Inside the Case: "The Wimbledon Common Murder" - William Clegg KC

The second episode in our “Inside the Case” podcast series features an interview with William Clegg KC, a celebrated criminal defence Barrister who successfully defended Colin Stagg, the suspect in the 1994 trial for the murder of young mother Rachel Nickell out on Wimbledon Common.

Mr Clegg recounts the unprecedented police tactics of entrapment which led to Colin Stagg being charged, and how a later unconnected case and DNA profiling advances finally revealed the identity of the true killer.

"Inside the Case” is a powerful new video podcast series by The University of Law and hosted by journalist Frances Gibb. It looks behind the scenes of some of the UK’s most significant criminal and constitutional legal battles. Each episode will focus on one high-profile trial, looking at the challenges in securing justice and the wider reverberations from the point of view of one of the key legal players involved.

Trigger Warning: Please note the content does contain references to murder, violence and abuse.

Transcript

1:00:00

This was unique. I don't think there'd been any case where a suspect had been promised sexual intercourse with a police officer if they were to confess to a crime. Everybody I've defended for murder has protested their innocence despite sometimes the most overwhelming evidence of guilt. What was unusual in his case was that there was in my view no evidence against him. evidence against him. I remember reading the transcripts and I was completely and utterly astonished. and I was completely and utterly astonished. I couldn't believe what I was reading I couldn't believe what I was reading. I found it incredible. The doctors were completely convinced that he was one of the illest patients they had for a very long time. He thought that the murder had been committed by him under instructions from aliens. He had a diary full of pictures of spaceships landing in Plumstead Common. You are listening to Inside the Case brought to you by The University of Law. Rachel Nikel, a young mother aged 23, was brutally murdered in July 1992 while walking on Wimbledon Common with her two-year-old son and their dog. It happened in broad daylight in an area that was considered one of London's best-known open spaces. As lead defence council put it, "There could be fewer, safer places to go for a walk with your child." The brutality of the attack with multiple stabbings, with the toddler found clinging to his mother's body, sparked a media frenzy and immense pressure on the police to find the killer. There was no forensic evidence, nor witnesses to the crime, so detectives resorted to psychological profiling. They zeroed in on one local man who fitted the profile of a sexually frustrated loner, Colin Stagg. They then deployed a highly controversial undercover operation using a female police officer to befriend Stagg and try to lure him into a confession. Stagg was facing the possibility of being jailed for life, but the case collapsed at the Old Bailey in 1994 when the judge ruled that the entrapment evidence was inadmissible. Justice would not be served until 2008, when advances in DNA profiling finally linked the crime to Robert Napper, a dangerous patient already in broadmoor for the horrific murders in 1993 of a young woman, Samantha Bissett, and her four-year-old daughter. In today's episode, I'm joined by the man who defended Colin Stagg and exposed the flaws in the police investigation, William Clegg, KC. One of the most celebrated criminal defense barristers of his generation, Clegg has built a reputation for taking on the toughest cases. He has acted for more than 100 defendants accused of murder in some of the UK's most high profile trials. His portfolio includes defending Barry George, who was wrongly convicted of the murder of TV presenter Jill Dando, and acting for the killer in the Joanna Yates murder case in Bristol. He was head of chambers at 2 Bedford Row for 25 years. I began by asking him if he remembers the moment he first heard the news of the murder of Rachel Nickell. I remember hearing about it when I was at home in Suffolk and it came on the radio in the morning and it dominated the news for literally weeks afterwards. Why was that? It was partly wasn't it because of the shocking circumstances of the murder. Perhaps you'd like to remind us. Rachel was walking on Wimbledon Common with her young son who was only about two years old as I recall and she was brutally murdered by an unknown assailant with her son present at the time and left dead in circumstances that suggested that the killer was probably interrupted during the course of what he was about to do and the suggestion was that there would probably have been some sexual interference with her had he been allowed to continue. And it was broad daylight and not particularly early hours or just the middle of the early morning? It was in the middle of the day. Quite a lot of people were on the common at the time but nobody saw or heard anything to give them any cause for suspicion. And I think also Wimbledon Common is regarded as a lovely safe place. Yes, well it's obviously a common land in the middle of one of the nicest areas of residential London and one would have thought there could be fewer safer places to go for a walk with your child than on the common. Did you know it? Did you know? I didn't know it myself. I had been there perhaps once or twice many years before as a student. So then how did the police set about trying to solve this murder? There was very little forensic evidence. There was virtually no forensic evidence at all and the police