Great Unsolved Crimes

by Rodney Castleden

  But the trail quickly went cold. As the months passed and Suzy still did not reappear it became increasingly likely that she had been abducted and murdered. It became a question of waiting until someone discovered her body. In December 1986, Suzy’s mother Diana Lamplugh set up the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, with the aim of promoting personal safety at work and generally creating a safer society. In particular, Diana Lamplugh wanted to make employers more aware of the dangers their staff were exposed to in the course of doing their jobs.

  By October 1987, when Suzy’s body had still not been found and no suspect had been identified, the police scaled down their inquiry, which had reached a dead end early on. They had no leads at all.

  The possibility remained that Suzy’s abductor and killer would offend again and that he would then become visible. A candidate emerged in the shape of John Cannan, a convicted murderer who was forty-two at the time of Suzy’s disappearance, and who was sent to prison for life in 1989 after raping and murdering Shirley Banks, a twenty-nine-year-old sales manager from Bristol. He had been in prison before and had in fact only been released from prison three days before Suzy vanished. There was speculation that Cannan might be Suzy’s killer. In October 1987, just at the time when the first investigation into Suzy Lamplugh’s murder was grinding to a halt, and presumably her murderer felt safe, Cannan tried to kidnap a woman at gunpoint in a car park in Bristol. She managed to escape. The very next day, Cannan abducted Shirley Banks, a sales manager in Bristol. Her body was found, naked and badly decomposed, six months later in the Quantock Hills. He skull had been beaten so relentlessly with a brick or a rock that it had smashed like an eggshell.

  In 1994, when Suzy had been missing for eight years, she was officially declared dead. In 1998, detectives from Scotland Yard investigated a new lead in the case, after hearing from a woman who said that she knew a man who knew about Suzy. The detectives commented that they would not be organizing any fresh searches for the body after the tip-off. In May the following year, the officer in charge of the Suzy Lamplugh inquiry, Detective Superintendent Brian Edwards, was put in charge of another very high-profile and difficult case, the murder of Jill Dando.

  In November 1999, Diana Lamplugh and her husband heard from a secret informer that Suzy was buried at the former Norton army base in Worcestershire. This location matched claims made by John Cannan’s girlfriend Gilly Paige in 1989 that Cannan had confessed to murdering Suzy Lamplugh and burying her body there. Gilly Paige later withdrew her statement.

  The following month Detective Superintendent Sean Sawyer took over the leadership of the inquiry. In May 2000, the police announced that they had reopened the case. They had a new witness and some new leads. They had found the car that they thought had been used in Suzy’s abduction and subjected it to forensic examination. The car was traced by detectives to a North London dealership, where it had been parked for several years. The police were optimistic that microscopic traces of its occupants might confirm that the car was indeed used to abduct Suzy Lamplugh, and also help in the identification of her killer.

  Suzy’s mother tried ‘not to get too excited about it’ but it did seem that she was getting closer to knowing what had happened to her daughter. She was by now convinced that John Cannan was the murderer, and so were the police. They had investigated half a dozen suspects and eliminated all of them. Only one suspect remained, and that was John Cannan. When the murder of Shirley Banks was investigated, three significant links across to the Lamplugh case emerged. Mr Cannan was known to his fellow prisoners as ‘Kipper’, the very unusual and distinctive alias chosen by Suzy’s killer when he made the appointment with her; this in itself is too strong a link to be coincidental. After serving a six-year sentence for rape, Cannan was released from prison three days before Suzy Lamplugh disappeared. John Cannan also bore a strong resemblance to the photofit suspect. But Mr Cannan denied any involvement and has consistently maintained (through several bouts of questioning by the police) that he was not responsible for the abduction of Suzy Lamplugh.

