Authors: Paul Britton
In this case, the benefits of a good reconstruction couldn’t be ignored, particularly in raising public and media awareness in southeast London. This is where the killer would live - somewhere local to the crime. Putting pressure on the producers, Mickey Banks showed them my psychological profile which finally sparked their interest. They decided to do a full reconstruction but only if I agreed to appear on the programme.
‘I’m not comfortable with that sort of thing,’ I said.
Banks replied, ‘If you say no, they won’t go ahead.’
‘I think they have this notion of me appealing directly to the murderer, but I can’t see it producing anything. We’ve got no way of knowing whether he’ll even be watching. To be honest, I think the probability of it leading to detection is low.’
Banks asked, ‘How low?’
‘Well, you’re looking at not more than ten, maybe fifteen per cent.’
‘Well, that’s fifteen per cent better than we have at the moment. As far as I’m concerned, I’ll do anything to catch this bastard. Obviously, I can’t make you do it, but I’m asking you, very seriously, to say yes.’
How could I say no?
In the past I had helped draft scripts for Crimewatch, including one for the Julie Dart inquiry team, but had deliberately managed to avoid appearing. I have nothing against the programme - it does a very worthy job and the reconstructions don’t glamorize crime or offer criminals a ‘How To’ guide - I simply don’t feel comfortable as a talking head.
The producers wanted me to give a breakdown of my psychological profile on air, but I successfully argued that Mickey Banks, as the SIO, should be the person who released the information. Certain details weren’t to be mentioned, particularly anything that suggested that Samantha may have been working or living on the fringes of prostitution. This might reduce the public’s sympathy and compassion for her and deter people from calling the incident room or studio phones. At the same time, we had to be careful not to misdirect the public and miss important elements that could help us catch the killer.
I was also aware of provoking him into further offences by portraying him as some kind of monster. It was important not to show rage, disgust or to make any judgemental remarks. Not only could this feed his perception that the world didn’t appreciate him but it could also prevent people calling with vital information. Those close to the killer, who perhaps worked with him or shared a house, weren’t going to regard him as a monster. Portray him as one and they’d convince themselves the police must be looking for someone else.
On Thursday 8 February, 1994, the programme went out showing Samantha and Jazmine’s last movements using look-alike actresses. There was also a home-video of mother and daughter at the seaside.
A local cab driver who had dropped them home from nursery on the week of the murders told how Samantha expressed concern when she saw a yellow van parked outside the flats in Heathfield Terrace. Other witnesses also remembered the van and described two men with a dog. Police believe they were linked to Samantha, although she hadn’t mentioned them to anyone.
Two people seen on the night of the murder still had to be ruled out. One was a man seen crossing the road and heading towards Samantha’s flat at about 10.15 p.m. and the other, whose presence had only recently come to light, had been seen at about 7.30 p.m. hanging around the area. He had also been there the previous Wednesday night.
Mickey Banks gave descriptions of the men and asked, ‘Did you know Samantha or did you respond to one of her ads? Do you know who the men in the van are? Do you recognize the artist’s impression of the boyfriend from the summer? Did you see either of the two men seen on the night of the murder?’
For the first time he revealed publicly that Jazmine had been sexually assaulted. ‘I am appealing to people who feel they might know the person responsible to help us with this murder inquiry. Once they realize what has happened to this poor young child, a defenceless young child, four years of age, then I am hoping they will contact us.’
Nick Ross, the presenter, then gave details of the psychological profile and asked me how well I knew the man responsible.
I told him, ‘I think we know quite well what was going through his mind at the time of the offences. But I would like him to tell me how he got started on the pathway that led him eventually to kill Samantha. I would also like him to tell me why it was necessary to harm the child as well.’ Crimewatch UK is structured in two parts with the reconstructions earlier in the evening and a follow-up several hours later to update viewers on the calls received. During the break I wrote a few sentences on a scrap of paper aimed directly at the killer. The cameras rolled and Mickey Banks made a second appeal for people to come forward and directed the camera to me.
