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Britain's Most Evil Killers S10E05 (Nov 18 2025)
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CreativityTranscript
00:00On the 14th of April, 2003, police in the Welsh capital of Cardiff
00:13were called to the scene of a car on fire.
00:18They soon realized that in the back seat,
00:21there was a dead body wrapped in a carpet.
00:24Now it's clear that this was a murder
00:27and that whoever committed the murder
00:29took the precaution of setting fire to the car and the body in it.
00:36Investigators soon identified the victim as 41-year-old Derek Bennett
00:41and the number one suspect was Derek's friend, Philip Hegarty.
00:47For the people around Hegarty,
00:49they instinctively felt there were problems with him
00:53but couldn't possibly have known how much danger they were in.
00:56The evidence against Hegarty was strong
00:59but the 48-year-old refused to admit his guilt.
01:04Hegarty walked past me and he just looked at me
01:07and he said, I promise you, I didn't do it.
01:10Driven by violence and greed,
01:13Hegarty was willing to kill someone he called a friend,
01:16undoubtedly making him one of Britain's most evil killers.
01:20The story of Philip Hegarty
01:44when philip hegarty was arrested in 2003 for the murder of his friend derrick bennett it was a
01:54shock to everyone who knew them both including derrick's partner colleen
02:03it's just unbelievable you just don't believe it's true until you're going through it
02:08even though derrick knew some of phil's criminal history he didn't have a bad word to say about
02:17him i suppose that's the show that he put on for him hegarty tried to deny murder but the case was
02:27built on a wealth of forensic evidence there was blood spatter in the basement there was blood on
02:35the sofa where derrick had been murdered there was blood on hegarty's clothes the evidence was
02:43overwhelming when hegarty was found guilty at his trial in july 2004 the judge decided that the 49
02:53year old career criminal would become one of around 70 prisoners in the uk with a whole life tariff
03:00handing down a whole life tariff is not going to be something that the judge is going to take lightly
03:07i can only imagine the judge had his reasons for the murder of his friend hegarty will never see
03:15beyond the prison walls this killer story begins in cardiff in 1955. little is known about hegarty's
03:26formative years but he appeared to have been on the wrong path from an early age he was a difficult
03:34little boy there's no doubt of that i think he had a mean streak very early on and it came out as soon
03:41as he got to 10 or 11 he started stealing from the neighbors and he became progressively more belligerent
03:48he was a career criminal from such a young age and that does predict that he will probably carry on that
03:58pattern throughout his life as hegarty grew older his crimes only escalated
04:08in his 20s he went on to become a particularly violent and nasty handbag snatcher
04:15he used to creep up behind old ladies punch hit or kick them and then run away taking the money
04:27he only chose people who he thought were vulnerable or weaker than him he's become increasingly violent
04:36violence works for him why would you pick on elderly women if you didn't have that mean and violent streak
04:45in 1987 32 year old hegarty was charged with yet another robbery offense
04:54and this time it was even more violent
04:59he was arrested for beating up a taxi driver in fact so badly that poor driver had to go to hospital
05:06hegarty hegarty's persistent law breaking meant he was regularly in and out of prison by may 1988 he was
05:16back on the streets of cardiff once again
05:23he at that time had a bit of a part-time job measuring people for suits
05:28and one day he returned to the home of a retired estate agent knocked on the door and said oh i've
05:36come to take some more measurements for your suit but when he got inside the house he beat his victim
05:44about the head with a cat scratching post he terrorized him he tortured him he put a knife to his throat
05:53he slashed his face looking for money he got away with 60 pounds and a bank card put a plastic bag
06:03a bin liner over his victim's head and left him for dead
06:13what's escalating is the amount of gratuitous violence that he is using so i think it's the
06:20violence that is the real driver here
06:23after the horrendous attack hegarty assumed the man was dead but the retired estate agent managed
06:33to call the police and was later able to identify hegarty as his attacker
06:41arrested and put on trial at newport crown court the 33 year old was charged with attempted murder
06:48wounding with intent and robbery but hegarty denied it all he did his absolute best to wriggle out of
06:58being anywhere near the crime hegarty spun a web of lies he maintained that he was drinking with female
07:09friends he maintained that he took one of his friends to pick up their daughter from school
07:18on the stand when asked if he'd been at the victim's house that day he responded certainly not
07:30the evidence against hegarty i think was compelling but hegarty's not the kind of person
07:37that is bothered by things like guilt so he's going to use everything in his power to try and get out of it
07:44the prosecution had one thing that hegarty couldn't wriggle out of the victim himself had clearly identified him
07:59it was all lies and he was convicted of attempted murder wounded with intent
08:04he gets a sentence of 15 years for the attack on this elderly man he only serves 10 years of the 15.
