WEBVTT - How dangerous killers are murdering in slow motion: Laura Richards Pt.1 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:04.920 The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. 0:00:05.400 --> 0:00:08.080 Detective sy a side of life the average persons never 0:00:08.160 --> 0:00:11.120 exposed her. I spent thirty four years as a cop. 0:00:11.600 --> 0:00:14.040 For twenty five of those years I was catching killers. 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:16.239 That's what I did for a living. I was a 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:20.560 homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, 0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:23.160 I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated. 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:26.439 The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:28.800 from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:31.479 and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:34.640 of the content and language might be confronting. That's because 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:37.680 no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. 0:00:38.200 --> 0:00:40.400 Join me now as I take you into this world. 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:49.640 Welcome to another episode of I Catch Killers. The thing 0:00:49.840 --> 0:00:53.120 I found most fascinating as a homicide detective was delving 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:56.920 into the psychology of the perpetrators, looking for red flags, 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:01.640 interpreting crime scenes, and discovering motives. The difficult part of 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:04.480 being a homicide detective was the fact that in most cases, 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:06.520 the best you could do for the victim was to 0:01:06.560 --> 0:01:10.360 solve the crime. But what I find fascinating about today's 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:14.640 guest is. The work she focuses on is preventing crime. Today, 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:17.640 we're speaking to Laura Richards, who is a well renowned 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:22.600 criminal behavioral analyst, an international expert on domestic violence, stalking, 0:01:22.959 --> 0:01:27.840 coercive controls, sexual violence, homicide, and risk assessment. She has 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:31.440 applied her psychological degrees to analyze violent crime from a 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:35.959 behavioral and preventative perspective. Laura has trained with the FBI 0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:39.160 and work with New Scotland Yard. She has been involved 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:42.840 in multiple law reforms relating to the better protection for victims. 0:01:43.160 --> 0:01:46.800 Is an author and a podcaster, so clearly we've got 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:48.760 a lot to talk about, so let's get into this. 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:51.960 Laura Richards, welcome to I Catch Killers. 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:53.760 Thank you, it's really good to be here. 0:01:54.080 --> 0:01:57.400 Well, I know you're busy, and I'm excited to get 0:01:57.400 --> 0:01:59.520 you on the podcast, and I've had a look at 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:02.760 the work you've done. My background, I worked as a 0:02:02.760 --> 0:02:06.760 homicide detective for over twenty years and the frustration I 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:10.040 had as a homicide detective was at the best what 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:12.040 you could do for the victim was solved the crime. 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:15.399 But a lot of your focus is about preventing crimes 0:02:15.560 --> 0:02:21.440 and the difference between reactive investigations and proactive investigations. Do 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:23.280 you want to just talk us through a little bit 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:25.519 about that process, break that down. 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:28.760 Yes, Well, firstly, thank you very much for inviting me 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:31.120 and thank you for the work that you've done, because 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:32.400 it's not easy. 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:33.800 For me. 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:36.959 I spent five years at New Scotland Yard, my first 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:40.120 five years working in a unit that was set up 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:42.920 because we had a very prolific serial killer called Peter 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:49.000 Suckcliffe who had abused and harmed and killed many women 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:53.160 up in the northeast of England. And my unit was 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:56.880 really a response to that, a sexual offensive section so 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:59.959 that we would ensure someone like Peter Suckliffe wouldn't happen again. 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:04.400 So the idea behind it was to link rape, murder 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:07.080 and abduction cases and to be on the front foot. 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:10.600 And it was a brave new world really at new 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:13.920 Scotland Yard, and a response to what was called the 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:17.480 Byford Report, which was all the failures of Peter Suckcliffe 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:21.480 being in front of the detectives on fourteen occasions and 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:23.880 they still didn't know it was him. So there was 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:26.320 a lot of learning and that was a really good 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:30.600 response to set up a proactive unit and it was 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:34.280 very much based on the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, which 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:38.400 most people have seen as portrayed in the Netflix show 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:42.960 mind Hunter. So Robert Wrestler, Roy Hazlewood, John Douglas all 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:45.640 of their work and my unit at New Scotland Yard 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:50.000 was the satellite to it. So my first five years 0:03:50.080 --> 0:03:54.360 were really linking crimes and cases, so serial rape and 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:57.840 serial murder cases. And each time I worked with the 0:03:57.880 --> 0:04:03.600 detectives on those investigations, what was interesting. I would do 0:04:03.720 --> 0:04:06.320 what we call a psychological autopsy and look at the 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:10.920 offenders and reverse engineer their histories, and most of them 0:04:10.960 --> 0:04:14.680 were on our databases already, and that really intrigued me. 