[3] At 6:30 pm on Saturday, 2 June 1962, a 19-year-old Jamaican baker called Oswald Augustus Grey, of Cannon Hill Road in that city, carried out a robbery at the shop, during which event he shot Bates in the upper chest.
[3][4] Bates' mother, who had been in the living area at the back of the shop, heard the shot and found him collapsed on the floor.
[2] Police immediately suspected a robbery, as they found an empty cash tin on the floor, a bullet hole in the wall behind the counter, and a spent cartridge.
[6] Grey was questioned within four days, and was brought before magistrates on 7 June, charged with stealing a pistol and ammunition from a 60-year-old Handsworth man, Hamilton Bacchus.
"[2] At his trial at Birmingham Assizes before Mr Justice Paull and a jury, Grey maintained his innocence, claiming to have sold the gun at a party, for £16.
[8] Grey was executed by hanging on the gallows at Winson Green Prison on Tuesday, 20 November 1962 by Harry Allen and his assistant.