Authors: Paul Britton
It was flagged by the same degree of planning, intelligence and arrogant tone. The spelling and grammatical mistakes in the letter were similar, as was the careful way the money had to be packaged. Clearly, the abduction had been set up over time and scrupulously planned with a richness of behavioural colour. The suggestion that a male employee had been his intended victim was an attempt at camouflage, but not good enough. It was inconsistent with the other detailed aspects of the planning. In both cases, Julie and Stephanie had been forced to send messages to confirm the kidnapping.
‘You’re sure it’s the same man?’ asked Jenkins.
‘Virtually certain. I’d say better than ninety-five per cent.’
‘Is he serious?’
‘Very serious.’
‘Will he kill Stephanie?’
‘If he thinks it’s necessary. He killed Julie Dart to make just that point, and he’s already taken a greater risk this time. He let himself be seen at Shipways when he made the appointment.’
‘Could Stephanie be dead already?’
‘No, he’ll try to keep her alive for proof of life; to record another message.’
Thomas asked, ‘Does that mean he plans to kill her in the end?’
‘That depends on what you do and it depends on Stephanie. He knows the police will get involved and he knows that Stephanie will be able to identify him.’
I explained that a great deal hinged on how she reacted to her abductor. Some people become very compliant when shocked and if Stephanie had been passive and respectful it could appeal to him and make it less likely that he harmed her.
These were only preliminary comments and I needed to learn far more about Stephanie to better predict her behaviour and establish if there was any particular reason why she had been chosen.
Although there was a hunger to lay hands on the kidnapper, everything gave way to two main priorities -keeping Stephanie Slater alive and getting her back safely.
When I called Marilyn I couldn’t tell her what had happened because of the news blackout.
‘What about your food?’ she asked.
‘We’ll manage,’ I said, eyeing an unappetizing plate of sandwiches.
‘When will I see you?’
‘I’ll call you.’
Over the next few days I got to know the incident room well, staying until late at night. My main contact was Superintendent Tom Farr, who kept me briefed about the various leads being followed.
On Sunday afternoon, Stephanie’s father, Warren, received a telephone call at home. In a recorded message his daughter said she was unharmed and she gave the score of a soccer match played the previous day. Then she said, ‘I want you to know I love you. I’m not to say too much, and, whatever the outcome, I’ll always love you. Look after the cat for me.’
Only four days remained before the ransom had to be paid and talk now turned to what the police should do. Shipways’ parent company Royal Life Estates had happily provided the money but questions still had to be answered. With a young woman’s life at stake, there was no talk of heroics or jeopardizing her safety. The police would follow Kevin Watts on the ransom trail, make the drop, and then follow the extortionist back to his hideout and to Stephanie.
There was discussion about putting tracing devices with the money but the police had no way of knowing if the kidnapper was bluffing about his technical knowledge or use of gadgetry to scan for such devices. It wasn’t worth the risk. Other ideas included replacing Kevin Watts with an undercover officer, or hiding detectives in his car. One by one these were ruled out.
From what I knew of this man’s planning and expertise, it was possible that he’d construct a bargaining lever in case of capture such as claiming that Stephanie had only a limited air supply or no warm clothing. Weighed against this was my belief that he was so cocky and self-assured he wouldn’t even consider the possibility of being caught.
It was agreed that Kevin Watts would make the drop, travelling alone. He’d be wired with a radio transmitter and more than fifty RCS officers would shadow his every move from the air and the ground.
Thomas asked me what the courier could expect. There were several possible scenarios, but the most likely was’ that the extortionist would give him a complex set of instructions taking him through hoops and roundabouts, from phone box to phone box, stretching police manpower to the limit.
One of two things would then happen - either the extortionist would intervene very quickly in the process, hoping to catch the police off guard, or he would take them on the long run, dragging them backwards and forwards over a considerable distance. Traffic around Birmingham and the West Midlands was normally quite heavy and travelling times unpredictable, so I reasoned that he’d take the second option - the long run.
