Original subtitles

(tense music)

I'm David Wilson, emeritus professor of criminology.

And for over 30 years, I've investigated

the phenomenon of murder and what it is that might

motivate someone to kill.

Every murder case is different.

But time and again, a deadly pattern emerges

of warning signs and red flags.

In this new series, I investigate some of the UK's

most harrowing murder cases to understand how and why

these terrible crimes occur.

This is Murder UK.

(gloomy music)

In Brighouse, West Yorkshire, 48-year-old Dawn Walker

is bringing up her two youngest daughters.

(Kiera-Lee Guest) My mum was outgoing and really the life

and soul of the party, and she was just herself,

always, and told the truth.

(Kelaina Guest) My mum was funny.

She could walk into a room, and the whole room

would just lighten up.

Definitely loud.

You could hear her even if she wasn't there.

(Kiera-Lee) And she'd always make sure that

everyone was cared for and loved and happy,

even if she wasn't, you know?

So very selfless.

You know, she was my best friend.

She loved the kids. She did. She loved them.

(David Wilson) By 2018, 12 years had passed since Dawn's divorce.

(Kiera-Lee) She tried dating, but, you know,

it would never be the one, not the one she was looking for.

(Kelaina) She just wanted someone because her children

were growing up and moving on with their lives.

(David) In the spring of that year, Dawn meets a man online...

Thomas Nutt.

He's a scrap metal dealer with three children

from a previous relationship.

(Kiera-Lee) The first time she mentioned Thomas is when

she was like, I'm speaking to this guy, and, you know, he seems,

like, really lovely and...

and I was like, go for it.

You know, it makes you happy.

(Kelaina) I felt like she deserved to be with someone and that,

after so long of not being with someone, she deserved to be happy.

(David) Not everyone in Dawn's family, however,

was impressed by the new man in her life.

(Ginny Walker) It was my 70th birthday.

He came into the pub to pick our Dawn up.

I said hi to him.

You shouldn't really judge a book by its cover, I know.

But you know when you've got a feeling that

we knew there was something not right.

None of us liked him.

(David) Barely eight weeks into the relationship,

Dawn Walker and Thomas Nutt decide to live together.

(Kelaina) When I first met Thomas,

he was actually moving his things into our home.

I remember my mum coming in and saying,

Thomas has got nowhere to live. His mum's kicked him out.

And Thomas is bringing boxes upon boxes upon boxes,

laughing and joking that he's moving in.

(Veronica Lamarche) She probably sees someone

who's both charismatic and friendly and outgoing,

and that can be really exciting, especially if she's been spending

most of her time socialising with herself

or even her family, who she loves,

but not having that other outlet to interact with

and socialise with quite as much.

And also, it would probably feel really validating

and special for her to be getting that kind of positivity

and attention, especially after so many years

without those kinds of interactions.

(suspenseful music)

(David) Thomas Nutt didn't just want to live with Dawn.

He wanted to dominate her entire life.

He wanted to impose himself on every aspect of her life.

And he does that through what many people would call love bombing.

And what that love bombing would do in the short term

is make Dawn feel valued, feel validated.

But ironically, what that will also do

is isolate her from family and friends

who might have been able to give her support.

But she's going to become more and more isolated

because the love bombing is, in fact, grooming her.

(Ginny) She just, I think, just jumped into it

because he showed her all the attention,

everything she wanted to hear.

Turned out to be wrong.

(ominous music)

(Kiera-Lee) When I started working as a waitress,

I used to treat my mum every time I got paid.

So we'd go out for something to eat and, you know, have a laugh

and have proper, like, daughter and mother time.

And it was just really nice.

And then, suddenly, Thomas moving in,

after that, it would just go downhill,

and I would never see my mum.

Thomas would try to take that time away from my mum

with being with her daughters.

So that monthly treat of me taking her out, I wasn't allowed to do.

And it got to a point where I wasn't allowed

to go into my mum's bedroom just to talk, to...

like, stand in my mum's bedroom and talk,

like as you would do.

I wasn't allowed to go in.

(David) Dawn's daughters soon saw other worries

in Thomas Nutt's behaviour.

Thomas would always be snappy at my mum

and say, like, certain degrading comments towards her,

like she wasn't allowed to wear little vest tops

with the tiny strap because people could see her breasts more.

