CRACKERS

by Leigh Lundin

The British series Cracker aired from 1993 to 1996, with a two-hour special in 2006. Robbie Coltrane starred as Eddie "Fitz" Fitzgerald, a character based upon criminal psychologist Paul Britton, a star in his own right in the ‘Met’, the Metropolitan Police we know and love as Scotland Yard. Unfortunately, Mr. Britton played a key rôle in a notorious real life case with less than stellar results.

That case was the July 1992 homicide of Rachel Nickell, a pretty mother out for a mid-day walk with her two-year-old son, Alex. A murderer attacked her in a frenzy, raping while inflicting 49 stab on the young mother. When passer-bys happened upon the scene, they found little Alex clinging to her blood-soaked body, crying, "Wake up, Mummy! Wake up!"

Pressure was brought to bear. Among thirty-two suspects, police ruled out Nickell’s fiancé (father of Alex) and another man turned in by his own mother. With little physical evidence, police turned to criminal psychologist Paul Britton to create a likely profile. Thanks to the BBC Crimeline, operational investigator Inspector Keith Pedder turned his attention to a loner, Colin Stagg, whom Britton said was certainly a candidate.

Colin matched Britton’s profile beyond police expectations. He was socially inept, still a virgin at age thirty-two, with non-traditional taste in art and music. One of the walls of his flat was painted black where he’d hung a print of the troll-like Cerne Abbas rude giant from a Paleolithic historical register hill carving in Dorset. He was a self-described misfit who answered ads in lonely hearts columns.

Operation Edzell

Inspector Peddler, with the assent of Superintendent Bassett and Chief Inspector Wickerson, focused on Stagg as their sole suspect. With him in mind, they devised a ‘honey trap’ operation and a pretty police woman volunteered for the rôle under the assumed name ‘Lizzie James’.

She contacted Stagg, saying she’d learned his name from a friend in the lonely hearts club. Colin found her hard to resist. During the first half of 1993, the beautiful ‘Lizzie James’ wooed Colin Stagg, sweeping him up in a romantic and sexual experience beyond his most intimate dreams.

They spoke daily. Lizzie James mailed dozens of torrid letters detailing her sexual fantasies that, shall we say, weren’t exactly mainstream, which included to be “completely in your power, defenceless and humiliated”. She mailed him a tape in which she fantasized she wanted a man to hold a knife to her skin as he had sex with her.

Reality blurred for Colin Stagg. He was smitten by this beautiful woman. Miss James’ performance could have fooled many men, but Colin was a virgin, unused to dissembling, and particularly susceptible. He was in love. He would have done almost anything for her. Anything.

Except confess, and that’s what police wanted.

Lizzie James’ fantasies grew wilder, gorier, and more violent. She confessed to the ritual killing of a woman and child and said she’d hoped he’d done something similar.

Stagg tried to meet her appalling expectations. He wrote her a fantasy story, appending a postscript "I’ve written the story on the lines of what I feel you are into."

When she threatened to leave him because he wasn’t violent enough, he said, "Please, Liz. I live a quiet life. If I have disappointed you, please don’t dump me. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before."

Still she pressed and played him. "If only you had done the Wimbledon Common murder, if only you had killed her, it would be all right. … It would have been great if you had done it. … It’s a turn-on, to think about the man that did it."

Miserably, Stagg replied, "I’m terribly sorry, but I haven’t."

The most he’d confessed to was nude sunbathing and that– along with black wallpaper– was enough for police. They placed him in gaol (jail) for fourteen months.

The Case Against Colin

The government indicted and Crown Prosecution Services went to court. There things didn’t go as planned.

On the first day of trial, Mr Justice Ognall threw the case out. He went on to scold the entrapment as “deceptive conduct of the grossest kind.”

Police let it be known they still considered Colin Stagg to be their prime suspect, an opinion tabloid newspapers were happy to pass on to readers, describing him as "runtish and rat-like." One of the worst offenders was Rupert Murdoch’s The Sun, which three years before the murder deliberately misreported the Hillsborough Stadium disaster. Later, several tabloids would be criticized for siding with police against the interests of an informed public.

Despite his best efforts, Mr. Stagg could not find work. His house was vandalized. He was spat upon and verbally abused. Unsurprisingly, his closest friend was his dog, which he walked late at night to avoid being reviled. For more than a decade, in fact for sixteen years, Stagg suffered imprecations and vilification from his fellow man.

Crack in the Case

A decade after the death of Rachel Nickell, a cold case team comprised of officers, retirees, and volunteer experts took the case apart and began to reassemble it. Exactly eleven years following after the murder, police reported they’d found DNA evidence that didn’t match Rachel’s boyfriend, her son, or Colin Stagg. That didn’t stop some people from remaining suspicious.

In 2006, fourteen years after the killing, police interviewed a man suffering from Asperger syndrome and paranoid schizophrenia who’d spent the past decade in prison, Robert Napper, who’d killed another young mother and her small daughter. As mentioned early in this article, his own mother tried to turn him in, but investigators were too focused on Stagg. It would take another two years, but in December 2008, Napper admitted guilt in the Rachel Nickell case. At last, Colin Stagg was absolved of the crime and able to get on with his life.

And So It Goes

The case has a few curious footnotes.

Honey Trap

After ‘Lizzie James’ took eighteen months leave, she sued the Metropolitan Police. She claimed she gained weight and lost interest in sex because of post-traumatic stress. She settled for £125,000 ($200,000). To understand why the British public might have been outraged, consider Rachel Nickell’s two-year-old toddler, who witnessed his mother’s violent death, was offered only £22,000.

Paul Britton Inquiry

The British Psychological Society held a misconduct disciplinary hearing into whether ‘crack’ psychologist Paul Britton was guilty of professional misfeasance in advising in the Nickell case. Colin Stagg was allowed to attend the proceedings but was not permitted to address the board or answer Mr Britton’s claims that Colin indeed showed guilt.

When a frustrated Colin Stagg bumped into the famous criminal psychologist on the steps of the Society’s headquarters, he called Britton a "pervert" on camera. Britton said that shouldn’t have been allowed to happen and went on to say "I’m considering whether or not to make a complaint," presumably against Mr. Stagg.

After Napper’s arrest, Britton said Napper could have been arrested "within half an hour" if investigators had listened to cops on the beat and clues he’d provided earler.

Crack in the Façade

Follow me a moment: As mentioned in an earlier event, 96 people died in the Hillsborough Stadium disaster. Rupert Murdoch’s Sun newspaper managed to offend the entire city of Liverpool with an infamous front page that screamed TRUTH, headlining three accusations that turned out not to be true at all. Staff members universally testified that Murdoch and editor Kelvin MacKenzie knew the headlines were false, but moved forward with their own agenda. Liverpudlians were so offended, Merseyside circulation dropped by more than 200,000 to a reported base of 12,000, which hasn’t improved much over time. Nor did editorial policy: unapologetic editor MacKenzie led the media charge against Colin Stagg.

In reality-meets-fiction, the second season of Cracker opened with To Be a Somebody in which the Hillsborough disaster serves as a backdrop. Serial killer Albie Kinsella targets The Sun’s unsavory reporter, Clare Moody, who fabricated the false TRUTH front page, insisting "it’s the truth" while knowing it wasn’t true.

One More Word

A terrible mistake resulted in a grave injustice to a vulnerable man. One shouldn’t conclude that criminal psychology is hokum, bunkum or bunko, but sometimes professionals can grow too confident in their abilities, especially in the ‘soft sciences’. Paul Britton talks about the craft in the article "Why Do Killers Kill?"