Keen killer instincts of top profiler
JWHAT special quality does it take to be able to step into the mind of a mass-murderer? A homicidal sexual psychopath? And what extra quality might it need to step into two such minds simultaneously? Say, the notorious Fred and Rosemary West (below), for example?
Answers to both questions are below, thanks to a fascinating interview Richard and I did this week with bestselling writer Michael Robotham. Robotham is an award-winning Fleet Street crime journalist-turned novelist. His latest,When SheWas Good, is a brilliant psychological thriller which explores the weird, almost logical madness of serial killers and sex offenders.
Robotham, who now lives in Australia (and is furious to be caught up in the latest Sydney lockdown – “completely, utterly pointless”) – has written a string of such novels.We asked him where he had done his research.
“Well,” he said, “I, er, helped the criminal psychologist Paul
RBritton with his autobiography and one or two other books. I suppose there’s that.”
There is indeed. Britton is probably the best expert in his field on the planet.A man of devastatingly fierce intelligence, his instinct for how lethal sexual predators think is second to none.
Robotham told us the following extraordinary story. Prepare for your jaw to hit the carpet.
When bodies were discovered buried in the garden of Fred and RosemaryWest’s home in Cromwell Street, Gloucester, police began interrogating the couple on the spot.TheWests denied all knowledge of the ghastly garden graveyard.
Paul Britton was contacted and came to the house straightaway. TheWests were still being questioned when he arrived.
He quickly concluded from the remains that the victims had been sexually assaulted and died in great pain.Then, he eavesdropped on the interrogation for a while, before taking the senior police officer present to one side.
With total certainty, he told him this case would involve psychosexual serial killers.The reason the bodies were buried in the garden was because such people like to keep their victims close, as a reminder of what they’d enjoyed doing to them. There was another reason for the garden graveyard too.
“The house is full up,” he told the astonished officer. “You’ll find more bodies inside.”
Extraordinarily prescience, and all delivered after just a couple of hours spent at Cromwell Street.
I’M SORRY. But I won’t be getting an electric car anytime soon. I really, really want to (but not in the same way as Ed Miliband does. Boy, was HE caught out the other day, telling us all to buy electric cars while not, er, actually, y’know, doing it himself. “It’s going to happen,” he stammered when challenged on live TV, “And I have bought an electric bike… it’s on its way…” Hmm. Why not just pedal one, Ed? That’d save the planet just as well).
Anyway, back to leccy cars. I’m not getting one... yet – because they don’t work. Not in the way I’d want mine to. They don’t have enough range, whatever makers claim, unless you only drive to the local shops. It can take up to a decade to recoup the upfront costs. Recharging the batteries is time-consuming, and roadside charging points are patchy at best.
Seriously, I really can’t wait to get one. But as I drive 20,000 miles a year, I’m going to have to (wait, that is) until the batteries improve and we can charge them as easily as filling up with petrol or diesel. Sorry, Earth.
JHOW the mighty are fallen. Matt Hancock, right, former ubermeister health chief who loftily opined nearnightly on television to dictate our every personal hug, kiss and handshake – before being exposed as a classic hypocrite – cut a lone figure this week. I actually felt rather sorry for him.
He was photographed hauling his “stuff” from the now-broken marital home he once shared with wife Martha. The usual images of this kind of thing. Bin-liners crammed with clothes. Books. A coffee machine. No smart ministerial suit; instead, shorts, trainers and baseball cap.
Apparently Hancock dreams of a political comeback. Well, quite. In his dreams.