had really nothing to go on. Everybody who was on the common was interviewed. Nobody saw anything that was remotely suspicious. They conducted extensive house-to-house inquiries all to no effect. Forensic evidence was non-existent. They were up against a brick wall really. So what did they do? Well there was enormous pressure on the police mainly from the press who were crying for somebody to be caught for the crime and they eventually decided that Colin Stagg who lived nearby was likely to have been the person responsible. It was a curious jump by the police to come to that conclusion because there was no evidence against him at all but he was a rather an oddball and I think the police having as it were eliminated everybody else thought well it must be him because there is nobody else it couldn't be. They had deployed criminal profiling hadn't they? They had. I'm not a fan of criminal profiling and in my experience it's not proved to be very accurate. The profile partly matched Colin Stagg but it also matched I would have thought about half a million other people who lived in London. So the police then set about finding evidence with which they could arrest and charge Colin Stagg and they instructed a psychologist to build up a criminal profile. That's correct. Who was called Paul Britton and he drew up a profile of what the killer would be like. Single man, sexually frustrated, living by himself, all of which one could have probably deduced by common sense. And then how did they get from that to finding Colin Stagg? Well Colin Stagg was interviewed by the police on the door-to-door inquiries and fitted with the broad profile that Paul Britton had created. His elevation to that of prime suspect was a result of that and then the entrapment that took place with the woman police officer. Well come to that but they didn't have enough evidence did they to arrest and charge Colin Stagg when they identified him. So tell us what happened next? Well they had no evidence against him at all and somebody had the idea of trying to obtain a confession from him by using an undercover police woman who would befriend him and try to get him to confess to her. And a woman police officer who used the alias Lizzie James was scripted to make contact with Colin by way of a I think a lonely hearts advert and the two of them struck up a correspondence during which she tried to get him to confess to the killing but all to no avail as it transpired. That took place over some months didn't it? Her engagement with him. It ended with the meeting in Hyde Park. And what happened at that meeting? Well that meeting took place and by this stage she had been promising intimacy with Colin Stagg who had not got any previous experience with women really but said she could really only do it if he'd killed Rachel Nickell. It sounds incredible now when you describe it. It is quite incredible Colin Stagg said well I'm terribly sorry but I didn't kill her and that has progressed like that there never was a confession. I mean one can see how easily he could have been persuaded to say so. Yes and no one would have been very surprised but in fact he never did confess but the psychologist took the view that the way he had denied it proved that he had done it. Having originally said that because he was guilty he would in fact confess. Quite astonishing looking back on it how common were such tactics in those days? This was unique I don't think there'd been any case where a suspect had been promised sexual intercourse with a police officer if they were to confess to a crime. And so when did you get involved? I mean at this point then they charged and arrested him, arrested him and charged him? Yes there were protracted proceedings in the Magistrates Court ending with a old style committal where evidence was called. All of that was done by my junior at the trial Jim Sturman. I had been retained for the defence before the committal proceedings but was not formally instructed until after the committal. And then you obviously went to meet him. Tell me what you remember about him and what you thought when you met him. I first met Colin at Brixton Prison where he was on remand. I thought he a very unlikely murderer. There was something rather simple and gentle about him. His main concern when I saw him was the welfare of his dog. Which I think you say in your book was called Which I think you say in your book was called Brandy and you had a dog with the same name. Yes we both had dogs By coincidence Sharing the same name and in a sense I tried to use that to build up a certain rapport with him. Did he protest his innocence? Always. I suppose that's not uncommon though so that alone wouldn't convince you of it. Everybody I defended for murder has protested their innocence despite sometimes the most overwhelming evidence of guilt. So there was nothing unusual about that but what was unusual in his case was that there was in my view no evidence against him in reality anyway. And you thought he seemed an unlikely candidate for it. Yes there was no history of violence towards women or anything like that in his background. He appeared a fairly gentle character. The police were very excited because he had an interest in Wicca. But I was never very impressed that that would make him a murderer. In your experience of defending many murderers do you generally think that they are guilty? Is that the common thought? I think as a barrister you try not to think whether they're guilty or not guilty. It's a job and you're just acting on their behalf and are their spokesperson in court. So I never tried to go down the road of working out whether somebody is