Original subtitles

This was

my very first day on

a murder team in the Met police

and I got the call to say, 'looks like there may be

a job in Paddington

down near marble arch'.

It was Colin Sutton's first day in the office

and Colin said.

'Dave, we've got a call, we're ready now' it was as quick as that

It was a funny sort of situation that da

because we were quite literally thrown i at the deep end.

We go to the scene

of what we were told was a missing lady hadn't been seen for a few days.

This particular case

was a very good job

in terms of involving proper

detective work.

It gave me

an opportunity to see most of the members of my team

in action for real

it was really just what I needed

at the very start of my career with my new team.

Colin Sutton

was a detective chief inspector

and senior investigating officer

in Metropolitan police.

He led the investigations

into some of the most complex and high-profile cases ever

bringing dangerous criminals to justice.

In this series

he will take you inside those cases

and show you how he caught these crimina

using nothing but pure detective work

this is the Real Manhunter.

When I joined the police

I had no idea what specialism I wanted to do I just thought, you know.

I wanted to be a policeman I wanted

to be in uniform and run around chasing people and driving after people

catching criminals and helping people, and all the other things you do.

What I did know or thought I knew is that I didn't want to be a detective.

It all kind of changed

the very first time I went into a room w there was a murder squad in operation.

I just thought, 'that's actually a reall good job that is I quite fancy doing tha

It was just a hopeless dream at the time

I never thought it would actually happen

and I was on a different career path

completely which meant a

quick promotion to at least inspector

and working in uniform, and I did all that.

Then I got the chance to be a detective.

On the first day I met Colin

I immediately realised that

here was a man that was very warm and

friendly, and he was in a raincoat, a smart suit

and shiny leather shoes which policemen always have.

I was probably in scutches which journalists always have.

He's jovial

he's intelligent, he's a fair man and

he doesn't let himself be led by peer pr he's someone who is his own individual c

I've always found him to be fair and sensible and straight forward.

He was a good boss.

Colin and I, and other reporters

built up a good relationship

one of trust and I suppose understanding for each other's different roles.

Colin Sutton

joined the murder team that I was on at and it was the first time I'd ever met C

Colin is a nice guy, he's very personabl very down to earth

and he is, or was, what I would call a collaborative manager so at my level

at DC level, it was refreshing to have a DCI who would

talk to you about anything

and you could go to him about anything and there wouldn't be any heirs or grace

He was quite a character.

I first met Colin Sutton when he was addressing the team

he introduced himself in what I would consider to be a humble way

he seemed relaxed.

We were a strong, capable group

of detectives and police staff and.

I think it enabled us to hit the ground running.

On the 3rd of January 2003

that was my first day with my new murder team

at Barnes in South West London

on the western part of the homicide and serious crime command.

And although I had been senior investigating officer on a few other

cases when I was serving with other forc

this was the first time I had

a team that was dedicated

to only doing serious crime all the time

and I knew that in that respect

most of my team had more experience than I did.

So It was something I approached with a little bit of apprehension

I wanted to make sure that I

did it well and that I could

prove to the team that they could trust same as I was going to have to watch the

if they I could trust them.

I went in that day and was sort of introducing myself to

the members of the team and talking and they were talking me through

a few of the current outstanding investigations.

About half past 1 in the afternoon

I got a phone call from the main office for the homicide group and

they said, 'your team is now in the frame'.

At that time.

Colin was so brand new

actually I remember Colin remarking.

I think that day, he said, 'I'm a lucky cop

everything I do, I get lucky'.

When a job comes in, usually

a call will come in via

certainly in that era

would have come in usually to one of the DI's or to Colin direct

saying there is a case, there is a potential murder

and wherever that case is

we would send out a core team, a core role team

to the scene

which would involve exhibits officers

house to house inquiry team.

CCTV teams

just to really start the ball rolling to of gather as much evidence as we possibl

in particularly the first hour which is really important.