  In June 2002, the Metropolitan Police investigators sent a file relating to the case to the Crown Prosecution Service, asking it to consider whether a charge could be brought for the murder of Suzy Lamplugh. The CPS had to assess whether there was enough evidence to justify bringing charges. Often in such cases it is not just a question of whether the right suspect has been targeted, but whether there is enough evidence in the file to stand a good chance of achieving a conviction; if not, it is simply a waste of the courts’ time. The CPS saw the presentation of the file as ‘a significant step’ in the enquiry, but on close examination it became clear that there was not enough evidence to proceed. It decided that there could be no charges.

  In 2006, John Cannan appealed for early release from prison. It was now twenty years since Suzy Lamplugh disappeared and was probably murdered. Still no one had been brought trial. But instead of release, Cannan risked facing a second charge of murder. The police conducting the Lamplugh inquiry were extremely anxious at the prospect of a serial violent sex offender and killer being released, possibly to commit further similar crimes; officers like Jim Dickie were very worried at this prospect. If John Cannan killed Suzy Lamplugh, he did so only three days after release from prison; the possibility that that this might happen again was extremely alarming. Dickie was convinced that Cannan stalked Suzy Lamplugh before arranging to meet her. But if that is true, how did he organize that in the three short days after he left prison? There is something not quite right about this hypothesis.

  In July 2006, John Cannan was due to have his tariff (the length of time he has to spend in prison) reviewed by an independent judge. It was understood that Cannan, then fifty-three years old, had appealed over his tariff. The police were so alarmed at this prospect that Scotland Yard took the unusual step of announcing publicly that he must never be freed. Officers took the view that attractive, blonde, female twenty-something professionals were at particular risk from him and that even when he is sixty he will still be a grave danger to them.

  Clearly there are human rights issues involved in this case. John Cannan can argue that he is being kept in prison for an offence of which he has not been found guilty – and for which he has not even stood trial. He has certainly not confessed to it. The police argument is that the circumstantial evidence is great enough for the interests of public safety to be set above John Cannan’s claims.

  The Scotland Yard detectives began a new review of the case, with fresh forensic testing, with a view to presenting the CPS with a more convincing case. This is very praiseworthy in terms of its dedicated quest for the truth and justice, but it could, again, from John Cannan’s point of view, be seen as a determination to convict – a kind of victimization. On the other hand, this is how police forces operate, utilizing often huge resources in order to secure the conviction of an individual. This time the police are collaborating with the CPS, and now both CPS and police think they are close to uncovering the final pieces of the jigsaw.

  It is, even so, very unlikely now that John Cannan will ever brought to trial for the abduction and murder of Suzy Lamplugh. He and his legal representatives will be able to argue that given the massive amount of publicity that has surrounded the case it would be impossible to find an unprejudiced jury. He would be able to claim, and with some justice, that he would not get a fair trial because the media have already found him guilty. Here we confront the ultimate conundrum of justice in western society – its determination to respect the rights of individual citizens, while ensuring the safety of the rest.

  Death on Wimbledon Common: Rachel Nickell

  A twenty-three-year-old part-time model, Rachel Nickell, was out on Wimbledon Common on the morning of 15 July 1992, walking her dog. She was attacked, sexually assaulted and stabbed to death; she was stabbed forty-nine times. She had her two-year-old son Alex with her at the time. He was thrown aside into the undergrowth by the attacker. The police were foxed for some days by a piece of pape
r stuck to Rachel’s forehead after the murder. They wondered if this was intended as a symbolic signature by the killer, who was clearly mentally unhinged. Then they realized that the little boy had made his way back to his mother, found her terribly injured and stuck a piece of paper on her because it was the nearest thing he could find to a sticking plaster – to make his mummy better. One of the most horrific aspects of the crime was that it was committed so callously in front of the little boy.

  This kind of senseless, out-of-the-blue attack is what we all secretly dread, because we cannot really prepare ourselves for it or protect ourselves from it. We are all vulnerable to random acts of violence from the criminally insane. There was, naturally, a great deal of media coverage. Alongside this, the police felt themselves to be under the spotlight, and under pressure to catch the killer quickly. And this led to serious mistakes.

