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Britain's Most Evil Killers S07E04 (Oct 4 2022)
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CreativityTranscript
00:00On the 8th of October 1987, 29-year-old Shirley Banks
00:07went to a shopping center in Bristol to buy a new dress.
00:11She would never be seen alive again.
00:15For weeks on end, it seemed that Shirley Banks
00:18had disappeared off the face of the earth.
00:21But Shirley hadn't vanished.
00:24She'd been abducted and murdered by a 33-year-old convicted rapist
00:28named John Canan.
00:31He had his mind set on abducting a woman and assaulting her
00:35and getting what he wanted from her,
00:37and nothing was going to stand in his way.
00:41Detectives investigating Shirley's disappearance
00:43were merely scratching the surface of Canan's twisted past,
00:48a sexual predator hidden beneath of a near of respectability.
00:54What do you look for in terms of all detractions?
00:57Well, I think apart from the physical,
00:58side, I think somebody who's pleasant,
01:02who's natural, who's relaxed.
01:06Of all the murderers I've investigated,
01:09Canan sticks out.
01:10He's a psychopath.
01:11Simple psychopath.
01:14John Canan was about to be unmasked
01:17as one of Britain's most evil killers.
01:20John Canan is something of an enigma.
01:46After being arrested for the murder of Shirley Banks in December 1987,
01:51he was charged with a number of offences ranging from rape to GBH.
01:57He's never spoken of his crimes,
01:59but Canan is suspected of killing others.
02:02In 2002, he was named as the prime suspect
02:06in one of the most infamous unexplained disappearances in British history.
02:11Susie Lamploo disappeared in July 1986 and was never heard of again,
02:18and her body has never been found,
02:21so the family have had no real closure.
02:23I read all the material that the review team had regarding John Canan's offending profile,
02:33and the more I read into it and the more I learned about the Lamploo case,
02:37it became clearer and clearer to me that the one and only suspect was John Canan.
02:43Many of Canan's crimes were only discovered after his arrest
02:50for an attempted robbery in October 1987.
02:54TV producer Nick Shearman was working on the BBC Crime Watch programme at the time
02:59and forensically followed Canan's demise.
03:03There's no doubt that this case had a particularly strong effect on me.
03:07This was something that has happened in my area.
03:09I've lived in Bristol for years and years and years.
03:13I passed that house where he lived on a regular basis,
03:17and it's very difficult to forget those things
03:19because the crimes were so appalling, really.
03:24If you rape someone, it's never going to go away for that person,
03:28and it's not going to go away for those nearest and dearest to them.
03:33So Canan has effectively put life sentences
03:36on a whole number of individuals, not just his immediate victims.
03:42Although convicted of offences against six women,
03:46including the murder of Shirley Banks,
03:48experts feel John Canan still has a lot to answer for.
03:53I believe Canan's committed many, many more sexual offences
03:57than he's ever been convicted of,
03:59or that he's even suspected of.
04:01The killer's story begins in Sutton Coalfield, Warwickshire.
04:08John David Guise Canan was born on the 20th of February, 1954.
04:15The middle of three children,
04:17he was raised by a strict disciplinarian.
04:21He didn't get on with his father.
04:23There'd been lots of arguments and so on,
04:26and he very much orientated himself towards his mother.
04:30He had a very close relationship with his mother.
04:34Coming from an affluent background,
04:37Canan attended a private school
04:39where he claimed he was sexually assaulted by a teacher.
04:42And by the time he was a teenager,
04:45Canan himself was about to commit a similar offence.
04:49He commits his first sex crime at the age of 14.
04:54He assaults a woman in a phone box,
04:57and he gets a year's probation.
05:00This is a very young age to be offending.
05:04And very often, people who engage in sexual assault-type behaviours,
05:08the first time that they're caught by the police
05:10is not the first time that they've engaged in this kind of behaviour.
05:13So it would suggest that he'd been doing this kind of thing
05:16before then as well.
05:17After a short stint in the Merchant Navy,
05:22he went to work with his father in a car showroom.
05:27By 1980, 26-year-old Canan was married with a daughter.
05:32But that didn't stop him from becoming a self-proclaimed Lothario.
