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Inside the Arrest - Season 1 Episode 7 -
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00:00the arrest is the pivotal moment in any investigation if you get it wrong then it's game over
00:12police officer with a taser
00:30everything they're doing is on body warm video everything they're doing would be examined by
00:45defense lawyers they can't make any mistakes
01:00police have made a renewed appeal for two runaway parents to hand themselves in
01:13constance martin and mark gordon are thought to be sleeping rough after going missing with their
01:19newborn child last month the risk at the moment the only increases day by day for me when we don't
01:25have a confirmed sighting and my call to constance and mark is to think of the baby and reach out to us
01:44when the police deal with big high-profile cases there is already a massive amount of pressure
01:49to solve that crime because you are being watched and you are being watched by everyone
01:55in this case the coverage was massive and that was because of the people that were involved
02:07it was headline fuel from day one
02:12stop all right well i need to speak to you
02:16well because potentially i think you may have been in national news
02:18but the stick down drop it now there's a kind of resistance in a way that that's pretty futile
02:30because their photographs and their names are everywhere in this hunt to try to catch them
02:36right the stuff down we're gonna put you in car i don't know whether this was denying reality or
02:43a tactic that they hope might buy them more time and prevent them from being arrested
02:49all right put the stick down and i'll explain all right put the stick let go of the stick
02:54the stick in your hand all right let go of the stick four times the officer had to ask
03:00him to put that stick down four
03:04yeah already we can see he's not going to be playing ball here at all
03:07all right at this moment in time until i can confirm who you are you're both under arrest
03:11on suspicion of child neglect you don't have to say i think that it may help me to fence
03:13if you don't mention when questioned something was lying in court anything you think given him
03:16should you ever understand
03:20when constance was arrested i don't think i would describe her as being fully compliant
03:26oh look at the photo on it
03:27oh it's a child where is the child where is the child but but the police are obviously well
03:33prepared they're obviously well briefed they've got a photo of them on their phones
03:37of each of them to try to make it easier to identify them
03:44all right where's your child
03:50i've just asked i'm going to do it now i've just
03:54you're under arrest for child neglect
03:57where is your child you are under arrest for consuming the birth of a child
04:00how's that that's not arrested all right section 27 offense against the person act
04:06expose a child under the age of two years where by life or health to be endangered do you understand
04:11what you've been arrested for
04:12there is a child missing and she's concerned that they've potentially arrested her for wrong legislation
04:28is she being ignorant is she being difficult is it deliberate
04:33it's baffling
04:49part of the m61 motorway has been closed to traffic this evening
04:54after a car burst into flames on the hard shoulder it's understood it broke out at around 6 20 pm
05:01and that the driver and passenger escaped before the blaze took hold
05:07when the police turn up at the burning car outside the vehicle they found things like nappies
05:13dummies bibs rompers
05:15the kind of stuff that would make you think whoever was in the car had a baby with them
05:25what happened next was the police searched the car
05:29where they found something that confirmed their suspicions a placenta wrapped in a towel
05:37so it already started off quite concerning they're at a car fire
05:40there's evidence baby's been born there with no medical attention but then they come across a passport
05:45they find out it's constance martin and when police dug into her background that's when alarm bells
05:52started ringing because her and her partner mark gordon had had four children already that had all been
06:00taken into care so this went from a missing person case to a potentially child protection emergency
06:08over the next few hours police would discover much more about the car's occupants and launch a search
06:17that would grip the entire country
06:28constance martin was born into a wealthy aristocratic family and had a life of luxury certainly compared to
06:36many people
06:39her family they had a home critchell house set in about 5 000 acres of land
06:47and they have links to the royal family
06:51her grandmother was a god daughter of the late queen mother and her father napier was a page to
06:57the late queen back in the 1970s
07:04along with the stately home upbringing there was a private school with 30 000 pounds a year fees
07:13then leeds university where a degree in arabic helped her land a job with qatar's international tv news
