Original subtitles

CASSETTE PLAYER BEEPS

When we talked before, I only should you one photograph, didn't I?

This photograph.

No comment.

You can't see Rachel's injuries.

Can you?

No comment.

INTERVIEWER SIGHS

So, how did you get knowledge of Rachel's injuries?

No comment.

How did you know that her hands were in that...

..particular position?

No comment.

How could you know that unless you'd been there and seen Rachel?

No comment.

You couldn't possibly know these details, could you, Colin?

No comment.

Do you know a woman called Lizzie James?

No comment.

You do know Lizzie James, don't you, Colin?

DOOR CLICKS OPEN

Do you remember the first time we met...

..and you handed me an envelope?

And in that letter,

you enclosed a fantasy where you talked about knives.

Do you remember that?

SHAKILY: No comment.

♪ She stepped away from me

♪ And she moved through the fair

♪ And fondly I watched her

♪ Move here and move there

♪ And she went her way homeward

♪ With one star awake

♪ As the swans in the evening

♪ Move over the lake. ♪

"A man goes over to you and produces some string and a knife."

You wrote that, didn't you?

Cos up until this point,

I have never mentioned a fantasy...with a knife.

♪ The people were singing

♪ And she moved through the fair

♪ And fondly I watched her

♪ Move here and move there

There are similarities between what you wrote in that fantasy

and what happened to Rachel, aren't there?

No comment.

WHISPERS: Did you stab her?

Did you kill Rachel?

HE SNIFFS

You told me that the police had shown you

a photograph of Rachel Nickell's body

at the time when she was murdered. Do you remember that?

And you, in fact, lay in the position,

you lay down like a baby.

Like this, wasn't it? You were, erm...

..curled, and you had your hands like this.

And you told me that she had her head tilted slightly back like this.

Do you remember that?

No comment.

Is there anything that you want to say to me, Colin? Anything at all?

Leave it.

SHOUTS: Leave it!

Not ill.

No.

Not frightened, me.

SHOUTS: Do it!

OK.

OK.

OK.

Colin Francis Stagg, you are charged that,

on July 15th, 1992, on Wimbledon Common,

you murdered Richard Nickell.

WHISPERS: Yes, yes, yes, yes.

SHE EXHALES HEAVILY

CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS

CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS

INDISTINCT JEERING

Nonce!

THEY RATTLE BARS

WHISTLING

INTERNAL VOICE ECHOES: You're smiling at me, willing me to do it.

And you got the cup, and I filled it with her blood,

and we drank it.

I took the knife in my hand. MAN: There she is.

And then I slit her throat. Lizzie James.

I can still hear...

..asking me to tell you all my secrets.

I am placing all my trust in you.

SHE SIGHS

SHE INHALES SHARPLY

WHISPERS: Go away.

Hmm, OK, yeah, tomorrow.

Cheers for getting him here in one piece, Keith.

Er, Mickey Banks.

It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr Banks. Likewise.

We really need your expertise.

I'll stick around if there's no objections.

It'd be fascinating to watch him process the case.

Professor...

She looks very similar to Rachel Nickell, doesn't she, sir?

But we're not getting the press that you got.

Only the negative sort.

Single mum, council flat,

wrong side of the tracks.

But that doesn't sell papers, does it?

No.

I guess not.

It's weird.

I, uh...

..I keep seeing him.

Stagg.

I don't know, it's like I can't...

..close the door on him.

Look...

Look, they've asked a lot of you.

You know?

Yeah.

And they're going to want more.

This...

..this trial's going to be huge.

You're going to need to face Stagg again.

Maybe that's why you can't get him out of your head.

It's perfectly normal.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm.

SHE SIGHS DEEPLY

So, what was it like?

Have you ever seen the photo

of the Jack The Ripper victim, Mary Jane Kelly?

Yeah.

There's nothing that links the, um...

..the killer with Rachel's murder?

Nothing.

Are you certain?

Entirely different locations.

One outdoors, one inside.

Entirely different injuries.

Rachel was stabbed, whereas Samantha was...