Or she weren't allowed to wear certain, like, outfits.

So she had a pair of shorts she wouldn't... like,

she'd have to change to leggings.

He said certain things, like, without me, you have nothing,

and I'm the man, and you are just a small woman

with no place to go, basically.

I think he proper degraded her to the point where

she thought she was worthless.

(David) The behaviour that Dawn's daughters describe

isn't just a man being snappy.

This is what we would call more technically coercive control.

Nutt is beginning to control every aspect of Dawn's life...

the clothes that she wears, where her finances might be spent.

And of course, the more he's in control

of all those aspects of her life,

the more degraded her self-worth must be.

She is constantly being told that, without him, she's nothing.

And of course, that further sense of being isolated and alone

is one in which Nutt can exploit to his own advantage.

(Kelaina) She wasn't allowed to phone all the time,

and Thomas would always check on her phone.

And it was always about him.

It was never about us.

She'd push us away more than what she'd ever do.

It was all just a big change, and it were a bit hard to accept.

(ominous music)

After just a few months, the atmosphere in the house

has become so toxic that Kelaina and Kiera-Lee

felt they had no choice but to move out.

They simply could no longer handle being around Nutt any longer.

(Veronica) The fact that Nutt persuades Dawn

to get her daughters to move out of the house and to maybe

break connection with them really speaks to his controlling nature.

He understands that the daughters are the ones

who can break his connection with Dawn

and break his control over Dawn.

And so by putting a wedge between them and their relationship,

it allows him to have more control and more influence over Dawn.

(David) 18 months into the relationship,

Dawn's daughters are rarely in the house.

Nutt's influence is now total...

controlling her money, her movements,

and ultimately her entire life.

(Kelaina) She had no control over anything.

He controlled her own money.

He controlled the phone.

He controlled basically where she went.

And if she was out without him,

he'd be calling her phone every five minutes

to the point where she'd leave

because she were fed up of him calling.

I just felt like my mum were trapped and she couldn't escape.

(Sallie Bennett-Jenkins) We have a picture that Dawn is subject

to a coercive and controlling behaviour.

There were changes in her personality

that were noted by those closest to her.

From being an outgoing woman, she became quite withdrawn.

She was cutting herself off from friends, from her children even.

We know, as well, that he exerted a degree of control

over who it was she could communicate with.

Not only did he take her mobile phone,

but also we know that he controlled her finances.

He had her cards, and her access, therefore,

to money was extremely limited.

(Ginny) We all tried to say things to our Dawn,

but she didn't really listen to anybody.

I think she were just listening to her heart, not her head.

(Kiera-Lee) After Christmas, I came for a holiday,

and I remember we went out that day, me and Mum.

We had a really nice time.

We've come home, and she started, like, coughing and sneezing,

and she started getting a really high temperature.

So she went upstairs, and she didn't make tea.

So Thomas took himself upstairs and started shouting.

So I've gone upstairs, and I've shouted at Thomas,

like, why do you feel the need to shout at her like that?

You're a grown man. You can make your own tea.

You know, she doesn't need to bow down and kiss your feet.

And he started getting into my face

and gripping me in my shoulders

to the point where he threw me on my mum's bed.

So I kicked him off me.

He was like, you're just a jealous little girl with nowhere to live,

nowhere to go, and no one to love.

He then come into the bedroom I was staying in,

and he looked at me.

Like, you can see in his eyes, there was this look that

Thomas gave you when he was angry.

And Thomas pushed my head onto the side of a wall,

and it just started running with blood.

I mean, that scared me.

(Ginny) Kiera came running out of the house,

and she said what Thomas had done.

And our Dawn was crying, and I just shouted to her.

I said, what are you doing letting him

put his hands on my granddaughter?

I went, your daughter.

I know, Mum, I know.

I'm like, where is he? She went, he's gone.

(Kiera-Lee) My mum was just stood there like,

I don't know what to do. I love him, but he'd done that.

He didn't mean to do that.

And I was like, Mum, look what he's done for no apparent reason.

You didn't make him tea, so he bashed my head in.

And she was like, I just don't know what to do.

She tried to make excuses for his behaviour and why he turned

and his switch went from 0 to 100,

but I knew she were going to get back with him.

