After the owner of a Walthamstow dog track was found dead in his Mexican pool, stories kept changing
Philip Chandler, third from left, at his Walthamstow greyhound track, flanked by Jack, Charles and Vicky Chandler. Photograph: Rex/ Shutterstock
Fifty thousand dollars can buy a lot of things in Mexico. Philip Chandler hopes it will establish whether his father was murdered.
Chandler, 49, wants to know exactly how the multi-millionaire bookmaker, who co-owned the Walthamstow greyhound track in north-east London, and the adjoining Charlie Chan’s nightclub, came to die.
He has taken to putting up flyers around the hacienda where his father, also called Philip, was found dead in his swimming pool in 2016. The posters, headlined “suspicious death”, offer a $50,000 reward for information and carry an email address that, he says, has already received several interesting leads.
“There are many unanswered questions about my dad’s death,” he told the Observer. “I worry about what really happened to him. Like most fathers and sons, we had our issues but we got on really well in the years before his death.”
Previously, Chandler Jr, an estate agent, had taken out advertisements in the Mexican press and hired private investigators to question law enforcement agents and undertakers in Manzanillo, a port city on Mexico’s Pacific coast where the hacienda, now up for sale, is located.
Initially he was told that his father, a strong swimmer, had suffered a heart attack while in the pool and that there was alcohol in his bloodstream. But then the accounts changed. “Apparently he banged his head, then someone said he tripped over a dog; I was being told different things,” he said.
He was also told that his father’s body was found half in and half out of the pool.
But the investigators later established that his father, who was 72, was found floating face down in the small, shallow pool and that there was no alcohol in his bloodstream. There was no sign that he had banged his head, either, they said.
The police said there were no suspicious circumstances, and the official cause of death, recorded as accidental, was given as drowning, not a heart attack.
Because of the heat, it is a legal requirement for bodies to be disposed of quickly in Mexico. Chandler’s body was cremated shortly after his death. There were no mourners, and Chandler Jr said he learned that his father had been cremated hours after it had happened.
“He wished to be interred in a tomb above ground; he used to joke about it,” Chandler said. “He hated the idea of being cremated.”
The suspicions of Chandler Jr, who had once been told by his father that he was a beneficiary of his trust, worth tens of millions of pounds, are shared by a cousin of his father. “We grew up together and we were very close,” said Michael Chandler. “It is only since Philip Jr sent investigators over that I now know the truth that he drowned, sober, in five feet of water."
The posters, which have become a common sight in Manzanillo, announce “$50,000 US reward suspicious death” and read: “Mr Philip Chandler was found dead in his pool at his house in La Punta Manzanillo on the 18/7/16. Anyone with information leading to the conviction of person or persons responsible will receive the above reward or more.”
The death of Chandler, an old-school bookmaker, closed a chapter in the history of betting. A cousin of the betting magnate Victor Chandler, Philip Chandler was once one of London’s most successful bookies, with a string of shops across the east of the capital.
His grandfather, William Chandler, started out as a backstreet bookmaker before going on to open Walthamstow dog track in 1933. It quickly became one of the country’s most renowned tracks as it passed down the generations of the Chandler family and attracted huge crowds.
During the 1930s and 40s, tens of thousands of people would attend events at the stadium, famous for its art deco entrance. A young David Beckham once had a job there, collecting glasses.
At the height of Britpop, when greyhound racing enjoyed a cultural renaissance, Blur paid homage to it on their album, Park Life, and the stadium featured in several photographs in the booklet that accompanied the CD. Some scenes from the 2000 Guy Ritchie film, Snatch, starring Brad Pitt, were also filmed at the stadium.
The track adjoined Charlie Chan’s – also owned by the Chandler family – a popular spot where East End gangsters rubbed shoulders with professional footballers and soap stars.
But debts started to mount up as greyhound racing declined in popularity, and in 2007 Chandler Sr turned his back on north-east London to lead a new life in Mexico.
The stadium was sold the next year to a property firm for a rumoured £22m amid a backlash from locals who campaigned for it to be saved.