It was a funny sort of situation that da in some ways

because we were quite literally thrown in the deep end.

I didn't have time to sit down

and talk to each one of the officers and find out

what they thought about things and how they worked.

I had just about moved my things into the office

and we were out on a job.

I suppose in some ways I didn't really know

how best to deal with it

do I send somebody to

to have a look and report back to me or what would they be expecting me to do?

I thought, well, it can't really do any harm if I'm there can it?

Because if I'm there making decisions on the scene then

it's probably the best way to do it so I grabbed

a handful of officers and said let's go take a look.

We very quickly have to step into a professional manner

and off we went, in our various roles

my brother was exhibits and I was part o a general team

who were combing the area for CCTV

and other bits and pieces we had to do.

First thing would have been to identify any potential witnesses.

Is 92-year-old lady

who had been missing from her flat at.

Lanchester Court for the best part of a week.

So, I came down here with some of the members of my team

we met the local police and a local DI here

and he told us this woman was Bridie Skehan.

She was a colourful character an interesting character

she had quite a life.

During the 2nd world war, she had worked at the American embassy

and after that she became an interior designer.

She had a love for big, sort of ostentatious American cars.

She kind of led a life with the

party set and money set in London

and was something of a

socialite, a sort of celebrity.

Bridie had been married at some point of her life

but it didn't work out, she was divorced and she lived alone for many years.

Now in her 90s she lived here

she had a flat, she rented out rooms in it to lodgers

one of the lodgers came back from Christmas with his family while we were

in the premises and he started talking to us and

he told us Bridie had last been seen by Molly who was her neighbour

who lived opposite.

She had been missing for

around about a week

and obviously with her age, 92, you can understand why

the local police and indeed her lodger a Molly her friend were fearful for her sa

We got talking to them and they told us there were two other lodgers

a couple, a Filipino woman and a Middle Eastern man

who weren't here

but they should have been here, they wer to be staying in the flat all over Chris

A pillar of the local catholic community

in that area

a woman who was reasonably well off who had close friends.

There was no earthly reason for her to g missing at this time in these circumstan

We went to the ground floor flat

and we made inquiries with the lady who lived opposite a very good friend.

She told us all about Bridie and that sh hadn't seen her

gave us a bit of lifestyle

and we went into the flat.

There was a local detective inspector

from Paddington Green

and he was telling us what Molly had told him and

what the current state of knowledge was.

Although there was the mystery of her whereabouts

at that time

it would have been quite clear to those detectives from a very early stage

that all was not right

and there was a very good prospect

that harm had come to Bridie.

We had a uniformed cop there with us

a local cop who was looking at the missi person side.

So, we went into the kitchen and as we were talking

we looked around and clearly the place was tidy

we didn't know at the time that it had been tidied up but it was tidy.

On the floor.

I remember seeing what looked like blood staining

just on the floor in the kitchen near the back door.

Not enough that you're talking bright red blood but

you could tell there was something there

but we couldn't get out the back door the back door was locked.

While we were there one of the lodgers came back.

He'd been away with his family for Chris and he had sort of asked what we were do

and we explained, and he was sort of scr his head and looking around with us.

And I saw his sort of gaze was on some hooks

in the kitchen and it was clear that the was something

that caught his eye, so I said, 'what's wrong what's the matter?'.

We were having sort of a cursory look ar the flat and there was nothing obviously

amiss, no signs of any struggle or anything

that would have raised alarm bells but

while we were there, one of the lodgers came back

and he told us that there was a key

to the shed for the flat

that ought to have been hanging on a hoo in the kitchen and it was missing.

The key moment in this case

really fell when the detectives were standing in her kitchen

and their attention alighted on a key ho

a key hook missing a key

a key which eventually unlocked

this murder investigation.

I kind of looked at the local DI and he looked at me

and we sort of shrugged our shoulders

because we weren't aware that this flat had a shed which went with it and

the lawyer explained that if you go out to the street and to the end of the bloc

there was like an archway

and that took you to sort of the service alley round behind

the block of flats and there was sort of built out houses, they weren't very big

and some of the flats had one allocated to them and Bridies flat did.

