Killing of Rachel Nickell

Rachel Nickell (1969-1992) was the victim of a murder on Wimbledon Common on 15 July 1992, when she was sexually assaulted and stabbed 49 times. The case was the subject of the notorious prosecution of Colin Stagg, who was acquitted. On 28 November 2007 a 41-year-old man, Robert Napper, was charged with her murder.

Murder

Rachel, an English former model, and her partner motorcycle courier André Hanscombe, had become parents to son Alex in 1990, and after the birth had happily settled down to family life with their son and a dog, close to Wimbledon Common. On 15 July 1992 she and her two-year-old son Alex were on a walk with their dog on Wimbledon Common when she was attacked. Alex was thrown into the undergrowth, and Rachel was then sexually assaulted and stabbed 49 times, and her throat was cut.

A passer-by found Alex clinging to his mother's blood-soaked body.

Investigation

Scotland Yard officers of the Metropolitan police undertook the investigation. Although 32 men were eventually questioned in connection with the murder, they particularly targeted Colin Stagg, an unemployed man from Roehampton who was known to walk his dog on the common.

There was no scientific evidence linking Stagg to the scene, and so the police decided to use criminal psychologist Paul Britton to create an offender profile of the killer, which they quickly decided Stagg fitted. The police then asked Britton to help design a covert operation - based on what he knew of the killer from the profile - aimed at testing whether Stagg would eliminate or implicate himself; this was later termed by the judge and the media as a Honey Trap.

An undercover policewoman from SO10 referred to as Lizzie James (real name unknown) contacted Stagg posing as a friend of a female with whom he used to be in contact via a lonely hearts column and attempted to get information from him by feigning a romantic interest in him. They met, telephoned each other and exchanged letters of sexual fantasy over a period of five months. They spoke about the murder during a meeting in Hyde Park but Stagg said later that he had only played along with her because he wanted to pursue the romance. Britton later said he disagreed with use of the letters, and knew nothing of them until after they had been sent. James won Stagg's confidence and drew out his violent fantasies, but Stagg did not admit to the murder. Police released a taped conversation between James and Stagg, in which the policewoman said that she enjoyed hurting people, Stagg mumbled: "Please explain, as I live a quiet life. If I have disappointed you, please don't dump me. Nothing like this has happened to me before." When James said: "If only you had done the Wimbledon Common murder, if only you had killed her, it would be all right", Stagg replied: "I'm terribly sorry, but I haven't."

Believing they had sufficient evidence to convict as advised by the Crown Prosecution Service, Stagg was arrested and charged.

Trial of Colin Stagg

During the committal hearing, Britton claimed the tests were designed to present the subject with a series of "ladders" he would have to climb rather than a "slippery slope" down which a vulnerable person would slide if pushed. The defence argued that Britton's evidence was speculative and supported only by his intuition.

When the case reached the Old Bailey the judge Mr Justice Ognall said that the police had shown "excessive zeal" and had tried to incriminate a suspect by "deceptive conduct of the grossest kind". The entrapment evidence was excluded and the prosecution withdrew its case against Stagg.

Outcome

Stagg was acquitted.

In internal review, it was judged that the case cost the Metropolitan police £3 Million and the police missed vital scientific information. Colin Stagg decided to sue the police for false imprisonment for the 14 months he spent in custody and consequential damages totalling £1 million, but his case was delayed indefinitely due to the continuing investigation. He has still not received an apology.

Lizzie James quit the police force in 1998, eventually taking early retirement. In 2001, the Metropolitan police paid her £125,000 in compensation shortly before her case for damages, backed by the Police Federation, was due to come to court. Her solicitor said: "the willingness of the Metropolitan police to pay substantial damages must indicate their recognition that she sustained serious psychiatric injury.".

Paul Britton was placed under charge by the British Psychological Society, but was acquitted in 2002 due to the time delay in bringing the proceedings. Britton's lawyer, Keir Starmer QC, successfully argued that the "exceptional" delay of more than eight years since the first complaint was made would mean his client could not get a fair hearing..