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:17.560 Was it just the number of cases that I was 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:22.640 exposed to or was it actually far greater than the 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:24.760 cases that I had worked on. So when I was 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:28.560 given an opportunity, I was headhunted to work on an 0:04:28.640 --> 0:04:32.159 Understanding and Responding to Hate crime initiative funded by the 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:35.680 Home Office. I was asked would I profile domestic violence? 0:04:36.440 --> 0:04:40.159 I wondered, how tough could that be? And we knew 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:44.520 who it was most oftentimes we had their names, their data, births, 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:47.760 where they live. In terms of the offenders, and I 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:50.000 said that I would be interested in doing that work 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:53.520 only if I could conjoin it with sexual violence, so 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:56.040 that I could look at sexual violence and domestic violence 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:59.200 and reverse engineer the offenders and look at their histories. 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:03.159 And really where the proactive work began in terms of 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:07.960 understanding risk assessment, understanding that domestic violence offenders are actually 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:13.839 dangerous individuals and that we should be taking them more seriously. So, really, Gary, 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:16.520 one thing led to another of being you know, I 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:20.520 say that the sexual Offenses section was a proactive unit, 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:22.559 but you still had a crime. You still had something 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:26.839 terrible happening, and then you were linking the offenses and 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:30.840 that was tough work because you know, oftentimes people are 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:34.680 linkage blind. So those five years were not easy. But 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:38.320 I did have some real insight reverse engineering the cases 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:41.719 and seeing that these offenders when we arrested them for 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:44.400 a stranger related crime, they were on our databases. And 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:47.600 I think that's a really important part to sort of 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:51.200 my story as to why I kept asking questions about that. 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:55.400 It's interesting when you say reverse engineer, I could imagine 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:57.960 you had the crime, you assist the crime scene if 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:00.599 it's a murder or the statement from the victim and 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:04.599 trying to understand the crime finding the perpetrator. But when 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:07.479 you found the perpetrator, what you're saying is you're looking 0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:10.040 back at their history and it's almost like a series 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:14.920 of red flags that okay, if someone's stalking from a homicide. 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:17.839 To take this point of view, I've always had concern 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:21.159 if someone is a stalker, and to me, it just 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:25.440 triggers red flags and concerns if I'm looking at a 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:28.240 person of interest and there's a history of stalking. But 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:31.240 you and being given all that data, the data that 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:34.239 you would have had been involved with New Scotland Yard, 0:06:35.120 --> 0:06:39.040 you found a pattern. Dare say I call them red flags. 0:06:39.080 --> 0:06:42.320 I think you understand the concept of a red flag indicators. 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:44.800 And when you're looking back, you've seen a history that 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:47.120 you can almost see the crime building up to the 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:50.040 crescendo that it might be, whether that be a sexual 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:51.159 assault or a murder. 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:56.600 Yes, exactly that. And in some cases it's textbook escalation 0:06:56.800 --> 0:07:00.919 in terms of the pattern of behavior and drip of 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:03.760 what they can get away with, and then behavior being 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:06.760 what it is, you then carry on pushing boundaries and 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:10.760 do more and more. So you know, oftentimes particularly with 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:13.520 the stranger rape related cases, and when you've got a 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:17.240 serial rapist, they're the jobs that get resourced, right, and 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:20.440 you know, they're the good jobs as were seen, you know, 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:24.480 back in the culture of policing. And what was interesting 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:27.280 was that every case I looked at, they raped their 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:30.520 partners before they raped somebody that they didn't know outside 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:33.160 the home. But it was domestic violence that was being 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:36.080 written off. It's just a domestic law of people would say, 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:38.920 and I was saying, but it's not just a domestic 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:41.240 If you're prepared to harm and rape the person you're 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:43.760 meant to love and care about the most, what else 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:46.440 are you prepared to do to a stranger, to a 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:50.080 woman that you don't know, So that poarer and control dynamic. 