07:21channel constance worked at al jazeera for about a year she left to become a freelance photographer
07:27and then went to acting school and it was about this time that she met mark gordon when her life
07:34changed dramatically she was originally described by her friends as being really sociable really
07:41outgoing constantly posing on social media sort of living her best life really she had everything
07:48but then she sort of walks away from all of that she doesn't post anymore she doesn't
07:54speak to friends doesn't speak to family she disappears into this relationship with him
08:02martin's family disapproved of gordon who was 13 years older and had a criminal record
08:10that rift widened when she had four children and her privileged orderly life gave way to chaos
08:17house they never stay in one place too long they are always on the move there was reports of them
08:26damaging rental properties when they lived there at one point they're even living in a camper van and
08:31that's when the children are actually taken into care because the lifestyle is actually really unstable
08:36certainly for young kids
08:48when the car catches fire they are desperate to get away from the scene
08:56mark gordon approaches a car that's pulled over the driver's filming what's happening
09:01the driver says he'll take them once the emergency services arrive
09:15they don't want to wait for the emergency services perhaps unsurprisingly and constance martin manages
09:20to persuade another driver to give them a lift which takes them to bolton which is probably the
09:27nearest town from where they were once the police have ascertained that they've actually fled they'll
09:32know that the people involved haven't got any transport so where they're going to go they're
09:35going to head to a train station bus station some transport hub to try and move on
09:42and these transport hubs are well lit and they've got excellent cctv
09:48at bolton bus interchange three miles from the fire scene offices found what they were looking for
09:55here we see martin and gordon entering the bus exchange and what stands out is both of them are wet
10:03it's a horrible damp rainy night once they've entered they begin to look up and it would seem to be
10:10they're checking the departure board they're looking for where they can go how they can get there
10:17martin's wearing a burgundy puffer jacket which is quite distinctive
10:21but the critical thing is she's uh holding something underneath her jacket very gently cradling
10:29something there seems to be something sticking out
10:34that would appear to be a baby under there as a senior detective i'd classify this as a
10:42very high risk missing persons case that child needs to be phoned
10:56the arrest of constance martin and mark gordon marked the end of a nationwide hunt and seven weeks of
11:24confusion for police when you look into cases like this you always try and find a pattern so if
11:31you're looking for anyone who's wanted or or going on the run you look right where are their friends and
11:35family located what ties do they have to local areas where's the phones going where's the money
11:40withdrawals being made but because they didn't have a plan it makes it really hard for police to trap them
11:47along with the bolton bus station cctv police retrieved more footage of the couple getting into a cab
12:00outside road traffic cameras showed this had taken them 35 miles west to liverpool they stayed for just
12:10a few hours before embarking on a much longer journey east in liverpool the couple approached a taxi driver
12:19and asked him to take them to harwich he said yes but this would cost 400 pounds cash up front
12:26enough to put many people off but let's not forget that although constance martin was estranged from her
12:31family she still had an independent trust fund income of more than 3 000 pounds a month
12:38so the couple said yes to the taxi driver pay cash up front and off they went
12:57with the disappearance now making national news the public were on alert after checking out of their
13:05harwich hotel at 7am there was a reported sighting in nearby colchester two hours later but by midday
13:13they were 60 miles away in the capital so the police have done an extensive cctv troll painstaking work
13:21and they found martin and gordon as they arrive in a taxi in east london and this is the first glimpse we
13:28have initially of the possibility of the baby we see martin in this distinctive burgundy puffer jacket but
13:36once she's getting out of the car she's been handed something and we can see it looks like a tiny child
13:43moving which then we get a glimpse of a head but then she turns away
13:48but then the next shot we get on the high street we can actually see a tiny baby possibly a few days
13:56old under a jacket the problem is it's january it's absolutely freezing that child needs warmth and food
14:05inside a kebab shop martin puts the baby in a buggy which gordon had bought from a local store
14:16till records showed he'd also purchased a tent and sleeping bags
14:22police now feared the couple were planning to leave london sleep rough and attempt to remain under the radar