André Hanscombe later wrote a book "The Last Thursday in July" about his life with Rachel, coping with the murder and life with Alex afterwards. Handscombe moved with Alex to France in 1996, driven abroad according to his notes in his book by media intrusion. "Callous, mercenary, unfeeling ... cowardly, snivelling scum," is how he described some of the reporters who tracked him and his son down to his "sanctuary" in the French countryside. Mr Handscombe has embarked on a new career writing and illustrating children's books. It is not clear why Hanscombe gave his book that title, given that Rachel was murdered on a Wednesday in the middle of July.

In 2006 Nick Cohen, at the time of the murder a junior reporter on the Independent on Sunday, commented in his column in The Observer that the inaccurate reporting of the case, and in particular the frequent suggestions in the press that Stagg had been guilty, stemmed from too close a relationship between the police and the media.

In January 2007, the Home Office confirmed that Stagg would receive compensation for wrongful prosecution. The amount is to be set by an independent assessor.

There was a further indirect outcome not widely known - the trial judge in the Colin Stagg prosecution, Mr Justice Ognall, did not declare that Operation Ezdell (the "Lizzie James" honey trap) had been illegal. In 1996 Essex Police took this as an indication that it was safe for them to mount Operation Century, an undercover sting operation in connection with the Rettendon Triple Murders investigation. Operation Century was unsuccessful, had to be abandoned and was highly controversial.

Cold case revival

Scotland Yard annually came under pressure on the anniversary of the murder for progress. Under new management, they began to collate evidence and files related to the case from 2000.

In 2002, ten years after the murder, the Scotland Yard police used a cold case review team, which used refined DNA techniques only recently made available. A small team of officers and retired veteran investigators working from secret offices in South London analysed statements from witnesses, reassessed files on a number of potential suspects, and examined the possibility that the case was linked to other crimes. Officers compared the injuries suffered by Rachel with other attacks and consulted forensic scientists about improvements in DNA matching.

In July 2003 reports surfaced that after 18 months of tests on Rachel's clothes, police had found a male DNA sample which did not match her husband or son. The sample at the time was insufficient to confirm an identity, but was large enough to rule out suspects.

Sally Anne Bowman

In 2005, it emerged that there were similarities between the murder of Rachel and that of 18 year old model Sally Anne Bowman. Detectives admitted they had already found scientific evidential links between Sally Anne's death and the attempted rape of a woman in the same area in 2001.

Sally Anne was sexually assaulted and stabbed almost a dozen times with a long carving knife as she returned home in Croydon, South London, from a night out. A police spokesman commented that: ""Both Sally Anne and Rachel were young blonde models. Both were victims of sexually motivated murders by killers stalking them. Both were stabbed many times in frenzied assaults. The killings took place within five miles of each other. We are checking out any other possible links. Rachel's killer was never caught so he may have struck again." Bowman's ex boyfriend Mark Dixie of no fixed abode was later charged with her murder, and presently awaits trial

Robert Napper

In July 2006, the Scotland Yard team interviewed a convicted sex killer for two days at Broadmoor hospital in Berkshire, 50 miles west of London. The 40 year old man diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, had been held at the secure institute for more than ten years.

Later reports revealed the man questioned to be Robert Napper the convicted killer of Samantha Bisset and her four-year-old daughter Jazmine, which occurred a year and a half later in 1993. Napper is also suspected of being the Green Chain rapist who carried out at least 70 savage attacks across south-east London in a four year spree until 1994.

Press reports suggest that the Scotland Yard team have made sufficient progress on the 14 year old unsolved murder to bring charges against an unconfirmed suspect believed to be Napper, which the Crown Prosecution Service are now reviewing.

On 28 November 2007, Robert Napper was charged with Rachel Nickell's murder. He appeared at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court on 4 December 2007 where he was bailed until another hearing on 20 December, 2007.