In this episode, Ogden explores the high-stakes trial of serial killer Dennis Nilsen. By May 1983, after a three-month investigation and an overtime bill said to be topping a million pounds, detectives on the case were told to close off new leads. They had managed to identify five of the sixteen young men Nilsen said he killed. But according to Nilsen, there are up to nine more victims still to be identified. In the press, initial interest has evaporated, and victims’ stories receive little coverage.
Meeting campaigner, Peter Tatchell, Ogden discovers that, at exactly the same time as Nilsen’s crimes were discovered, he was running for election in a South London byelection, now recognised, as the most homophobic campaign in British history. He tells Ogden, that although Nilsen’s crimes were exceptional in the number of his victims, in Britain and in London, gay men faced danger and violence on a daily basis.
As detectives prepare for trial, forensic investigators finally identify the two other victims whose remains were found in Nilsen’s Cranley Gardens flat. John Howlett and Graham Allen. 23-year-old John Howlett was murdered in March 1982, Ogden discovers that Soho police knew John well, as he was said to be involved in prostitution. But when asked why they hadn’t looked into the fact that John hadn’t been seen for a year, officers apparently joked that they thought he’d just ‘gone straight’. And the judge rules that the identification of Graham Allan has come too late for his murder to be added to Nilsen’s charges.
Five weeks before the trial, Nilsen dramatically changes the direction of the court case, by changing his plea to not guilty by way of diminished responsibility. As Ogden discovers, the change of plea creates another development in the case; the need for witnesses to help prove the prosecution case – young men who survived attacks by Nilsen.
At the trial, the prosecution calls three survivors to testify to Nilsen’s crimes: The first to testify is Douglas Stewart. He reveals how in 1982 he met Nilsen in a pub and went back home with him. He awoke to find he was tied up and Nilsen attempting to strangle him. Managing to struggle free, and escape, he called the police, but officers who arrived at the scene accepted Nilsen’s explanation and brushed it off as a lovers’ tiff.
Ogden then meets Graham McKerrow, former newspaper editor of Capital Gay. Graham explains that Stewart’s experience was sadly, not unusual. He tells Ogden how gay men were policed and harassed by the people that were meant to protect them, and that worse still, attacks on gay men were routinely ignored.
The second witness to testify, is a budding young drag performer, Carl Stotter. In 1982, Carl had left the thriving gay scene of Blackpool, to make it big in London. Alone in London, he met Nilsen in The Black Cap, before going home with him and becoming the victim of an attempted murder. Carl’s siblings, Julie and Paul reveal that Carl tried to report his attack to police, back in May 1982 but it was laughed off as a lovers’ tiff and not pursued. Carl was openly gay and Douglas Stewart had been at a well-known gay pub and gone home with another man, Ogden is left wondering if it was because of this that their attacks weren’t taken seriously by police.
And another tip-off reveals yet another survivor of an attempted murder: 19-year-old, Paul Nobbs. This time, unlike Carl and Douglas, Paul hadn’t reported the attack he suffered to the police perhaps because in 1983 he was under the age of consent for gay men which was 21. Also, when Paul Nobbs was attacked in November 1982 he was not out publicly or out to his family. Understandably he may have felt it was a risk not worth taking.
Despite their shocking and harrowing testimonies Paul and Carl, both victims of an attempted murder, are afforded little sympathy in the media – and are continually referred to as homosexuals, as if their sexuality were the most important thing about them.
On the 9th day of the trial, the jury retire to consider their verdict. Within 24 hours a guilty verdict is returned and Nilsen is given a life sentence. But, as Ogden discovers, once Nilsen is convicted, the true and shameful extent of missed opportunities to catch Nilsen years before 1983 are revealed.
Meeting with journalist Douglas Bence, Ogden discovers the story of a fifth survivor of Nilsen’s attacks – 19-year-old Andrew Ho. Bence’s archive reveals a document that recounts not only the attack but also the fact that Nilsen was arrested and interviewed for two days for attempted murder. And he’s only released because Andrew Ho, who’s 19 and gay, is fearful of pressing charges. But as the detective notes in writing, Nilsen is “dangerous….pathological, even”. Andrew Ho was attacked in 1979 and Ogden asks, if the police had heeded the warning of a colleague and kept closer watch on Nilsen at this point, could the lives of 15 young men have been saved?
