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Neil Woods spent fourteen years as an undercover police officer, helping dismantle some of Britain’s most notorious drug gangs.
Yet after his biggest victory he came to the conclusion: was it worth it?
He started to feel that the problem was helped by repeated failures of governments to tackle the cause of Britain and America’s drugs epidemic. In fact by handing control of drugs supply to criminals governments were the cause.
‘A doctor controlling it (drugs supply) with a prescription pad has no incentive to find new customers and so the market doesn't develop. So what happened is it becomes a pyramid scheme. If you're organised crime, you want to find new customers, you find someone who's addicted and you say, ‘Look, if you find five more customers and you sell to them, they'll pay for your habit’ and the pyramid scheme explodes.’
Neil’s views are controversial views. But they are compelling. In this interview Neil describes:
* How the world used to experience two competing drug policies: The American System and The British System - with the American System winning.
* How following criminalisation in the 1960s, addicts fell into the hands of organised crime.
* How some schemes decriminalising drugs have worked in recent years.
To find out more about Neil and to get copies of his books ‘Good Cop, Bad War’ and ‘Drug Wars’ click here: https://www.neilwoods.net/
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On November 7th 1974, a children’s nanny Sandra Rivett was murdered at the home of the family in which she was in service.
It was the Lucan family.
Lord Lucan - her suspected killer - may have been targeting his estranged wife.
But a man who had squandered his family fortune at Belgravia’s gaming tables proved to be as inept at murder as he was at gambling.
And he killed poor Sandra.
This is the perceived wisdom - and the finding of an inquest.
But with so little known for sure, conjecture fills the gaps facts leave behind.
What really happened on November 7th 1974?
This is a compendium episode - a trilogy re-released to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Sandra’s murder.
In the first two episodes, I’ve interviewed the brilliant author Laura Thompson - who has written a wonderful book A Different Class of Murder about the run up and aftermath of the killing.
And in episode three, I speak with screenwriter George Kay about the nanny who could have been on-rota that night, managed to swap shifts - and cheated death.
Yet Christabel Boyce met a dreadful end a decade later - leading some to believe there was a curse of the Lucan nannies. George has a personal connection with this second tragedy.
You can find out more about Laura, her writing and her books here:
http://www.laurathompson.co.uk/
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Neil Woods spent years as an undercover police officer. He says his techniques in included ‘weaponising empathy’ - using the good nature of society’s most vulnerable.
And as Britain was being hit by a wave of cheap drugs and a rise in heroin and crack cocaine addicts, Neil had the most staggering results.
In just one operation against Britain’s most notorious gang - The Burger Bar Boys - his work led to 96 arrests.
But what impact did living a double-life have on this family man? What was it like having knives held at his throat?
And why does he now believe undercover policing should only be used in the rarest and most extreme cases?
Neil Woods has written two thought-provoking books. Links to them and him are here:
https://www.neilwoods.net/
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In Cold Blood started as a study in how a heartbreaking killing impacted a Mid-West community. But Truman Capote got sucked into the story.
At first, the folk of Holcomb, Kansas, distrusted the flamboyant writer.
But slowly, he won the small city round.
And when the killers were caught, he built an unbelievable and controversial bond with them.
In this episode, Capote’s friend and biographer, Gerald Clarke, describes the awful murders of the Clutter family in 1959, how Capote spent six years writing his masterpiece and its legacy on true crime and non-fiction literature.
You can get a copy of In Cold Blood here.
You can get a copy of Gerald Clarke’s Capote here.
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Maxim Jakobowski has sold millions of books. But you may not have heard of him.
After releasing a book aged 16, he moved into publishing and worked with Patricia Highsmith (‘an incredible talent… a very difficult lady…’) he then turned to crime writing.
When ‘50 Shades of Grey’ was released, he was drafted into writing a series of erotica - which sold millions of books.
And how did he sell the rights of a novel to Nicole Kidman… for a fortune?
A quick warning… if True Crime is your thing, this episode may not be for you. But fiction fans may find it fascinating.
But Maxim speaks in detail and depth about how to publish crime, the state of the book industry and fiction trends which have come and gone.
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Billie-Jo Jenkins was a talented 13-year-old schoolgirl who had found what appeared to be the perfect foster family: four daughters, a mum who was a social worker and a dad who was a deputy headteacher.
Sion Jenkins was an upstanding member of an affluent town’s community. But he had secrets. Like the lies about his academic qualifications and the affair with a teenage girl who looked a lot like Billie-Jo.
When Billie-Jo was found dead in her garden in 1997, it was Sion who called 999. Detectives first arrested a mysterious figure, known as Mr B.
But then they turned their attention to Billie-Jo’s own foster father.
He had just a three-minute window to have killed the 13-year-old. Could he have done it? And why?
What followed was a roller-coaster of a police inquiry, prosecution and series of trials.
For her series ‘Who Killed Billie-Jo’ podcaster Naomi Channell has gone back to the schoolgirl’s friends, family and the inquiry team to find out more about what happened.
