Surrey schoolboy killer ‘ruined our lives’ says sister of murderer’s first wife

In April 1968, a schoolboy, Roy Tutill, aged 14, was found strangled just a mile from a Surrey beauty spot

Mark H Davison 07:00, 07 Feb 2026

Detectives at the scene of the discovery of Roy Tutill's body at Givons Grove, Leatherhead, on April 26, 1968(Image: Mark Davison collection)

The sister of a Surrey schoolboy killer's first wife says the murderer destroyed her family's lives.

For the first time, Catherine Roots, now in her mid-70s, has spoken out candidly about the heartbreak that Brian Field caused her while she was growing up and the endless sorrow that engulfed her and the sisters' mother in the late 1960s.

In April 1968, a schoolboy, Roy Tutill, aged 14, was found strangled just a mile from Box Hill, the Surrey beauty spot between Leatherhead[1] and Dorking[2]. The 14-year-old from Wheeler's Lane, Brockham, was discovered in a copse on the Beaverbrook estate at Givons Grove, near Mickleham.

He had been sexually assaulted. The boy was last seen on April 23, 1968, hitching a lift at Leatherhead Road, Chessington, after leaving a number 65 bus opposite the White Hart public house in Hook in order to save money on bus fares

For 33 years his killer was not brought to justice and one of the biggest manhunts ever conducted by Surrey Police[3] failed to find any clues as to the identity of the culprit.

Now, in a new book, Catherine has spoken about the overwhelming grief that she and her mother suffered. She blames Field for the untimely death of her much-loved older sister, Celia, at the age of 24 in an horrific night-time accident on the A3 near Petersfield, Hampshire, moments after she was abandoned in a layby by Field.

Catherine Roots and her new book(Image: Mark Davison )

The couple and a female friend were driving to Gosport after a celebration in the Red Lion Hotel, Shepperton[4], to mark his appointment to a new job at the Milk Marketing Board at Thames Ditton.

An inquest in November 1966 heard that a row erupted in the car when Field allegedly put his hand on Celia's friend's knee as they drove down the A3 late in the evening.

In the ensuing argument, Field pulled over and Celia left the car wearing just a party frock.

She wandered across the main road, was blinded by a car's headlamps and was struck by the vehicle travelling at 70mph. She was so badly injured that one of her feet was later found on the opposite side of the carriageway.

At the inquest in early December 1966, a verdict of "accidental death" was recorded on Cecilia Field after a jury heard the "peculiar" set of events that led to her death at Canonball Corner, near Petersfield.

At the inquest, Brian Field sobbed as he gave evidence. The inquest heard she died of a broken neck and multiple injuries.

Field told the jury he drove back up to Shepperton later that night and saw the police car lights flashing at the scene of the accident but did not stop.

Killer Brian Field in the 1960s(Image: Mark Davison)

But now, in her book, "Eight Words", Cecilia's sister, Catherine - also known as Anne - says she believes Field was responsible for her death.

Catherine recalled the moment she received the news of her sister's death while at the nuns' school: "Shaking uncontrollably, I followed a nun to the music room where my cello was out of its case and waiting for me. I took hold of the instrument and started howling 'It's not true. It can't be true.

I don't believe it!' I couldn't stop shaking. I needed to speak to Mummy.

"I needed to phone Mummy. She would sort this out and tell me it was all a misunderstanding and Celia was there feeding baby Paul and sipping tea."

Catherine said that the nuns accused Catherine of being selfish in trying to speak to her mother who would be grieving.

I was told: "Don't be a selfish girl. Think about your poor mother".

Even more devastating news was to follow in the ensuing years.

In 1999, Field was arrested for drink-driving in the Birmingham area and was forced to give a routine saliva sample. This was put into a DNA national data base.

When the cold case of Roy Tutill's murder was re-opened following advances in DNA technology, incredibly, a match was found with a sample of DNA taken from a sperm stain on the schoolboy's clothing which had been preserved from more than 30 years earlier.

It was a perfect match and teams of detectives reinvestigated the case and found Field, a gardener and odd-jobs man, living in a humble flat on a housing estate in Solihull, near Birmingham.

He was arrested in a dawn raid and at first strenuously denied the killing and having links with Surrey. He eventually confessed and was jailed for life at the Old Bailey in London.

Roy Tutill, the Brockham schoolboy killed in 1968(Image: Mark Davison)

Field had moved to Shropshire within weeks of the boy's murder after living with his second wife, Mary, in Brewery Lane, Byfleet[5], where for three days he had kept the body of Roy Tutill wrapped up in blankets in the boot of his Mini car parked in his garage.

Field died in March 2024 in Full Sutton jail, East Riding, Yorkshire, at the age of 87. He had repeatedly been questioned by police about the disappearance of two teenage boys in Solihull and other cases.

He was jailed in 1984 for kidnapping two boys in Oswestry, and in the 1970s, of assaulting a boy in a dark alleyway in Scotland.

As a younger woman, Catherine and her mother were shocked to read a newspaper story that a Brian Field had died. His car had crashed into a river near Oswestry. The car was found on the river bed but there was no sign of the body in the freezing water.

To this day, a puzzle remains as to whether or not a man of the same name had been swept away.

So when in 2001 detectives traced Catherine and her mother to a farm where Catherine lived - and still lives - in Dorset, it came as a shock to learn that Brian Field had been arrested and charged with the Surrey schoolboy murder when they had thought he was dead.

Field's son, Paul, who was just weeks old at the time of the Tutill murder, was brought up by Catherine's mother and others, and was also dumbfounded to hear in 2001 that his father - who he, too, believed was dead - had been arrested for murder.

Catherine, who endured the agony of broken marriages and a childhood at the hands of "cruel" nuns at school, writes: "It remained my very emotional view at the time that Brian should pay for his crimes with his life.

Why couldn't it have really been him who drowned in that freezing river?".

"Eight Words" by Catherine Roots is published as a paperback by 14th House and can be ordered through bookshops or directly from Amazon, priced GBP10.99.

References

1. ^ Leatherhead (www.getsurrey.co.uk)
2. ^ Dorking (www.getsurrey.co.uk)
3. ^ Surrey Police (www.getsurrey.co.uk)
4. ^ Shepperton (www.getsurrey.co.uk)
5. ^ Byfleet (www.getsurrey.co.uk)