(David) Of course, the common sense question that people always ask

in these circumstances is, why does the woman stay

in a relationship that's abusive?

And what people don't, I think, understand

is that there are a number of psychological reasons

why they stay.

And we always have to remember,

when they choose to leave is, ironically,

the time when they're most at danger.

But often people will stay because of trauma bonding.

Often they will stay because of learned helplessness,

that they believe that somehow they can't survive without the person

who's actually abusing them.

Despite the shocking attack on her own daughter,

Dawn decides to continue her relationship with Thomas Nutt.

(Ginny) It wasn't our Dawn.

Our Dawn wouldn't have done that.

Never in a million years.

So I don't know.

I don't know what he had over her.

I just don't know.

(suspenseful music)

(Emma Covington) My name is Emma Covington.

I'm a senior crown prosecutor, and I was

the reviewing lawyer in this case.

For Dawn to leave this particular relationship,

it would have meant her leaving her home,

leaving where she felt comfortable,

leaving her community effectively.

And those are massive things to do when you are already somebody

who is extremely vulnerable because you are being abused

by somebody who you trust the most.

(David) Kiera-Lee, heartbroken by her mother's decision,

makes an equally difficult choice.

She won't report the assault she suffered to the police.

(Kiera-Lee) I didn't want the police coming to Mum's door.

I didn't want it to affect her life.

(David) The COVID pandemic sweeps Britain,

and with it, lockdown rules are introduced and enforced.

This further isolates Dawn Walker.

She's now trapped in her home with the man

who's assaulted her daughter and cut her off from her own family.

Wherever my mum was, Thomas would be a foot behind.

Go to the back garden, that's where he'd go.

Mum's going to the front to say good morning to the neighbours

at 8:00, he's going to be there.

And she didn't have control of her life.

(David) As bad as things appeared to those who loved Dawn,

the danger was about to escalate...

because Nutt was harbouring a secret and violently abusive past.

This is a man who has a long-standing history of violence

against women and girls, particularly

those that he's in a close, intimate relationship with.

(David) As the lockdown continues, a desperate attempt

is made to reach Dawn.

One of Nutt's former partners contacts her.

She needs Dawn to know the truth about him.

In 2015, his ex-partner was assaulted

by him in front of their child.

He punched her to the head and caused a wound.

And in fact, she obtained a restraining order

as a result of that incident.

She was worried that he would go on and kill somebody.

And in fact, that's the reason why she got in touch with Dawn Walker,

to warn her that she was in danger.

(ominous music)

The fact that Mr Nutt's ex-partner felt the need to warn Dawn

shows just how significant that violence

has been throughout his previous offending history.

(David) I often say that the best indication of future behaviour

is previous behaviour, and strangulation, therefore,

is a likely behaviour that he will use

within his relationship with Dawn.

And of course, with strangulation, you're just a few breaths away

from taking someone's life.

But even as she receives this lifeline, this desperate warning,

Dawn is not free to respond.

Dawn did, in fact, say to Mr Nutt's previous girlfriend

that she could only text her at certain times

because he had access to her mobile phone

and he was very controlling.

There then became a point within those conversations

where Dawn had to say, can you please stop messaging me?

Because I don't want Nutt to find out that

I've been in contact with you.

She was clearly trapped.

She was clearly frightened. She was clearly conflicted.

(Kiera-Lee) About a week later,

I got a phone call from my mum's phone.

So, obviously, I answered it, like, hi, Mum.

So a woman answered saying, hi, it's the next-door neighbour.

Your mum has been assaulted by Thomas.

And she's not in a good way.

(Sallie) The extent of the attack involved

a very significant feature, which was that he tried to strangle her.

He also broke her ribs.

(Kelaina) Mum was sat on the couch crying,

and her face were all swollen, all red, and she was all shaking.

She was just in shock.

(Kiera-Lee) Mum was covered in scratches, bruises, a bust lip,

and she basically said that he tried to strangle her

and pin her to the bed.

She did use the words, "I think he tried to kill me."

I was so angry.

And I remember standing at my mum's window,

and the police have surrounded Thomas.

He was stood in front of the house.

I stood in the window, waving and smiling at him

whilst the handcuffs were getting put on him.

She was just sat kind of rocking on the edge of the settee.