08:19newly released after his time in prison the now 43 year old philip hegarty relocated to the south coast of
08:27england when he came out of prison he would have been in my opinion possibly worse than when he went in
08:36and he was bad enough when he went in on his release hegarty returns to his old ways robbery theft
08:45at one point he goes to dorset and starts stealing television sets and all sorts of other things and
08:52doesn't see any point in earning a living he'll make it by theft i just don't think he recognized
08:59authority he was the one who was going to do whatever he liked
09:07by the early 2000s hegarty had a long list of charges to his name he decided to move back to
09:15cardiff where he resumed an old friendship with a man called derek bennett
09:23at the time derek was living with his partner colleen i met derek while out with my work colleagues
09:33for just a night out he walked me home never left he was a very charming lovable rogue
09:41as my mum used to call him
09:51derek was so family-oriented he always seemed so happy he was never judgmental just basically happy
09:58that he had his life with his family and derek loved everything to do with family
10:04colleen and derek both already had children and together they had a son forming a blended family
10:16one day they were out in cardiff when they bumped into an old friend
10:23derek had met hegarty a few years before i'd met him i only met him when we walked into a joke shop
10:31we were on our shopping trips in town and hegarty was working there that's how hegarty came back into his life
10:41and every now and again hegarty would go to football with him go out drinking with him
10:47the two bonded over their love of drink and their love of cardiff city and they were
10:53seen together a lot of the time going to matches derek even had a key to hegarty's flat in the grangetown
11:01area of cardiff he'd go there to hang out with hegarty
11:07at the time i'd known hegarty i'd known he'd been in and out of prison but at the time i never knew what for
11:15hegarty seemingly hid his crimes from those around him but colleen was still wary
11:26whenever derek would come back from seeing phil i'd feel that he was just trying to poison his mind
11:32against everything whether it be our little family or something else
11:39and when he'd come back home and he'd be sullen and upset and he wouldn't talk and you could see
11:47anger in the eyes
11:48it's quite possible that derek was wary of him all his instincts were telling him that he didn't
11:58really want to be around this guy i do believe that hegarty probably gave out that vibe because he
12:08wouldn't have the skills to make people trust him
12:11every time phil's name was mentioned i'd say oh please don't tell me he's coming
12:20it's such a chill to go down my spine but never pinpointing why
12:27the thought of being in the same room it'd make my skin crawl
12:31i'd never put my finger on it so i try not to be left alone with him
12:35what colleen didn't know was that this was a man now facing serious debts
12:45in the past hegarty had always resorted to crime to solve his financial problems
12:52but in the early months of 2003 his debts were growing and growing and he needed to do something
12:59to solve that problem he was becoming increasingly more dangerous to the people that that he actually
13:09knew because this was a man who enjoyed violence derek and hegarty's friendship continued and in april
13:202003 they went to a party together on the surface it was two friends out on a friday
13:27in april 2003 philip hegarty was living in cardiff and had rekindled a friendship with 41 year old derek bennett
13:51by 2003 hegarty has a string of violent convictions to his name and it was inevitable that he would use
14:02violence again for the people around hegarty they probably instinctively felt there were problems with
14:11him but couldn't possibly have known how much danger they were in
14:14on monday the 14th of april police received a 999 call informing them that a car was on fire in the
14:28wychurch area of cardiff the fire brigade arrive put the fire out but then discover inside a body wrapped in a rug
14:38they have no idea who the body is they have no idea whose car it is it's simply a burnt body in a car
14:47the intriguing case landed on the desk of ds martin lloyd evans
14:53i hadn't long come home from work and it was about nine o'clock on a monday evening
14:58i had a phone call just telling me that a body had been found in a burnt out car in a car park in
15:04woodchurch i remember people couldn't quite believe that such a horrific thing had happened within that
15:12community a battered body wrapped in a carpet in the back seat of a blazing car in the middle of
15:21woodchurch that doesn't happen very often as head of homicide martin was quick to assess the scene
15:29there was a body in the back seat wrapped in something you couldn't say it was male or female
