The Rachel Nickell Case

In 1994, the case was brought to court at the Old Bailey, London. The judge, Mr Justice Ognall, ruled that the evidence obtained against Stagg by undercover policewoman, ‘Lizzie James’ and her team, was speculative and therefore inadmissible. In his own words, the action of the police was “not merely an excess of zeal, but a blatant attempt to incriminate a suspect by positive and deceptive conduct of the grossest kind”. He would not allow the case to be put before a jury and threw it out of court with a verdict of not guilty. The prosecution withdrew its case against Colin Stagg and he was acquitted.

The Aftermath:
The Nickell case attracted much media coverage, including Crimewatch appeals and one of London’s largest ever crime reconstructions. A London newspaper even paid Stagg £43,000 to undertake a lie detector test, which he duly passed. He later sued the police for false imprisonment for the 14 months he had been kept in custody and consequential damages totalling £1 million. Due to the fact that the Nickell case remained under ongoing investigation, Stagg’s case was placed on indefinite hold and he did not receive a formal apology.

However, on 10 January 2007, the BBC reported that Home Office sources confirmed Stagg, 43, was eligible for a potential payout from a government discretionary compensation scheme for victims of the miscarriage of justice. An independent assessor, Lord Brennan, QC, will decide the final award.

Nickell’s fiancé, André Hanscombe, frustrated by the media intrusion in their lives, moved in 1996 with son, Alex, to France. It was there that he wrote ‘The Last Thursday in July’ (1996), a book about his life with Nickell, coping with her brutal murder and his life with their son after her death. Encouraged by the publication of his first book, Hanscombe began a career writing and illustrating children’s books.

In 1998, at age 33, policewoman ‘Lizzie James’ took early retirement from the force, citing psychological damages from the Nickell case. In 2001, shortly before her case against the Metropolitan police, which was backed by the Police Federation, was due in court, James was paid £125,000 in compensation by the Metropolitan Police Service.

As part of a policy review of all unsolved killings in London, following a recommendation in the Stephen Lawrence report, in March 1999 the Nickell murder came up for re-examination. Metropolitan police hoped that new DNA techniques would uncover fresh evidence. They also re-examined all witness statements made after the murder.

In 2002, a decade after the killing, a Scotland Yard cold case review team reanalysed the Nickell murder. They utilised refined DNA testing technology and reassessed witness statements and potential suspects files. In addition, they examined the possible links to other crimes, in consultation with forensic scientists.

In October 2002, criminal psychologist Paul Britton was placed under charge for misconduct during his work on the Nickell case. Following a two-day hearing, the British Psychological Society disciplinary committee concluded his work on the 1992 murder inquiry could not be properly investigated and ruled that he could not get a fair hearing. The case was dismissed due to insufficient evidence.

By July 2003, Scotland Yard reported they had found a male DNA sample on Nickell’s clothes, which did not match that of her husband, her son, or Stagg. It transpired that the DNA was only a partial sample and could therefore not provide the identity of the killer but could help to rule out suspects.

In 2005, certain similarities began to emerge between the murders of Rachel Nickell and Sally Anne Bowman, a blonde 18-year-old model. Whilst returning home from a night out in Croyden on 25 September 2005, she had been sexually assaulted and stabbed nearly a dozen times with a carving knife, about five miles from the Nickell killing. Investigators had also discovered forensic links between Bowman’s death and an attempted rape of a woman in the same area in 2001.

Scotland Yard spent two days interviewing a serial rapist and convicted sex killer at Broadmoor prison in July 2006. He was Robert Napper, 40, diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic and serving time for the brutal killing of Samantha Bisset, 27, and her four-year-old daughter, Jazmine, in November 1993. Bisset bore a close resemblance to Nickell and Napper had attacked, raped and stabbed her to death in her Plumstead flat. He mutilated her body and then sexually abused Jazmine, before suffocating her. In May 1994, Napper was arrested and in 1995, he pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter of Bisset and her daughter, on the grounds of diminished responsibility. He was sentenced to be detained ‘without limit of time’ and sent to Broadmoor prison.

Police became further interested in Napper, as he bore a remarkable physical resemblance to Stagg and had attacked women in similar circumstances to the Nickell killing. In fact, back in 1994 he had been named a suspect in the Nickell murder but duly dismissed due to the police focus on Stagg and their belief in his guilt. In addition, Napper was suspected of being the ‘Green Chain rapist’ who had made at least 70 vicious attacks in south east London between 1990 and 1994, methodically stalking women, often along a scenic Thameside path known as the Green Chain Walk.

His previous crimes had taken place around Woolwich, only 12 miles from Wimbledon Common. In March 1992, armed with a knife, he had tried to rape two women. In May 1992, two months before Nickell’s murder, he had attacked a woman as she pushed her daughter along in a buggy. He beat and raped her next to her child. Based on their inquiries and witness statements, the police had set the rapist’s height at a minimum of 5’ 5” and a maximum of 6”, despite the fact that his latest victim had described him as well over 6”. In August 1992, Napper was questioned by the police but managed slip through their net. He convinced them that firstly, he was too tall to be considered a suspect and secondly, he had no previous convictions for sexual offences.

Finally in prison, Napper once more avoided questioning when a 1997 police request to interview him about the Nickell murder was vetoed by Broadmoor psychiatrists, due to his deteriorating medical condition. Then, according to a record on a police intelligence system in 2002, Napper confessed to killing Rachel Nickell while he was detained in Broadmoor in 1997 or 1998. The final stage in the Rachel Nickell case came in 2007, when new DNA evidence emerged which implicated him and ruled out Stagg. As a result, in December 2008 Robert Napper pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.