She couldn't breathe properly because she got broken ribs.

And she kept saying, "He's going to kill me.

He's going to kill me now."

(David) Thomas Nutt is arrested and remanded in custody,

meaning he would be detained while he awaited his trial.

Finally, it's a chance for Dawn and her daughters

to plan a life free from Nutt.

(Kelaina) When he was in prison, it actually felt like

I was getting my own mum back, like she was herself again.

She was, like, spending more time with me

and spending more time with Kiera.

And I did tell her that, you know, you're not getting back with him,

just he's in prison now.

You can forget about him.

(David) But the nightmare wasn't over.

From prison, Thomas Nutt launches his counterattack,

a series of letters to Dawn.

Investigators are all too familiar with the way

violent partners manipulate their victims from behind bars.

Was this Nutt's plan to retain control?

(Ginny) He told her word for word what to say to the solicitor

and what to say to the police to retract the statements.

I remember Mum texting me saying, I cannot cope on my own.

I love him, Kiera. I'm so sorry.

(David) We mustn't imagine that simply because the abuser

goes to prison that somehow the coercive control

would necessarily stop.

Nutt maintains a constant presence in Dawn's life

through letter writing and no doubt also through phone calling.

And what he also does in these letters

is present himself as the victim.

And therefore, he's playing on this learned helplessness

that's been embedded within their relationship.

So it doesn't matter that he's gone to jail.

He constantly retains a presence in Dawn's life.

But all of Nutt's manipulation would now culminate

on the day of his trial.

(Emma) So in this particular case, Dawn actually attended court,

got to the door of court, but felt that she wasn't in a position

to give evidence against Nutt.

And as a result of that, the Crown had to drop the case

and he was released from custody.

It's something which happens quite a lot

in domestic violence cases, unfortunately.

We are in a position to bring charges.

But by the time the case comes to court,

the complainant, usually the female involved,

has had time to consider what's going to happen

if she gives evidence against her violent partner.

And quite often, as was in the case previously with Dawn,

they feel that they can't go through and give evidence,

and as a result, cases sometimes need to be discontinued.

And he came out of prison and moved back in.

(David) In the spring of 2021, Kiera-Lee has a baby.

Now a grandmother, Dawn tries to persuade her daughter

and grandchild to move back in with her and Nutt.

She was like, he's changed. Just come here.

So me, trusting my mum, I came to my mum's house a few days before.

It was like Thomas was a changed man.

Different.

It was like... it wasn't even...

I would say something to him that could have

triggered him a few months before, and he'd bluff with me.

(Kelaina) He seemed a lot more happier and himself.

Mum and Thomas together seemed a lot happier.

(David) There did seem to be a period of time

when Nutt had kind of turned over a new leaf.

People were beginning to think he'd changed.

But for me, all that suggests is that misogyny,

that hatred, that contempt, that intense dislike for women

can be masked very successfully if you know the right things to say,

if you know the right ways to behave.

The misogyny hadn't disappeared.

It was simply in abeyance.

It was simply on pause.

A few months later, there was an announcement,

one that nobody was expecting.

(ominous music)

I was just like, why are you getting married?

I thought it was a very stupid idea, and I told them both that.

(Kelaina) I didn't know they were getting married until the week

before when mum asked me to be a bridesmaid.

I was in shock, but at the same time,

I was happy for Mum and for Thomas.

(David) As the wedding day approaches,

Dawn's family notice that she doesn't seem herself.

(Kiera-Lee) Finding a wedding dress,

she was like, yeah, it's nice, but don't really want that one.

Don't want that one.

Starting out, the rest for the bridesmaids, she was...

it was like a chore.

She didn't seem excited for it.

She kind of seemed like it was a rushed thing.

I don't think that's really, truly what she wanted.

I don't think so.

(tense music)

She wasn't really happy on the wedding day.

She would just, like, you know, getting ready slowly.

She were just shaking all the time.

I thought it were a bit strange,

but I just thought it was just nerves.

(Kiera-Lee) She didn't have makeup on.

She didn't have a dress on.

She didn't even have a dress hung up in the bedroom

and was getting picked up in 40 minutes.

And then she was just slumped on the bed, on her phone,

and her voice even sounded like drones.

You know, uh, like, yeah, really long and...

she just looked sad.

