The Wimbledon Common Murder

Colin Stagg spent 13 months in jail awaiting trial for the murder of Rachel Nickell - a crime he did not commit. The case against him was weak from the outset, but was a classic example of the way in which facts can be misrepresented in the hands of professionals, be they lawyers, psychologists, or police officers. When the case against Stagg collapsed, his life was made a living hell by the tabloid press, portraying him as a man who had got away with murder. Police leaks, and a book by a psychologist who had assisted them, led to the ongoing perception that Stagg was a murderer. This nightmare carried on for 14 years until a "cold case review" identified faults in the original investigation. This culminated in the identification of the real culprit - a man who had indeed slipped through the net and gone on to kill again....