05:37Canan really does like to make out that he's some kind of Romeo figure,
05:42that he's somebody who women fall over themselves for.
05:45So he will quote figures of having had over 100 one-night stands.
05:50He likes to be this kind of character.
05:54Fundamentally, he's got a very strong narcissistic streak to him.
05:59He was a flirt.
06:00On one particular occasion, he was walking past an off-licence
06:03and he saw a beautiful girl in there
06:06and he went and bought some flowers and then went in
06:09and said, I'm having rather a nice party tonight.
06:11I'd like to buy a couple of bottles of wine.
06:14And he gave her these flowers and she was swept off her feet.
06:19There could be no denying he is extremely attractive to many women.
06:24But he is also absolutely dangerous to them.
06:28By December 1980, Canan had separated from his wife
06:34and was living with a new girlfriend.
06:37But after growing jealous of her relationship with her ex-husband,
06:41he flew into a rage.
06:43He launched an astonishingly vicious attack,
06:48strangling her, raping her,
06:50and subjecting her to a series of disgraceful,
06:54humiliating sexual attacks.
06:58It's too painful almost to talk about.
07:01I mean, he sodomizes her.
07:03It's a disgraceful, disgraceful attack.
07:06And she has to go to hospital.
07:08She's got internal injuries.
07:10She's, I mean, she's suffered at the hands of a man
07:13whom she's invited into her house.
07:15She didn't make a complaint at that time
07:19because she was too terrified that he'd come back.
07:23Just three months after attacking his partner,
07:27John Canan was ready to take his sexual crimes to a new level.
07:32In March 1981, he had his sights set on the owner
07:36of a ladies' clothing shop in his hometown of Sutton Coalfield.
07:40He walked into the knitwear shop with a knife
07:43and held up the woman who's then behind the counter.
07:51And the lady has got a 17-month-old child with her
07:55and she happens to be pregnant.
07:59Before he could lock the door of the shop,
08:01in walks the woman's mother.
08:04So there are three generations of a family
08:07all within this same shop.
08:09And Canan is threatening.
08:11He has a knife.
08:12He's a scary-looking individual.
08:14He can be incredibly overpowering and incredibly domineering.
08:18And he makes it very clear what he wants from this woman.
08:22And the grandmother pleads with him not to do this,
08:25don't do this in front of my grandchild.
08:28And she says, my daughter's pregnant, please don't do this.
08:32He subjects the woman to hideous sexual attacks
08:36even though the baby is still there
08:39and is bawling his head off.
08:41In the midst of this, the husband phones the shop
08:46and John Canan panics and cuts the telephone line.
08:51Worried for his wife's safety,
08:54the pregnant woman's husband arrived at the shop
08:56and tried to force his way through the locked door.
09:00But Canan escaped out the back.
09:04Heavily traumatised,
09:05the victim is still able to give police a clear picture
09:11of the man who attacked her.
09:14And it doesn't take very long
09:16for there to be a perfectly good photo fit
09:18constructed by the police of Canan,
09:22who is described as between 25 and 30,
09:25having dark eyes and eyebrows that meet above his nose.
09:30Within a week, police had found Canan,
09:34despite an attempt to disguise himself
09:36by shaving between his distinctive eyebrows.
09:40After lengthy interviews about the case,
09:42denying it and denying it,
09:44he did eventually admit his guilt about that incident.
09:49And equally bizarrely, if not typically,
09:52he told the officers what a good job they'd done.
09:55I mean, he really was both pompous and patronising
09:59and had this veneer of arrogance about him.
10:03After serving five years of an eight-year sentence
10:06for his crimes,
10:08John Canan was released,
10:10but he was far from rehabilitated.
10:12In October 1986,
10:15he was in Reading with another victim in his sights.
10:19He attacks a woman who was sitting in a car
10:21reading a book quite late at night.
10:25And he came up to her,
10:27opened the window,
10:28asked for directions to a particular street.
10:31Do you know the way to Balfour Drive?
10:35She was about to say no.
10:36Then he said, oh, have you got an A to Z?
10:37And as she turned to look in the car for an A to Z,
10:41suddenly he was in there.