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:54.240 I started making the links, but using the evidence and 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:56.600 the cases. It wasn't something that I just came up 0:07:56.600 --> 0:07:59.480 with this concept. It was literally every case I was 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:02.880 involved with, and I wanted to understand that better. 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:07.080 Yeah, you know, it makes sense, and in policing at 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:09.840 that time, when we're looking at serial offenders and the 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:12.960 work that they did with the FBI. You mentioned the 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:16.920 name John Douglas. Just a funny thought in my mind. 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:19.360 I read that book When I was a young homicide 0:08:19.360 --> 0:08:23.120 detective mind Hunter that John Douglas wrote the book, and 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:25.920 I quite often stood at the crime scene and I'd 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:28.720 be speaking to my colleague going, what would John Douglas 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:31.560 do in this situation? I like some of the messaging 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:34.840 that came out from the book, But it was a 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:37.839 very early science, wasn't It was something that we hadn't 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:41.040 really looked into from a criminal investigation point of view 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:45.760 law enforcement agencies across the globe. What do you think 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:48.720 change was it that someone just finally waking up to 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:50.960 there are patterns? We've got to look at it in 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:51.679 more detail. 0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:54.720 Yeah, I mean I think, you know, the art versus 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:58.559 science part has always been the challenge, and it's a 0:08:58.600 --> 0:09:01.640 bit of both. Going back in time, you know, was 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:05.240 the culture ready for it? Probably not. Then there was 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:08.840 a big TV show called Cracker in the UK with 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:12.520 Robbie Coltrane where he was a psychologist being called in 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:13.559 to cases. 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:15.760 Remember and that kind of you remember it? 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:18.880 Yeah, and it kind of mainstreamed the concept, although what 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:22.640 we did was very different from what you saw portrayed. 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:24.880 But if I had a pound for every time or 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:28.000 a dollar every time a detective said to me, all right, cracker, 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:30.240 tell us where he lives and you know what his 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:33.520 name is, Dad, and thinking it was really funny. You know, 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:36.760 that was literally every case that I ever worked, That's 0:09:36.960 --> 0:09:39.040 what was being said to me. And it's far more 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:42.800 detailed the work in terms of you know, my background 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:45.440 is in forensic and legal psychology, and you apply that 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:49.360 to understand the offender motivation and you'll know this the 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:52.600 important part of the why normally takes you to the who, 0:09:53.200 --> 0:09:55.800 and so you don't always have the why. You've got 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:58.360 the who, the what, the where, the when, you don't 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:04.080 always have the why. So that part of understanding the 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:07.600 why done it twinned with victimology. I mean, for me, 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:10.880 that's the most important part. Starting with the victims of 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:13.880 you understand how they lived, you normally understand how they 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:17.280 die too, where's the intersect? And that's painstaking work. It 0:10:17.320 --> 0:10:20.000 takes a lot of time to sort of understand really 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:21.960 who your victim is and you've got to speak to 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:25.920 lots of different people's you well know. But the criminal 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:30.479 behavioral analysis component also comprises of the crime scene assessment, 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:34.320 timeline analysis like the sequence of events in that event, 0:10:34.400 --> 0:10:39.520 but also the bigger picture of the timeline and linguistic analysis. 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:42.440 If you've got it with rape victims, you do tend 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:48.160 to have language between the two geographic analysis, statement analysis, 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:53.480 interview analysis, which is what I help with, as well 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:57.360 as understanding behavior. So there's lots of different components to 0:10:57.440 --> 0:11:00.400 criminal behavioral analysis, and it is worth just say that 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:02.840 because a lot of people still even now don't have 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:06.600 a true understanding of what it is. The added extra 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:10.280 part that really was what I developed in more detail 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:14.559 was the risk assessment component of the reverse engineering, and 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:17.400 there wasn't really a lot known about that in policing 0:11:17.440 --> 0:11:19.520 when I started doing it in two thousand and one, 0:11:19.559 --> 0:11:22.320 and there wasn't much written in the academic literature, so 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:26.040 it really was making it up as we went along. 