Man admits killing Rachel Nickell - Met apologises to Colin Stagg
- Thread starter Bahnhof Strasse
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Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
I can't spell Rachel 
Artie Fufkin
Polymer Records
I lived on the same Roehampton Estate as Colin Stagg in 1994 when I was at college and his flat was constantly graffitied and vandalised to the point where it was boarded up. nice
I had a very telling conversation this summer with a DC from the met who told me that without doubt Stagg was guilty. When I asked how he knew this it was because some very senior officers very close to the case had told him. It just underlines the problems here, poor Colin Stagg he stood no chance.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Stagg had a very hard time on remand too. Not from fellow-inmates, as much as from self-appointed arbiters of justice on the Prison Service staff.
Fedayn
Well-Known Member
I had a similar convo with a CPS worker on the train the day after his acquittal. It was as if she believed because they believed the police then there should and could have been no doubt as to his guilt. I asked about evidence and the like, apparently not needed if it's so obvious.
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
No he wouldn't you fewl.
untethered
For industry & decency
Indeed. It was one of those cases where the prosecution evidence was so flimsy the judge didn't even bother a jury with it.
While not a miscarriage of justice in the conventional sense (a wrongful conviction), it was a very clear indicator of the truth of the legal maxim that "justice delayed is justice denied". Mr Stagg spent 13 months on remand, which in itself was effectively a substantial punishment visited on a completely innocent man.
Remand has its place, but no case should take 13 months to bring to court.
Bakunin
I am Noodle's bitch.
Actually he probably would had he been convicted, at least if the death penalty system was being administered along the lines it was when hanging was in use.
In those days, the law only specified a minimum of three Sundays between sentencing and execution, so the worst case scenario was having between three and four weeks between the judge donning the black cap and the hangman walking through the cell door, and if the condemned inmate was in the condemned cell for more than one year and one day then the sentence would be automatically commuted.
The only other times a death sentence was ever commuted was on the order of the Home Secretary (which was likely to happen only if the jury and/or trial judge recommended mercy, and even many who had such a recommendation were still hanged, without such a recommendation the prisoner could safely be considered a 'dead man walking'), by direct petition to the King or Queen (never successful to my knowledge) or if enough exculpatory evidence could be mustered in the three or four weeks between sentencing and execution.
It was very rare for a condemned prisoner to be in the condemned cell for longer than six or seven weeks, and only then if they had an outstanding appeal that couldn't be dealt with within the three or four weeks usually set aside for such appeals.
The other option, and this only occurred in the case of John 'Babbacombe' Lee (known as 'The Man They Couldn't Hang') was if the gallows failed to work three times, in which event (and as a result of the bungled Lee hanging) the sentence was automatically commuted to one of life imprisonment.
You're probably thinking more along the lines of the American system, where a condemned inmate can be on Death Row for years or even decades between sentencing and execution.
Dpn't usually watch the fear inducing Crimewatch strand of programmes: but the programe tonight, 'Innocent' and the story of Colin Stagg, etc was truly truly shocking, I unlke some on here don't see the police as always wrong, but here the police involved in the Nickel case were a disgrace, and yes have blood on their hands, the 'honey trap' obscene and the tabloids, well, never has the soubriquet often used to describe it more apt, 'power without responsibility' and the arraogance of the Mirror journo, does he have no shame, british justice, I've shit it.
Gingerman
Is a great bunch of lads.....
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article5367901.ece
You know what pisses me off about the treatment of Stagg? the way he aroused suspicions because he was that most awful thing "a loner" like he was a weirdo because he preferred his own company,wasn't out shagging and on the piss every night ffs
now if he was a proper geezer loike 
You know what pisses me off about the treatment of Stagg? the way he aroused suspicions because he was that most awful thing "a loner" like he was a weirdo because he preferred his own company,wasn't out shagging and on the piss every night ffs
now if he was a proper geezer loike 
Geri
wasn't born to follow
The time between sentencing and hanging doesn't have any effect on the liklihood of a conviction though.
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
No I'm not. Even in the US a man who is found not guilty doesn't get executed. Stagg was cleared by the court.
This case is about yet another massive failure by the Metropolitan Police. They could have had this fucker before he killed anyone. As it stands he killed Rachel, the filth convinced themselves it was Stagg and as a result another young woman and her child were murdered.
Fedayn
Well-Known Member
What was the Mirror journo saying?
Meltingpot
Living in our pools we soon forget about the sea
The police rubbed it in too after the judge threw the case out of court, by saying that they weren't looking for anybody else.