Looking at a map of his past movements, I thought the drop would be in the northern part of the triangle, a less populated area. Once he felt that the police had been lulled into a pattern of going from one phone box to another, he would intervene suddenly in between two sets of instructions. He’d create a diversion, block a road or force Kevin’s car to pull over.
One of the last things I said was, ‘Remember the bridges and disused railway tracks.’
At 3.35 p.m. on Wednesday 29 January, Kevin Watts picked up the telephone at Shipways Estate Agents. With the money in a holdall in the boot of his car he drove north along the M6, by-passing Manchester and then taking the A57 to Glossop railway station fifteen miles east of Manchester. At 7.00 p.m. a telephone call directed him to a nearby kiosk where an envelope had been taped under the shelf.
I was at home but my thoughts were with Kevin on his lonely drive. He could talk to the police in Birmingham on a two-way radio, relaying the instructions which were then passed on to the various cars and motorcyclists discreetly following him.
But there was a problem. Fog had rolled in and was growing thicker by the minute. Travelling the unfamiliar back-roads, Kevin had to cut his speed to a crawl. With difficulty, he found the various telephone boxes, each time collecting new instructions that finally led him to a remote Pennine track near Oxspring in South Yorkshire.
The radio link was breaking up due to the fog and Kevin recited the various messages, hoping the police could hear him. Visibility was down to five yards when, following instructions, he stopped at a red and white traffic cone and transferred the money into a waiting holdall. A message inside gave directions to take it to another telephone box, but this was merely a ploy.
Within a hundred yards, Kevin spied another traffic cone in the centre of the track and a large cardboard sign.
STOP
60 secs allowed.
On wall by (4) sign > wood tray > do not move tray
sensor
inside > put money & bag on tray > if buzzer does
not sound
leave money there > remove cone in front of car and
go >
money will not be collected until you have left.
Leaving the money on a wooden tray resting on the parapet of a bridge, Kevin drove away still desperately trying to make radio contact with the police. The trailing police cars had no way of knowing about the drop. By the time they arrived on the bridge all that was left was the traffic cone, a spray-painted number ‘4’ and a thin layer of sand on the parapet where the tray had rested.
The kidnapper, hiding thirty feet below on a disused railway line, had simply pulled on a rope attached to the tray and the money came tumbling down. Then he escaped along the track on a motorcycle. The tortuous 110-mile, four-hour surveillance operation had been a disaster. The fog had fouled up everything.
What would happen to Stephanie Slater?
Four hours later, a thirty-two-year-old spray painter who lived with his wife and two children in Bowstoke Road, Great Barr, heard a car pull up outside his house and the engine revving. Looking out of the bedroom window he saw a vermilion red Mini Metro with a couple inside. A woman got out and stumbled up the road, looking drunk and disorientated.
A few minutes later Warren Slater opened the front door and Stephanie stumbled into his arms.
I was telephoned that morning and told of the ransom drop. The initial panic and sense of shock of having lost the blackmailer had dissipated because Stephanie was home safe and well. The police were thrilled and I shared their sense of relief. Yet when I heard how the kidnapper had collected the ransom, I cursed myself and promised that if it ever happened again I would insist on being in the control room.
The fog couldn’t have been predicted but I knew about the bridges and disused railway lines playing an important part in this man’s planning. If I had been there I would have suggested to the police that they compare each new set of instructions with maps that showed nearby railway bridges and disused railway lines. Surveillance teams could have staked them out and, perhaps, picked up the kidnapper despite the fog.
The important thing now was to debrief Stephanie to discover every detail of her time in captivity. Psychologists often use a process known as ‘cognitive interviewing’ which is designed to slowly take the subject back and put them at a scene, asking them to describe the events in different sequences, exploring the minutiae of sights, sounds, smells and textures.
Although I wasn’t asked to interview Stephanie, a few months earlier, I’d used the process with a twelve-year-old girl who had been abducted and brutally raped as she walked home from school.
