True Crime boom: 'I worked with the Krays, Myra Hindley and Peter Sutcliffe'

Yorkshire Post

"On the surface they look just like you and me."  Linda Sage spent forty years working in England’s top category prisons with the UK’s most notorious criminals, including the Krays, Myra Hindley and Peter Sutcliffe.

Transcript

00:00Why do you think true crime is so popular?

00:03I think people like to see what makes other people different and the line that they step

00:11over. The only thing I have is that an awful lot of people actually believe everything they see

00:19and unfortunately even true crime documentaries and true crime films and things like this all

00:27have a budget and whoever's got the money in the budget has their slant on it and it would be

00:33wonderful to think that every crime could be sold in 60 minutes or 90 minutes but it doesn't. It

00:40could be years, it could be years and years of detection. For me it's about education and sharing

00:48the experience of what it's really like because people do have this idea of glamorizing it and

00:54unfortunately the youth crime between 15 and 17 is the largest crime area growing because they tend

01:01to see these people as idols and things like this where they really need to be made aware of.

01:08What was it like when you first went into a prison?

01:11It's like when I first went in things are so different to what they are now.

01:15There's no DBS. I went in as a student to do case histories and things like this. My first prison

01:22was Canterbury prison and the first person I spoke to was a young man on remand actually for

01:28for murder and I went in with a pen, a bar of chocolate and a pack of cigarettes which none of

01:35those would be feasible today but I think I was so a little bit naive in the respect that I didn't

01:43think about the enormity of it. It was just always the practical side of going in and doing and

01:49coming out sort of thing.

01:50What was it like working with some of the most notorious criminals like Myra Hindley, The Cris?

01:56Yeah, everybody asks me what's it like to sit and talk to these people. Well it's just the same as

02:01sitting talking to you and me because on the outside they are exactly the same. They don't

02:06grow horns and tails. If they did it would be much easier to catch at them but so when you're talking

02:13to them it's about unveiling and very manipulative people, very much what's in it for me, what's the

02:20point of them talking to us. If they've got a 30 year plus sentence it's always that they're

02:25looking for something for themselves. If they're going to talk then they want something back.

02:30And what do you need as a criminal psychologist? What are you trying to help or get out of them?

02:36It varies right the way through because you've got certain areas that you work at. From the

02:40time that they're coming in on remand, so once they've not got bail when they come into a prison,

02:46you can do the initial report. Are they fit to stand trial? Then if they're court report then

02:53it could be for sentencing. Then once they come in it's their care plan especially at the beginning

02:59because suicide rate is much higher when somebody first comes into prison. If they've got very long

03:05sentences come into terms with that as well because very often they don't they're totally

03:11in denial about that. Did you ever feel scared? No I think it's one of the things because if you

03:19show you feel scared they pick up on it and they will manipulate the situation. You get a lot of

03:24people coming in banging about throwing chairs but a lot of it's either for bravado and let's

03:30see how far we can push the boundaries or it's frustration because one of the things they not

03:35only lose their freedom they actually lose control of their their life. Everything's dictated for them

03:42so even when they want to go and ask questions or something and people don't get back to them

03:46with answers very very small things become very big things. How do you spot a serial killer?

03:54You don't. It'd be really nice wouldn't it? Tattooed across the front of the head but

04:01the only way is by really good police work and putting all the pieces together and unfortunately

04:06for anything to be serial it has to be more than one. So serial killers are two kills

04:13upwards over time and usually in different locations and they have to start putting all

04:18these pieces of jigsaws together. One of the things that we tend to do is look back on old

04:23cases say oh and they made mistakes here at all they did this but you've got the benefit of

04:28hindsight. They've only got what they know at the time and putting those pieces together now there

04:34are a lot more detection tools but they are tools, they're aids. They cannot replace an officer going

04:40out and knocking on doors or even with CCTV footage they've got to sit there for hours and

04:46trawl through this and pick up the minute details. The police have to do a huge amount of work

04:53to actually capture the criminal and then get the evidence to get them to court.

04:58What's the hardest case you've dealt with? I think there's people that stand out particularly for me

05:09there's individuals I've just thought yeah I mean the Victoria Climbie case for me is always a

05:17milestone you know saying that little girl coming over for a better life and the treatment that she

05:23got from her aunt and her boyfriend. I think it's the children one that I think affects most people.

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