You can listen to her series here:
To learn more about Naomi and her podcast, click here:
https://linktr.ee/realtruecrimepodcast
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Jackie Kabler met one of Britain’s most notorious killers for her job as a breakfast TV correspondent. Years later, she used her experience covering crime for her fictional thrillers.
Her psychological drama The Perfect Couple has sold over 400,000 copies and she has sold nearly a million books in total.
Her latest story, The Life Sentence, is based on a case of wrongful prosecution which she heard about on a true crime podcast.
You can find out more about Jackie here: www.jackiekabler.com
@officialjackiekabler and @jackiekabler
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By the late 1980s, Jackie Malton seemed to have it all. She was one of only three female detective chief inspectors in the Metropolitan Police. She had worked on major inquiries and was a noted leader.
But she had also stood up against the force’s grey male authority, against corruption, misogyny and freemasonry. Bruising encounters which left her unliked by some, stymied in her career and battling with alcohol.
Then she received the phone call which changed her life.
After retiring, Jackie has continued to work with television firms. She advises TV drama producers and is an expert used for crime analysis on shows and podcasts.
She also works in prison to rehabilitate killers. In this episode she speaks about her work helping to reform murderers: how its done and the successes and failures she has encountered.
Jackie’s book is The Real Prime Suspect. You can grab a copy here.
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Jackie Malton was a policing pioneer, joining a British provincial force in 1970, then transferring to the Metropolitan Police where she served in the Fraud Squad, Flying Squad and murder squads. She was often the only woman serving in each team.
In this episode, she describes how she overcame homophobia and misogyny, clashed with corrupt officers and worked on one of London’s most controversial inquiries: The New Cross Fire investigation.
Jackie’s book is The Real Prime Suspect. You can grab a copy here.
Please rate and review Behind The Crimes wherever you get your podcasts.
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It was the early 1990s and Lynda La Plante was desperate. She had a few TV drama successes under her belt, but everything she was pitching was greeted with a ‘no’ from commissioners.
Then, in a pitch meeting, she dreamt up Prime Suspect when the TV boss said she wanted a ‘cop show with a female detective and a murder.'
But to create Det Ch Insp Jane Tennison, Lynda needed to research true crime. Enter Met detective Jackie Malton - and months of research.
This interview coincides with the release of Lynda’s final Jane Tennison book, Whole Life Sentence which takes readers to the detective’s life before Prime Suspect.
In this episode, Lynda talks Tennison, Jackie Malton, the importance of grounding her fiction in fact and research.
Whole Life Sentence is released on July 4th 2024. You can grab a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Whole-Life-Sentence-pulse-pounding-Detective-ebook/dp/B0CSTSGNS8
To learn more about Lynda, click here:
https://lyndalaplante.com/
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Samantha Robins was the Intelligence Manager on the Major Crime Team at Surrey Police in May 2010 when, late in the evening, the call came in: a young mother had been murdered in her home.
What followed was a multi-pronged inquiry.
Sarah Thomas was a 38-year-old mother of three who was found in her flat in a quiet English village.
Her boyfriend raised the alarm - and was arrested.
But when it became clear he was not responsible for Sarah’s death, suspicion passed to a dark character with an horrific criminal record.
As the inquiry moved through the gears and a major manhunt was begun, detectives started leaning heavily on Samantha and her team of analysts which was sifting through the influx of sightings and clues.
* Who was Sarah’s killer?
* Why had he murdered her?
* Where had he been spotted?
And when the full history of the killer’s criminal record became known, the manhunt became a race against time.
You can learn more about Sam here: https://x.com/SamRobins
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Janice Hallett has created three of the most inventive crime books of recent years. When I first started reading ‘The Appeal’ I was a bit dubious. How could a crime novel with big characters really be told through emails and messages?
Then I got into the book…
Next came The Twyford Code with a main character, a prisoner Steve Smith who can neither read nor write, who reveals his story through transcripts of audio recordings.
It is GENIUS!
And now there is the Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels, told through research papers left by a journalist investigating a cult. Another triumph.
In this episode Janice talks of how she is inspired by true crime, how she never plots her books and how her previous careers as a screenwriter and speechwriter have helped her as a fiction writer.
To find out more about Janice and her books, click here.
Her latest book, The Examiner, will be available from August 29th.
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Det Insp Paul Franklin was in charge of the inquiry to bring the murderous, cheating husband Emile Cilliers to justice.
But it wasn’t easy. There was little direct evidence that Cilliers had tampered with the parachute of his wife, Victoria.
There was no CCTV nor DNA.
And Victoria did not support the investigation into her husband.
A new docudrama about the case is being broadcast in the UK. To coincide with this, Paul has given this new interview to Behind the Crimes to discuss how he built the case, the challenges of Victoria becoming a hostile witness, how dangerous Cilliers is - and the long-term impact of the inquiry on everyone.
And it is now the subject of a brilliant three-part docudrama, made by Story Films for Channel4 in the UK:
https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-fall-skydive-murder-plot/on-demand/75275-002
Victoria has written her own account too.