15:40everything was protected by what was seen to be some sort of blanket or material over the body but
15:46you could see the person's head and you could see their arm we could see the feet were bound together
15:53with a bath towel on top of the head had been placed a pillowcase
16:01and then the person had wrapped in this carpet the jumper it was a a reddish jumper with black stripes
16:07on it martin and his team began to look for clues as to what had happened and found two witnesses who
16:14saw the fire start they didn't even smell smoke or see anything coming from the from the car when they
16:20parked quite near to it they'd only literally got into a club upstairs to the snooker room a matter
16:26of minutes when they look out and see this car ablaze nobody remembers when the car was put there
16:33no one remembers seeing anybody running away from it it's a complete mystery reaching an impasse with
16:39the witnesses martin used his detective instincts to ascertain whether or not he was at an active
16:46murder scene my suspicions were aroused when i saw this this brownie red fluid in the water that
16:53had washed out from the car a crime scene examiner at the scene tested it and in fact it was blood
17:00now it's clear that this was a murder and that whoever committed the murder took the precaution of
17:07setting fire to the car and the body in it in an attempt to cover his or her tracks
17:13one thing was clear the killer had attempted to destroy all the evidence but they'd overlooked
17:21something whoever put the victim in the back of that reno laguna had made a fatal mistake they'd shut
17:28the doors windows so that there wasn't enough oxygen for the fire to burn really fiercely and although
17:36the facial features had been destroyed a lot of the body was still intact
17:44because the body was cocooned in the carpet it actually was protected from the fire you could see
17:51that it was a male probably aged about 45 but what was significant on the right hand side of a temple
18:00you could see that person has suffered a number of blunt trauma to the right side of their head
18:07given there were no witnesses police worked on the theory these blows to the head happened elsewhere
18:13and the body had been transported in the car they managed to track down the registered owner to see if
18:19he could answer their questions what he said is that he'd sold the car some six weeks before to a guy
18:27that he'd met in a in a public house all he knew this guy was called dell and he was a cardiff city
18:33supporter but who was this dell this is where the media can be really helpful they had a name they knew
18:43he was referred to as dell but really that's all they had the day after discovering the body and armed
18:52with nothing more than the name dell southwell's police held a press conference to appeal to the
18:58public for information at the press conference i released some certain information and watching
19:05the television was dell's brother and he came forward and said he recognized the cars belonging to his
19:12brother derek known as a dow so now we had our victim derek bennett
19:25the last time i saw derek we'd had a lovely day out we'd had food and then he was coming back and
19:32he was getting changed to go out and celebrate a birthday with his brother and a few of their mates
19:38colline knows he went out on friday night and she hasn't heard from him by sunday and it's beginning
19:47to be really worrying
19:56i was drinking a cup of coffee and i had a knock on the door and it was derek's sister-in-law and niece
20:02saying they've been in contact with the police and something's happened to derek and i needed to phone
20:10them straight away and i laughed i'm stupid i just laughed
20:18and when i phoned i went to peter so just things from there on a spotty and grainy
20:40i think it's a mixture of confusion and shock rolled into awareness pure sadness a life taken
21:02children not seeing their father again colleen had to break the news to her children their dad
21:09wouldn't be coming home i just said some bad man had heard derek and derek's not coming back
21:19and one of my daughters at the time said can i go see him in a balloon with baskets
21:30well child's imagination
21:31the police asked us all to leave the house so that they can search their place just basically to
21:42rule out me as a suspect that's the only way you can put it
21:52i spoke to derek's partner with several days of the murder taking place
21:56she in fact was a great source of of information for us wanted to find out who would kill to her
22:02partner and she assisted us no end in that regard
22:10police were determined to find out who was responsible for derek's brutal murder
22:16the post-mortem gave them some of the answers they'd been looking for
22:19well it was clear that the cause of death was blunt trauma to the right hand side of derek's body he'd
22:27been hit a minimum of six times with a blunt object probably a hammer i would have thought
22:36which had caused the skull to shatter in numerous pieces