And I asked her what's wrong, and she said,

"I think something bad will happen."

(David) She's shown to everybody who watches her

that she's not excited by what's happening.

This isn't the happiest day of her life.

She recognises this is a kind of legal

and social entrapment because of the marriage ceremony itself.

It's terribly tragic in itself to think that that is happening,

and the fact that Dawn is so visibly distressed,

that people can see this distress

was also perhaps a last cry for help.

(Kiera-Lee) So we went to the register office,

and there was Thomas's mum and stepdad and basically

all of Thomas's friends.

(David) By contrast, Dawn's only guests are her two daughters.

(Ginny) One of my granddaughters rang me up and said,

Nana, has Auntie Dawn got married?

And I went, what?

She said, somebody just put something on social media,

and it says, "Congratulations, Dawn and Thomas Nutt,

"on your wedding day."

I was annoyed that she hadn't said anything.

But then I understand why.

I think it's him.

What's probably said to our Dawn... don't tell your mum.

(David) The fact that there were very few friends or family

from Dawn's side at her wedding to Nutt

is a kind of physical explanation, a physical expression

of the control that Nutt, by that stage, had exercised over her.

He was able to isolate her from a support network.

And of course, Dawn must have felt even more trapped

as she went into that service,

knowing that there was nobody there, really,

that would be able to help her.

(sombre music)

(Ginny) It's heartbreaking.

I didn't want to be there at the wedding, not to him, no.

(David) At the reception, her daughters feel

that Dawn still doesn't seem to be herself.

She didn't really speak to anyone.

She didn't really say much.

(Kiera-Lee) Thomas had to hold her hand still

to keep the wedding ring on, because she was shaking that much

that she couldn't give him her hand.

She was sat on the table with me and my sister.

And we was talking together, but she wasn't as happy

as what a bride should have been.

It was about between, like, 7:30, 7:00 on the wedding night,

and I got a taxi home.

And the last thing I said to my mum was, like, goodbye,

and I love you, and I gave her a kiss.

(David) Later that night, the newlyweds

are captured on CCTV returning home,

where they're due to spend a few days

before going on their honeymoon to the seaside town of Skegness.

But at the last minute, the plan changes.

I got a message in the early morning of the Friday

saying, "We've gone away for a few days.

"I've lost my phone."

Basically, we'll be back for Halloween.

(David) For three days, Dawn's family hears nothing.

Then Kiera-Lee receives a text.

(Kiera-Lee) "Hi. It's your mum."

Basically, can you meet me at Wilko's at 10:30?

So I've agreed to it.

Got to 10:30. She didn't turn up.

So I've called Thomas.

He's then come down, and we went around Brighouse

looking for my mum because he told me

it was 9:30 when she set off walking.

It's not her usual self.

My mum wouldn't just casually go missing.

She wouldn't go for hours without telling people where she was.

At that time, he was saying, we've had an argument.

She didn't want to come back.

I think she's doing this because it's Halloween

and she's playing a trick on you.

He then said to me, I even cleaned the house,

Kiera, to make sure your mum's in a good mood

for when she gets home.

I said, you cleaning when you don't even

know how to wash a plate up properly,

went and you cleaned the whole house?

He went, yeah. I went, all right.

And I just thought that was really strange.

(tense music)

(Kelaina) We all went round Brighouse

with a picture of Mum and asked if anyone seen her, but no one did.

My sister and Thomas went to hospital, seeing if she's there.

I was in panic mode.

I was, like, stressing out, didn't know what to do.

My gut instinct was saying that something terrible has happened.

(Kiera-Lee) He took me back to my mum's house,

made my son some lunch.

I was like, you need to call the police.

He said, no, wait 48 hours.

So we pressured him until the next-door neighbour

basically forced him to file a missing persons report.

And it was like a whole shift of mood.

He rushed me to feed my son.

He said, you need to get home now.

They're going to search this house.

It got to 5:00, and I were... I was scared.

But I had this kind of feeling in my stomach

when Thomas stopped answering me that something bad's happened.

(Ginny) Kiera's text me saying, "Mum's gone missing."

And I went, "He hadn't strangled and done her in?" I say.

Those were my exact words.

I knew, in the bottom of my stomach,

I knew there was something not right.

