Citylife in Lichfield April 2021

20
The Mysterious Case
of the Chasewater
Drowning
By Jono Oates
............................
In February 1974, Wolverhampton businessman Ronald Milhench
emerged from the waters of Chasewater, near Brownhills, having
swum to the bank after his car had crashed into the lake. There
was, however, no sign of his wife who had been in the passenger
seat of the car. His wife’s lifeless body was later recovered from the
lake, starting a series of events that involved police investigations,
court appearances and the forgery of one of Britain’s Prime
Ministers. For the following 12 months, Ronald Milhench and
Chasewater were very much front-page news in the local and
national press.
On Wednesday 27th February 1974, Ronald Milhench, an insurance
broker, had been water skiing at Chasewater with friends from the
Chasewater Power Boat Club. Later in the day he returned to the club
with his wife, Kathleen, to look for some equipment he had left behind.
Driving a hired car, Milhench allegedly lost control of the vehicle and it
powered in to the lake submerging the occupants below the wintry icycold
waters. Ronald managed to escape from the vehicle, was unable to
locate his wife, and swam to the water’s edge before running half a mile
to raise the alarm. Rescuers could not locate her though and the
following morning when light came police divers eventually found her
body under 25 foot of water.
During the inquest, which was held on 14th March, a number of
surprising issues emerged which added intrigue, and the attention of the
media, to the tragedy of the incident. The hired Toyota car had caused
problems previously and had been checked by the garage a few days
before the incident. Mrs Milhench had described the car as a ‘veritable
death trap’ when it had surged uncontrollably across the road as she was
reversing out of their drive. It also emerged that she was planning a trial
‘marriage’ with her lover, although Ronald described their own
relationship as amicable and he was aware that she may leave him to live
with her lover on a trial basis. It was then disclosed that Milhench, a few
weeks before the fatal drowning, had doubled the insurance value on
Kathleen’s life – from £20,000 to £40,000.
Despite this potentially damning information the resulting inquest
ruled, by a majority verdict, that Kathleen’s death had resulted from
accidental drowning
although the coroner
did express the
concern that the car,
even with a potential
mechanical issue, had
had enough velocity to
surge over a bank at
the side of the lake and
then be carried a
significant distance
across the water.
Milhench was
therefore a free man
and was able to claim
the £40,000 life
insurance pay out.
However, this was not the end of Milhench’s story as in April 1974 he
was arrested and charged with numerous forgery and firearms offences
dating back to 1973. Milhench had become involved in a land
development case, regarding the purchase of 90 acres of land at Ince-in-
Makerfield, near Wigan, to provide a housing estate which would, he
estimated, net him a £1,500,000 profit over seven years. When the
project looked as though it might fail, Ronald obtained some officiallyheaded
notepaper and forged the signature of the then Prime Minister,
Harold Wilson. The letter indicated that Wilson was giving his full backing
to the venture, which Milhench hoped would sway the outcome of the
deal in his favour. He then, bizarrely, attempted to sell the forged letter to
a newspaper journalist for £25,000 and his plot was subsequently
uncovered.
In November 1974 Ronald Milhench was sentenced to three years
imprisonment at Stafford Crown Court for eight offences including
forgery, deception and firearms, one of which was the ownership of a
sten machine gun. News of his conviction made the national press as well
as local newspapers, and the case was even featured in the New York
Times.
Milhench was released on parole in March 1976, having served 16
months of his sentence, and in 1979 he headed off to Manila in the
Philippines to set up a water sports centre.
The Milhench case was a very unusual, and mysterious, one and the full
truth behind the accidental drowning and the court cases that followed
will probably never be known – but for a short period in the middle of
the 1970s the eyes of the country, and the national press, were firmly
fixed on the usually peaceful and tranquil lakes of Chasewater.
Sources:
The British Newspaper Archive; BBC Home On This Day website