Colin Sutton - Manhunt: How I Brought Serial Killer Levi Bellfield To Justice

T he third week in August 1979. The sun was shining, school was out and life, though really just beginning, was perfect. A good set of A-levels, a place to read law at a decent university, a career in prospect, great friends, family and a lovely girlfriend.

Yes, life was fantastic and, unlike my schoolmates, I wasnt cleaning hospital wards or lugging roof tiles to earn some money before going up to university. I was outdoor-clerking for a firm of solicitors, sitting behind counsel in court, assisting, wearing a suit even and learning what life as a lawyer was going to be like.

Yet that stuffy afternoon at Snaresbrook Crown Court was the beginning of the end of a long-charted course. The defendant, our client, was a member of a local family I knew well and avoided as much as possible. He was, in the north-London vernacular of the time, a jobber rough and ready in speech and manner, no stranger by appearance to the serious violence of which he stood accused. His face bore many scars of encounters past, and his suit, though expensive and modern, was just too much; cheeky rather than chic, an outfit in which he was clearly uncomfortable.

His story was implausible even my sheltered eighteen-year-old view of the world told me that. Beer glasses didnt find their way into faces without some considerable help. He had done it; it was as plain as the flattened nose on his patchwork face.

Our counsel was much like me, but 25 years older a grammar-school boy, red-brick university followed by the Criminal Bar. He was quick in thought, articulate and confident as he presented the defendants fairy story. It was, he assured the court, quite understandable that, as a brawl broke out, the defendant had rushed to get away, tripped on the carpet and the pint of Whitbread Trophy just flew from his grasp. And, members of the jury, it was obviously an unfortunate coincidence that the glass landed, and broke, on the head of a complete stranger who just happened to have the defendants brother in a headlock at the time.

Incredibly, it worked, and the jury came back with a not-guilty verdict in short order. Vice-like handshakes and backslaps having been exchanged, counsel and I retired across the road to the Eagle. Well, I thought, Im here to learn, so Ill ask

How did you do that?

Confidence, my boy. Look them straight in the eye and give them both barrels, was the satisfied, almost smug reply. He leaned back on the pub bench, lit a cigar and exhaled expansively.

No, thats not what I meant sir, I said, adding the polite title quickly lest my sharpness appeared disrespectful. How can you work so hard, apply all your skill, learning and experience to help a thug like that get away with glassing someone?

Thats the game, isnt it? The only game. Whatever you think, whatever bollocks they tell you, you do your best to make it true. Convince the jury, use whatever parts of the system you can, get them off. And watch the briefs come rolling in.

But, well, what about the truth? What about whats right?

A smile creeped across his face and more Castella smoke poured out.

Ah, you have ideals. Ideals are fine. I had them at your age, believed in them too. Until I realised that ideals are fine but cant pay the mortgage like the Legal Aid fund.

It was at that very moment that my life changed; that I realised I simply could not and would not be a part of keeping undesirables like our client at liberty. I was going to pull as hard as I could in the other direction. I was going to join the good guys.

*

The first week in January, 2003. Cold, grey and threatening snow. Four of us stood in the spacious but shabby kitchen of the million-pound mansion flat in Seymour Street, just down from Marble Arch. With me were the local Detective Inspector, my number two, Tony McKeown, and Michael the Lodger. Michael was a young barrister who had just returned to his digs after spending the Christmas break with his family and, so far as we police officers were concerned, he couldnt have arrived any sooner.

Bridie Skehan, the ninety-three-year-old owner of the flat, had been missing since Christmas Eve 2002, when she was seen departing the midnight mass at Westminster Cathedral. She had been on foot, her age had forced her to give up her large American cars a few years ago, unwillingly because she cherished them and the memories of her socialite years in the fifties and sixties, from her time working at the US Embassy to being a sought-after interior designer for the moneyed residents of Mayfair.

No trace of Bridie existed thereafter. It wasnt even certain she had made it home from her devotions. Her friend and neighbour Molly had reported her missing on Boxing Day; Molly had a key and had let herself in when she received no answer at Bridies door. She had told the local police that Michael and another lodger, John the accountant, had gone home and were not expected back until the first week of 2003, but also that there were two other lodgers, a couple, who were foreign and as far as she knew were still meant to be in residence.

Paddington Green CID had contacted the Homicide Command for assistance on the morning of Tuesday, 3 January 2003. It was my first day with my team at Barnes, one which I had intended to spend looking over outstanding investigations and meeting the officers I now commanded. But by 4pm we had been called out and, rather than learning the teams strengths and weaknesses theoretically from the supervisors, I was about to see them in action in a real, live, investigation.

While we were talking Michael through his movements and what he knew of Bridie for the third or fourth time, his attention wandered from our patient questions and he stared at a row of hooks screwed into the bottom of a wall-mounted cupboard. Instinctively, the three detectives followed his gaze.

Wait a minute. Somethings missing have you moved the key to the shed? Michael asked us, not accusingly but more seeking reassurance.

I looked at my colleagues and we shook our heads in unison.

I dont think we realised there was a shed, I said, looking at the local DI and getting a confirmatory shrug.

There is a row of them in the back alley, more like outhouses than sheds, Michael explained.

We asked Michael to show us and he led us out through the front of the building, along to a dark and freezing alley at its west end, which arced back round behind the block. We arrived at a small terrace of brick-built sheds, each about ten feet by six with a solid door and a small window. Michael indicated Bridies shed and carefully with a gloved hand I tried the door. It was locked. At that very moment it began to snow, huge clumps of flakes driving down into our faces as our eyes met in worried glances.

I summoned DC Dave Leach, nominated as our exhibits officer. He produced a powerful torch and we peered in through the dusty window. As his beam flicked around the tiny, cluttered space it picked out a large cardboard carton in the corner. On its side was printed Sony, it looked like it had once contained a television set, probably a large and bulky one, pre-dating flat screens and plasmas by several years.

Does Bridie have a big Sony telly? I asked Michael, knowing we could go and look but not relishing the walk round in the blizzard.

Yes, she does, she got it last year, Michael replied.

So, the box should be empty. The shed door succumbed to firm pressure from Dave Leachs shoulder and we were in. An unshaded bulb hanging from the ceiling gave a little illumination but then Leachs torch let us see the Sony box properly. Tightly wedged in the far corner of the shed, it had been haphazardly covered with rags and smaller boxes but its sides were plainly visible. And in the bottom right corner was an obvious wet patch, radiating out from where the box rested on the concrete floor, a dark quadrant that shouted trouble.