guilty or innocent. I mean obviously in some cases the evidence is so overwhelming that it can be obvious that they're guilty and occasionally you do cases like Colin Stagg where there is no evidence at all or virtually no evidence to connect them with the crime. So between those two extremes there are the vast majority of cases where I try not to form any view at all personally as to whether they're guilty or not. I suppose the difficulty comes, talking generally now, is if they want to plead not guilty and it's clear that they are. That's not really a difficulty for the barrister. The choice of whether to plead guilty or not guilty must always be that of the defendant. We can advise but we have to do what we're told. In reality there's not a great advantage to a suspect to plead guilty to murder as the penalty is set by law to be one of life imprisonment. And because of that I think there are far fewer pleas of guilty in murder cases than in other cases. Of course there are some cases where you'll get an offer of manslaughter from the prosecution. Then of course that's a very tempting offer for a defendant who will then get a fixed term of imprisonment rather than an open-ended life sentence. Yes but you don't find any difficulty and I know this is the common question you will have been asked a thousand times. You find no difficulty in standing up and putting the case that they didn't do the crime when you're pretty certain they did. None at all. I mean it is the job that we have. I presume it's like a surgeon operating on somebody who has abused their body with cigarettes or alcohol and trying to save their life. So Colin Stagg was charged and if convicted faced life imprisonment. It was the task and challenge of Bill Clegg to ensure that did not happen. So you set about preparing the defence for Colin Stagg. What did he say to you when you had to tell him that Detective Lizzie James was an undercover police officer? What did he make of that? He must have been shocked. Yes I wasn't present when he discovered that. I think the solicitor told him before I went for a conference but he felt betrayed obviously. To his mind he had formed a genuine relationship with this woman and I think he felt rather foolish. So we come to the first stage of the trial and you were facing a task of securing his release because he was on remand wasn't he, and had been, for some months. Yes over a year I think. Quite a burden for you because you obviously wanted to secure his release if you thought there wasn't the evidence there to convict him. A year on remand was not unusual in those days for somebody charged with a serious offence. So there was nothing particularly unusual about that and of course there had been protracted proceedings in the Magistrates Court that had taken many months. Did you feel a particular pressure and anxiety thinking I'm fairly certain he didn't do this so I've just got to get him off? I remember reading the transcripts of the undercover operation all of which were taped and I was completely and utterly astonished. I couldn't believe what I was reading that the police had behaved in this way. It seemed to be so obviously inadmissible in a court of law and so stupid for them to have done it. I found it incredible and the moment I read that I knew that no I found it incredible and the moment I read that I knew that no judge worth his salt would ever allow the evidence to be given in court. And so you thought about trying to have the evidence excluded, thrown out? Yes. But of course you could never be 100% sure that that would happen? No we were pretty confident though. We could find no case where evidence obtained by this method had been admitted before a jury. And this I suppose reflected the immense public and media pressure that you've alluded to on the police to secure a conviction. Can you understand why they resorted to these tactics? Well I understand it. I don't agree with it but the police were under enormous pressure. You see this repeated time and again when there's a very high profile case, no obvious suspect. The police are placed under huge pressure and end up arresting somebody, normally the local oddball, working on the assumption that well it must be him because we can't find anyone else. And I don't think they ever want to convict an innocent man. They convince themselves that the person they are arresting is guilty. Do you think things are just as bad now or have things improved? Well I don't think they've improved a great deal. I mean one could say that the police behaved in much the same way following the murder of Jill Dando arresting Barry George. Who you also defended? Who I did also defend when there was no evidence against him at all. And then much more recently the Joanna Yates case in Bristol where the police arrested Mr Jefferies, the man with the dyed hair who was the landlord. So there is a history really of the police in these very high profile cases arresting A) the wrong man and B) the local oddball. So coming to the trial, were you nervous? Was it an anxiety-making situation with all the press and media outside? I think one's always nervous before starting a big trial. I think if you weren't you probably shouldn't be doing the job. And I've heard you say you weren't 100% sure although you were hopeful that the evidence would be excluded. That's what you'd argued for. And then there came a point when you knew the judge was going to, well he said so, was going to throw it out. Yes I mean I think the legal argument had taken two or three days then the judge rose for a couple of days to consider his judgment and it wasn't a case of him handing down a