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Private Notes
An examination of the murder of beauty consultant Clare Bernal, who was shot dead in top London department store Harvey Nichols in September 2005 by the ex-boyfriend against whom she had lodged a police complaint for stalking. Featuring reconstructions and statements Clare had given to the police about her former boyfriend.
Police officers and forensic scientists reveal how they traced the killer of eight-year-old Sarah Payne, who disappeared in 2000 while on a family day out to the Sussex seaside. Sarah's mother also talks frankly about her tireless campaign for a change in the law to give parents the right to know if a convicted paedophile is living in their area
"Who knows how people's minds work?" muses an interviewee here. She's well placed
to ask the question, as the former wife of serial killer Colin Ireland.
In 1993 Ireland, frustrated with his life, made a New Year's resolution - to become a
multiple murderer, a resolution he saw through with chilling efficiency, going on to torture
and kill five gay men in south London.
It's a gruesome but fascinating story, not for the faint-hearted. Some of the details of
Ireland's methods are horrifying, but some are oddly banal: he meticulously cleaned
his murder scenes, then sat with the corpses watching TV or listening to the radio.
The question that hangs over the programme is: why?
To help answer it, there's extensive police video of Ireland calmly describing his activities.
This makes him very human, a monster but all too ordinary.
"In some moods," he explains, "I'm quite happy to burn the world down."
The story of Lesley Molseed is heart-wrenchingly sad on so many levels and for so many people.
Lesley was abducted and murdered in 1975 as she visited the corner shop near her home in
Rochdale to buy a loaf of bread.
Real Crime does an exemplary job of piecing together the many elements of a complicated case
that was to result in an infamous miscarriage of justice when local misfit Stefan Kiszko was
convicted of the killing after a botched police inquiry. Only in 2007 was the culprit, Ronald Castree,
finally brought to justice after a new investigation secured the breakthrough.
The programme features interviews with Lesley's family, the solicitor who took up Kiszko's case
after years of campaigning by Stefan's mother, and with the wife and son of Ronald Castree.
Of course, there is nothing from Kiszko, who died a broken man in 1993, just 18 months after his
release from prison.
Interpol took the unprecedented step of launching a global public appeal for information after
Canadian Christopher Neil published pictures of himself on the internet abusing children.
Neil had camouflaged his face using editing software, making his features vanish into a swirl
pattern. But he was quickly identified by Interpol experts who immediately began a manhunt.
The detective who led the inquiry says of Neil's decision to publish pictures of himself
committing abuse, "It's a badge of honour [among other paedophiles] ... your stock in the
community goes up."
The programme interviews Neil's brother, the woman who worked with Neil when they both
taught in South Korea (she identified his unscrambled photograph) and Neil's transvestite
boyfriend, who was with him when he was arrested in Thailand.
The story of the investigation into special constable Nisha Patel-Nasri's death in Wembley, 2006. The case initially looked like an attempted burglary gone wrong, but police discovered that her husband Fadi had arranged her murder to claim her life insurance and flee with his prostitute lover. Family and friends of Nisha reflect on the emotional impact behind the headlines
In July 2000, Lucie Blackman disappeared while working as a hostess in a nightclub in Tokyo.
It was the beginning of a desperate seven month search by her family to find her - one that
would lead police to a predatory killer
This is the story of the spate of killings in Suffolk in the run-up to Christmas 2006 that caught the attention of the world's media.
A serial killer went on the rampage, targeting prostitutes in the Ipswich area, leaving one of the country's smallest police forces to investigate. As the bodies kept being discovered, media interest mushroomed.
The killer became known as The Suffolk Strangler and the pressure on the Suffolk Constabulary to catch the murderer increased dramatically. In all, five women were murdered between November and December 2006.
Steve Wright (pictured) was a dark and troubled man. A former steward on the QE2, he was a lorry driver, a barman and, more recently, a fork-lift truck driver. On 21 February 2008 he was found guilty of all five murders and sentenced to life imprisonment. The judge recommended that life should mean life.
Wright is currently appealing against his convictions.
In Christmas 1998, 21-year-old mother of two Lynsey Wilson went missing without a trace.
Her husband Mitchell Quy quickly became the prime suspect, after he claimed that she had
walked out on him. But unlike any murder suspect before him, Quy went to extraordinary
lengths to use the media in order to stay out of jail. He taunted police and even allowed a
documentary crew to follow him as he spun his web of lies. Almost 10 years on, we revisit
the case, and find out how the police finally managed to convict Lynsey's killer
Documentary following the true story of how the Metropolitan Police's Flying Squad foiled the
would-be robbery of the millennium. Using interviews, exclusive archive footage and dramatic
reconstruction, the programme investigates how a gang of villains plotted to steal the world's
largest perfect diamond from the Millennium Dome and escape up the River Thames, and how
they were stopped by one of the most daring police operations ever. But how dangerous was
this Hollywood-style heist?
The story of American bodybuilder David Bieber, who became a wanted man in both the UK and the US after the
murder of PC Ian Broadhurst. In December 2004 he was jailed for life, but is still trying to escape justice years later
Nurse Colin Norris murdered four elderly patients, and attempted to murder another by injecting them with massive doses of insulin. If a suspicious colleague had not stopped him in his tracks, police believe he could have gone on to rival Britain's most notorious medical murderer Dr Harold Shipman.
Real Crime has exclusive access to their investigation, including taped interviews with Norris.
The killing of two-year-old James Bulger in February 1993 still provokes a sense of horror. Ten-year-olds John Venables and Robert Thompson abducted James from a shopping centre in Merseyside, took him on a three-mile walk, then murdered him on a railway line. Real Crime looks in detail at how the police investigation and trial unfolded. It also interviews James's mother, Denise, who reflects on the impact of the murder. There are chilling details: referring to James's injuries, one police officer notes that "sometimes it's best not to know exactly what happened". He also recalls that during questioning, Thompson's legs would waggle under his chair when he was lying. At first, nobody could believe such young children had done what they did deliberately, but gradually the truth emerged. It's a story that has been told and re-told, but it retains its power to disturb and fascinate
Programme investigating the deaths of twenty-three Chinese cockle pickers on Morecambe Sands.
This shocking case revealed part of the hidden world of human trafficking and the awful conditions for the victims,
and sparked a government investigation. But who were the people who had drowned? And who had sent them to
their deaths? The tragedy led detectives to China, and to the heart of a people-smuggling operation here in Britain
Investigating the mystery of the Earl of Shaftesbury, who went missing on the French Riviera in November 2004.
A colourful character, the Earl was a frequent visitor to hostess bars and lap dancing clubs, and his third wife -
a former nightclub hostess living in Cannes - soon had the finger of suspicion pointed at her. But with no body,
the case drew a blank. Was this the perfect crime?