(ominous music)

(Kelaina) I think it was around 11:30, 12:00 at night

when we got the confirmation, when the police came,

and they confirmed that a body had been found

and they're suspecting it was Dawn.

I just didn't believe that Mum was dead.

(sombre music)

Now I screamed.

I just dropped to the floor. I couldn't move.

They just said that a body had been recovered in a field,

in a case.

(David) Investigators begin collecting evidence

from a bloody scene.

(Sallie) The attack on Dawn was savage.

The force of the strangulation was sufficient to fracture

the hyoid cartilage in the neck.

There were also a series of blows to her head,

and we know that her body was unceremoniously dumped

in a suitcase and then taken to a location and dumped.

(Ginny) That's just tipped it over edge.

I thought, how could anybody stoop so low to do things like that?

She was only little.

(Kelaina) I don't believe it until I see it,

so I chose to ID my mother's body.

I was just hoping and praying that it wasn't Mum

and that they've got the wrong body and that

they've ID'd her incorrectly.

But when I saw her laying there, it was, like, shockness.

But when you actually see the injuries

and you see other injuries, it's like...

just hits you like, wow, like, the force

and things like that of how she died.

She had a black eye and a broken nose, and her jaw was bruised,

and she had a bruise on the side of her face.

Her whole face was bruised and swollen.

(Ginny) Of course, I knew it were him.

I knew what he'd done.

And I knew, in my heart of hearts... and we all did...

that he'd done it on the wedding night.

We just knew.

(Emma) He goes to a neighbour and tells them that he's killed Dawn

and that he needs to hand himself in,

and he presents himself at the police station and says

that he has killed his wife.

(David) Thomas Nutt tells the police

that he killed Dawn when they returned from their honeymoon,

but he claims it was all an accident.

Nutt admitted manslaughter, that he had killed Dawn,

but he had only intended to inflict some harm on her,

not significant harm.

He gave an account that the killing had arisen

because he had attempted to restrain Dawn

in the course of a physical argument between them.

(Kiera-Lee) Thomas made it out that

it was self-defence and an accident.

(David) But Nutt's account of what happened constantly changes.

(Kelaina) His first reason was that

they were arguing in Skegness all the time.

They'd come home, and she was screaming and shouting,

and he tried to restrain her.

Another reason was, he went out for a grocery shop,

and when he came back, she had a knife, and she tried to stab him.

Another reason was because she was a jealous wife

and that he apparently was cheating,

and she was accusing him of cheating.

So he restrained her, and she died.

(suspenseful music)

What the police were able to ascertain,

through CCTV and automatic number plate recognition investigations,

was that he travelled to Skegness.

He was actually captured on CCTV footage

at a toll station, in which it was clear that Dawn wasn't

in the front seat of the car.

He stayed in Skegness for a number of days.

He can be seen on CCTV footage going to shops.

Dawn is not seen at all.

The last sighting of Dawn was on the CCTV

on the night of the wedding.

(David) A search of the home Dawn shared with Thomas Nutt

uncovers a chilling discovery.

CCTV taken four days after Dawn went missing

shows Nutt dragging a large suitcase out of the house.

(suspenseful music)

(Emma) What we see from CCTV footage

is him dragging the suitcase through the back garden,

around the corner.

He's clearly needing to put some effort in.

(Kelaina) He's then seen throwing the suitcase over the fence

and landing in someone's garden.

And then he wheels the suitcase through someone's garden,

over this grassy area, through a snicket,

and then dumping the suitcase in a bushy area.

In the suitcase was Mum's body.

(David) Thomas Nutt's story of self-defence

is dismissed by the police,

and he's charged with Dawn Walker's murder.

It will be up to a jury now to decide the truth.

(ominous music)

The Crown's case is that, after Nutt had killed Dawn,

he put her in a cupboard,

an ex-coal shed at the side of the house.

And that's where he left her when he

went to Skegness on the honeymoon.

When he did put her in the suitcase,

he caused fractured ribs, and he also fractured her leg,

such was the force that he used in getting her into that suitcase

to dispose of the body.

(dramatic music)

(David) The evidence is overwhelming

that Nutt disposed of Dawn's body.

But the key question for the jury is,

will the footage convince them that he intended to kill her?

Her family fears that Nutt might still avoid conviction for murder.