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:29.960 But I also had some great mentors from the FBI, 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:33.080 for example, because I worked over there for a period 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:35.880 of time. There were people that I talked with in 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:38.240 the FBI regularly, and I had mentors at New Scotland 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:41.520 Yard and other mentors in the academic world, so it 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:44.120 really was a case of shaping things. I had someone 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:46.400 called Professor Betsy Stanko who worked with me, who was 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:51.760 an American criminologist to create a methodology of understanding the 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:54.760 types of questions we should be asking of victims that 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:57.920 a domestic violence call out, and that really began the 0:11:57.960 --> 0:11:59.520 whole risk assessment process. 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:04.840 And so you got this, all this information came to 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:10.880 helping out investigations. Then you realized, I'm just paraphrasing what 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:16.120 you've said. To understand it. You were going back investigating stuff, 0:12:16.200 --> 0:12:19.040 seeing that there's patterns, and then realizing that the proper 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:23.800 due concern wasn't being provided to as just a domestic situation. 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:26.199 It's just a husband and wife. They've had a falling out. 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:28.880 These are indicators and if we could jump on them 0:12:28.880 --> 0:12:31.199 and treat them as serious as they need to at 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:35.520 that point in time, potentially we can prevent the crime. 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:39.559 Because homicide investigation, I can only speak for New South Wales, 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:42.360 but I've also worked over in England and had dealings 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:46.079 with other homicide squads. We always look at ourselves as 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:50.800 just a reactive way of approaching approaching policing. The murders happened, 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:54.720 we started the crime scene victimology as you described, and 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:57.480 we try to find the perpetrator. But there's a lot 0:12:57.520 --> 0:12:59.640 more to it, isn't it. There's so much more that 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:02.600 we can these red flags. And I know in one 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:05.960 of the many interviews you've done or one of the podcasts, 0:13:06.000 --> 0:13:10.680 you were talking about murder by slow motion, and I 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:13.120 think you were referencing a specific case where there were 0:13:13.160 --> 0:13:15.920 so many red flags, so many indicators, and when the 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:19.360 murders actually happened, everyone goes, how did that happen? Well, 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:22.400 if we look, it was almost signposted that that was 0:13:22.480 --> 0:13:24.679 what was going to occur. Do you want to give 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:27.800 us an example of murder by slow motion and where 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:29.120 mistakes were made? 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:31.360 Yes, I mean I started to call it murder and 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:35.079 slow motion because of exactly that that pattern that happened 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:39.080 in you know, oftentimes it was slow time. It wasn't 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:42.400 a quick set of events. And there was one case 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:46.400 in particular that really stood out because I talked to 0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:49.560 the detective Chief inspector, someone called Stuart Aught, and it 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:52.320 was when I was starting the risk assessment work and 0:13:52.360 --> 0:13:54.520 Stuart came up to New Scotland Yard and he said, 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:56.560 you should really have a look at this case, Laura, 0:13:56.760 --> 0:14:00.920 the murder of Christine Boswell, And he said you should 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:04.040 really look at the crime reports. It was so obvious 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:06.959 that he was going to kill her. And I said, wow, 0:14:07.000 --> 0:14:09.400 you say that was such clarity, Stuart. He said, yeah, 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:11.880 when you look at the crime reports, you'll understand what 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:16.080 I'm talking about. And sure enough, thirty three callouts that 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:21.280 she had made to her home address with textbook arguing 0:14:21.840 --> 0:14:26.200 to them physical violence, to then a knife being used 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:30.160 to shred her clothes and damage to her property, and 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:32.600 then she was stabbed multiple times in front of her 0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:36.080 two children. And I said to Stuart, it's a really 0:14:37.120 --> 0:14:39.880 horrific case. And I'm not saying tragic because the word 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:42.440 tragic denotes there's nothing we can do about it. This 0:14:42.560 --> 0:14:45.920 was a preventable murder where we had thirty three opportunities 0:14:46.560 --> 0:14:48.840 to actually ask a different set of questions of what 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:52.920 was going on for Chrissy. And I believed, as did Stuart, 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:56.320 that we failed her, and he and I started to 0:14:56.360 --> 0:14:58.960 talk about over a cup of coffee, well, what are 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:01.440 the types of questions that could have been asked to 0:15:01.520 --> 0:15:03.360 Chrissy that would have made the difference. And that was 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:05.600 where the notion of risk assessment came from. Because I 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:08.720 always work with the detectives. This was never just in 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:11.280 isolation thinking oh, this is a good idea to do. 