The post you are reporting:
Yesterday we all heard the final result in the Rachel Nickell case and a long and grim saga it was of death and destruction. There were a whole series of murders committed by Robert Napper, but it was the one on Wimbledon Common that took the headlines.
I lived in the Wimbledon area at the time and the effect locally was staggering.You knew someone, clearly a maniac, was prowling the streets ready to do frenzied harm. All were relieved then when the boys in blue arrested Colin Stagg. They were convinced he did it. We were all ready to believe it too. Most certainly. We used to point out the block of flats he lived in in Roehampton whenever we drove past. Such a relief that he was no longer there thought all.
However as we now know the chap was totally innocent all along. He was ostracised, victimised, brutalised and left with a life in tatters. After the first trial was thrown out of court, the police made clear to all and sundry, at the aftermath press conference, that they were looking for no one else in relation to the crime. Dreadful. Stagg's life was ruined.
But the Police were bungling bigtime and none of us knew it. For example and I just highlight one item, but a significant item. Before the series of murders took place Robert Napper's mother, his own mother, rang them up to say her young son was a danger to women, particularly women with one child. They never acted upon the information.
Later in the detection they interviewed Napper twice but again never twigged that anything was amiss. Yet his solicitor on R4 this very morning, who represented him in the eventual trials, clearly knew by chatting to Napper that he was seriously disturbed.
So they continued to pursue Stagg instead and tried in a sting operation to stitch him up. Again they failed, but they were going up a blind alley anyway. Napper went on to kill again while the police continuing chasing Stagg. The case got non-stop coverage in the local papers and local tv news and indeed on national news. Stagg was hounded.
This little piece is not about the horrific murders, as we can all agree how awful they were, but its about the truly dreadful police performance. The myth of the great Scotland Yard detective is just that...a myth. The stuff of fiction.