Sort of makes you wonder if those guys had a scrap of objectivity at all.
Sort of makes you wonder if those guys had a scrap of objectivity at all.
Bakunin
I am Noodle's bitch.
The time between sentencing and hanging doesn't have any effect on the liklihood of a conviction though.
No, it doesn't. I was just making the point, in response to the earlier post about pissing all over the pro-hanging lobby, that had he been convicted he'd almost certainly have been topped by now for something he didn't do.
I was referring to an earlier post which, to be fair, I should have quoted as well.
Paulie Tandoori
shut it you egg!
What the cops missed in their incompetence is quite shocking and scary really.
• Napper's mother calls the police to say he has raped a woman. They fail to connect it to the knifepoint rape of a woman in her home eight weeks before.
• A neighbour tells police Napper matches the photofit of the Green Chain rapist. He fails to turn up to give a blood sample.
• Another member of the public tells police "Bob Napper" is the Green Chain rapist. He fails to turn up to give a blood sample.
• Detectives examine Napper in connection to the rapes and rule him out for being "too tall".
• Police search his home and find an A-Z map book marking points which correspond to sexual attacks, diaries describing ways to restrain people, and a gym card belonging to a young blonde woman slipped into the pages of a map. He is not pursued.
• Two boys find a tin box buried on a common in south-east London. Inside is a gun carrying Napper's fingerprints. He is not questioned.
• A member of the public spots Napper preying on a young blonde woman in her home. Police question him and let him go, noting he could be a rapist.
• A hunting knife buried 100 yards from where Nickell was murdered is conclusively linked to Napper. He is not questioned about it.
And yet, the Met has "ruled out further investigation of its catastrophic mistakes in the Rachel Nickell murder case. One of the country's most senior officers apologised yesterday for failures that left a serial rapist free. Robert Napper killed two young mothers and one of their children. Sixteen years after the murder of Nickell, 23, on Wimbledon Common, John Yates, the assistant commissioner of the Met, publicly expressed regret that officers in three major investigations missed opportunities to catch Napper, a paranoid schizophrenic and multiple rapist.
"There have already been several reviews and the lessons have been learned. It was 16 years ago and a lot of things have changed since then," he said.
• Napper's mother calls the police to say he has raped a woman. They fail to connect it to the knifepoint rape of a woman in her home eight weeks before.
• A neighbour tells police Napper matches the photofit of the Green Chain rapist. He fails to turn up to give a blood sample.
• Another member of the public tells police "Bob Napper" is the Green Chain rapist. He fails to turn up to give a blood sample.
• Detectives examine Napper in connection to the rapes and rule him out for being "too tall".
• Police search his home and find an A-Z map book marking points which correspond to sexual attacks, diaries describing ways to restrain people, and a gym card belonging to a young blonde woman slipped into the pages of a map. He is not pursued.
• Two boys find a tin box buried on a common in south-east London. Inside is a gun carrying Napper's fingerprints. He is not questioned.
• A member of the public spots Napper preying on a young blonde woman in her home. Police question him and let him go, noting he could be a rapist.
• A hunting knife buried 100 yards from where Nickell was murdered is conclusively linked to Napper. He is not questioned about it.
And yet, the Met has "ruled out further investigation of its catastrophic mistakes in the Rachel Nickell murder case. One of the country's most senior officers apologised yesterday for failures that left a serial rapist free. Robert Napper killed two young mothers and one of their children. Sixteen years after the murder of Nickell, 23, on Wimbledon Common, John Yates, the assistant commissioner of the Met, publicly expressed regret that officers in three major investigations missed opportunities to catch Napper, a paranoid schizophrenic and multiple rapist.
"There have already been several reviews and the lessons have been learned. It was 16 years ago and a lot of things have changed since then," he said.
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
I had a similar conversation with a lower level cop a year or so ago, when the compensation was given. This guy was a FOAF and was ranting about how criminals get the upper hand and how the Stagg case was proof that there is no justice cos everyone in the Met knew he was guilty and were just trying to keep a killer off the streets.
I hope I get to meet him again. Oh yes.
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
What.
The.
Fuck?
There's more evidence there than they tried to convict Stagg with.
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
Paulie Tandoori
shut it you egg!
Innit. And iirc, i think the news of the screws recently ran yet another feature basically fingering stagg and implying that he was somehow guilty. Can't imagine what that poor bloke went through cos of their determination to screw him, let alone Nickell's family reflecting on the sheer incompetence of the police investigation.
Urbanblues
Was that it, life?
Was Napper a freemason?
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