..Samantha was eviscerated.

Mutilated.

What about the children?

I mean, that's...

..that's fairly unusual.

Rachel Nickell's killer chose to spare her child...

..whereas Samantha Bisset's killer...

..did not.

Jazmine was sexually assaulted.

In my mind, that's the single biggest difference

between the two crimes.

The demons driving Rachel Nickell's killer, and Samantha Bisset's...

..are entirely different.

TV: First case this month is shocking and distressing.

It's a double-murder.

Samantha Bisset and her daughter, Jazmine,

lived in Plumstead in South London.

Samantha probably died from a single knife wound.

After death, her body was then moved and systematically cut.

There was no evidence of robbery or rape.

Jazmine had been suffocated in her bed.

The police, working with a clinical psychologist,

fear that the man who did it might have killed before

and might do it again.

Well, to give you some idea,

we're also able to tell you, for the first time tonight,

something of the background, the profile of this man.

He's thought to be over 25. He's likely to have used contact ads.

Maybe you've met him through one.

He would have been unlikely to sustain stable relationships

and indeed probably has been violent to women,

but on the surface, he'll probably appear quite normal.

He's likely to have a normal job.

He is, though, likely to reoffend.

Paul Britton's a clinical psychologist.

H...how much are you...

You've studied this man in some detail,

as much as you can, how much do you think you know him?

BRITTON: I think we know quite well what was going through his mind

at the time of the offence.

But I would like him to tell me how he got started on the path...

SHE TURNS OFF TV

SHE MUTTERS "..mean the world to me..."

VOICE ECHOES: Is that story awful?

About slitting the woman's throat?

Yeah.

"I hope you're not offended by..."

Thing is, I mean...

..you don't want that now, do you? "I've written this story..."

VOICE OVERLAP: "I'm not a Satanist..." No. No.

I have my own beliefs.

It doesn't involve human sacrifices.

"..what I feel you are into.

"Or a weirdo, as people believe I am.

"I felt I am a very...

""Have I got it right now, Lizzie?

I love you.

DISTORTED OVERLAPPING VOICES

BUSY CHATTER

STAGG EXCLAIMS

That's for Rachel.

STAGG SCREAMS

Fucking scumbag.

HE SCREAMS

HE PANTS

"I don't owe in evidence..."

DOOR OPENS

Few more things to sign.

Fun and games.

Did you see Crimewatch last night?

Terrible.

The professor's profile of the Bisset killer

is very similar to Rachel's killer.

Well... HE SIGHS

..seeing as Stagg was locked up in Wanno at the time,

I think we can safely say he wasn't responsible.

SHE CHUCKLES WEAKLY

That's not what I meant.

It's quite unusual, isn't it?

A man that targets women when they're with their kids.

I asked the same question. The professor was very clear.

The demons driving the killers of Samantha and Rachel

are entirely different.

But the kids.

Alex was spared.

Jazmine wasn't.

Britton called that the single biggest different. No, no, no,

he spared the boy and he killed the girl.

Don't you think the FBI profilers

might have something to say about that?

They didn't see the knives in Stagg's flat.

They didn't speak to the witnesses

who put him on the Common at the time of the murder.

How did Stagg know the position of Rachel's hands?

Or that her head was back?

We have the right man, Sadie.

And when the jury hear evidence in a few weeks' time...

..they'll be convinced of it, too.

Ricky?

Those prints you had rechecked at Samantha's flat.

There is a match.

Plumstead have him on record.

His name came up in connection with a series of rapes.

Really nasty.

Robert Clive Napper.

DRAMATIC MUSIC

CHILDREN LAUGHING

GIRL: Are you not going home?

DRAMATIC MUSIC CONTINUES

CRASH

Police! Stay where you are!

Colin, you understand that it's my job to prepare a report

for the court on your mental state?

Yeah.

I may need to ask you very personal questions.

I've got nothing to hide.

Have you ever had any treatment or therapy of any kind

for depression?

Or any other mental health issue?

No.

The therapy referred to other areas.

We used to have a father.

