Diagnosis MURDER
the inside story of the killing of bristol teenager BECKY WATTS
NEW CRIME
The murder of Becky Watts: Police Tapes Thursday, ITV HD, 9pm
WHEN16-YEAR-OLD Becky Watts disappeared from her Bristol home on 19 February 2015, her family knew instantly it wasn’t the usual case of a teenage runaway.
Although dozens of teenagers go missing every day, it was totally unlike Becky to stay out late or not tell someone where she was going.
‘I was panicking,’ admits her father, Darren. ‘I knew there was something seriously wrong. It was so far out of character.’
Darren’s frantic 999 call sparked a manhunt involving hundreds of police across two counties.
THE EVIDENCE
In the ITV documentary The Murder of Becky Watts: The Police Tapes, presenter Susanna Reid revisits the investigation that led to the conviction of Darren’s stepson Nathan Matthews for Becky’s murder and his girlfriend Shauna Hoare for manslaughter, gaining access to hundreds of hours of police video and audio tapes.
The result is a remarkable insight into a desperate race against the clock to find Becky and bring the guilty parties to justice.
‘These hours of tapes offer a unique insight into how
‘Hours of tapes offer a unique insight into how detectives extract
the truth in the interrogation room’
Susanna REID
forensics and crime scene evidence are pieced together and, crucially, how detectives extract the truth in the police interrogation room,’ explains Reid, who meets the detectives who led the inquiry.
We see the police interview tapes that show prime suspects Nathan and Shauna appearing unconcerned and, in footage from cameras used by the forensic teams, relive the moment when blood was found on a door frame at Becky’s home, with Nathan’s fingerprint contained within it.
And when a receipt for a circular saw, bought on the day of Becky’s disappearance, was found in
Nathan and Shauna’s home, it was clear Becky had been murdered.
A PARENT’S GRIEF
‘Your whole world folds in on itself,’ recalls Darren. ‘I know I started shouting at that point: “No, no you’re wrong! She has to be alive!”’
Tragically, Becky’s dismembered body was found in a shed close to Darren and Shauna’s house.
‘When we saw her in the morgue, that’s when it hit home,’ says Darren. ‘They had tried their best to cover it up, but you could still see where she’d been decapitated. No parent should have to see that.’
Nathan received a life sentence for murder and
Shauna got 17 years for manslaughter, but no punishment will ease the grief for Darren and his partner Anjie, Nathan’s mother.
‘They burst in on her, both wearing masks, and attacked her,’ says Darren. ‘She must have been absolutely terrified.
‘The image I have in my nightmares is him holding her down on the floor and her covering her mouth and nose.
‘This sort of thing happens to other people. It doesn’t happen to us.’