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Rachel Nickell Case

Rachel Nickell was born in 1969. Pretty and blonde, she worked as a part-time model after leaving school. She was living with her motorcycle courier boyfriend, André Hanscombe, when they discovered she was pregnant. In 1990, at age 21, Nickell gave birth to their son, Alex, and the family, complete with a dog, settled down in the leafy London suburb of Wimbledon.

On 15th July 1992, Nickell, 23, was walking with her son and their dog in Wimbledon Common when she was brutally attacked. Two-year-old Alex was thrown into the bushes and Nickell was sexually assaulted, stabbed 49 times and her throat was cut.

Another walker in the Common found young Alex clinging to Nickell’s dead body, pleading with her to get up. The police later discovered a small piece of paper on her forehead that the boy had used as a plaster in an attempt to make his mum better.

Believing they had enough evidence for Stagg’s conviction, in 1993 the Metropolitan police arrested and charged him for the murder of Rachel Nickell. During questioning, Stagg said that he had only played along with James in conversation of the murder in order to pursue their romance.

The murder investigation was conducted by the Metropolitan police, who questioned 32 men in connection with the crime. They eventually focussed on an unemployed man from Roehampton, Colin Stagg. He was known to frequently walk his dog on Wimbledon Common but the police could find no forensic evidence linking him to the murder scene.

Instead, they turned to criminal psychologist, Paul Britton, for help. Britton created a psychological profile of the killer, which the police decided fitted Stagg. Police then asked for Britton’s help in the design of a covert operation to test Stagg’s innocence. The operation was later referred to by the judge and known in the media as a Honey Trap.

The operation required the help of pretty, blonde policewoman Lizzie James (not her real name), who made contact with Stagg via an advertisement in the Lonely Hearts section of a magazine. Pretending romantic interest in Stagg, James arranged to meet him. Over the next five months, they telephoned frequently and wrote one another letters filled with sexual fantasies. These fantasies often included violence, in an attempt to lure Stagg into confessing to the Nickell murder.

During a meeting in Hyde Park, James managed to bring the conversation around to the Nickell murder. Wearing a ‘wire’, she taped the conversation, in which she tried to appeal to Stagg’s violent fantasies, but he did not admit to the murder. During this conversation, James said she enjoyed hurting people and Stagg asked her to explain herself, pleading with her not to dump him. When James said, “If only you had done the Wimbledon Common murder, if only you had killed her, it would be alright”, Stagg’s reply was simply, “I’m terribly sorry, but I haven’t”.

[b]Rachel Nickell[/b] - Victim

[b]Colin Stagg[/b] - Accused (acquitted)

[b]Paul Britton[/b] - Criminal psychologist

[b]Lizzie James[/b] (not her real name) – ‘Honey Trap’ policewoman

[b]Mr Justice Ognall[/b] – Judge

[b]Robert Napper[/b] – New suspect (currently in Broadmoor prison for murder)

The Victim
15th July 1992 - Rachel Nickell, 23

Arrested
1993 - Colin Stagg, 29

Trial
1994 - The Old Bailey, London. Case not allowed before a jury and thrown out of court with a verdict of not guilty. Colin Stagg acquitted.

New Suspect
2007 - Robert Napper, 40

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.
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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.
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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. A decade on and in January 2007, it was reported that Napper is expected to be charged with the Nickell murder, following the emergence of DNA evidence which implicated him and ruled out Stagg.

Carey Latimore