Now we're finding ourselves in another area with problems.

The government repeated certain years, which...

..held him back in school.

And how would you say you've been coping these past months?

I've been a bit down.

Lonely and that.

But I'm not mental.

The spirits...

..are attracted to the steroids they put in solutions like Optrex.

It is possible...

..the haunted potentials have controlled him in the past, but...

..the Official Secrets Act means he can't talk about that.

I miss my dog.

He's getting on and he's not well, you know?

What if I never see him again?

Fuckin' did it, girl.

Stagg in the docks.

You know what? Stagg in jail.

No, fuck it. Stagg getting life.

MUSIC: Animal Nitrate by Suede

Once the trial's over it'll be easier to move on.

You can put Lizzie James behind you for good.

See for just one night, can you...just talk about anything else?

Please.

GRIM LAUGH

SHE SOBS

Relax. Breathe.

SHE GASPS

It's OK. No, it's not OK.

It's fucking not OK. It's not OK.

You know, he used to look at me like I was his whole world

and I used to think he was this fucking monster.

But what if he wasn't?

PRESS CLAMOUR

Excuse me!

CAMERA SHUTTER CLICK

SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC

CAR HORN BEEPS

CAR HORN BEEPS

CAR HORN BEEPS

My Lord, it is the defence's case that the police operation

was a sophisticated sting

with the sole purpose of tricking a confession out of Colin Stagg.

To take advantage of a lonely and vulnerable young man's

desperate desire to form a relationship with a woman.

Lizzie James called the shots.

Effectively telling Colin what she wanted him to write

in his fantasy letters.

She portrayed herself as sexually experienced,

ready and willing,

knowing full well that Mr Stagg was desperate to lose his virginity.

He was encouraged, blackmailed and bribed

into incriminating himself to fit Professor Britton's profile

of Rachel Nickell's killer.

DRAMATIC MUSIC

CROWD CLAMOUR

CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICK

Of course, there is Mr Stagg's detailed description

of how Rachel's body was lying.

It could not possibly have been derived

from the only photograph shown to him by the police.

In particular, he illustrated how her hands were positioned -

palm to palm.

Such a detail could only have been known by the assailant.

And this pointed to a confession.

My Lord, Lizzie James sent Colin a letter

containing the most hardcore pornography imaginable.

It is frankly a disgrace.

It's...it's the most extraordinary document

for a serving police officer to be sending a suspect.

She subjected Stagg to quite deliberate manipulation,

designed to get him to incriminate himself.

And this material amounts to trickery

and in the interest of fair play

should never be put before a jury.

Months of work and they take a snippet from here,

an inference from there and they quote it out of fucking context.

There's been a development.

What?

Justice Ognall isn't swearing in the jury

until he makes a judgment on whether or not

your evidence is admissible.

My evidence?

So this is all on me now?

HE TUTS

You're our star witness, Sadie.

Go home.

The ruling won't be till Wednesday.

LIGHTER CLICKS

DOOR OPENS AND CLOSES

Hi, Mum.

Yeah, I know. I'm sorry I didn't get home for your birthday.

You had a good day? Good. Good.

You got my card?

Good.

Yeah, no. Work's going good. Yeah. They're...

..all really pleased with me here.

No, I can't. I can't talk about it. You know I can't.

I wish I could.

Yeah, of course I'm happy.

Why wouldn't I be? Yeah.

I wouldn't do the job if I wasn't.

Mum, I'm fine. I'm always fine.

It's just...

It's just been a really long year.

Mum, actually, there's someone at the door here,

so can I... Can I call you another time?

Yes. No. I promise I will this time.

OK.

Yep. Please do. Tell Dad I miss him.

OK.

MELANCHOLY MUSIC

Mum...

I love you.

SHE SOBS

SHE BREATHES HEAVILY

ECHOING: Nothing like this has ever really happened to me before,

you know?

No-one's ever really shown an interest.

And how these fantasies, you're the man who did it.

I love you.

The things in my letters, that's me.

I could have said that I done it just to please you.