judgment as one might have these days. He read it out in court and it took certainly well over an hour for him to read it out. And at what point during that hour did you think it's going our way? There was a point where the judge criticised the undercover operation in terms that made me confident that he was going to exclude the evidence. You began to think we're all right we're going to get this. Yes I thought well that's that's it we're home and dry. So you then went and you met with Colin Stagg and I think you've described that moment. Was that an emotional moment? Did...he gave you a hug I think? Yes he was obviously relieved. We managed to get him back to my chambers because it wasn't possible near the Old Bailey to speak to him once he'd been released. There were so many press around and so many people trying to buy his story. Yes well how did you get him back? Did you have to smuggle him into a vehicle? We smuggled him into a taxi and got back to chambers. Was there a blanket over his head in the time honoured fashion? We didn't go to those lengths but we did get him back and really just had a sort of signing off with him. And how was he? How was he reacting? Well I think he was a bit stunned to be honest by it all and he was considering an offer by the News of the World to buy his story which was dependent on him taking and passing a lie detector test and I was rather suspicious of this. Yes. Because if he failed the test he would get nothing But he insisted rather against my advice to take the test and passed it with flying colours And he then of course went on to get compensation to do even more money. I mean I think he got about over 700 000. Yes from various sources but a lot of money from the police. Not that that would compensate for nearly a year in prison. No but also it's a life-changing event and you're not the same person at the end as you were at the beginning. No and I think you've written about this and you've said that you've built up a bit of a relationship with him that you in the case of some of the people you've defended they even become friends. I don't think that was the case with him was it? No I didn't see him again after the week of the trial but I was kept in contact by the solicitor who was helping him with the media contact and things like that. Who was the solicitor for him? The solicitor was Ian Ryan who was a leading criminal solicitor in London at the time. But you nonetheless I think offered Colin a bit of support didn't you? You advised him on what to do with this large sum of compensation. Yeah I advised him to buy council flat. Did you do that? No. So he didn't always take your advice. No. And what about tell me about his dog? I think you said that his main concern the whole time he was in Brixton was for his dog. Yes well the dog was actually being looked after by a charity and we had reports that it was being very well looked after and was perfectly happy. I think you sent junior counsel down to see the dog. Well I didn't send him he went of his own volition but he did go down to see the dog yes. And did Colin Stagg get the dog back? Yes. And was the dog so that that So that was a great triumph for you and I think that you said it was a career break moment for you wasn't it? I mean winning that case and having that evidence thrown out. Yes I mean it was curious in a way because I think probably any lawyer worth his salt could have got the evidence thrown out. It just happened to be me but the publicity surrounding the case certainly encouraged I think people to brief me in other high profile cases. I mean obviously you were known before that otherwise you would have got the case in the first place but after that I think you were absolutely the defence barrister of choice. Well I'm not sure about that but anyway I certainly have plenty of work. known but this was a big career breaking case for you or career making case tell me about your practice at that point what kind of cases was this a very ordinary case? Well I've been in silk then for about three years and I'd had a very large criminal practice as a junior involving quite a lot of leading work and since taking silk I'd been very busy but I'd never been instructed in a case that had the profile of this particular case before so it was I presume the highest profile case I had then been involved in and following the outcome of the case well my career didn't look back. And these cases that you did they invariably involved and this one certainly the most horrific detail how did you manage to cope with that? Were you good at putting it out of your mind? Yes I mean all murder cases have horrific detail in them and of course you don't close your eyes to the impact it has on friends and family of people who've been killed but I think in order to survive as a barrister you've just got to put all that out of your mind probably like a surgeon does when he's sticking a knife into somebody's chest you're just there doing a job. Well you must be mentally quite a resilient person. I think you do need to be resilient to do the job of a criminal barrister. And what other qualities have you got that make you good at your job? Oh you'd have to ask other people that I think. A good sense of humour, keep things in proportion? You need to have a sense of humour and I think it helps to be approachable because if you're defending somebody for murder they're often inadequate they're almost certainly frightened of their situation and you've got to make sure that they realise that you're on their side and that that's not something that's easily achieved you're often looked at as part of the establishment when they're the