10:42Armed with a knife,
10:44Canan put on a balaclava,
10:46drove the woman to a remote spot,
10:48and raped her.
10:50He then wiped down the surfaces inside the car
10:53before calmly driving her back
10:55to where he had abducted her.
10:58Even more chillingly,
11:00as he abandons her,
11:03he says to her with a slight smirk,
11:06take care and be good.
11:08But if you can't be good, be careful.
11:11But Canan hadn't been as thorough as he'd hoped.
11:18Forensic tests gave investigators a glimmer of hope
11:22in finding the rapist.
11:24The semen stains on the victim's clothing
11:27could only match Canan to a one in 2,000 chance,
11:31which is clearly insufficient to bring before a jury.
11:34So, unfortunately, they didn't have the forensics,
11:38they didn't have the ID.
11:40They had to release him.
11:44That rape, to some extent,
11:47gave Canan the feeling that he was impregnable,
11:51that he was always capable of getting away with it.
11:54Every time they do it, it escalates.
11:58And in the end, they don't want to get caught
12:00because if they let the victims go,
12:02the victims become witnesses
12:04and they give evidence
12:06and then, of course, they get convicted
12:09and they get sent to prison.
12:11If you murder them and you get away with it,
12:14you're scot-free.
12:14Feeling untouchable,
12:19John Canan was ready to strike again.
12:22But this time, he wouldn't leave any loose ends.
12:26The serial rapist was about to turn...
12:30to murder.
12:31In October 1987,
12:43John Canan was living in Bristol.
12:46The convicted rapist had begun attacking women again
12:49after his release from prison a year earlier.
12:53On 8th October,
12:5529-year-old newlywed Shirley Banks
12:57drove her orange Mini into Bristol Town Centre
13:00and headed to a department store.
13:04On that evening,
13:05she had plans to go shopping
13:07and possibly some drinks with her friends.
13:10In particular,
13:11she wanted to go to the Broadmeet Shopping Centre
13:14in the centre of Bristol
13:15and she had an eye on a particular blue and white dress,
13:18which, when she bought it,
13:20was placed in a large Topshop bag,
13:23larger than normal for a dress of that size.
13:26Shirley left the shop at around 7.30pm,
13:30but she never arrived to meet her friends for a drink,
13:34nor did she return home.
13:36Her husband came home that night,
13:39knew she was going to be late,
13:41so didn't think anything of it,
13:43then went to the local pub,
13:45asked if they'd seen her,
13:46and they hadn't.
13:47I think he eventually fell asleep.
13:52The following morning,
13:54he phoned her work
13:55and was astonished to hear
13:57that she had phoned in that morning,
14:00sick.
14:01Well, he knew that was wrong,
14:03that something was up.
14:03Unfortunately, Richard's instincts were correct.
14:10Shirley Banks had been abducted by John Canan.
14:14Shirley, I think, was forced into making that phone call,
14:17and this is pure supposition.
14:19And I think probably Shirley was fear of her life,
14:22probably went along with what he wanted initially,
14:26but obviously came to a point
14:28where she knew this was going to end badly.
14:32This would have been
14:33absolutely terrifying for Shirley
14:35because on a minute-to-minute basis,
14:38she's assessing the situation,
14:40she's figuring out
14:41what it is that she needs to do
14:42to keep herself safe,
14:43to keep herself alive,
14:45so absolutely horrifying situation to be in.
14:48From Canan's perspective, on the other hand,
14:50he is loving this
14:51because he is 100% in control
14:54of what is going on.
14:55He has got a victim here
14:57who is perhaps pleading with him,
15:00perhaps begging for her life,
15:01complying with all of his instructions,
15:03so he's feeling quite good right now.
15:07On the 9th of October, 1987,
15:11Richard Banks reported his wife as missing.
15:15The police were confronted with the fact
15:17that there was a missing woman,
15:19a woman who would almost certainly
15:20either be at home or at work,
15:23and is now clearly missing.
15:25She had an orange mini Clubman,
15:27a very distinctive car,
15:29no sign of that either.
15:31Has she been abducted?
15:33Shirley had seemingly vanished into thin air.
15:38As the police exhausted all avenues,
15:42four days after her disappearance,
15:44a nationwide appeal was put out.