If you are impacted by issues raised in this interview, please read more here: https://refuge.org.uk/i-need-help-now/coercive-control/
https://www.womensaid.org.uk/information-support/what-is-domestic-abuse/coercive-control/
https://survivingeconomicabuse.org/i-need-help/
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Emile Cilliers made global headlines in 2018 when he was convicted of the attempted murder of his wife Victoria.
He was an upstanding army sergeant, a family man, who led a debaucherous double life of sex clubs, girlfriends and payday loans.
He tried to murder Victoria by tampering with the gas meter in their home. When this failed, he sabotaged her parachute - both her main and reserve canopies.
Somehow, Victoria survived the 4,000-foot drop.
There was little direct evidence: no DNA, no CCTV. No clue that Emile was responsible.
But after taking a spine-tingling call and arresting Cilliers, detective Maddy Hennah became convinced he was the perpetrator.
What followed was a long, arduous inquiry leading to a sensational pair of trials.
It has been the subject of my own eight-part podcast series:
And it is now the subject of a brilliant three-part docudrama, made by Story Films for Channel4 in the UK:
https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-fall-skydive-murder-plot/on-demand/75275-002
Victoria has written her own account too.
If you are impacted by issues raised in this interview, please read more here: https://refuge.org.uk/i-need-help-now/coercive-control/
https://www.womensaid.org.uk/information-support/what-is-domestic-abuse/coercive-control/
https://survivingeconomicabuse.org/i-need-help/
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Laura Lippman spent more than 20 years as a journalist working in Texas and Baltimore.
She has won Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, Barry, Nero and Shamus awards (among many others) for her 25 novels - which include 12 featuring the private investigator Tess Monaghan
Her latest, Prom Mom, has a loose inspiration by the 1997 case of Melissa Drexler a New Jersey teenager who gave birth during her prom, but then something truly awful happened…
Laura discusses the ethics of True Crime - including the aftermath of Baby Reindeer, how being a journalist helped her ‘research to task’ and why Nick Hornby likened Laura to ‘a big American cheeseburger’ (Patricia Highsmith was a steak!)
There’s more about Laura here: https://lauralippman.com/
And subscribe for extras: robertmurphy.substack.com
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This was Penelope Jackson’s final chance. The evidence against her seemed overwhelming: the glib 999 call admitting the killing of her husband, her further confessions on police body worn footage.
In court, even her friends had described her as overbearing and domineering.
Now it was her turn to take to the witness stand to give her version of events.
In the words of her lawyer: ‘She could see no way out, She replaced invisible handcuffs for real ones but at least then she knew where she would be.’
But would the jury believe Penelope?
If you’ve been affected by issues in this episode, please follow these links:
https://www.nelsontrust.com/
https://refuge.org.uk/
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To friends, David and Penelope Jackson were like most other retired couples living in the West Country.
They had a good life: a nice home, an active social life and a penchant for foreign cruises.
But in February 2021, Penelope killed her husband after a birthday celebration.
She then called 999 saying ‘I stabbed him once, then he said I wouldn’t do it again so I did it twice more.’
Had she been suffering in silence for years at the hands of a silent abuser?
Or was she fabricating a life of coercive control to wriggle away from a murder charge?
If you’ve been affected by issues in this episode, please look at these links:
https://www.nelsontrust.com/
https://refuge.org.uk/
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Award-winning crime novelist Denise Mina has written the latest Philip Marlowe book: The Second Murderer. To research the book, she spent months studying Los Angeles in 1940, deconstructing Raymond Chandler’s distinct sentence structure and recreating his unique humour.
Denise’s career straddles both crime fiction and true crime. She has won many awards - including the Theakstons Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year two years running and has been inducted into the CWA Hall of Fame.
This podcast was recorded at CrimeFest, May 2024.
The Second Murderer is available here.
Denise’s true crime book about Peter Manuel ,The Long Drop, is available here.
Raymond Chandler’s books are available here.
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is available here.
My own true crime books Decoy and the award-winning To Hunt A Killer are available here.
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To coincide with the launch of my true crime book ‘Decoy’ I’ve updated and reissued this podcast featuring a rare and exclusive interview with Chris Gould.
In the 1970s, the city of Bristol was terrorised by a man nicknamed ‘The Clifton Rapist.’ The stranger-attacker assaulted seven women over a two-year period.
PC Chris Gould suggested a daring honeytrap: Avon and Somerset Police should set up an innovative undercover sting, using young rookie police officers as decoys to catch him.
This was a monumental gamble, putting the lives of their youngest, least-experienced female officers on the line.
But 12 women volunteered.
As the weeks passed, with no further attacks, commanders made an even more innovative move. And Chris’s career was never the same again.
How was the predator caught and justice achieved? Chris has never spoken in this detail before.
+++ Grab your copy of Decoy here in the UK: https://tinyurl.com/fd759pmh +++
+++ Or here in the USA: https://tinyurl.com/yethzdum +++
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NB: This is a reissue of a podcast episode first released in November 2023
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Nearly 20 years had passed and forensic scientist Dr Colin Dark received a call asking if he’d like to take on the case of Hilda Murrell.
What clues had been left at the scene? How could they be analysed using modern techniques? And what truths would emerge about the theories surrounding her murder?
This is a short p…
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