Peter Bleksley - Ten Most Wanted. Britains Top Undercover Cop Reinvestigates Ten of the UKs Worst Unsolved...

T he residents of Dales Path were woken by desperate screams. As they peered from their bedroom windows they saw a truly horrific sight. Wayne Trotter, their 30-year-old neighbour, was ablaze. He was frantically trying to summon up help as his flesh, hair and clothing burned. Some people bravely came to his aid. One applied a wet towel, while another doused him with saucepans of water. Someone ran to Waynes nearby home to tell his wife Anne what was happening. She rushed to her husband while the bearer of the bad news stayed to baby-sit the Trotters three-year-old child. He was asleep and oblivious to the horror that had befallen his dad. As a trained nurse, Anne did all she could while the gathered crowd awaited the arrival of the emergency services.

Wayne was heard to say, They threw something at me. I was blinded. I am in a lot of pain. I am hurting. An ambulance rushed him to Barnet General Hospital but the nature and severity of his wounds were such that he was soon transferred to a specialist burns unit at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. Despite their best efforts to save him, Wayne died 12 hours later.

Situated three miles inside the London orbital motorway, the M25, is the Hertfordshire town of Borehamwood. It was here that I started looking into the cases that make up this book. Borehamwood is an unremarkable town that reminded me of Bexleyheath, the town in which I was brought up. It has a high street with a mix of shops nationally known retailers, independent traders, charity shops, and the all-too-familiar supermarket. The town has a population of 30,000 people living in 12,000 households. These are a mixture of privately owned, rented and local authority housing.

My first port of call was the office of a local newspaper. I wanted to see if I could find out any useful information about Wayne that they might have had but had not been able to publish. Newspapers are often prevented from publishing details for legal reasons and are sometimes asked to withhold information by the police. I was greeted with tea and enthusiasm by a delightful, young female reporter who was learning her trade before perhaps moving on to greater journalistic heights. Her older, more experienced and somewhat staid editor soon joined us. They were very keen to find out what I was proposing to do and what I hoped to achieve. They filled me in on everything they knew, and for the first time I realised the incredibly strong desire of local people to see this crime solved. As I left, armed with some useful knowledge, I thanked them for their help and promised to keep them informed of my findings.

Wayne and Anne enjoyed a happy marriage as far as I could establish. They were eagerly looking forward to the birth of their second child. Anne was six months pregnant when, in the early hours of Thursday, 5 December 2002, Wayne was making his way home from work as usual. He had just finished a late shift at the Renolit plastics factory in Cricklewood, north-west London, where he was employed as a team leader. He had worked there for many years, as did his father Bill.

Wayne left the factory shortly after 11pm and took a Thameslink train from Hendon to Borehamwood and Elstree station. He then caught a bus to take him the ten-minute journey to where Barnet Lane meets Furzehill Road. After getting off, he walked into the Farriers Estate where he lived. By now it was about 12.30am. It is believed that he then walked along Farriers Way, a road that leads into the centre of the estate, and towards the Farriers Estate community centre. At, or near to, the centre he was attacked, doused with petrol, and set alight.

As news of this horrific attack spread, a sense of shock and revulsion was felt by the residents of the estate and the police alike. Detective Superintendent Steve Read of the Hertfordshire Constabulary, who was tasked with leading the inquiry, said, This was an appalling and ferocious attack on a local family man and it appears completely motiveless. He continued, This is the most violent random attack that I have ever seen, and whoever was responsible for it must be brought to justice at all costs. He urged anyone with information to come forward.