15:47Where was Shirley Banks?
15:49The police were getting nowhere, quite frankly.
15:54And so they came to Crimewatch.
15:57Initially, we did an incident desk on it,
15:59just really telling the basic story
16:01in a very short space of time.
16:03That didn't really produce very much either.
16:07As things gathered pace,
16:09they realized that they had a major investigation
16:12on their hands,
16:13and then they threw really everything into it.
16:16I mean, they even got the RAF
16:18to take infrared photographs of Lee Woods nearby,
16:22in case there was a body there.
16:23They did dives.
16:24They did all sorts of things.
16:26But Shirley was nowhere to be found.
16:29One of the big issues for them
16:31as the case progressed
16:32was that they didn't have a body.
16:34As the hunt for Shirley continued,
16:38John Canan headed far away
16:40from the center of the investigation,
16:4270 miles north of Bristol,
16:45he was hunting for another victim.
16:48Three weeks on from Shirley Banks going missing,
16:51no sign of her at all.
16:54John Canan moves his focus of attention
16:56away from Bristol to Leamington Spa,
17:00close to Sutton Coalfield,
17:02an area he knows particularly well.
17:05There's a shop called Ginger.
17:07John Canan enters the shop,
17:09and this is an eerie reflection
17:10of what happened in 1981.
17:12Six years later,
17:14John Canan is similarly intent on rape.
17:18You can see certain patterns
17:20and certain things recurring,
17:22and at Leamington Spa,
17:23he once again went into a ladies' dress shop
17:26and held a woman at knife point.
17:29Wearing a motorcycle helmet
17:31to hide his identity,
17:32Canan's actions seemed to echo the horrific attack of his past.
17:38I think Canan was convinced
17:40that once he had made his way into that shop
17:43and he had threatened the women inside it,
17:45that he was going to be able to rape and sexually assault
17:48one or both of them.
17:49But one of the women,
17:50when she went to lock the door,
17:52as Canan had instructed her to do,
17:54used that as an opportunity to actually flee the shop.
17:59Canan, unsuccessful in his attempts,
18:02dashes for the door to make good his escape.
18:04But John Canan should have run a lot faster than he did,
18:09because two or three guys walking down the street
18:12heard these girls scream.
18:14They saw Canan running away and they chased him.
18:17And after a cat-and-mouse chase round Leamington Spa,
18:21the police pounced and they got him.
18:23John Canan was finally behind bars,
18:29but detectives had no idea
18:31they'd arrested the man
18:33who was responsible for the disappearance of Shirley Banks
18:36just three weeks earlier.
18:39Warwickshire police thought they had,
18:41in custody, an armed robber.
18:43When they arrested him,
18:45they found the car keys,
18:46which was a BMW parked near the ginger shop.
18:50What they had no idea was what was inside that car.
18:54It was an absolute treasure trove of evidence
18:57involving handcuffs and rope and an imitation gun.
19:01But most importantly,
19:02it had the tax disc from Shirley Banks' car.
19:08Now, why is he holding on to this?
19:11Because it's a piece of incredibly incriminating evidence.
19:14I don't think he ever thought he was going to get caught,
19:17so he wasn't really thinking about the implications of it.
19:20He'd kept this tax disc as a memento,
19:24as something to remember this crime by.
19:27Also in the car was a large Topshop bag,
19:31similar to the one Shirley had been given
19:33when she bought her new dress on that fateful night.
19:37Aware that Shirley Banks was currently missing,
19:40Warwickshire police contacted their colleagues
19:43in Bristol.
19:45Finally, investigators had a breakthrough in the case.
19:49Avon and Somerset police drove up to Leamington Spa
19:52the evening of the next day,
19:54and they drove him back to Bristol that same night.
19:58Canaan spent the whole time talking.
20:03Most people now just say no comment,
20:05but he insisted on talking endlessly in the back seat of the car,
20:10kind of justifying himself and explaining what kind of a man he was.
20:16Police had also found another major piece of the puzzle
20:20at Canaan's Bristol home,
20:22Shirley Banks' distinctive car.
20:26The orange Mini Clubman is found in the lock-up garages
20:32beneath Foy House where Canaan is living.