14:29we know from the movements that they've been across the united kingdom
14:38and i think now my plea to the members of the public is they could be anywhere within the united
14:43kingdom in any town in any city as police renewed their search appeals the media began publishing more
14:54information about constance martin's unlikely partner mark gordon's background is actually deeply disturbing
15:03he was born in birmingham before moving over to america when he was 14 he broke into
15:13his neighbor's property held a woman up at knife point and sexually assaulted her all while her kids were
15:19asleep in the next room he gets convicted of that crime gets 40 years serves 20 and then is released
15:29and deported back to the uk gordon's deportation was in 2010 by 2016 he was living with martin in 2017
15:43he was in trouble with the law again after one of their children was born in hospital they actually
15:50were refusing to give away their names police turn up and again they're very obstructive but what happens
15:56next is mark gordon gets very aggressive attacks a couple of these officers whilst he's trying to be
16:02restrained now all of this is in a maternity setting with children around and he acts like that
16:09to me that says that this person is extremely unpredictable doesn't know how to act it's temper
16:17first children later four years after the assault conviction social services received reports of a
16:26domestic violence incident it was then that all four children were formally put up for adoption
16:38a week after the car fire and an early morning shopping trip for constance martin
16:49by now she and gordon had left london and traveled 60 miles south
16:56what's concerning here is her appearance she looks run down this is a new mom
17:01she's changed the clothes but she looks disheveled and the food that she's buying just doesn't fit with
17:07what a a new mom would be buying for a baby so again this would heighten the fears of the police
17:13knowing that they have to find this couple as soon as possible the item she's buying fizzy drinks crisps
17:20sweets you can eat them on the move you can eat them camping out you don't have to cook them because
17:25they haven't got access to any of that so whilst it's also a convenience food and she's really not
17:31taking care of herself that food is almost out of necessity as well
17:46following the new haven sighting the police hunt and media coverage was growing ever more intense
17:53the searches here are expected to continue long into the night moving from place to place they chose
18:01to go on the run it was then that martin's father napier made an emotional appeal for her to return
18:10darling constance even though we remain estranged at the moment
18:14i stand by as i have always done and as the family has always done to do whatever is necessary for
18:24your safe return to us
18:29i beseech you to find a way to turn yourself and your wee one into the police as soon as possible
18:37so you and he or she can be protected i think anyone who's a parent would appreciate the emotions
18:46he must have been going through i mean it's not an easy thing to do anyway let alone to do so publicly
18:51and and when your life has effectively had a spotlight shone upon it
18:58and i also wish you to understand you are much much loved whatever the circumstances
19:06for more than a month after that appeal the search continued
19:17then came a 999 call from a member of the public who'd spotted a couple outside a convenience store
19:25cold dirty and hungry
19:27hello bye mate you stop for a second
19:37put this put the stick down drop it now
19:49oh
19:50photo where's your child madam where is the child please there is a lot at stake here they finally
19:56found these two after weeks of searching but there is no sign of the baby where's your child my friend
20:04where's the child and my food in a minute where's your child
20:09where's your child in a minute where's the child
20:13where's your child where's your child where's your child it must have been
20:34must have been awful for the police there
20:36because the only two people that know where this child is are giving no answers we want to know where
20:43the child is is the child alive
20:48is your child alive where's the child
20:53where's the child you can't put into words what that feels like it's almost like torture
21:06the couple had been camping on a nearby nature reserve
21:12after another 48 hours of searching police found the baby dead
21:20inside a supermarket bag in a disused allotment shed
21:26her name was victoria
21:30detectives believed she'd died of hypothermia
21:33at some point during the couple's time on the run
21:37but martin claimed she'd accidentally smothered her after falling asleep exhausted
21:51two parents have each been jailed for 14 years for causing the death of their baby daughter
21:57through negligence it follows an earlier trial in which constance martin and mark gordon were
22:03convicted of concealing the child's birth and perverting the course of justice