22:39and that's what killed him at least six blows that means the first blow wasn't enough for this person
22:51and they continued probably until he was completely incapacitated or even dead
22:57that's what killed him at least one of the people of the people who had been out with to try and
23:15establish a timeline he'd been out he'd been visiting a number of public houses in cardiff with his brother
23:24and a number of other people ending up then in nightclub in cardiff and then in the early hours
23:30then of the saturday morning going to a house party in the rumney area of the city
23:37it seemed from those investigations that the last sighting of derek was
23:41on the early hours of the saturday morning
23:44derek's brother told police that derek had left the party around 6 30 in the morning he'd left in a
23:55friend's car that of 48 year old philip hegarty
24:02philip hegarty he was driving the car and derek was sitting in the car together with derek's brother
24:08and they went to the petrol station and they bought petrol
24:11we recovered the cct footage and we could see that derek was wearing that red top with the black stripes
24:19on it and that top is on the charred body in the car which means he was probably killed not long
24:28afterwards investigators were now certain that derek bennett had been murdered in the early hours of
24:35saturday morning and the last person seen with him was philip hegarty the 48 year old was now
24:42the main suspect but was it truly conceivable that derek's good friend was also his killer
24:49in april 2003 41 year old derek bennett was found murdered on the back seat of his own burnt out car
25:06he was last seen driving through cardiff after leaving a party with his friend philip hegarty
25:12hegarty as the last person to see him alive and with a violent track record police needed to speak
25:19to hegarty to get his account of that fateful friday evening
25:29he claimed that derek bennett hadn't been to his house that he'd dropped him off at the international arena
25:34he'd gone one way he'd gone another you haven't seen him since simple as that and he was quite happy
25:44to tell us all that he knew or wanted us to know he's setting the narrative about who he is he knows
25:53that he's got a really really long criminal past with violence so he's obviously going to come onto the radar
26:01hegarty was the prime suspect but investigators had no solid evidence against him martin spoke to
26:11witnesses about hegarty's movements after derek's murder
26:25on the saturday he should have gone to work he didn't he took the day off he used to work in a
26:30call center he just didn't show up and ran in sick on that particular day he had a car that yet three
26:38days later he scrapped it and bought another car now this is a man that didn't have any money he
26:44seemed to be in possession of quite a substantial sum of money he paid off a number of debts that he
26:50borrowed to people that he worked with
26:51martin started to work on the theory that hegarty could have stolen money from derek but he had no
27:01proof whilst detectives looked into this motive hegarty was making sure to pay his condolences to
27:09derek's family in the days that followed hegarty came over and he just sits in my house with his
27:26feet on my chairs he'd sit down and start crying
27:30why did someone take my friend what happened why
27:38i've felt so uncomfortable and i just didn't want to be there with him i just needed him gone
27:47he was desperately trying to portray himself as somebody trustworthy who couldn't possibly have been
27:55involved in this he was offering up his sofa when one of the family needed that this was a man
28:03who simplistically thought if i look like a nice guy everybody will think i'm a nice guy
28:10so nobody is going to point the finger at me
28:17investigators believed derek was murdered in a different location to where his body was found
28:23martin decided to bring hegarty back into the police station for an interview and whilst he was
28:30there they obtained a warrant to search his home what the police didn't have in the wake of the
28:37discovery of the body in the car was where the crime took place and so they're looking for a crime
28:43scene and one potential crime scene would be philip hegarty's flat
28:48the detectives went to his house to do a cursory search now he lived in a rented accommodation
28:55ground floor flat when they looked around that house they found derek's bum bag where he kept his money
29:07finding derek's empty money bag backed up the theory that hegarty had stolen cash from his friend
29:14but investigators needed a lot more if they were going to prove murder
29:22one major thing the police discovered in their search of hegarty's flat
29:27was a speck literally of blood on the wall
29:32we took a sample of the blood but in the blood was a fingerprint
29:36and that fingerprint belonged to philip hegarty