The local CID had asked for a psychological profile of her attacker, but when I read Chloe’s original statement there wasn’t enough information to draw any firm conclusions. I needed to know everything possible about her assailant, his vehicle, the journey, what was said and what was done.
But how could we access this? Chloe was obviously traumatized and we had to balance her interests with those of the inquiry. This pervert could attack another girl and next time might kill her.
Her mother and father disagreed on what should be done. Seeing her pain, one of them wanted Chloe to be left alone, while the other could see great strength in her and was determined to catch the man responsible. Finally, it was agreed to go ahead and I chose to interview her at her home to give her at least some feeling of security.
The technique I used involved cognitive interviewing combined with deep relaxation and as Chloe lay on the settee with her eyes closed and her hands in her lap, I explained that I was going to take her back to what had happened; that I knew it hurt very, very much but that I’d try not to hurt her any more.
‘If I ask you to tell me something that makes you feel upset or frightened, you should lift the fingers on your left hand, like this, and I’ll stop and give you some time.’ I showed her. ‘If I go too quickly or make you feel confused, you should lift the fingers on your right hand and I’ll go back over things more slowly.’
We practised relaxation and visualization for a while, until she grew comfortable with the knowledge that she had control of the interview. It wasn’t a question of me saying, ‘Now, be a brave little girl and tell me what the bad man did to you.’ We tackled it together, overcoming some of the hurt, skirting the obstacles and piecing together memories that she had tried to block out.
We began the journey together. The first trawl was hers, without interruption. Inexperienced interviewers are tempted to enter into the narrative flow too soon with questions or requests for more detail. By letting her establish the full area over which the story ranged we found new information which direct questioning had missed. Only when she froze with stress did I use the gentle prompt, ‘It’s all right to be frightened, anyone would be. Just rest for a moment before you carry on.’
Later, on other more detailed trawls, the horror was replayed in front of me. She had been blindfolded, but ineffectively and was able to see beneath it.
‘You said that he hurt you when the car had stopped and he came round to the boot. Can you try to say how he hurt you?’
‘He held my tummy with one hand and rubbed and squeezed my bottom and, and … then … he …’, she stopped, all four fingers on her left hand raised. Her small body stiffened and I could see her heart was racing.
‘Chloe, you’re safe at home now, Mummy and Daddy are in the kitchen, they won’t let anyone else hurt you. Just rest with your eyes closed for a moment. When you feel better raise your fingers again, and, if it’s all right, we’ll carry on. But I’m not going to ask you again today to remember what the man did to you, I want you to look out from under the blindfold and tell me about his hands. Were they smooth and soft, were they scratchy and rough or were they in-between?’
She settled, moments passed. I wasn’t sure if she had blocked it all out and cut herself off from me. Then, so very quietly, ‘They were soft, with ginger hair on the back.’
‘Please look carefully, does he have any rings on his fingers?’ I can only use the tone of my voice to comfort her, and make sure that I keep the full length of the room between us to reduce any fear that being physically close to another man, so soon, might elicit. Yet I must not offer any cue which might guide her answer. Unless I can hold her there between the sensory re-examination of her ordeal and the cocoon of safety at home, the opportunity will be lost and her repeated discomfort without purpose. Again a long wait.
‘Yes, one like Daddy’s.’
Slowly the sequence became clearer and much more detailed. Eventually she was able to hear tyres running over gravel. Through a gap in the boot she could see a row of street lights and place these in relation to periods stopped at traffic lights and a remote lane close to motorway traffic. She was able to give a description of the rear-light assembly on the car which allowed the make of vehicle to be narrowed down significantly. Finally her description of her attacker developed to include which hand he favoured, his eyes, lower face, vocabulary and a more accurate placing of his accent.
The same level of detail had to be gleaned from Stephanie Slater. If she didn’t see his face did she see his hands? How long did the journey take, were the roads windy or straight? Something as outwardly insignificant as the hour pips on a radio or the inflection of a spoken word, could prove vital.