By this time

the weather had become quite foul and it was snowing really, really heavil

Given that the key was missing, and we n knew there was another

part of the premises that hadn't been se we thought we better go around and do it

We went back out to the street, walked around the building and ended up here

in the alley behind Lanchester Court.

At the time it was thick with snow

and we went to the shed and of course it was locked and we didn't have the key.

On the floor

on the concrete step, in and around.

I saw what I thought was blood again

you can't be sure, obviously without testing it but

there looked like there was blood on the inside

there wasn't literally a blood trail but it looked like blood

couldn't be sure, but we decided we were going to go in.

Dave Leach put his shoulder against the door and very quickly we were in.

Through some torch light we could see a lot of clutter.

As is the case with

all potential crime scenes you try to limit the number of people going in.

Colin stayed at the door

and I went in, I had a torch

and as I went in.

I could see a large television box.

Over at the far wall was this big cardboard box.

At the very bottom corner of the television box

there was what looked like blood stainin

There was a quadrant at the bottom corne

that was a dark red and brown color

and it looked like something had leaked onto it

and it was very ominous.

So, Dave Leach put his suit on

and went in and very carefully, with a scalpel

just cut away enough of this reddened ar

so we could see inside the box.

I had a torch in one hand, and I was on my knees

and I just cut the corner of the box out

We shone a bright torch on

and we saw this fine

silvery hair which was Bridies head.

As you can imagine

from that point in

we knew it was a murder scene

and he needed to get the team down here that meant local inquiries, CCTV retriev

whatever route Colin was deciding to go at that stage.

He really had to just allow the team to do its job.

Because he he'd newly arrived, he would have had no

concept of

people's capability, who was strong in which department.

And for him

and what he did particularly well was to sit there and

allow the DIs and DSs

to divide the roles amongst the detectiv who were there

at the time and his role really was to be strategic

and to concentrate his resources on area he felt would be important.

We waited then, went outside, spoke to Colin.

I've got the team on standby, I've got them all racing down to where we were.

When the crime scene coordinator turned

we then removed everything from

that particular box and then we, in an effort to preserve

the tape

we then cut around the box

with a scalpel and lifted the box off

and then we removed some material from inside

and then in a kind of foetal position

dressed in a dressing gown from memory was the old lady

who even from the first look had clearly been beaten.

And then we removed the body, and the bo was taken away.

We would have managed that scene very tightly and very very

quickly and identified prime suspects pretty quickly.

The last time.

Bridie was seen was when she went with Molly her friend from the adjacent flat

and they'd been to

midnight mass at Westminster Cathedral

and they'd walked back from midnight mass together

and that was the last time Molly saw her

She was reported missing in between Christmas and New Year by Molly

and we had now got to the 3rd of January, so

it was getting on to 10 days that Bridie hadn't been seen.

One of the things that Molly was able to tell us

was something about what was going on in the flat

prior to Christmas.

Bridie supplemented her

pretty low income really by having lodge in her big flat with her.

Bridie lived in her flat with a lodger w was a lawyer

another lodger that was an accountant and then she had two

other lodgers who were kind of a couple

and they'd been there for a few months.

The woman was called Nimpha Ong and

the man of the couple was called Ahmed Al Haddad.

The lady gave us a bit of

a flavour for who they were and what age, etc they were.

I believe she was about 49 from memory and he was 24.

It's an unusual age gap.

She was described as the dominant force in the relationship

and he would basically do as he was told

Just a young impressionable kind of guy middle eastern

and she was, I believe

from the Philippines.

Once we knew

the circumstances of the tenancy and all that

they became our prime suspects right awa

It was a four bedroom flat

the lawyer lived in one bedroom

the accountant in another

and in theory, Ong and Al Haddad had a bedroom each

but what was happening was that Ong and Al Haddad were

mostly always sharing a bed, or sharing a bedroom.