29:39martin didn't know who the blood belonged to yet but he suspected it would turn out to be derrick's
29:47he decided to follow his hunch and arrest hegarty on suspicion of murder now he was against the clock
29:54to prove it
29:58i decided to fast track the blood we'd found at the scene and dispatched it to the forensic science
30:04service who came back a dna profile of derrick bennett so we've got philip hegarty's fingerprint
30:11and derrick bennett's blood at his scene police could now formally charge hegarty with murder but he
30:19continued to deny it without a confession investigators knew they would have to find even more evidence
30:27they started with a full forensic search of the flat
30:35as the scientist carried out a more detailed search of the lounge there was a leather setting
30:41underneath the bookcase and underneath the bookcase the small droppers of blood
30:47once you found one we found loads of them and it was quite clear this was the spray
30:53from where he struck derrick bennett at the blood had splattered over the wall in minute spots
31:02the blood spit indicates to the police that derrick was probably asleep on the sofa when he was attacked
31:14shockingly this was the very same sofa that hegarty had let derrick's grieving son stay on
31:20in the days after the murder the evidence all pointed towards derrick being killed in hegarty's flat
31:29now they wanted to see if they could link him to the carpet that derrick's body was wrapped in
31:36as we continue to look in the house there were signs that it had been cleaned it was just quite a
31:41dirty flat but this particular room had a shape of a carpet on the floor and clearly that had gone
31:48missing philip hegarty had two dogs took samples from from the carpet found at the scene compared
31:56them with the contents of the vacuum cleaner which was in philip hegarty's house and they matched
32:04the evidence against hegarty continued to mount but investigators wanted even more this time they
32:11honed in on the pillowcase and towel that were found covering derrick's head and body i had a phone
32:20call of the police officers dealing with derrick's murder and they asked me if i could go to the
32:26police station to identify some things when i went down there i identified pillowcases and towels and i
32:34only know they were from me because a couple of months previously hegarty asked me if i had any
32:40spare bedding so i sorted out what i had and i gave it to him the gathering of evidence in this case was
32:50probably one of the best cases everything just came together to make a complete picture pointing to
32:56only one person that committed this crime which was philip hegarty derrick's family were shocked to
33:02discover that the man charged with his murder was someone that they all knew and had invited into
33:10their homes never suspected hegarty at all why would you suspect someone who's coming to visit you
33:20why would you suspect them of them being a killer
33:23faced with a murder charge and a solid forensic case hegarty still refused to admit to killing his friend
33:39and at his upcoming trial he was going to try and get away with murder
33:53in 2003 philip hegarty was charged with the murder of derrick bennett but despite the overwhelming
34:03forensic evidence against him hegarty refused to admit to killing his friend as the prosecution
34:10prepared for the upcoming trial they used the evidence to paint a picture of exactly what happened
34:16between the two friends on the night of derrick's murder we know that derrick had gone to hegarty's
34:26flat and was lying face down on the sofa sleeping off this very boozy night we can only suppose that
34:35hegarty thought this is my chance to get some money he knew that derrick had around 3 000 pounds with him
34:45i think it's something he just took advantage of the situation that he found himself in but he was
34:53a danger a danger to everybody and almost like a ticking time bomb waiting for an opportunity to
34:59to get what he wanted using force if necessary and that's what he did hegarty had been violent in the
35:05past but this attack went further
35:08it may look on the surface as if he just wanted to rob him he did not need to kill derrick to rob him
35:24this was a very frenzied brutal killing straight from the hegarty playbook
35:30what he did was he beat his so-called best friend around the head
35:38he had a slow and painful death it took derrick one and a half hours to die
35:48and all the time hegarty was there by his side
35:54this is a out of the blue anger from hegarty probably driven by his need to pay off his debts
36:01but also out of envy hegarty refused to admit to the murder let alone a motive for it but it seemed
36:17clear that money was at the center of the vicious attack he was skint he owed people money all over
36:26cardiff on the day of the murder and days following he paid off a lot of his debts with
36:33money that he'd got from derrick witnesses describe him as being flush with money