  The police turned to a forensic psychologist called Paul Britton, who was an expert in offender profiling. What he could do was to use the details of the crime to piece together the sort of person the criminal must be. Britton had had some conspicuous earlier successes. He had helped the police to identify the killers of Jamie Bulger in Liverpool. The police had meanwhile come up with someone who looked like a suspect. He was Colin Stagg, who lived in an apartment near Wimbledon Common. The police became interested in him because he appeared to be on the edge of society, a loner with strange interests that included paganism. They became even more interested when they heard from a woman who had made contact with Stagg through a lonely hearts column in a local paper. She showed the police some sexually explicit letters he had written her. Paul Britton analyzed the sexual nature of the Rachel Nickell murder, and also looked at the available evidence about Colin Stagg’s psyche. He came to the conclusion that whoever killed Rachel Nickell and Colin Stagg had exactly the same ‘sexually deviant based personality disturbance’. He also came to the breathtakingly unjustifiable conclusion that this so-called personality disturbance was so rare that Colin Stagg had to be the killer. This arbitrary decision has in effect ruined Colin Stagg’s life.

  The police were being told by a highly reputable expert that Colin Stagg was the murderer. All they lacked was evidence. Some evidence had to be found to connect Stagg to the murder. The only witness evidence they had was a single sighting of Stagg on Wimbledon Common later that day, which was of course of no value at all. To make matters worse, two other witnesses were sure they had seen Stagg at two other locations at the same time, so the witness evidence cancelled itself out.

  Under Paul Britton’s guidance, and with the approval of the Crown Prosecution Service, the police set up a trap for Stagg. Entrapment is always ethically questionable. This particular entrapment amounted to a breach of Stagg’s basic human rights. In simple terms, no one should be treated the way Stagg was treated. The trap was dignified with a code name, Operation Edzell. A policewoman, who would be known as Lizzie James, was to contact and befriend Stagg, win his confidence and try to worm a confession out of him. Lizzie James claimed to have spent her teens in a satanic cult, in which she had taken part in the ritual killing of a mother and baby. She could only form a sexually satisfying relationship with someone who had also taken part in such a killing.

  Of course, a great many men will agree to anything, anything at all, if it means a woman will agree to have sex with them. It was a honey trap. In effect, Lizzie James was telling Stagg that he could have sex with her if he said he had killed Rachel. It was a disgraceful plan, one the police officers concerned should never have contemplated, and one the Prosecution Service should not have condoned. Colin Stagg fell into the trap. He was so keen to please Lizzie James that he admitted to killing a woman in the New Forest in order to win favour. He made it up. James reported the confession back to her colleagues, who checked it out and found that there had been no such murder. She went back to Stagg and told him she didn’t believe his New Forest story, adding, ‘If only you had done the Wimbledon Common murder. If only you had killed her it would be all right.’ Stagg answered, ‘I’m terribly sorry, but I haven’t.’

  Rumours that Colin Stagg had become the prime suspect in the police investigation filtered out to the press. A tabloid journalist interviewed him and in the interview Stagg emphatically denied having anything at all to do with the Wimbledon Common murder. The police became concerned that the press activity might endanger their Operation Edzell and called it off after several months. They reviewed the evidence they had so far and, almost incredibly, in view of the lack of evidence and the total and utter failure to elicit a confession by way of seduction via Lizzie James, decided to go ahead and arrest Colin Stagg. In August 1993, he was arrested and charged with Rachel’s murder.

  The unfortunate Colin Stagg spent thirteen months in prison on remand before his case came before Mr Harry Ognall at the Old Bailey on 14 September 1994. It turned out to be a surprisingly short trial. In the pre-trial submissions, Mr Justice Ognall was asked to consider whether the evidence gathered during Operation Edzell was admissible in Stagg’s trial. Justice Ognall considered, and then had some very harsh words to say about the police and their ‘puppet master’ Paul Britton. He denounced them all for setting up what amounted to a conspiracy to incriminate Colin Stagg. It was ‘a skilful and sustained enterprise to manipulate the accused, sometimes subtly, sometimes blatantly.’ The plan overall was a ‘wholly reprehensible’ attempt to incriminate Stagg using ‘deceptive conduct of the grossest kind’. The judge ruled that the evidence gathered in this way was inadmissible under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.