20:35It's been painted blue, hand-painted, it's not been sprayed,
20:39and he's changed the number plate.
20:41As soon as Canaan is questioned,
20:45he denies any connection with Shirley Banks whatsoever,
20:49claims he'd never met her at all.
20:50He came up with this wonderful creative account
20:54of how he had bought this car in good faith at an auction.
20:59So he makes up this narrative,
21:01I bought it at a car auction,
21:03but he didn't actually know where Bristol car auction was.
21:07He had to actually ask one of the police officers this,
21:10so it's starting to fall apart at this point in time.
21:13His level of arrogance is still incredibly high,
21:16and he thinks he's going to get away with stuff,
21:18but the police are noticing all of these little holes in his story.
21:23Canaan's web of lies was unravelling at rapid speed.
21:26Detectives were certain he was responsible
21:29for the disappearance of Shirley Banks,
21:32but they hadn't found a body.
21:35They had no proof that she had come to harm,
21:38and there was a real chance
21:39that John Canaan was about to get away with murder.
21:44In October 1987,
21:56John Canaan was in police custody in Bristol.
22:00Investigators had linked him
22:01to the disappearance of 29-year-old Shirley Banks,
22:04but they were desperate for some concrete evidence.
22:08They had just 36 hours before they'd have to release him.
22:12The clock was ticking.
22:15As detectives continued to search Canaan's Bristol home,
22:19they discovered an eerie video for a dating agency,
22:23filmed just six weeks earlier.
22:25What do you look for in Cranberg?
22:28What do you attract to your opinion?
22:30I think apart from the physical side,
22:33again, I think somebody who's pleasant,
22:37who's natural, who's relaxed.
22:40He presents as a very suave,
22:45a very charming,
22:47flashing his eyes at this woman who's interviewing him.
22:51You know, I'm looking for somebody as intelligent as me,
22:54and, well, you know, I've got a beautiful flat,
22:56and it's all boar,
22:58and it's so oily and slimy,
23:01and you look at his facial expressions,
23:04and you can see when you know what to look for, shallowness.
23:11Yes, I have a dislike of inflated egos.
23:16People who are, they look at me, I'm a great type.
23:21I don't like that.
23:22I just like normal, average people.
23:25When you look at that video,
23:27you look at his eyes,
23:28and you think,
23:30God, there's something strange about this man,
23:32and he is sort of riveting in an appalling way,
23:36and you could see that he could be charming to women,
23:41but at the same time,
23:42there's something really deadly about those eyes.
23:46It is genuinely terrifying,
23:49because you know that this man is capable,
23:53and has already been capable,
23:54of the most profound violence towards women.
23:58I'm in a sedimentary period,
23:59where financially and career-wise,
24:02I've achieved what I've wanted to achieve.
24:04I'm just now looking for the next thing to achieve.
24:07That is Walter Mitty,
24:10John Canaan, Walter Mitty.
24:12He purports to be what he's not.
24:15He calls himself a successful businessman,
24:18who's got businesses in Bristol.
24:21He's looking for a profile of a young lady,
24:24and he waxes lyrical,
24:27and the arrogance of the man is just unbelievable.
24:33Detectives needed more time to find evidence.
24:37They charged Canaan with the assault
24:39and attempted robbery in Leamington Spa.
24:42This brought them another 72 hours
24:45to question him about Shirley Banks.
24:49Investigators had another avenue to explore,
24:51a nearby attack on the 7th of October, 1987,
24:56just 24 hours before Shirley's disappearance.
25:01A woman called Julia Holman was having a drink with friends
25:04and then went off to her car.
25:06It was about half past six,
25:08and in October it was dark,
25:10but this was towards the centre of Bristol.
25:13As she got into the car canal
25:16and approached her with a gun and threatened her...
25:21Now, Julia Holman reacted spectacularly swiftly
25:27that her reactions almost certainly saved her life.
25:30Instead of being paralysed with fear,
25:32her reaction was to strike out with her arm and with her leg,
25:37slam the car door, screaming as she did,
25:40and then speed off as fast as she could.
25:43Canaan was an immediate suspect.