The challenges for the prosecution

appear to be that there were no witnesses to the event.

Nobody heard it. Nobody saw it.

(tense music)

In the 11-day trial, he had the wedding ring still on,

and he were playing with his wedding ring and looking sad,

looking down at it, pretending to be sad.

But during the whole time, there was no empathy,

no remorse, no nothing.

He were just sat there, not bothered.

He had his legs crossed.

He had his arms crossed, slouching.

He was smirking at some of the points.

Then when people come up as a witness,

he was, like, trying to intimidate them

by staring at them, leaning forward.

Just horrible.

(David) Thomas Nutt does not express remorse.

And at court, the smirking, the playing with the ring

are merely forms of manipulation.

There's no genuine emotion here.

This is simply a misogynist who at last is going to have to

face the music for what he's done.

During the trial, Nutt's former partner gives powerful evidence.

(Sallie) She wrote a particularly impactful statement in which

she said that one woman had come out of the relationship

with Nutt alive and one hadn't and that she was the lucky one.

It was made clear to the jury that

this was a man who did have a significant history

of domestic violence, and he was not able to hide that.

(David) Having heard all of the evidence,

the jury retires to consider its verdict.

(Kelaina) The waiting was nervous.

(Kiera-Lee) And the jury man stood up and said, guilty.

We all stood up, and we cheered.

Not because... you know, it wasn't a happy cheers,

but that man has been found guilty,

and he is responsible for my mum's murder.

And he stood up, and he just told us all to... eff you.

And it just kind of shows how evil he actually is.

There's no sense of remorse or no word of a sorry

or admitting to what he's done,

and he'll never do it because he's a coward.

(David) Nutt is given a life sentence

and is ordered to serve a minimum of 21 years in prison.

(Sallie) The judge made clear that his view

was that Dawn had been killed on the very night

she had married Nutt.

Then Nutt's account, which was unsupported by other evidence,

that he and Dawn had gone together on a honeymoon to Skegness

was revealed as being a complete deceit.

(Veronica) She's come back from her wedding.

It's supposed to be this positive day, and then things quickly turn,

and it reinforces all of the worries that she would have had.

You could really see that, in that moment,

her worst fears are probably realised.

And this man that she's been protecting and trying to believe

the best of really is as bad and as dangerous

as everyone has been saying.

(Sallie) He also took the deliberate decision

to put her body into a suitcase and then to dump it

in an attempt to evade responsibility for his actions.

(Ginny) What kind of an animal would do something

like that to a human being?

It just doesn't bear thinking about.

The way I see it, you already beat her...

you beat my mum to death and then for you to carry on beating her

after she's died, breaking her bones,

and doing it in the most undignified way.

It shows what kind of person he is.

(sombre music)

(David) Sadly, what this case seems to suggest is that,

unless you can get the law or extended family and friends

to intervene on behalf of the victim,

then the best indication of future behaviour is past behaviour.

And Thomas Nutt's past behaviour was on a trajectory

that was only ever going to go in one direction,

and that direction was to use lethal violence.

And sadly, Dawn was the victim of that lethal violence.

(Emma) I think the thing which was most difficult

from my point of view is the manipulation of Kiera,

because for a number of hours,

made her think that there was a chance

that her mother would be found, whilst he knew full well

that she was already dead.

The afternoon of Halloween, when I went to my mum's house...

my mum was in the kitchen cupboard,

and I didn't know.

We wasn't even 2 metres apart.

It just shows what an animal, what a brute he is.

There isn't a day gone by when I haven't cried.

But, you know, I know all the tears in the world

aren't going to bring my daughter back.

But she was my daughter, and I know I loved her so much.

(Kiera-Lee) I feel more guilt towards me not helping my mum out

and anger towards Thomas taking the opportunity

of my mum loving my son.

Pointing... he still points to photos today and says "Nana"

and kisses her.

And it hurts, knowing that she didn't

get to see his first birthday.

(sombre music)

(Ginny) It's difficult.

You know, it's just absolutely ruined this family.

It really has.

I feel like I've had my heart ripped out.

I do.

And I hope and I pray that another family

doesn't have to go through what we've gone through.

Please, if you are in that relationship, get out of it now.

Get out of it now while you can,

because you'll end up like my daughter.

(dramatic music)

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