  The so-called evidence acquired by Lizzie James was of course all the evidence the police had; none of it could be used in court, so the prosecution case collapsed instantly. Colin Stagg was acquitted and set free.

  Because of the publicity, Stagg acquired a profile he had not had before and, ironically, acquired a girlfriend too. A woman called Diane started writing to him while he was in prison and later visited him. After he was acquitted, they were married. It was not to be a long-lasting marriage. Stagg commented that Diane ‘wasn’t all there’ and she deserted him after a few months. She then turned out to be a major danger to his security. In 1998, Mrs Stagg gave an interview to the Mail on Sunday in which she claimed that there was a ‘terrifying anger’ inside Colin Stagg, and – most damaging of all – that he had twice told her he was responsible for Rachel’s death.

  Fortunately for Colin Stagg, the age-old principle of autrefois acquit (already acquitted), sometimes called double jeopardy, meant that he could not be put on trial for the murder a second time. But it would in any case be understandable for Colin Stagg to feel a towering anger at the way he had been treated in the wake of Rachel’s murder.

  Life after Operation Edzell proved to be difficult for the policewoman who had played the role of Lizzie James. She had a nervous breakdown which was brought on by post-traumatic stress. She was given £125,000 in compensation by her employers, in addition to a pension. No compensation or help of any kind were offered to Colin Stagg.

  Life after Edzell was also bumpy for the police officer in charge of the Stagg case, Keith Pedder. He retired from the Metropolitan Police in 1995, but was not in the clear. In March 1998, he was arrested and charged with inciting a police officer (aka Lizzie James) to commit a corrupt act. The charges were later dismissed when the court concluded that he, in his turn, had ironically been the victim of an entrapment operation by the Criminal Investigation Bureau.

  Keith Pedder wrote a book about the Rachel Nickell case, which revealed that Operation Edzell had had approval from the highest levels in the Metropolitan Police and the Crown Prosecution Service. It seemed that the functionaries at those senior levels had been unaware of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984; if they had been aware, they must knowingly have conspired to illegal entrapment. Pedder also revealed that the Deputy Assistant Commissioner who was in charge of the investigation into the conduct of the inquiry into the handling of the N
ickell case in the wake of the Stagg trial – Ian Johnson – was the very man who had authorized the undercover plan in the first place.

  Inevitably, Paul Britton became the subject of a formal allegation of misconduct. This was launched by Colin Stagg’s original solicitor. By 2002, when the British Psychological Society eventually got round to considering the question of Britton’s alleged misconduct, it decided to waive the complaint because too long a time had elapsed. During the hearing, Stagg and Britton came face to face and Stagg let Britton know what he thought of him. Britton unwisely considered making a formal complaint that Stagg had called him a pervert, but it was not clear who Britton imagined was going to preside or arbitrate, still less how he might emerge unscathed from such a procedure.

  As is usual in such cases, the police refused to back down and admit that they were wrong. They injudiciously and unethically (given the court’s decision to acquit) made it very clear that they still considered Colin Stagg to be guilty. Sir Paul Condon, the Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, publicly announced, ‘We are not looking for anyone else.’ This was a straightforward contradiction of the acquittal. It also showed a determination to stick with their prime suspect, even though no genuine evidence against him had ever emerged – even during Edzell. They wanted to create the impression that they had got it right; they had identified the killer; that through some tiresome technicality of the British legal system the killer had got off. The press (notably the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday) went along with this, partly because of some off-the-record briefings by the police. Rachel Nickell’s parents and her boyfriend were also persuaded that Stagg was guilty in spite of the acquittal.