It’s good to make being at heart of
HE has come face-to-face with Tyneside’s most ruthless criminals, and looked into the eyes of brutal killers capable of unthinkable violence.
During his 30-year career, Det Chief Insp Andy Fairlamb became one of Northumbria Police’s top interviewers, equipped with skills which led him to questioning everyone from crazed killers to notorious hardmen.
The leading detetective has also been at the helm of the most harrowing of murder probes, including the double slaying of Eric and Carol Ruddy by their son, the torture killing of vulnerable Jimmy Prout, and the horrifying death of Lee Irving.
And today, as he prepares to retire from the force, Det Chief Insp Fairlamb has lifted the lid on what it’s like to take evil criminals off the streets.
The 52-year-old said: “I have dealt with all our criminals. Everybody you can think of I have probably dealt with, including supergrasses and all our major organised crime groups.
“What people will do, especially people who are trying to save themselves from decades in prison, never ceases to amaze me.”
Det Chief Insp Fairlamb began his police career as a police constable based in
Blyth. From day one he knew he wanted to be a detective, and eventually got a role as a detective constable in the Northumberland town.
“I left school with very few qualifications, joined the military, then joined the police,” he explained. “I always wanted to be a detective.”
The new detective’s skills in the interview room were quickly spotted, and in 2000 he was called upon to interview Raymond Wills after he was arrested for stabbing his sister Caroline and her five-year-old son Ashley to death, in Cramlington.
That case has never left his thoughts, and it made him realise he wanted a career investigating major crime.
“I was identified as a good suspect interviewer very early and I was the lead interviewer for that ,” he explained, “I think that was a significant point in my career.
“It was horrific and it demonstrated the importance of making sure you did everything you could to get justice for the family, but also for the public – he was a dangerous young man.
“It has always stuck with us because he started attacking his sister then saw the young lad and started attacking him. And I have always wondered if the mam saw her son die.
“He fully admitted everything he did in significant detail, and I think that stuck with me.
“As soon as you start investigating minor crimes you realise it’s really good to be at the heart of serious crime and make a difference.”
As his reputation as a skilled interviewer was established Det Chief Insp Fairlamb was called upon to come face-to-face with suspects in some of the region’s most infamous cases.
He conducted interviews as part of the investigation into Stephen Sweeney’s murder in Gateshead, and has quizzed Sunderland serial killer Steven Grieveson.
During his years on the homicide team, Det Chief Insp Fairlamb witnessed time and time again the levels of brutality human beings were able to inflict on one another, and the lengths they would go to to cover their tracks.
He worked on the Peter McMahon murder case, where the victim’s body was carried across Newcastle in a suitcase then dumped in a freezer, in 2012. “I remember that one vividly, I was a detective sergeant at the time. I had dealt with quite a lot by then,” he said. “I remember getting a phone call saying a body had been found in a freezer; that brought it home that you have never heard or seen it all.” Then after becoming a SIO (senior investigating officer) Det Chief Insp Fairlamb was on call when Martin Ruddy killed his parents, Carol and Eric, at their home in Newcastle’s West End, in 2014.
After bludgeoning his dad to death and strangling his mum, debt-ridden Ruddy staged a burglary, trashed the home and attacked himself with a brick and nail scissors in a bid to make out he and his parents had all been victims.
But despite believing Ruddy was responsible from the outset, Det Chief Insp Fairlamb was also aware of what it might mean if he was wrong.
“My first big case as SIO was the double murder of Carol and Eric Ruddy, that was the first time I was called out
Steven Grieveson