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:14.280 And I said to Stuart. You know the people who 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:17.520 also said to you that this was so obvious it 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:20.200 was going to end in murder. My question for them is, well, 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:23.320 what did you all do about it? Why is it 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:25.680 that you look back in hindsight and then of course 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:29.560 you understand that there's an incident led response, and that's 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:32.280 part of the problem that the police go out and 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:36.720 attend the incident. That language is so problematic because with 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:40.600 domestic abuse and coercid control and stalking, it's patterned crime. 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:44.160 It doesn't happen in a vacuum. So the language and 0:15:44.200 --> 0:15:46.480 the structure in the way that policing was set up 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:48.560 was also a problem. It wasn't just about what was 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:51.200 going on in this case, it was also about this 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:54.480 incident led response, which meant that no one was really 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:57.440 joining up the dots of looking at the history. And 0:15:57.480 --> 0:15:59.840 that still goes on present day and it's one of 0:15:59.880 --> 0:16:03.080 my pet peeves that we still haven't got this in 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:10.240 the frontline officers, all of those who work within the police, 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:12.720 whether you're a call handler, whether you're frontline, whether you're 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:15.720 a supervisor, it should be mandatory training that they know 0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:20.240 this is patterned crime and you must expect there to 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:23.520 be a pattern, either previously or that it will continue 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:25.960 to happen if you don't make an intervention, and that's 0:16:26.000 --> 0:16:28.720 where we can save lives, but we also save money, 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:33.200 the two things together. So Christine Boswell's case always stood 0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:35.680 out to me because it was the start of Okay, well, 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:38.760 let's look at Christine's case, let's review it, and let's 0:16:38.840 --> 0:16:42.920 take another five cases in the first three months of 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:45.960 two thousand and one, and let's do a domestic homicide 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:48.840 review of these six cases. And that's what I did, 0:16:49.400 --> 0:16:52.040 and I work with another DC I called Alan Orberlak, 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:54.920 and he and I wrote the guidance for even how 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:57.480 you do a domestic homicide review. But we kept coming 0:16:57.560 --> 0:17:02.280 up against people saying, well, there's no legislation to make 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:04.680 us do this review, so we don't want to do it. 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:07.240 And that was a continual problem. So then I worked 0:17:07.240 --> 0:17:11.000 with Harriet Harmon to create a law, which meant that 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:15.160 it became mandatory through the statutory legislation that you must 0:17:15.200 --> 0:17:17.960 do this. So you know, one thing came after the other. 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:21.000 But in I went on to review fifty six domestic 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:25.159 murders and they all had very similar patterns. Before the 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:26.119 murder event. 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:29.200 Itself and those patterns. We're talking about an next escalation, 0:17:29.480 --> 0:17:31.919 and it could be starts off as an argument that 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:36.480 hasn't got physical. If there's a separation, series of text messages, 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:41.600 then specific threats in the messages, an assault, then a knife. 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:45.439 You mentioned clothes being cut up. I always was of 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:49.440 great concern when the family pet was murdered or killed. 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:52.480 That type of indicator is going, Okay, this person is 0:17:52.560 --> 0:17:55.439 going to go further and further. So you reviewed fifty 0:17:55.480 --> 0:17:58.679 cases of domestic murders, so the offender has been in 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:02.480 a relationship, was or previously been in a relationship with 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:05.520 the victim, and you saw a pattern all the way 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:08.760 through with those fifty fifty cases. 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:11.240 Yes, I mean I took fifty six. It was that 0:18:11.359 --> 0:18:16.560 one year's worth of domestic murders within the Metropolitan Police. 