The Manchester Canal Pusher - Fact or Fiction?

By Joe Andries

The Manchester Canal Pusher is what you might describe as modern day folklore in Manchester. Devon has big cats on the moors. Scotland has the Loch Ness Monster. Manchester has a maniac canal pusher.

 

But is this merely an urban legend or could this phantom waterway serial killer actually exist?

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookRix
• Release date: May 2, 2022
• ISBN: 9783755412953

Book preview

Copyright

© Copyright 2022 Joe Andries

All Rights Reserved

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Epilogue

References

CHAPTER ONE

The canals were vital in establishing Manchester as an important and vibrant industrial city. They were used to transport building materials and coal and became a vital artery for the city's commerce and lifeblood. Those canals are still there of course but we now largely live in what you might describe as a de-industrial age. Manchester, like many cities in Britain, was forced to change and adjust to these new circumstances as best it could.

Many waterside areas in Manchester have been redeveloped but there are still many backstreet canals which serve as a link between the old industrial past and the modern age. They evoke a time when industry began to fade and wither and the canals were neglected. A visit to some of these canals is like a red brick Victorian trip back in time. Only the ubiquitous graffiti plastered over the tunnels, walls, and buildings of the canal zones betray the modern era.

Many people walk past these canals in their day to day working lives and at night when they go into town to drink or eat or watch a film at the cinema. If you live or work in central Manchester then it would be impossible for you not to have walked past a canal in your daily life. In recent years a ghoulish local legend which revolves around these canals has begun to flourish and seems unlikely to ever go away. The legend gains traction each time there is a new death in one of the many canals in the city.

The legend concerns a shadowy serial killer who is sometimes called Jack the Dipper or Jack the Dripper but is more commonly known as The Manchester Canal Pusher. The shortened version is used most commonly. In true crime circles (or true crime circles relating to Manchester at least) the killer is simply known as The Pusher. If even half of the deaths attributed to the pusher are real then we are looking at one of the most prolific serial killers in history.

However, establishing anything at all is complex in this case. The most obvious problem is that the existence of the 'pusher' has never been proven. That does not though necessarily mean that the killer doesn't exist. True crime history is full of cases where the police refused to accept the possibility that a serial killer was responsible for a suspicious spate of deaths but were proven completely wrong when a serial killer DID emerge as the culprit. Those who believe in the existence of the canal pusher would argue that the Manchester police are making the same mistake.

In short, the Manchester canal pusher is an alleged serial killer said to be active modern day Manchester. The killer in question, as his name would obviously suggest, is alleged to randomly push people into the murky waters of one of the many canals in the city's waterways. The killer strikes at night when there are less people around and he (the few eyewitness survivors of this alleged killer have all said it was a man who pushed them into the water) can hide under cover of darkness. The pusher targets lone individuals and the statistics suggest that - should he exist - young men are his favoured victims.

This is all rather alarming and worrying - not least for the people who live or work in Manchester in close proximity to the canals. But is this story fact or fiction? The existence of the pusher has never been verified and the police in Manchester tend to roll their eyes whenever this alleged phantom is mentioned. The official police line is that they simply don't believe the canal pusher exists. But is this misdirection? As we shall see, some would contend that the police know more about this case than they have ever been willing to divulge.

As for the existence of the canal killer, on that opinion tends to be divided - even in Manchester. There are plenty who think the pusher is little more than a modern urban myth. Others though would contend that the deaths in Manchester canals of recent times can not all be readily explained away as tragic and unfortunate accidents. Where is the real truth? Does it lay on one side or the other? Or is the truth somewhere in the middle ground? The basic legend goes that this mysterious canal pusher (who has naturally never been identified) has pushed dozens of people into Manchester canals and a large number of these people then died as a consequence.

The canals in Manchester are surprisingly deep in places once you get out in the middle, freezing cold at the best times (let alone alone the winter - when they are ABSOLUTELY perishing and likely to contain ice), and don't always have spots where you can easily pull yourself back up and clamber to safety. If you were to find yourself in one of these canals in the depths of winter your muscles would seize up and make the task of surviving such an ordeal difficult to say the least.

To state the obvious, these canals are potentially very dangerous so if someone unexpectedly pushed you into one at night in the freezing cold you could be in a lot of trouble - especially if you can't swim very well. First of all, you would be in shock and probably panic, you'd be frozen, it might be dark too so you wouldn't be able to see very well, and with ALL this going on you'd then have to find sufficient strength and the mental clarity to locate a logical place to pull yourself back up to dry land.

What if, on top of all of this, you had just painted the town red and were