And this kind of upset Bridie because of her morality and she didn't want

sort of two people unmarried people livi under her roof.

In fact.

Bridie who owned the flat had taken, bec this to sleeping on the sofa in the livi

And they'd had words about it and ultimately.

Bridie had asked them to leave the flat not to come back to it after Christmas.

The old lady opposite

didn't speak fondly of them at all and

was quite openly saying that she thinks they were the ones that killed poor Brid

She told me there was about 45-50 thousa pounds hidden around the flat.

The team found money everywhere

under the carpet

in the settee, under the cushions, they were finding wads of money everywhe

and in the hallway

wrapped up in a towel

in the airing cupboard

was a little safe with the bill

about 50 thousand pounds in cash.

Everybody had disappeared from the flat

there was nobody, none of the lodgers were there.

They'd gone back home for Christmas and likewise.

Al Haddad and Ong were not there.

From that point resources would had gone into finding the people

who were our prime suspects and in parti that job did develop into a manhunt.

In the early hours of the morning.

Colin had given some instructions that t made some inquiries and they'd found a b

who lived not far away off the Edgware road.

Several cars arrived

and we were going to go and make inquiri

with the brother to see what he knew abo his brother

and where he was or where he could potentially be.

Trying to find the missing lodgers Nimpha Ong and Ahmed Al Haddad.

We came here to these flats because that's where.

Al Haddad's brother was meant to live an we thought that he might

or they might have gone and fled to stay with him.

We came and knocked on the door and got no reply

and by this time it was half past 1 in the morning

the team had been working all day

and I thought the best thing we could pr do was go home and re group in the morni

And were just by the police car here organising that and

a man came around the corner down here.

One of the officers, he said

'that bloke there looks a bit like Al Haddad'

it was a bit of stretch really, a bit of a punt

because with all the people walking arou in Central London

he went over to him and went 'are you Ahmed Al Haddad'

and the man said 'No, I'm not, I'm his brother but he is just behind me

and there was our suspect walking around the corner

and it was quite remarkable because

in an effort, he said later to disguise himself he had dyed his hair

but instead of going blonde, it had gone sort of orange

so you had this man with dark skin an Arab looking man

with orange hair!

During the second interview

he explained that when they went on the run from London

they went out to Surrey, Englefield Green in Surrey

and his partner, Nimpha Ong had said tha he stands out

in Surrey as an Asian man so therefore he should change his appearance

so she dyed his hair, at which point the solicitor said.

'Yeah and that really worked didn't it?'

He just stood out like a sore thumb more anything else it would have done nothing

That morning when I talked to my team for the very first time

I said to them that I wasn't necessarily sure that I was any good at being an SIO

but I did seem to be lucky in the past.

And I think I demonstrated that to them straight away on the first day because

I went to talk to this man and there was Al Haddad he came into view

and it was quite bizarre.

My officers spoke to Al Haddad and he wa

pretty open right from the start.

To the guys who had him in the car, he made admissions.

Unsolicited admissions, rather than an interview

they would have asked him a few question have you been, what have you done', basi

But what he didn't do, he didn't make an

direct confession of being involved directly himself.

He was there, he was part of, but he blamed Nimpha Ong.

He was never going to be.

'No comment'

or tell lies or try and lie his way out of it.

He was quite open and said

'yeah, we killed her and it was all my girlfriends idea'

and he said that 'my girlfriend and I fled to

a house of a friend of hers in Surrey in a place called Englefield Green'.

He was promptly put into one of our cars

so rather than go home

there was a convoy through the snow

out to surrey to Englefield Green

and we went to this modern estate

and there was a small terraced house the

where she had a friend who

spent a lot of time working abroad

he let her sort of house sit while he was away.

She thought that was the ideal place to

to flee to after they had killed Bridie.