22:10the judge said they'd shown no genuine remorse for their actions
22:17during the couple's two old bailey trials experts were unable to give the exact cause of baby victoria's
22:24death but one other question was answered why had martin and gordon gone on the run in the first place
22:35they'd had children taken into care already and they were terrified of losing this one constance
22:42has had four children taken off her four so i suppose when she's pregnant again about to give birth
22:50she knows full well that the second she steps foot inside that hospital the police are going to be
22:54called social services are going to be called she's seen it happen already they know what the outcome of
23:00this is going to be and i suppose through that fear and desperation they think the only way to avoid it is to run
23:06i don't think they wanted this to be the outcome but it's not surprising that it ended so tragically
23:25i don't know
23:36when you're arresting somebody you're starting the legal process for them so it's really important
23:59to get everything right get it wrong then frankly it's game over you lose the investigation
24:12you could lose your career most importantly you deprive the victim and family of justice
24:19in this case the police by their own admission have already messed up once they can't afford to have
24:40that happen a second time so in making the arrest it's absolutely critical that the officers do it
24:48in as professional and legally compliant way as is absolutely possible david boyd 50 years old
24:57finally facing the consequences of a horrific crime committed in his mid-20s
25:06the murder of schoolgirl nikki allen
25:13just leave your phone there for a moment just put your hands out for us
25:18well don't be close well we'll sort that on out don't worry right now do you understand what i've
25:23set you yeah yeah okay i'll give us a second i'll just check these cuffs to make sure that they're
25:29they're locked and not too tight they're so polite to him aren't they i mean even to the extent of
25:34worrying about whether his handcuffs are too tight or not do you have any medication that you need to
25:39take yeah so we need to take some with you if you've got some
25:45it's like before they've come in they've decided we've got to be really really courteous at every
25:50point in this operation well part of the team that's really investigating the murder of nikki allen
25:55yeah okay part of that investigation has uh really suspect that you may have had some involvement in
26:01that okay so the officers have not given a lot of way but they've said the investigation has shown
26:11that he might have had some involvement in it so i'm arresting you on suspicion okay of that offence
26:17you do not have to say anything but it may have no offense if you do not mention when questioned
26:20and then as he's being arrested on suspicion of the murder he is a big sort of almost like
26:28like a sort of deflation a a big exhalation of breath i'm arresting your suspicion okay of that
26:34offense and he looks away to his left as if you know with with hindsight you could say that you know
26:40the game's up now you know he's he's been hiding all this time and now it's like oh so this is it
26:45this is the moment this is the moment i've been dreading for all those years
26:58the east end of sunderland home to the city's docks and in the early 90s the garths four blocks of
27:10tightly packed tenements nikki allen was seven and lived on the ground floor of weirgarth with her mum sharon
27:23everyone who met nikki said she was a happy and friendly girl and i think you know
27:29her smile just lights up every photograph she's in you know i think that's one of the things that
27:35i remember most at the time that looking at the photographs and just seeing this luminous smile
27:39at around 10 pm on a mid-autumn night nikki left her grandfather's flat to walk back to her own
27:54just two floors below but she never arrived
27:59when a child goes missing particularly a young child in an area where they know very well out of
28:12the blue that is literally the the call that stops everything there is nothing bigger than a potentially
28:19abducted child and all missing children of that age initially are treated as potentially abducted children
28:25a huge overnight search drew a blank
28:36but next morning two neighbors found nikki's coat and shoes
28:41outside the old exchange a derelict building just 300 yards away they went inside
28:50when they found nikki's body she'd been brutally brutally murdered she had 37 stab wounds to her
29:00little body she'd been beaten around the head with something like a brick and then to cap it all she'd
29:07been dragged down a set of steps with her head banging on the steps as she's gone down into this basement
29:13area to hide her whoever could have done that to her needed catching straight away you won't think
29:22it had happened somewhere away about she lived but it does doesn't it the kids have to suffer they'll be
29:27kept in the house because they're not even safe i mean it happens in the garden they're not even safe
