True Criminals

The Murder of Rachel Nickell: Bill Clegg KC on the Colin Stagg Honey Trap

True Criminals

Show Notes

In July 1992, Rachel Nickell was murdered in broad daylight on Wimbledon Common, with her two year old son nearby. The killing shocked Britain and triggered one of the most controversial murder investigations in modern British history.

Helen Fospero and Martin Brunt are joined by Bill Clegg KC, the barrister who defended Colin Stagg, the innocent man police accused of Rachel's murder.

With no forensic evidence or confession linking Stagg to the crime, investigators launched an extraordinary undercover "honey trap", using a female police officer to try to persuade him to confess. The confession never came.

Bill reveals what went wrong inside the investigation, how he dismantled the prosecution at the Old Bailey, and what happened when the case against Stagg spectacularly collapsed.

Meanwhile, Rachel Nickell's real killer was still free.

Bill Clegg KC's book, Under the Wig: A Lawyer's Stories of Murder, Guilt and Innocence:https://www.quercusbooks.co.uk/titles/william-clegg/under-the-wig/9781529401240/

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Follow Martin on Twitter at ⁠⁠@skymartinbrunt⁠⁠. Discover more about his career and the cases he’s covered by reading his book, No One Got Cracked Over the Head for No Reason: Dispatches from a Crime Reporter, available here: ⁠⁠https://amzn.eu/d/g1WisSY⁠⁠.

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