HOW I HELPED BRING KILLER DES TO JUSTICE
FOR three decades Karen Hunt was at the heart of some of the most highprofile crimes in the UK.
One of the biggest, after heading up the M4 to join the Metropolitan Police in 1979, was working on the case of serial killer Dennis Nilsen, who murdered at least 12 young men and boys between 1978 and 1983 in London.
She was the only female officer involved in the grisly investigation, which has recently been profiled in ITV drama Des.
All of Nilsen’s murders were committed at the two north London addresses where he lived between 1978 and 1983.
Following each murder, Nilsen would observe a ritual in which he bathed and dressed the victim’s body which he kept for a time before dissecting and disposing of the remains by burning them on a bonfire in the garden of his flat at 195 Melrose Avenue or flushing them down the toilet.
On February 8, 1983, he was finally stopped after a Dyno-rod plumber discovered a drain near Nilsen’s recent flat at 23 Cranley Gardens was packed with a flesh-like substance and numerous small bones.
When police officers visited Nilsen’s flat the next morning, the smell of rotting flesh overpowered them.
At first, Nilsen feigned shock and bewilderment when they told him about the drain blockage being caused by human remains – but he then admitted the remainder of the body could be found in two plastic bags in a nearby wardrobe.
The officers did not open the cupboard but asked Nilsen whether there were any other body parts to be found, to which Nilsen replied: “It’s a long story – it goes back a long time. I’ll tell you everything. I want to get it off my chest. Not here – at the police station.”
As he was escorted to the police station, Nilsen was asked whether the remains in his flat belonged to one person or two. Staring out of the window of the police car, he replied: “Fifteen or 16, since 1978.”
It was at this point that Karen was among the police officers called in to help out with the investigation.
The only female officer involved in the investigation, her presence at the
gruesome crime scene didn’t go down well with everyone.
“It was very different back then,” explained Karen, who 40 years after leaving Wales has not lost her Welsh accent.
“Today, you tend to have dedicated murder teams but back then the detectives in charge would just grab anyone who was free to help out.”
Detectives had discovered that a number of the bodies had been burnt in the garden of the flat at Melrose Avenue and Nilsen had drawn out a map to help them.
And the young police officer from Port Talbot was one of those brought in to help them look for the victims as the eyes of the world were on Nilsen’s flat.
“We went straight out to the garden and it was freezing,” the now-retired detective said.
“I thought: ‘This is not going to be easy digging in February.’
“We were looking for bones and I found two or three in the first half an hour – then it went on to dozens.
“We probably had a thousand bones in the ground there. It is hard to believe how many people there were. I found out that the body has 206 bones, but we were find
ing between 400 and 500. I would just think that this was a whole person in front of me.
“We were just desperately trying to find something that would help us identify the bones, something that would help put a name to them for the families.
“I found a latch key. I found a torn, charred piece of card with an Australian stamp on it – had he picked up a backpacker?
“We did everything that we could have done with the equipment we had available to us at the time. The work I did was more archaeological, not like some of the officers who were confronted with horrendous sights like a torso in a wardrobe and a head boiling in a pot, but it was important to try and identify as many of the victims as we could.”
Karen had moved to London to join the Metropolitan Police three years earlier.
Her five O-levels were not enough to get her into the South Wales Police force, but she was determined to join the police, so applied for the London force.
“I tried to get into South Wales Police,” explained Karen. “But the miners strikes were going on at the time and you needed a
degree in nuclear science to get in. So my five O-levels were just not enough.
“I wanted a job with a career so I applied to the Met and got it and it was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Being a woman, though, did not mean that her career started out easily, with other officers openly criticising her, and Karen being expected to make the tea.
“If you have watched the television drama Life on Mars, they got it exactly right about how women were treated back then,” said Karen. “I had to grow up very quickly. I was definitely not wanted – just someone who was there to make the tea and be tolerated.
“I even had two officers say ‘not another one’ when I turned up on a job and they rolled their eyes. I had to just get stuck in, be one of the chaps, one of the gang, but get the balance right that I was still a woman and I still need respect.
“But I was determined to make it work. When I left Port Talbot I overheard my father tell my mother: ‘I’ll give her two weeks and she will be back.’ That made me more determined. I was going to do it and not going to give up.”
She didn’t give up and can now look back on a 31-year career that saw her investigate some of the biggest crimes in the history of the UK, from serial killer Nilsen, to the search
for missing estate agent Suzy Lamplugh, to the retrial of the man accused of the murder of BBC television presenter Jill Dando.