opposite. So sometimes I wouldn't necessarily talk about the case very much at all when I first meet somebody I tried to establish a rapport with them I certainly did with Colin Stagg and then only turn to the evidence in the case perhaps at the second or even perhaps the third meeting. So that you know they build up their trust in you? That's the aim. So you mainly have done defence work in your career? Yes. Is there a particular appeal to doing those cases as opposed to prosecuting? I've always enjoyed the challenge of defending rather than prosecuting. I think I'm better at it. And I think being attracted to the law at the beginning by watching Perry Mason on television he defended all the time and never lost a case. Well I largely defended all the time and I'm afraid that didn't have his success record. Justice had been secured for Colin Stagg, but it had not been secured for Rachel Nickell and her family. That was only to come 16 years after her murder in 2008 through a mix of coincidence and scientific advances. Well one of the things you then went on to get and this is in a way quite an amazing coincidence was the case of a man who had been charged and arrested over two murders. Can you tell me a little bit about how this next case arose and how you came to be involved with it? Yes this is the case of Robert Napper and I was instructed by a firm in Kent to act for him. He'd been charged with the murder of Samantha Bissett and her young daughter. This was another truly horrific case. It was unbelievably horrific. They'd been murdered in their basement flat on the edge of Plumstead Common in South London. It was a very brutal murder. The injuries were far more extensive than was necessary to kill and the mother had been sexually interfered with. She had literally just opened the door of her flat and let him in. That was what people assumed had happened. There appeared to be no other explanation. There's certainly no contact between them before. They didn't know each other or anything like that. So that must have been what had happened. So you were sent the legal papers in this case? I was. And you remember I think don't you, reading them for the first time. Tell me what came into your mind. Well as I was reading the papers similarities with the killing of Rachel Nickell became obvious. They were both young mothers. They were both murdered in the presence of a young child which statistically is extremely rare by a complete stranger and both either on or immediately adjacent to common land. Not only that, Napper looked very much like Colin Stagg physically. Did he? And going back to the Stagg case there had been people who had seen somebody who looked very like Colin Stagg on the common. The police had assumed was Colin Stagg. In fact it was almost certainly Napper. So far as the Bissett murder is concerned, Napper eventually pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. He was a severely mentally disturbed and was in Broadmoor mental hospital. So you didn't at this stage raise the case with him because it wasn't relevant to what you were doing? No it would've been professionally improper. It was not for me to try to solve another case. No. Now that all happened later but just coming back to this case, you went to visit Robert Napper and where was he at the point when you first went to see him? He was in Broadmoor. He was in Broadmoor. Tell me about that. You must have been before but nonetheless quite a nerve wracking experience. Yes I mean he was having delusions. I remember him telling me that Her Majesty the Queen had been to visit him the week before, that I considered improbable. And he wasn't putting this on? No no no he wasn't feigning illness at all. The doctors were completely convinced that he was one of the illest patients they had for a very long time. He thought that the murder had been committed by him under instructions from aliens and he had a diary full of pictures of spaceships landing in Plumstead Common and was really leading a life full of delusions and of course had been responsible as we now know for a number of other rapes in the area as well. What was he like physically as a person to meet as well? He was just to look at an ordinary young man. There was nothing physically unusual about him. It was only when he opened his mouth that he became obviously deranged. I think you describe him as a puny rather weedy little individual. Yes he certainly wasn't a threatening large man. Not at all. And was he prepared to admit to the murders then? It took a long time to convince him that that was the right course of action because... Well he didn't ever give any coherent instructions. He was probably very nearly insane and indeed on one view he probably was insane but it was altogether probably the better course of action for him to plead guilty to manslaughter and have a hospital order so he could be treated. So you and that's what happened? Yes. So he had his trial he was then ordered to go to, sent to Broadmoor? Yes And he'll stay there for the rest of his life. Then what happened to link that case or his involvement with Rachel Nickell? Well some of the police involved in the Napper case had spotted the obvious links with the Rachel Nickell case and contacted the investigating officers for the Nickell case to alert them to this. And initially there was a degree of reluctance to follow this up because they felt that they'd already solved the case and the guilty man had been acquitted but eventually they were able to extract from the scene at Rachel Nickell's murder some mitochondrial DNA which was a new development in forensic science. It wasn't available at