I'm not going to lose you, am I, Lizzie?

Yeah, but I want more than just fucking fantasies, Colin.

I want to go there.

It's not me, is it?

It's not me.

SHE WAILS

All rise.

Before I embark on this ruling, I wish it to be clearly understood

that, until its conclusion, nobody is to leave the court.

A careful appraisal of the material

demonstrates a skilful and sustained enterprise

to manipulate the accused...

..sometimes subtly, sometimes blatantly,

and designed by deception to manoeuvre and seduce him

to reveal fantasies of an incriminating nature...

..and to wholly unsuccessfully admit the offence.

I would be the first to acknowledge the great pressure

on officers in pursuit of this grave enquiry.

But I'm afraid that this behaviour betrays not merely

an excess of zeal but a substantial attempt to incriminate

a suspect by positive and deceptive conduct of the grossest kind.

During the second police interview with Mr Stagg,

Lizzie James re-enacted a demonstration given by the accused

indicating that the victim's hands were as if in prayer -

palm to palm.

But, as soon as one examines photograph KP15,

a discrepancy emerges.

The hands of the victim are not palm to palm at all.

The arms are, in fact, crossed at the wrist

so that the hands barely touch.

This is not a minor difference

but a discrepancy which completely undermines the whole thesis,

and I am not satisfied that this one very small piece of evidence

amounts to incriminating material of the character of a confession.

I believe the police entrapped Colin Stagg in a honey trap,

using deceptive conduct of the grossest kind.

Therefore, I uphold the defence submissions

that the Lizzie James material will not go before a jury.

As the Crown offers no more evidence against the defendant,

and the defendant has pleaded not guilty,

a verdict of not guilty will be entered,

under Section 17 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1967.

Colin Stagg,

you are free to go.

INDISTINCT WHISPERING

REPORTER: Yesterday's hearing was widely anticipated to lead to

the trial of the decade, but after his sensational acquittal,

Colin Stagg made a defiant statement to the waiting press.

My life has been ruined by a mixture of half-baked psychological

theories and some stories written to satisfy the strange sexual

requests of an undercover police officer.

The judge recognised that there was never any evidence against me.

I now intend to take proceedings against the police

and the psychologist Mr Paul Britton for the anguish

and indescribable distress that I have suffered

during the last 19 months in prison.

No, please don't turn it off on my account, Da Costa.

You know, you've never done anything nice for me before,

so if you start now, I'll know I'm totally fucked.

Is it true?

What the judge said.

Sade.

Sadie.

DCI's waiting for you.

Better not keep him waiting.

Sadie...

You know what? I followed orders, I did what I was asked to do,

and every one of them up at the Yard signed off on it.

What aren't you telling me, mate?

You know, whatever mistake that I have made,

I'm not afraid to face it.

But I'm not the only one who has to answer for this.

They want to see me at the Yard first thing.

Hey...

Are you all right?

Palm to palm, wrist to wrist.

What's the difference?

And he's out there, free to kill again.

DOOR KNOCKS

Wicker, top brass are here.

What?

They'll be after our case files.

They get hold of this, they'll erase the name

of every senior officer who signed off on the Lizzie op.

We go down, they go down with us.

Case files are on the desk.

PHONE RINGS

TV: Into next week, then, the winds are set to swing south-westerly,

drawing in slightly milder air,

then fog and low cloud on southwestern coasts,

causing visibility issues.

TV: A man with a history of violent attacks on women has today

pleaded guilty to killing Rachel Nickell on Wimbledon Common

16 years ago.

The murder of a young mother in broad daylight

caused public outrage.

Schizophrenic Robert Napper was convicted of manslaughter

on the grounds of diminished responsibility,

bringing to a close the enquiry into one of the most notorious

killings in modern British criminal history.

42-year-old Napper is already detained

at Broadmoor Special Hospital after his conviction for the murders

of Samantha Bisset and her four-year-old daughter, Jazmine.

SHE INHALES SHARPLY

..a nice, long walk, aren't we? Eh?

Subtitles by Red Bee Media