“I was just in the right place at the right time,” said Karen. “I was only allowed to be involved in the search of Nilsen’s garden for four days. I answered the call, put my overalls on, and helped with the search of the garden, but the man in charge told my detective inspector that it wasn’t suitable for a woman and I was sent back to the station.
“I had to bite my lip because I was told that if I made a fuss I could forget about the career I wanted. If I had made a fuss they would have put me down as a complainer.
“I just had to walk away. But, I think the recent ITV drama starring David Tennant was superbly done. It was done very sympathetically and didn’t sensationalise it.
“I always still think about the bodies that we weren’t able to identify. Like the postcard I found with the Australian stamp. Is there a family out there in Australia who never knew what happened to their loved one?”
As times moved on, so did Karen and, after starting out as an officer in uniform walking the streets of
Harlesden, Kilburn and Willesden she was moved to the plain clothes unit and then became a detective at Harrow Road, Paddington.
In July 1986 Karen was called in to work on the disappearance of 25-yearold estate agent Suzy Lamplugh, who was officially declared dead, presumed murdered, in 1994.
The last clue to Ms Lamplugh’s whereabouts was an appointment to show a house in Shorrolds Road to someone she referred to as “Mr Kipper”. The case remains unsolved, but Karen still holds out hope that her remains will be found.
Police tested the DNA of 800 identified bodies and skeletal remains that matched her description, but despite renewed police investigations in 1998 and 2000 she has never been traced.
“I worked on the case for two years and worked very closely with Suzy’s mum Diana,” says Karen. “I am hopeful that her body will still turn up. The suspect, John Cannan, was in the area at the time of her disappearance and remains a person of importance to the investigation.”
The convicted rapist and murderer has been heavily linked to the case. He had been released
from a prison hostel only days before she went missing and it was claimed that his nickname in prison was “Kipper”.
In 2002 Scotland Yard held a press conference at which officers named Cannan as the person they believed to have murdered Ms Lamplugh.
Cannan denied any involvement and police investigations failed to produce any evidence linking him to the disappearance.
In 1989 Karen moved to the regional crime squad targeting drug dealers and spent time working abroad and working undercover posing as the girlfriend of drug dealers.
“I always looked the part – as long as I didn’t speak,” Karen laughed.
Karen actually spent a year in Tenerife investigating John Palmer, who was also known as Goldfinger. He had built up a timeshare empire through his
ruthless and corrupt business practices.
She explained: “It was believed that he, as a legitimate goldsmith, had smelted the gold from the Brinks Mat bullion robbery.
“In 1987 he was acquitted. I spent a year in Tenerife investigating both him and his associates and I gave evidence against him in court and saw him convicted of timeshare fraud.
“He was assassinated in 2015. There are lots of theories out there as to who and why.”
One of Karen’s favourite roles though was joining the Flying Squad “because I got to run around shooting at things”.
She was a firearms officer with the squad – carrying a gun, investigating serious crime, and engaging with armed robbers at gunpoint.
A move to the homicide and serious crime department was next and saw Karen getting involved in helping with the investigations surrounding the retrial of Barry George, who had been convicted of murdering television presenter Jill Dando.
She says: “Barry George was convicted of the murder of Jill Dando in 2001. In 2008 a retrial was ordered and I was put in charge of presenting bad character evidence on behalf of the Crown.
“I spent several months looking into every aspect of his past.”
Looking back, Karen agrees that her career has been “fascinating”, but there is one case that stands out for her.
“I was called in to investigate the rape of a German student in London in 1989,” she recalled. “There were no specialised units then like there are today.
“I had been sent from the station in Paddington after the 999 call and was one of the first people on the scene. She couldn’t even have the light on because she was so traumatised – she didn’t want to be able to see where it had happened.
“They had been out twice before he kept her prisoner for a day and a half and raped her. He told her two things – that he was a doctor and what his first name was.
“I decided to look into the fact that he could have actually been telling the truth. She said he was very smart and intelligent, so there could have been some truth that he was a doctor.
“I went to the British Medical Council and went through all the doctors with the first name he had given. It was an unusual name and there were a couple of dozen of people listed with that name but only one with a mole on his right cheek.
“I had the first name and the fact he was a doctor but he wasn’t at the address given. I wouldn’t give up and started following a trail of addresses I was given for him. I eventually found him, made the arrest, and he was convicted of the crime and given six years. His victim was able to go home to Germany knowing that we had got her attacker. I slept that night.”
I always still think about the bodies that we weren’t able to identify. Like the postcard I found with the Australian stamp. Is there a family out there in Australia who never knew what happened to their loved one?
- Karen Hunt