Rachel Nickell murder: Errors enabled killer to take more lives

Published on Thursday 18 December 2008 21:10

A CATALOGUE of devastating police mistakes emerged yesterday as the killer of Rachel Nickell was brought to justice after 16 years of agony for her family and the man wrongly accused of the crime.

Police apologised for their mistakes in not catching sooner Robert Napper, 42, who admitted the frenzied knife attack on Miss Nickell, 23, in front of her young son.

They said sorry to relatives of Miss Nickell and Samantha and Jazmine Bissett, who were also killed by Napper, for missed opportunities to arrest him which might have saved their lives.

Police publicly apologised for the first time to Colin Stagg, 45, who spent 13 months in custody before being freed by a judge.

Napper, a deluded killer and rapist, could have been caught as far back as 1989 when his mother said he had confessed to a sex attack. But police could not trace the crime and did not interview him or collect his DNA. He went on to commit at least four more sex attacks before launching a brutal assault on Miss Nickell in which she was stabbed 49 times on Wimbledon Common in July 1992.

Her son Alex, two, was dragged aside as Napper forced the former model to her knees and subjected her to a ferocious attack. Napper walked away leaving Mr Stagg, a local loner, to become the chief suspect and was charged with murder after a flawed "honey-trap" laid by police. Napper's DNA was again not taken when he was questioned about the original rapes a few months later.

In November 1993, Napper savagely killed Miss Bissett, 27, and her daughter, Jazmine, four, after climbing into their basement flat near his home in Plumstead, London.

He was arrested in May 1994 and sent to Broadmoor for their manslaughters a year later.

Meanwhile, Mr Stagg faced a murder trial, but the case was thrown out in September 1994 when police were criticised. It was not until 2004 that new DNA techniques were able to match a speck of DNA found on Miss Nickell's body to Napper.

Napper yesterday pled guilty at the Old Bailey to Miss Nickell's manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and was ordered to be detained in Broadmoor indefinitely.

Victor Temple, QC, prosecuting, said that when Miss Nickell's body was found, Alex was holding on to her arm, crying and saying "get up mummy".

Professor Donald Grubin, a psychiatrist, said Napper had a "toxic" combination of paranoid schizophrenia and Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism.

Another doctor, Natalie Pyszora, said there was a danger he would commit more sex attacks and it was unlikely he would ever be released. Miss Nickell's partner, Andre Hanscombe, sat in court in front of her parents, Andrew, 68, and Monica, 64.

Mr Nickell told the judge in a statement: "We hope the man who committed the crime will spend the rest of his life in prison. That is the sentence he has given us."

David Fisher, QC, defending, said Napper wished to apologise to them for "the dreadful thing that he did". He said the killer had also asked him to make an apology to Colin Stagg.

The judge, Mr Justice Griffith Williams, told him: "You are on any view a very dangerous man. You still present a very high risk of sexual homicide."

Outside court, Assistant Metropolitan Commissioner John Yates and a Crown Prosecution lawyer apologised to Mr Stagg. He said: "In August 1993, he was wrongly accused of Miss Nickell's murder. It is clear he is completely innocent of any involvement in this case and I today apologise to him for the mistakes that were made.

"We also recognise the huge and lasting impact this had on his life and, on behalf of the Metropolitan Police, I have sent him a full written apology."

He said he was not able to put the record straight earlier for legal reasons. He said: "There are other cases where more could and should have been done. Had more been done, we would have been in a position to have prevented this and other very serious attacks by Napper. I particularly here refer to the dreadful murders of Samantha and Jazmine Bissett in November 1993."

Stagg was awarded a record 706,000 compensation from the Home Office this year.

Miss Bissett's stepfather, Jack Morrison, a former councillor who lives in Inverbervie, Aberdeenshire, said: "The police should have investigated Napper at the time. Samantha and Jazmine could be alive today if police had not been so blindly focused on Colin Stagg."

He added Samantha's mother Maggie, 53, of Crawton, near Aberdeen, had died before she could see Napper jailed. "She died of a broken heart and believed until the day she died that Napper had killed Rachel too," he said.

TIMELINE

1989, Aug: Napper's first rape.

Nov: Napper's mother contacts police. No action taken.

1992, March: Two attempted rapes, one rape.

July: Rachel Nickell killed.

Aug: E-fit released. Man identifies Napper. He fails to go to police station to give DNA.

Sept: Colleague identifies him. Again he fails to show for DNA.

Colin Stagg arrested.

Oct: Napper eliminated from rape inquiries as senior officer says he is wrong height.

1993, Aug: Stagg charged with Ms Nickell's murder.

Nov: Samantha and Jasmine Bissett murdered.

1994, May: Napper's prints identified at Bissett murders.

Sept: Stagg tried for murder but case collapses.

Nov: Napper questioned over Ms Nickell. No evidence.

1995, Oct: Napper pleads guilty to Bissett murders.

Dec: Napper questioned over Nickell murder.

2004: Napper identified as possible Nickell suspect.

2007, Jan: Stagg gets 700,000 payout.

2008, 18 Dec: Napper admits Ms Nickell's manslaughter.

Napper thought to be behind 106 attacks

EMILY PYKETT

POLICE now believe Robert Napper also carried out up to 106 sex attacks between 1989 and 1994 in Mottingham and Plumstead, which became known as the Green Chain rapes.

Napper, who was obsessed with knives and death, has previously admitted sexually assaulting three young women in the months before Rachel Nickell was killed.

One was similar to her murder – in May 1992, Napper had tied a ligature around the head of a young woman as she pushed her toddler daughter in a buggy along King John's Walk, near Mottingham.

He repeatedly beat the 22-year-old around the head and body, stripped and raped her. She begged him to stop until eventually he jumped up, dressed and ran off.

On 10 March, 1992, he tried to rape a 17-year-old girl walking to a friend's home on the Caldwell Estate in south-east London. Eight days later he sexually assaulted another teenage girl at knifepoint in a field in Mottingham.

On 15 July, 1992, Rachel Nickell had been walking on Wimbledon Common in front of her two-year-old son, Alex,

who was found by a passer-by clinging to her blood-soaked body.

In 1993, Dundee-born Samantha Bisset and daughter Jazmine-Jemima, nicknamed JJ, died in their Plumstead home on 3 November, 1993.

Napper had spied on Miss Bisset with her boyfriend before sneaking into her basement flat and stabbing the 27-year-old to death in the hallway. One knife wound severed her spinal cord.

He then mutilated her body. Napper also suffocated and sexually assaulted Jazmine.

Conrad Ellam, Samantha's partner, discovered his girlfriend's body the next morning when he let himself into the flat.

Mr Ellam, said yesterday: "I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with Samantha. I was very close to Jazmine as if she were my own daughter. I still think about what Jazmine would be doing now."

He added: "I can't begin to imagine what they went through, especially Jazmine."

He said he believed that the killings led to the death of Samantha's mother, Margaret, 53, of Crawton, Aberdeen, who died on the eve of Napper's trial at the Old Bailey.

Mr Ellam said: "She died of a broken heart and believed until the day she died that Napper had killed Rachel too. Maggie was only 53 and full of life but after their murders she changed overnight and went downhill."

• More than 6,000 suspects in inquiry marred by 'deception'