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Napper killed Claire too, says ex-Met man
Danny Brierley19 Dec 2008
A FORMER Met officer who warned police that Robert Napper had killed Rachel Nickell years before he was charged today claimed the serial attacker is responsible for the unsolved murdered of a teenager 15 years ago.
Vincent Wright pleaded with police to investigate Napper for the killing of Ms Nickell on Wimbledon Common as far back as 1998. He later drove to Wimbledon police station to state his case to an inspector, telling her Napper had also killed 16-year-old Claire Tiltman.
Claire was knifed more than 40 times in an alley in Kent as she took a short cut to visit friends on 18January 1993.
The teenager's death came 10 months before Napper killed Samantha Bisset and her daughter, Jazmine, and six months after he killed Ms Nickell.
In 1998 Operation Enigma, a review of unsolved murders, suggested the Nickell and Tiltman cases might be connected by the same killer.
Mr Wright first became interested in the Nickell case after reading The Jigsaw Man, a book about the investigation written by psychologist, Paul Britton.
Napper was not named in the Operation Enigma report, but Mr Wright was convinced that similarities in the cases - including the fact that both women were stabbed more than 40 times - were too striking to ignore. Using the techniques he learned during his five years as a Pc in central London, Mr Wright began detailing Napper's criminal history and his movements around London. He discovered that Napper had been released from an eight-week jail term for possessing an arsenal of weapons shortly before Claire was stabbed to death in Greenhithe, less than 10 miles from his home in Plumstead,
Napper was by then said to be a "Peeping Tom" who spied on women, travelling from his home as far as Kent and Essex. In October 1995 he admitted attempting to rape a 17-year-old he had followed off a bus in March 1992 and an attack eight days later when, armed with a knife, he raped another teenager.
Mr Wright said: "Napper could have been stopped. It was down to poor investigatory procedure that he wasn't. I first raised the possibility with a Pc in Southampton, where I was living in 1998, but it was brushed off.
"I then went to see an inspector in Wimbledon in 2000. I gave them a time line and told them that I thought Napper had killed Rachel Nickell and Claire Tiltman.
"It was soon after Rachel Nickell was killed, I think they were so focused on getting Colin Stagg they could not contemplate it could have been somebody else."
He has contacted Claire's family and presented a dossier to a cold case investigation team in Kent.
After Napper admitted the manslaughter of Ms Nickell yesterday, Mr Wright renewed his call for him to be questioned about the Tiltman murder. He has a letter from Kent Constabulary saying that "close liaisons" have taken place between the force and Met officers.
Claire's father, Cliff Tiltman, said: "Over the years there has been a number of people put in the frame for my daughter's murder. I can't condemn Robert Napper because I don't know if he did it or not. I have spoken to Kent police officers about the possibility but they say they have nothing conclusive so cannot comment on the possibility."
Reader views (5)
How many policemen needed for the city to control criminal and to protect innocent?
There was better way to take care of the crimes
The authority and police should try better system
but do not forget human rights and respect foreigner innocent.
The violent criminal who derived pleasure from the suffering of others. And The details similar like the police’s attention for possessing firearms when he was 20 police caught him and a younger friend coming out of woods with loaded air pistols
This sadistic killers made people remember the cases in Finland.
- Patrict, London, 20/12/2008 08:39
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John, it's just a point of law. A murder, becomes manslaughter if diminished ie. due to his mental illness. In this case it won't make any difference, he's been diverted from the criminal justice system to Broadmoor.
Even if his conviction was overturned like you suggest(unlikely) he wouldn't be released because he's not serving a sentence - he's now detained under mental health legislation, and because he's so dangerous he's very unlikely ever to get the nod from the Ministry of Justice or a Tribunal for release.
I sympathise with the Met. They were wrongly seduced by a rather charismatic expert in this case at a time when Cracker was on the telly. Problem was the expert was wrong.
- Ron, Camden, London, 20/12/2008 08:39
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Actually John, I think advances in technology allowed for the DNA to be reexamined, they have always had it....
Could this man also have been responsible for Suzy Lamplugh?
- Madgefan, London, 19/12/2008 16:17
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The met and other police areas in Britain are remiss and sloppy but intricacies in the law, although appearing senseless often prevent them enforcing the sentences and conclusions warranted and the criminals are freed. This serves to lower morale. The laws need to be changed to protect the innocent.
- Ann, Chelmsford UK, 19/12/2008 14:24
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It is difficult to know if a patient in Broadmoor is fit to plead.
This event was a murder, not manslaughter, and it looks as if plea bargaining featured in this case in order to close this file.
In a few years this will be possibly be classed as an unsafe conviction and Napper will be released, and probably awarded damages.
The so called DNA evidence only surfaced four years ago, after being missed for twelve years.
Can we really rely on the Metropolitan Police?
T
- John, Westminster, London, 19/12/2008 11:17
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