‘I don’t know his name. I don’t know his address. But I do understand some aspects of the way that he feels. I understand the contentment and excitement that he got from the way he left both Samantha and Jazmine. Sometimes he may recognize that what he has done just can’t go on and I would like him to telephone me and tell me about it.’
As I expected, he didn’t call but the appeal did bring more people forward who had answered Samantha’s lonely hearts ads. Each new lead had to be checked out and alibis verified. As had been hoped, the press began picking up on the story and Banks fed them more details of the profile.
On 23 February, he told the London Evening Standard, ‘We are looking for someone who could be anyone’s neighbour. He is probably personally quite confident and may have a job. From what we have been told, he doesn’t seem concerned with seeking attention or notoriety, but is nevertheless interested in the effect he has on other people. He has no sense of remorse for what he has done and probably has a previous history of aggression to women. If he is in a relationship it is unlikely to be successful. He will have problems relating to women with dominant personalities.’
A veteran of many murder inquiries, Banks admitted that this case had been hard to stomach. ‘What sickens me personally is that the little girl was sexually assaulted. Because of the nature of the injuries, we don’t know if Samantha was also sexually assaulted although we are still carrying out tests.’
After Crimewatch UK I didn’t hear from the inquiry team for three months during which time I happily returned to my NHS caseload. Equally, I was still occupied by the on-going search for bodies in Cromwell Street and preparations for the Nickell trial.
‘We think we’ve got him,’ said Mickey Banks and I could imagine him punching the air in triumph.
‘Are you sure?’
‘His prints are in the flat - we thought we’d eliminated them but came up with a match. Robert Clive Napper, aged twenty-eight, he works at a local plastics factory and has grown up in the area. He’s got some form.’
‘What sort of form?’ I asked.
‘That’s what I want to talk to you about. We’ve also linked him to a series of rapes and there’s some stuff I want to show you before we pull him in.’
The next evening, I found myself back in the smoky, frontier-style Thamesmead police station. The paperwork seemed to have increased and bags of files and statements were stacked beside every desk in the incident room. Apparently the photocopier had surrendered earlier in the day.
As the office door closed behind him, Banks lit up a cigarette and got straight down to business.
‘You nailed him perfectly. He matches the profile, right down to the history. We also think he’s responsible for a series of rapes. The Ecclestone rapes, you know them, don’t you?’
I didn’t answer. My attention had been left behind as I tried to comprehend what he had said.
‘The Green Chain rapes? How sure are you?’ I finally asked.
‘We’ll be bloody positive when we do the DNA tests.’
I now had a far greater need to discover everything that I could about Robert Napper. If he was the Green Chain rapist, I wanted to find out why it had taken so long to apprehend him. He’d been raping with little regard to his self-preservation more than twelve months before Samantha and Jazmine were murdered.
Napper had been identified by a number of sets of finger and palm prints originally thought to belong to Samantha that had been found at the murder scene. There had been confusion over the classification because the first set of fingerprints taken from Samantha’s body had been of poor quality and, unusually, her prints were quite similar in their characteristics to Napper.
This meant that prints found on the bedroom doorframe, the handrail of the balcony and on the cornerpost of Jazmine’s bed were initially thought to belong to Samantha. Only later when a further set of elimination prints were taken from the victim, was it confirmed that these marks belonged instead to Robert Napper.
‘He hasn’t surfaced as a friend or an acquaintance of Sam,’ said Banks. ‘And the prints on the balcony indicate someone climbing into the flat.’
Even as he talked I began recalling the similarities between the profile I had drawn up for Operation Ecclestone and the one I had done for the Plumstead murders. Details fell into place. Samantha’s flat was almost on the southern edge of Winns Common and to the north, across the parkland, was the house where the first rape had taken place. Both Samantha and Jenny were known to sunbathe in their back gardens and Samantha walked about semi-dressed without drawing her blinds. Both left doors unlocked and lived in places where someone could observe them without attracting undue attention.