0:18:16.560 --> 0:18:18.800 But the issue, first of all, was that no one 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:21.760 counted the domestic murders. So it wasn't as easy as saying, 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:24.040 let's review all the domestic murders. I actually had to 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:27.280 find them all and then create a system so that 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:29.800 when a murder happened, that the center was flagged that 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:33.200 this was most likely a domestic violence murder and then 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:37.399 once someone was arrested and or charged, then we knew 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:40.240 for sure that it was and then we would do 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:43.159 the review. So of course it can take time to 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:46.280 bottom out with the investigation who the offender is, so 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:50.040 that that was an issue, but there were patterns that repeated. 0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:53.480 So separation, as you quite rightly said, separation increases the 0:18:53.560 --> 0:19:01.080 risk strangulation which increases the risk sevenfold for femicide escalation, 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:04.040 so it happening more often and it getting worse, and 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:07.919 the getting worse part being important. Pregnancy and new birth, 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:13.359 so pregnancy being a high risk factor, the threats, and 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:16.840 in particular if there's stalking, when someone makes a threat 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:18.960 and they stalk, one in two of them would go 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:22.879 on to kill. So that fifty percent is really important 0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:25.160 that everybody knows about it. 0:19:26.080 --> 0:19:28.879 I read that figure in researching for my chat with you. 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:31.560 Can you just break that down again because that horrified me, 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:34.760 that figure, that one in two. Just explain that again 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:35.840 if you could in detail. 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:39.359 Yeah, And it's actually an Australian stat from the first 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:45.880 Stalking Clinic, from Troy McEwan's work and Rachel McKenzie's work 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:50.160 studying stalkers, and I saw it repeating I mean before 0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:52.040 they had published on it. I saw it in my 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:57.440 domestic homicide reviews. So a threat would be articulated either 0:19:57.480 --> 0:20:01.159 in writing or verbally or even come from a you know, 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:03.119 via a third party. We see a lot of this 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:06.840 stuff online now, but the threat is made to harm 0:20:07.000 --> 0:20:10.159 or to kill or to take revenge. And if there 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:13.159 is stalking and there's been an intimate relationship, and an 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:17.119 intimate relationship can be you know, as classed in the police. 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:19.359 It's that you have had a level of intimacy, so 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:21.919 maybe you had a it can be one date you 0:20:21.960 --> 0:20:23.960 had sex with the person, it doesn't need to be 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:29.320 twenty two years and that threat being made. Then in 0:20:29.359 --> 0:20:31.680 one in two cases we saw the murders then being 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:34.960 carried out, so the victims were actually telling us that 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:36.760 they were going to be killed and then they were. 0:20:37.440 --> 0:20:41.040 So it's such an important statistic that even with stranger 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:43.720 related stalking, ie you don't know the stalker, one in 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:46.359 ten of them, if they make a threat, will act 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:48.440 on it. And that's why it's so important to take 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:53.760 those threats seriously. Too often they're not taken seriously and 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:56.000 they're seen as just throw away comments. But when you've 0:20:56.000 --> 0:20:59.120 got coercive control and stalking. They must be taken seriously. 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:02.920 So you know, our knowledge now is even greater when 0:21:02.920 --> 0:21:05.280 we think about the timeline to murder and the slow 0:21:05.359 --> 0:21:09.679 motion element and these high risk clusters that co occur. 0:21:09.720 --> 0:21:14.560 And if you have a finality with separation, ie, she says, 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:17.560 I'm never coming back to you. They may have separated 0:21:17.600 --> 0:21:21.160 five times, six times before, but this occasion she's saying, 0:21:21.160 --> 0:21:24.840 I'm never coming back. That finality element, like with Hannah 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:28.919 Clark's case, you know, is the tipping point when the 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:32.199 person who's coercively controlling stalking, that's when they take, you know, 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:35.280 matters into their own hands. Of it's I'm going to 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:38.000 win at all costs, that kind of psychopathology that I 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:39.680 have to win at all costs, and that's when it's 0:21:39.680 --> 0:21:41.920 incredibly dangerous for women and children. 0:21:44.800 --> 0:21:48.120 So with all that you've learned to put what you're 0:21:48.160 --> 0:21:52.480 talking about in the practice, it's about educating, educating police officers. 0:21:52.560 --> 0:21:55.840 So because invariably it's not the experience detective that's taking 0:21:55.920 --> 0:21:58.840 the report of a stalking incident, it'll be the front 0:21:58.840 --> 0:22:01.640 line troops, the uniform police with maybe one or two 0:22:01.760 --> 0:22:06.760 years service. You've worked in law enforcement agencies. So you 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:09.639 understand getting that culture out, but we've really got to 0:22:09.680 --> 0:22:14.199 get that education going so people understand when this crime 0:22:14.240 --> 0:22:17.240 that in isolation, people could look at it, well it's 0:22:17.280 --> 0:22:20.880 not the biggest crime going on, but got to understand 0:22:20.880 --> 0:22:23.159