Real Crime: Rachel Nickell, Monday 9pm, ITV1

Posted by Tom Murphy

As recalled by last night's troubling documentary, the murder in 1992 of Rachel Nickell shocked the nation. The details of the case were as memorable as they were horrifying: Rachel was stabbed in broad daylight on Wimbledon Common, in front of her two-year-old son Alex – the only witness to what happened. Clips of home movies looped endlessly on the news showed a beautiful and happy young woman, whose life had been ended in the most brutal way imaginable.

Indeed, it's an indication of how the investigation was played out in the media that while everyone knows the names of Rachel Nickell and Colin Stagg, the local oddball who became the target of detectives' obsessive suspicions, very few people watching this probably knew the name of Robert Napper – the man who later pleaded guilty to killing Rachel and is currently being detained indefinitely in Broadmoor.

Sadly, it's likely that even fewer people were familiar with the names of Samantha Bissett and her four-year-old daughter Jazmine, who were savagely murdered by Napper while police were still prosecuting Stagg. However, the programme shockingly revealed that while Napper had earlier been suspected of a similar series of attacks on young mothers, the police had let him fall through the cracks of their investigation after he'd refused to give a DNA sample – a sample that would have incriminated him comprehensively.

Even after the courts threw out the non-existent case against Stagg in 1994, investigating officers refused to look beyond their original suspect and rejected a link with the other assaults on young mothers.  It wasn't until 2004 that forensic advances enabled officers to analyse fully DNA samples found at the scene of the Wimbledon Common murder. The samples led straight to Napper, who subsequently pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

The final words in the programme went to Rachel's partner Andre Hanscombe, speaking publicly for the first time since Napper was sentenced. Seventeen years after an event of almost unimaginable horror, he spoke of his pride in the way he's helped his son to rebuild his life in France and escape the shadow that threatened to blight their lives permanently.

However, with none of the original officers choosing to participate in the documentary, the question of how the investigation was so badly handled – and how Napper remained at liberty to carry out his appalling crimes – isn't given a satisfactory answer. The programme's subtitle – 'Case Closed' – doesn't tell the whole story.

Picture: PA

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Comments

[Steve Jones]

"while police were still prosecuting Stagg"

I think "persecuting" is a more appropriate verb in the circumstances.

[tee]

HAVING WATCHED THE EPISODE I WAS APPALLED AT HOW BADLY THE POLICE WANTED TO GET COLIN STAGG AND IGNORED ROBERT NAPPER. AT THE TIME OF SAMANTHA AND HER DAUGHTERS MURDER, I LIVED IN THE AREA NOT FAR FROM THEM AND KNEW THAT THE LITTLE GIRL WAS DUE TO START THE LOCAL SCHOOL. IT WAS A VERY HORRIBLE TIME FOR EVERYONE AND TO THINK IT COULD HAVE BEEN SO EASILY AVOIDED MAKES ME SO ANNOYED. DO THESE POLICEMEN STILL HAVE THEIR JOBS COS IF SO THEY DO NOT DESERVE THEM.