The detectives had done their homework on Napper. Banks had on his desk every known fact and piece of intelligence about the suspect. This is what he wanted me to see. Being able to place Napper at the flat in Heathfield Terrace didn’t prove that he’d killed Samantha and Jazmine. He might claim to be a friend and say that he’d dropped by to visit in the days before the murder.
Napper lived in a rented room at a Victorian house in Plumstead High Street and worked at Glyndon Plastics in Thamesmead. He had grown up in the area and attended Abbey Wood Comprehensive School, before leaving with qualifications in seven subjects and doing a City and Guilds diploma catering course.
Since then, he’d been rarely out of work, albeit of a fairly menial nature, and at the time of the earlier rapes had been a warehouseman in the publications and forms store for the Ministry of Defence. He kept good time and did the job reasonably well according to workmates but kept himself to himself.
He first came to the notice of the police in August 1986 for carrying a loaded gun in a public place. He was given a conditional discharge and asked to pay Ł10 costs.
The next date struck me as familiar - 29 October, 1992 - the same day that my psychological profile had been typed up for the Ecclestone rape inquiry. Napper had been arrested in Plumstead after going to a printer and asking for fifty sheets of Metropolitan Police (Greenwich) notepaper to be copied and printed. The printer called the police who were waiting when Napper arrived to pick up his order. A search of his address uncovered a .22 pistol, 244 rounds of ammunition, two knives, a crossbow and six crossbow bolts.
Napper pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm and ammunition without a certificate and was given two eight-week custodial sentences to run concurrently. The court file contained several references to his disturbed mental state and a psychiatric report requested before sentencing concluded that Napper was ‘without doubt both an immediate threat to himself and the public’. This was twelve months before the murders of Samantha and Jazmine Bissett.
Banks said, ‘We’ve still got photocopies from that inquiry - they pulled some really interesting stuff out of his room - diaries, letters, maps.’
I looked directly at him, trying to read his thoughts. Is this how Napper had been linked to the rapes? I wondered.
Banks said, ‘I’d like you to look at them, Paul, to see if they tell you anything more about our suspect. You can have copies to take home but I need some idea now.’
The photocopies consisted of pocket diaries, hand-drawn maps, notes written on old envelopes and newspaper borders and, most importantly, a London A to Z street guide. As I began studying Napper’s papers, much of his writing seemed obscure but there were clear signs that dark thoughts dominated his thinking.
Curious words and phrases appeared on his hand-drawn maps, including a reference to ‘cling film on the legs’, which suggested a method of restraining someone. He also named particular streets and gave map references which correlated to the A to Z. Within his pocket diaries, he mentioned different women but there was no suggestion that any of them were long-term girlfriends or friends. One reference had an address and afterwards the words, ‘sodden filthy bitch’.
I could also see signs of paranoid thinking. Interspersed between day-to-day notes about dental appointments and tax returns, Napper referred to arguments he had with people and his fears that his food was being doctored. He believed that people talked behind his back and that things never went his way.
However, by far the most intriguing and disturbing documents were the street maps. Particular pages of the London A to Z had been marked up with thick black dots indicating certain locations and others flagged by dashes that looked like compass points. Most of the marks were concentrated in the Plumstead, Woolwich, Bexley Heath, Eltham and Ecclestone areas of southeast London.
‘This is what links him to the rapes,’ I said, looking at Banks for confirmation.
‘Some of the markings correspond but not all of them,’ he said. ‘There seem to be far more dots than there were rapes.’
He explained that the A to Z had contained a membership card for a fitness centre in Eltham. It belonged to a young attractive blonde who lived in Grange Hill Road, Eltham, at the time. Napper had somehow got hold of her card and had placed it in the A to Z at the appropriate page with Grange Hill Road circled.
‘We’ve talked to her and she’s never heard of Napper,’ said Banks.
‘Then she’s a very lucky lady.’
Among Napper’s papers were personal hand-drawn maps that were far more intimate creations, zeroing in on particular parks or streets and including tiny details such as the locations of storm water grates, foxholes, drainage channels, sandpits and old Second World War bomb shelters. Certain pathways and walking trails were shown in relation to woodland areas and access gates.