‘Record finally set straight’ 30 years on from Nickell murder
Falsely accused Colin Stagg comes face to face with psychologist who helped police with ‘honeytrap’
THE innocent man set up in a honeytrap sting by police investigating the murder of young mother Rachel Nickell has come face to face 30 years on with the forensic psychologist who produced the profile of the killer.
Police became fixated that the profile produced by Paul Britton of the man who stabbed Nickell to death in front of her two-year-old son on Wimbledon Common, south London, in 1992 matched Colin Stagg, and made him their chief suspect.
Now the two men have met for the first time since the high-profile inquiry linked their lives, in an encounter filmed for a documentary.
Mr Stagg tells Mr Britton “it feels a bit
‘He should have spoken out to help vindicate me. It suited [the Met] to paint me as the man who got away with murder on a technicality’
strange” to finally be meeting the psychologist involved in the highly criticised police investigation.
Mr Britton, 76, responds: “You must have heard some stories. You must have been told various yarns that end up giving you a particular way of seeing events… It caused both you and me some difficulty.”
Mr Britton said he had wanted to meet Mr Stagg and break his silence, deciding “it was time to put it straight”.
After the meeting, Mr Stagg, 59, told The Sunday Telegraph he now saw the psychologist as “more of a human being”.
But he lamented the fact Mr Britton had taken so long to jump to his defence. Mr Britton explained that he had been prevented from commenting at the time at the request of the police.
After detectives identified Mr Stagg as a suspect, they devised Operation Edzell, in which an undercover officer posed as a lonely heart and struck up a relationship with him.
The woman, calling herself Lizzie James, spent more than five months trying to ensnare Mr Stagg. At one point, she told him: “If only you had done the Wimbledon Common murder, if only you had killed her, it would be all right.” Mr Stagg replied: “I’m terribly sorry, but I haven’t.”
Nevertheless, he was charged with Nickell’s murder and spent 13 months in custody. On day one of his trial in 1993, the judge threw out the case and accused Scotland Yard of “deceptive conduct of the grossest kind”.
Despite going free, Mr Stagg continued to be vilified as the likely killer until 15 years later when Robert Napper, a serial killer and rapist, was convicted of Rachel’s manslaughter.
Mr Britton insists he raised questions from the beginning about the legality and ethics of the sting, and played no part in the “crafting” of the letters used to entrap Mr Stagg.
Gary Copson, a former Detective Chief Inspector, backs him up, saying: “They [the Met] took advantage of Paul Britton. In no way more than when everything went wrong.”
Mr Britton said: “I regret this matter wasn’t put into the public domain years ago, and this in turn has affected the way I’ve been perceived, but I kept my word and stayed quiet. ”
Mr Stagg, now a registered carer, was awarded more than £700,000 compensation by the Home Office. He said he could not completely forgive Mr Britton but the meeting was a start.
“He should have spoken out to help vindicate me, any time in the past 28 years,” he said. It suited [the Met] to paint me as the man who got away with murder on a technicality.”