Green police station. At the Old Bailey in March 1972 Michael Keith Winston McKenzie was found guilty of three counts of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and sent to Broadmoor. He was only 24.

It’s not clear what caused McKenzie to stab his family in such a frenzied attack. But the fact that he was judged to have diminished responsibility, and was perhaps suffering from the effect of drugs, meant he was found not guilty of murder.

The file in the National Archive is closed until 2050, although some parts will be available in 2044.

The day after the siege Sir John Waldron, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, announced that CS gas would not be used to quell riots or rowdy demonstrations in London.

Thankfully, baby Tamara was not hurt. Candy recovered from her wounds and pursued her singing career. In 1977 she went to Jamaica to record with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry at his Black Ark studios. The album was released as, ‘Lee Scratch Perry Presents Candy McKenzie’.

She married Walter Besser in 2001 and was living in Willesden at the time of her death in 2003.

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