29:34police had one lead a neighbor who said she'd seen nikki outside the local boar's head pub
29:42before following a man in the opposite direction to her home
29:48grainy street camera footage backed up the story
29:52and provided one further clue this was in the early days of cctv and the footage was incredibly shaky
30:02but what you could see was that nikki was skipping happily along behind him which suggested
30:07that she knew him already and that she trusted him and that she was you know that she was going
30:12along without thinking that anything bad was particularly happening to her from eyewitness reports
30:18police released an artist's impression of the man she'd followed soon afterwards they arrested a 24
30:26year old loner who lived in the same tenement block as nikki
30:30george heron was quite a misfit you know he would have been perceived as an oddball he had these
30:38oversized glasses he wore a baseball cap all the time he was really into doctor who
30:43i think he probably fitted the bill of what the police might have imagined the person who carried out
30:49this crime would have been like heron initially denied knowing nikki but then admitted he did
31:00but what he wouldn't confess to was the murder
31:05i didn't kill her well i believe you did kill john shoots i believe you did
31:09i've interviewed a lot of people over the years and i would go as far as to say that the interview
31:18of george heron was probably one of the worst and most oppressive interviews that i've ever heard
31:24recorded on the tape you are involved and you know what happened in the adults in uk police interviews
31:32there are three general principles no threats no promises no lies those officers lied to heron
31:38that girl was seen with you near the boars head public house on that wednesday night
31:46within seven or eight minutes of that sighting by a witness you were seen with her in law street
31:54that was a lie they had a witness that saw a man with nikki at the relevant time that evening but at no
32:03time did that witness say it was george heron and in fact we know that later on there was
32:08an identification parade and that witness didn't pick george heron out you are involved and you know
32:15what happened i don't i'm sorry george you do i don't you know his denials were checkable
32:25but the police just had him in their sights and there was no way they were going to let him out without a
32:31yes no george come on tell the truth you tell me the truth you know george and you know it
32:48after three days of interrogation and more than a hundred denials heron finally did admit to murder
32:56but at his trial the following year the judge ruled he'd confessed under duress and ordered the jury to
33:05find him not guilty the family were completely devastated and more so and i think cruelly because
33:12the police continued to say that george heron was guilty they went on believing that this guilty man
33:18had got away with it basically workmen boarded up windows at the accused man's house after the anger
33:25of an estate spilt over the community would have been convinced that george heron was nikki's killer
33:32and he was dead prison for the rest of his life
33:37when he was acquitted all of that glimmer of light that they might have had that might have come out of
33:42nikki's tragic death was snuffed out because in their mind a guilty man was now walking free and could go
33:48and do this to other girls
33:50for years after george heron's acquittal northumbria police refused a full reinvestigation into nikki
34:15allen's murder but one woman was determined to make them reconsider her mother sharon henderson
34:27sharon was amazing she was completely relentless she wrote to the queen she wrote to politicians
34:33she started petitions she had marches she did her own house to house inquiries
34:39she's so gradually just through sharon's sheer determination there seemed to be a little bit
34:46of momentum and pressure on the force that hadn't been there before
34:56following advances in dna testing northumbria police finally did form a team to reinvestigate the case
35:03one of its first and successful tasks was to re-analyse items of nikki's clothing which had been kept in
35:15storage they found dna on a t-shirt and a pair of leggings and the t-shirt was the last item that nikki
35:23was seen in her dna and another person's the police knew that they were looking for a man so they analyzed
35:31the dna from over 900 men that were living around east sunderland at the time of the murder
35:40the mass dna screening enabled police to finally and definitively rule out george heron as the killer
35:48and instead find a probable match with a career criminal who'd since left sunderland and moved 30
35:55miles south he was david boyd yeah yeah cheers
36:06just checking supposed to make sure that they're uh they're locked and not too tight
36:12we'll be taking you to northumbria which is uh open in the newcastle area when people are arrested they
36:19react in different ways and depending quite often about how many times it's happened to them before
