The case was a disgrace even the legal establishment want to forget
Nearly 34 years after her horrific killing, Netflix has released a documentary, The Murder of Rachel Nickell, alongside a three-part drama on the case, The Witness.
In 1992, Nickell was walking on Wimbledon Common, in south London, with her son, Alex, when she was stabbed to death. Alex, at just two years old, was the only witness.
These programmes complement each other, with their sensitive portrayal of the hideous ordeal Alex and Nickell’s partner, André, endured following her death.
Their suffering was prolonged by over a decade due to the completely inept police investigation. Under pressure to stop a psychopathic killer repeating his crime, the police fixed all their efforts on the wrong man, Colin Stagg.
The real killer—Robert Napper—struck again the following year, killing Samantha Bisset and her four year old daughter, Jazmine, in Plumstead, south London when Stagg was in custody.
In contrast to the appalling police operation against Stagg, a different police force managed to carry out careful fingerprint work which linked and ultimately convicted Napper of the killing of Bisset and her daughter.
Despite the similarities to the murder, the police who investigated Stagg still maintained they had the right man.
In the wake of the subpostmasters drama and the exposure of wrongful convictions like that of Andrew Malkinson, cases like Nickell’s are now being given the airtime they should always have been afforded.
This allows an exploration of the protracted failures involved in a miscarriage of justice—the misery caused to the victim’s family and the wrongly accused. And the lack of any proper accountability of the police.
Stagg’s case collapsed. In throwing out the case, the judge condemned the use of a criminal psychologist, Paul Britton, who had worked with the police to devise a “honeytrap” operation against Stagg.
The police subsequently abandoned the use of such controversial psychological profiling “evidence,” but the Metropolitan Police Commissioner initially refused apologise.
The Stagg case was another miscarriage of justice that piqued the interest of my dad Paul Foot. He wrote many articles in Private Eye magazine protesting Stagg’s innocence.
Following the collapsed trial and Stagg’s release, much of the press continued to promote the police narrative that he was still guilty. Paul wrote in November 1996—“The case against Stagg was a disgrace even the legal establishment want to forget.
“The police responsible were replaced by a new team which has been trying to follow up the many genuine leads abandoned by their predecessors.”
The Netflix programmes show how ten years later in 2008—four years after Paul’s death—the real murderer was convicted at the Old Bailey for the manslaughter by diminished responsibility of Nickell.
DNA methods were improved and the renowned expert Angela Gallop had managed to find a profile from Nickell, which matched that of Napper.
Last year, Jim Sturman, who had been junior counsel defending Stagg at his collapsed trial, commented that Paul Foot’s articles on Napper “had been instrumental in shifting public opinion in favour of the innocent Stagg.
“It was a privilege to know Paul, a genuine legend with an eye for injustice,” he added.
The Home Office eventually awarded Stagg £706,000 in damages. No officer was disciplined for the Stagg fiasco.
Nickell’s partner André said of the case, “a catalogue of errors and then cover-up by police meant an innocent man, Stagg, was arrested while Rachel’s killer, Napper, who was later linked with 106 rapes and other sexual offences, killed another mother and child.”
A word for the zealots like Priti Patel who have continued to argue for the death penalty as a deterrent. This is yet another case that shows that a man we know categorically to be innocent could have been hanged.
Not only would this have been state murder, it would have added an intolerable burden on Nickell’s family, while leaving the real killer free.
Don’t miss out on this documentary and drama.
- The Murder of Rachel Nickell and The Witness are both available on Netflix.