the time of Colin Stagg's trial and that revealed a DNA profile that matched exactly Robert Napper's. This is some time later now? This is some time years later. After DNA has developed a bit. Yes. You didn't I don't think at the time when you had dealt with the Robert Napper case you didn't talk about your suspicions with the police. Did you feel that's because they weren't interested they weren't going to be bothered with it? Well I didn't think it was proper for me to as it were to alert the police to this. What was obvious was that Robert Napper's was going to be detained in Broadmoor for the rest of his life. There was no danger to any other person. Had it been a position whereby he was at large then I think I would certainly have alerted the police to the connection even though he was my client because I think there's an overriding duty on everybody to prevent crime. I mean one couldn't possibly imagine if I'd have kept quiet and another person had been murdered. I could never have lived with it. You did express your feelings to your clerk so it's quite clear that you had that. Yes well I instinct that it was him or suspicion. Yes I would a strong suspicion I mean there was no evidence then that he'd done it. Say that the similarities between the cases were so great and the circumstances so rare. I just thought it highly improbable that there were two people in London at around the same time murdering mothers in the presence of their children with a savage brutality either on or next to a common. So the the DNA skills and techniques developed but it was some years as you say some years later. First there was a development linking Robert Napper Yes. But it wasn't sufficient was it? Well I wasn't instructed in that case but ultimately there was a full DNA profile as I understand it that identified Napper as the killer of Rachel Nickell and he of course pleaded guilty to that. You weren't able of course to act for him in that case can you just explain why? Well I couldn't act for him because I'd acted for Colin Stagg in the original trial and I think that would have created a conflict. So he he finally did admit to it and and at least then for the sake of the family they knew then who the killer was. Yes and the case could be closed. And the case was closed. Yeah the result for him was really no different he went back to Broadmoor where he was going to stay anyway. Looking back on this case which was such a high profile case and so horrific both aspects of it really both the murder of Rachel Nickell and then the two -of the Bissett, both murders. What's your abiding memory of those cases? I think the abiding memory really is the undercover operation by the police involving Lizzie James. It was just such an extraordinary error on their part that to this day I have difficulty really coming to terms with who on earth thought that was a good idea and would ever result in admissible evidence in a court of law. Have there been any undercover operations in recent years that we know of? Well they're of course one of the secrets of undercover operations that you don't know about them but there is of course an inquiry going on about undercover police operations involving police officers effectively infiltrating themselves into groups of people who were engaged in. They were activists weren't they? Yes it was an unbelievable tactic and hopefully do you think police behaviour has changed since then? Yes I mean it was a one-off they'd never done that sort of thing before they'd never done it since so there wasn't so much a change it was an aberration which has not been repeated. Have you heard from Colin Stagg since? No the last I heard he was still living in the same flat he was living in before but whether he's moved on with the large sums of money he's been awarded I don't know. Do you see any other changes in terms of either police behaviour or for the safety of women really walking in areas such as Wimbledon Common? Well I don't think anybody is able to provide greater safety for women or men for that matter who are out walking in public as long as we have a free country people are able to assess danger for themselves and if you're walking in broad daylight in a London park you'd thought you were pretty safe. The reality is that there are always going to be the odd person who probably because of mental illness will attack strangers and it's difficult to know how you can ever prevent that one would hope that they would be picked up by the doctors at some point in their childhood or perhaps in young adulthood who could identify to get them properly treated but one suspects that's not going to be very easy these days. I mean you've got to think that Wimbledon Common is a huge area and probably every year at a rough guess perhaps half a million people walk on it and in the 30 years since Rachel Nickell was killed there's only been one case of somebody being attacked so it's probably safer than crossing the road outside. Finally in terms of miscarriages of justice and trying to prevent them do police use profiling in the same way psychological profiling and in the way that they did? I don't think they use it at all now as potential evidence it does perhaps have a role in identifying the sort of person who might have committed a crime but to suggest it could become evidence before a jury I don't think anybody believes that would happen. Robert Napper is currently detained and definitely at Broadmoor Hospital. Colin Stagg now lives in Farnborough with his dog. Bill Clegg KC retired in 2019. This episode is dedicated to the memory of Rachel Nickell. 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