They were both then arrested at the Englefield Green address

and separated then taken back to the police stations.

Two suspects are taken to different police stations

as is the normal process in that situati keep them apart.

Al Haddad was interviewed over two days

at Richmond Police Station Myself and another DC did the interviews

First interview was fairly concise

he did speak to some extent

but it was very on edge, it wasn't detailed

there was obviously lies and lot a gaps

in what had gone on.

The very start, both of them just

did that effectively

which is quite common when you get two handed murders.

Each said it was the other's idea the others responsibility and

no they hadn't had anything to do with it themselves

but they'll tell you all about what their other half did.

After the first interview he's obviously telling lies.

Whilst were undergoing certain processes we have to do

i.e. fingerprints, fingernail scrapings

hair pulling, all of this kind of thing.

And we're talking to him while he's kind of having a cigarette

in the cage out the back of the police station.

Now there are procedures around that process.

Strictly speaking, are we interviewing him off tape?

Are we... all of these kinds of things

but it's really about

the police, us, identifying someone who should tell the truth

and encouraging that

and that's what went on in that little interim period.

And you can't put that over because that is a behind the scenes type effort

to get this man to tell the truth

it's not arms up his back, it's not shou in his face it's none of that, it's a

'you need to tell the truth, your brothe

is really destroyed by what's gone on he

you've got a good family, what are you doing here what's gone on?'

and he cracks and that's not very often.

From then on it was about him playing down his role

in the murder

and pushing the main blame if you like on his partner Nimpha Ong.

When we started speaking to both of them

Al Haddad was reasonably open and was telling us roughly what had happened.

But he was saying all the while that it was Nimpha Ong

his older, more experienced, more cunnin girlfriend

who had duped him into following along with her plans.

She was saying very little

she was sort of no commenting and being non-committal about anything that went o

She was hard as nails

point blank, face like steel, unmovable

no remorse, nothing.

So, what we really had to do was to take the

the bones of what Al Haddad had been telling us

and see if we could find evidence that would

corroborate the story he gave us.

Because if that was the case then we cou corroborate it then we could probably

prove that.

Nimpha Ong was the driving force behind this murder.

He told us that Ong had been working for this estate agents in the locality

and the whole idea of the murder

was not just that they were fed up that.

Bridie had told them they had to leave a they had nowhere to live

but that Ong was convinced that Bridie h the deeds to the flat some were in the f

And she thought if they could get their hands on them

they could use them to procure some sort of loan or some sort

of financial advantage and disappear int the sunset together with lot of money.

So that kind of gave us the motive.

He told us some facts about how it had happened.

Essentially he said that they had kind o jumped onto Bridie

while she was in the house, and this would have been Boxing Day

and that they had

asked her for the deeds for the house she told them to go away and to get out

and that Al Haddad had taken her walking stick

and beaten her with it and that was what had killed her.

Then they had the issue of disposing of the body

so they borrowed this large suitcase.

What that interview did

was that enables us in the police

to identify a number of items that were really vital to the investigation.

I.e. to contact the exhibits team

at the property to obtain the walking stick the suitcase

all for forensic examination.

So, I phoned Dave up saying

'you need to get all the walking sticks in the property

and bag them up, and the suitcase' and that is a forensic leap forward.

We retrieved the walking stick

and it was clear that there was a bit of a scene inside the flat

where even though it had been tidied up kind of work out where it had taken plac

But we couldn't find the suitcase.

Ahmed Al Haddad told us

that they'd come here, he came with Nimpha Ong

to friends in Penfold Street to a flat

and that's where they borrowed a large suitcase

in which they intended to dispose of Bridies body.

So, we came here and spoke to those frie to see if they could substantiate the st

Not only did they corroborate it

but they told us that Al Haddad and Ong had come here on Boxing Day

had a little bit of a party

and as people do with their friends at Christmas they'd been taking photographs

so before we left, they gave us a roll o and said 'on there, there should be phot

of our two suspects there on Boxing Day'

When we had that film developed

it was quite ominous because one of the shots

showed Al Haddad and Ong with this large suitcase

a suitcase in which they tried to get ri of Bridies body

and in which we found Bridie's blood.