36:40it didn't seem to occur to him that somebody might say where did that money come from you've
36:46been in debt for ages well how have you suddenly got the means to pay that off
36:52i just don't think hegarty is very clever
37:04not only did investigators believe hegarty murdered his so-called friend but they also believed he took
37:11multiple steps to try and cover up what he'd done
37:15it's clear from the timeline that derek's body was kept in the flat for some time because it was two
37:24days later that derek's body was found in the blazing car in which church this man i think enjoys the
37:34violence so much everything else kind of just goes for a blank for him and he panics afterwards and just
37:43tries to deal with it afterwards in whatever way he can hegarty had committed a very brutal murder what
37:51we know is that he made not terribly successful but extensive efforts to clear up the blood to try and
37:58cover his tracks but he had a problem he was in a flat in a busy area of cardiff and there was a dead body
38:05on his sofa philip hegarty wrapped derek in the carpet and had to carry it out of his flat to the car in
38:16the street so he had to hide the feet and hide the head prosecutors believe that in hegarty's efforts to
38:25disguise the crime scene he left behind a trail of evidence which they were now ready to present to a jury
38:33in the courtroom in july 2004 the trial began at swansea crown court
38:48the prosecution had a very good case against philip hegarty they had all the forensic evidence that
38:55scenes of crimes officer had gathered from hegarty's fat
38:59the blood the fibers the dog hairs from the carpet that was used to wrap derek's body
39:06the evidence in this case wasn't just circumstantially it was overwhelming
39:16despite the odds being heavily stacked against him philip hegarty pleaded not guilty
39:23he did put forward a defense although it was very very weak he said that there were heavies drug heavies
39:33that uh derek was afraid of and they must have come and and killed him and murdered him and left his body
39:41in a car he spent days trying to create false alibis it was ridiculous he also said he didn't know the area
39:50of woodchurch in cardiff so how could he possibly leave a dead body in a blazing car there
39:57hegarty would have continued to deny everything whilst there was the slightest chance that he might
40:04have got off simple as that derek's partner colleen sat in the courtroom hearing hegarty's passionate
40:12denial day in day out every day i go to this court in swansea and he'd walk past and they nearly took
40:22him back out of the court because he spoke to me he just said out loud i promise you i didn't do it
40:34after 27 days the trial concluded and on the 23rd of july 2004 the jury were ready to deliver their verdict
40:45it only took them a day and a half they came back into court and told the judge
40:53mr justice roderick evans that they had a verdict that verdict was guilty hegarty was guilty of murder
41:03finally philip hegarty would be back behind bars when it came to sentencing the judge spoke of the 49
41:11year old's continued duplicity sentencing hegarty mr justice roderick evans turned to him and said that
41:20he was a very dangerous violent man a manipulative and resourceful liar
41:27in hegarty's case the judge said life should mean life he imposed a whole life tariff
41:36whole life tariffs are reserved only for the most serious of offenders there's probably only about 70
41:51of them because we only use them in the most extreme circumstances
41:58when i heard the sentence i thought my life can carry on my life can go make a new normal
42:10because my old normal's gone now how do you get a new normal you gotta work hard
42:20for derrick's family the ordeal was finally over
42:23but they would never get their partner and father back the two children derrick and i have together
42:35they definitely felt what it's like growing up without a dad
42:42the younger one has no photos with his dad no memories no nothing
42:48and definitely doesn't heal but it makes it easier to cope with as well
42:53so all i gotta do is just keep living my life with my families
43:00and my life will get where it should be
43:05philip hegarty murdered derrick bennett with little regard for his friend or his friend's family
43:13this was a story of a jekyll and hyde character who was all short of money and wouldn't stop at
43:21anything to get what he wanted to get that money
43:28he's used violence to his advantage throughout his life the public should be protected from a man who's
43:34entirely capable of violence at a moment's notice
43:37when derrick said goodbye to colleen and his children that friday night he couldn't have known what his
43:45so-called friend was capable of philip hegarty brutally murdered derrick for no other reason than pure greed
43:53which is why hegarty will forever be remembered as one of britain's most evil killers
44:08i
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