36:24and we know that boyd has had 22 court appearances uh for 45 offenses in his lifetime so i'm not entirely
36:33surprised that the fact of the arrest has kept him so calm the fact of the arrest is almost an
36:40occupational hazard for him before we leave there will be other officers coming here to the daffy house
36:45and they look after your dog as well what evidence you got anywhere now i find that an incredibly
36:52interesting question if you're an innocent person the obvious thing to do is to protest your innocence
37:00over and over and over again it wasn't me i didn't do it what are you talking about
37:05where on earth does this come from let's just get this sorted out not what evidence have you got
37:12what evidence you got anyway that is the question of a guilty man not the question of an innocent man
37:25in 1992 david boyd was 25 years old and living just three doors away from nikki allen's grandfather
37:35he bore a resemblance to the artist's impression put out at the time but there was another reason to
37:43suspect him whoever killed nikki had pushed her through a window that was six foot off the ground
37:50he then dragged her downstairs after stabbing her repeatedly taking her body to the basement
37:56now this was dark it was an october night somebody wouldn't just come upon this building they would
38:06have to have intimate knowledge of the layout and and be premeditated because they know exactly where
38:12they're going no lights were on and nikki's body went from outside through that window down those stairs
38:24as boyd knew nikki and her family police had interviewed him soon after the murder
38:30incredibly he told them he was familiar with the building and had even visited it just a
38:36few nights earlier supposedly looking for pigeons
38:48you know and i know and everyone else and suddenly knows that nikki's body was found inside the old
38:53exchange building in hendon on the morning of the 8th of october 1992 and she'd been murdered
38:59so if i show you though it was that night you might give it a confirm then following his arrest
39:08boyd repeated his story about visiting the building this is so you can remember the back
39:14of the building just for the record that's tr5 that looks like quite overgrown and there's a
39:20a bricked up window there and then we've got tr6 that was when we went through i think right okay so
39:29you're putting there's a window there that looks half-bordered or maybe three quarters boarded up yeah
39:34yeah in there in the middle you would go into that all right how how high is that because it's it's
39:40difficult for my picture to view can you remember how high that is to get into i know it's pretty high
39:45club for myself boyd said his visit to the old exchange was the reason for his dna being on nikki's
39:55clothes according to him she must have brushed against surfaces that he'd touched just a few nights
40:04earlier the problem with this explanation is that the dna was found under nikki's armpits on the t-shirt
40:13now you don't get this type of dna contact by brushing or touching something so it's likely
40:20that the actual explanation was that the dna came from him lifting her up pushing it through that window
40:31the complexity of the dna evidence meant police had to conduct years more tests and research
40:38but in 2022 they finally charged him with nikki's murder
40:50at boyd's trial prosecutors said he'd lured nikki away
40:56exploiting the fact that she knew and trusted him
40:59he intended to sexually assault her but when she screamed he struck her with a brick then pushed her
41:08inside the old exchange where he stabbed her to death
41:16in the years afterwards boyd committed more sex offenses
41:20in 1997 he indecently exposed himself to three young girls in a park
41:32and in 1999 he assaulted a nine-year-old
41:39but it would be another 18 years before police finally connected him to nikki's murder
41:45after a trial lasting three weeks the jury took just two and a half hours to return its unanimous
41:55guilty verdict the judge jailed boyd for life with a minimum of 29 years
42:05after the verdict northumbria police apologized to george herron for the serious and lasting impact of
42:12their wrongful prosecution back in 1992 and to sharon henderson the mother who'd had to fight more
42:20than 30 years for justice what went through your mind when you finally heard that word guilty
42:30being justice of it all and that niggas case wasn't up didn't know properly and then
42:36let this man's in relation to nikki's mum i cannot begin to imagine what her life has been like
42:44having lost her her darling innocent little girl what she's suffered as a mother the way the criminal
42:55justice system most knows to be the police have let her down and treated her i think is just beyond my
43:02understanding have you managed to keep the strength to carry on all this time of course lick is my daughter
43:15she's been really strong through this i think she deserves a lot of recognition a lot of praise for
43:21what she's done but also her heart should go out to her too
43:35so
43:46you
44:05You
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