They then phoned for a minicab.

Ong phoned and she specified

they needed an estate car because they h a lot of luggage

so they were going to move the body

in the suitcase somewhere

but Al Haddad said he didn't know where the intended destination was.

To try and throw people off the scent

I suppose, instead of ordering the minic to come to Lanchester Court

she asked for it to come to Connaught Square round the corner

and the idea was that they would take th suitcase around there and wait for the m

But there was a problem

as you came out into the communal hall from Bridies flat

there was a flight of steps

that went upwards to the front door and then you had to go down to the street.

They put her in the suitcase

and they call a cab

but they couldn't carry the suitcase if you can imagine even a lady

who is 93 and quite frail

is a dead weight and it's a serious bit of weight in a suitcase.

As they were trying to get it up this flight of carpeted steps.

Nimpha Ong realised that there was fluid leaking out of the corner of the suitcas

So, they had to stop and re-assess their plans because

quite logically it wasn't going to be a good idea to take a suitcase leaking blo

into a minicab and trying to escape with it.

So, they took the suitcase back into the flat

and Ong

thought about the shed outside and thoug that might be

a place they could hide her.

She sent Al Haddad round with the key an came back and said 'yes, there is a box'

They couldn't carry

it so then plan B

'we'll have to put her in a box

put her in the outhouse' I think the hope there was that

they would make their getaway.

So, what they did was

took the suitcase with Bridie

in it around to the back

and transferred her into the.

TV box that we found her in.

Then they went to clean up and they did their best to clean up

the steps with the carpet on, cleaned up Bridie's flat

and indeed clean up the suitcase they'd got from their friends.

So, we had a really good chain of evidence for this we've got the suitcase

it's got Bridies blood in it and in between times we know

that Ong and Al Haddad had it because we photographic evidence of them standing t

with the suitcase.

Everything that we were being told

was standing up and being corroborated

so it was starting to be a good case.

Ahmed Al Haddad and Nimpha Ong

stood trial for the murder of Bridie Skehan

here at the Inner London crown court.

The trial lasted for a couple of weeks a

throughout it they blamed each other really.

Each said that it was the other one's id

to kill Bridie and that they could make some money out of it.

During the trial one of the things that came out

was this change during the interview because

it's not very often that happens

and there was this defensive play

if you like, a defensive council play on the fact that how

how did Mr Al Haddad

go from been giving one story

on one day to a different story the second day

but it was very well put by our council.

Brian Altman QC who explained that away as saying 'this is officers

seeking the truth' which is in effect, what we do

and that is exactly what happened.

As the evidence went on

it was pretty clear that the

major part in the partnership was taken by Nimpha Ong

she was some 20 years older than him and

she pulled all the strings and I think t

court realised that

although they were both found guilty of murder eventually

the length of sentence recommendation was given by the judge

really reflected that Ong, at 49

was the bad influence on the young man.

Al Haddad.

The trial

went very well from the prosecution poin view everyone was going to get found gui

The prosecuting council really took them apart to be fair.

Al Haddad in particular was still pleadi

that he was just another young lady that fell under her spell

she was just hard as nails

and I think that was reflected in the sentencing in the end.

After the pair were convicted of murder

the judge in sentencing them

remarked that this was a brutal murder

of a vulnerable victim for some sort of financial gain.

His recommendations reflected the parts that each had played in the murder.

Ong received a recommendation to serve for at least 17 years

whereas Al Haddad who was very much led on by her

the recommendation for him was only 10.

He's a murderer

encouraged by Nimpha Ong

no doubt and

the whole process was

engineered by Nimpha Ong for financial gain

but it doesn't excuse what he did.

Ong was the main driver within the scenario.

Al Haddad was accomplice but there must within that that he was a willing accomp

and he still went along

however you might want to excuse his actions if anybody did

he still went along with Ong's plan to

get rid of Bridie, get rid of her body

and to try and steal

the deeds to her flat.

The sentencing was a real concern to us.

Al Haddad 10 years

and Nimpha Ong 17 years.

We all felt that was too low, given what they had done to an elderly lady

a truly awful crime

and I think that on reflection

the worst part was the sentencing of the whole case.

It's an appalling

financially motivated crime and.

I think in this era

where sentences are

much harsher where there is a financial motive

their tariff would be double

actually what they were back then.

She was just

a lady who didn't deserve to end her long life in that way.

She had let Nimpha Ong into her home, you know

as a lodger, to provide her somewhere to live

and because Ong and Al Haddad

wouldn't live their lives

under her roof in the way that she wante she'd asked them to leave

but there wasn't any dramatic arguing about it she just said 'look

that's not what I like going on under my roof

so we are going to have to

let you go as it were and as a result of that.

Ong formed this

murderous plan, this idea to threaten

and offer violence to this old lady

to get some documents that to be honest she couldn't have done much with anyway.

It was a plan that was always going to fail in terms of providing

a financial gain for her and Al Haddad

and yet Bridie lost her life for it and she lost her life in her own home

battered to death with her own walking stick

and then

suffered the indignity of being chucked into a carboard box to rot really.

I suppose it was almost like a

desecration of her body after killing he

to treat her in such a manner.

At that point of age having had a blameless life

loved by her friends

by the people in her catholic community to end up like that

and it was obscene.

Poor woman, poor woman, the thought of t happening to somebody who is 93 is just

Sadly for her

she picked two lodgers which resulted in her demise which is a

tragic end to somebody who lived a real

a real life, I think, a real good life in London and I think

the people concerned in her murder were awful truly awful.

It was a very good job

in terms of involving proper

detective work

in this era it's very easy for us all to assume that

criminal detection is something which is

purely forensic based

using DNA techniques, fingerprints.

Perhaps there are less opportunities for detectives

to apply their trade perhaps in the way they used to before

forensic advances

but this particular case was a good exam of detectives thinking on their feet

when the opportunity arose

to move in on the case and

in this instance it was in terms of find the whereabouts, sadly, of Bridie's body

While like in this case

we were lucky because there were circumstances

that got us over

sort of humps and problems in the eviden of the case

that meant we could prove it.

I guess that was the kind of thing

the things I meant when I said to the te

that I don't know if I'm any good at bei an SIO but I'm certainly very lucky at i

Colin says he's a lucky detective and perhaps he is.

To be fair to him, I think you make your own luck.

And I kind of recognised that in him but lo and behold, that particular day

on his first day, we get the call, and we go out.

When they saw that key hook

with no key on it

that wasn't anything to do with luck

that was to do with moving in on

solving the case, breaking the case

finding her body and from that point onwards

once they knew it was murder, they had her body.

Going backwards, looking at the suspects

immediately moving in on the right suspects

and literally shaking

the case like a rag doll to bring about the conclusion of justice.

Fundamentally, in the police

we are ordinary people doing an extraordinary job.

When he came to the team, we were all

strong and capable and he didn't want to mess anything up

and he kept to that mantra

and it's to his credit that he operates the way he does.

We call come to work because we want to put really horrible people in prison

that's our job and he was exactly the same.

Looking back, 10 years on almost or 15 years on from that moment

I wonder if that luck didn't kind of grow and work in a

slightly different way and

as well as being quite lucky in terms of being able to find

bits of evidence and make cases

the sort of case, the number of cases and the

sort of high profile cases that fell into my lap somehow

gave me the opportunity to

to do some work that even most people

in the world of senior investigating officers don't get the chance to do.

And to look at very high profile

public, important cases and important cases

where arresting the suspect actually mea

that you saved other people from becomin his victims

and that's kind of almost the most important work you can do.