25:46On the 5th of November, an ID parade was arranged.
25:51Julia Holman would once again come face-to-face with her attacker.
25:57Canaan is put in a row.
25:59He's number three in the identity parade.
26:03Julia Holman identifies him instantly.
26:06It's number three.
26:07That immediately really helped to nail
26:13that he was the man responsible for the attack
26:16on Julia Holman the day before.
26:17So the evidence was building up.
26:20Charging Canaan with the attempted abduction of Julia
26:24brought detectives more time.
26:26But by the 10th of November, they were out of options.
26:30They decided they had enough evidence
26:32to charge John Canaan with the kidnap of Shirley Banks,
26:36but not her murder.
26:39However, their luck was about to change.
26:42He had this sort of monk's chest
26:45with all sorts of papers in his flat.
26:48And forensics, obviously, back in those days,
26:50were quite slow.
26:51It was possible that this unknown fingerprint
26:59could belong to Shirley Banks,
27:01but they didn't have her prints on record
27:04to cross-check it.
27:06Fortunately, the forensic team had an ace up their sleeve.
27:10The fingerprint officers were able to examine Shirley Banks' house
27:15and produce a composite set of finger marks
27:19from items that she would touch
27:21in the normal course of her life.
27:24So common items, things like long-playing record covers,
27:28cassettes, and actually build up a set of composites
27:31from those frequently handled items,
27:34which would then be compared against the mark,
27:37the image that was recovered from Canaan's address.
27:41It proved that connection.
27:43It proved that she'd actually been in the house at the time.
27:49There was now no doubt that Shirley Banks
27:52had been inside John Canaan's home.
27:55Worried that the wily 33-year-old
27:57would try and wriggle his way out of the accusation,
28:01detectives knew they had to be one step ahead.
28:04So, cleverly, they take John Canaan to the scene
28:08and say to him, you know,
28:11has Shirley Banks ever been in your flat?
28:13Answer, no.
28:14Well, here, this is some of the things we found in your flat.
28:18Are they yours?
28:19Yes.
28:20Showed him the document.
28:22Is this yours?
28:23Yes.
28:24Did this document ever leave your flat?
28:27Answer, no.
28:29How do you explain Shirley Banks' thumbprint is on it?
28:32It was a clever series of events
28:35to make him admit everything
28:37before they played the trump card.
28:40On the 23rd of December 1987,
28:44John Canaan was charged with the murder of Shirley Banks.
28:48But investigators hadn't found her body
28:51and Canaan was still denying everything.
28:54There are cases where somebody's been convicted
28:58of a murder with no body.
29:00And there are some very good instances of that over the years.
29:05But it makes it difficult for the investigators.
29:10You know, you can have all the evidence of the world,
29:12but if you haven't got a cause of death,
29:14you can't say it's murder with any certainty.
29:16On the 3rd of April 1988,
29:22a woman foraging in the eerily and aptly named
29:25Dead Woman's Ditch in Somerset
29:28made a grisly discovery.
29:31Six months after she'd disappeared,
29:34the body of Shirley Banks had finally been found.
29:38Her body was naked, decomposed, as you'd imagine,
29:42and alongside it they found elements of her jewellery
29:45and also fibres and parts of the blue and white dress
29:50that she had bought from Topshop.
29:51In Shirley's case, she was battered about the head.
30:00Could have been something like a baseball bat
30:04or a heavy boulder or rock or something like that.
30:07You know, trauma to the head, which causes severe bleeding,
30:11and that would have been the cause of death.
30:12With confirmation that Shirley had indeed been murdered,
30:18investigators continued to build their case against John Canan.
30:23So the forensic evidence is mounting up.
30:27All the bits are falling into place.
30:31All the other police forces,
30:34where the other serial sex offences have taken place,
30:39notify Avon and Somerset,
30:41and they follow it up.
30:45Further investigations led to charges being filed against Canan,
30:49ranging from assault and GBH to theft and murder.
30:54Detectives in Reading also reopened
30:56an unsolved rape case from 1986.
31:01DNA had come on in leaps and bounds in just a couple of years.
31:07We'd had advances in procedures to extract
31:10and recover DNA,
31:12so it was far more discriminating.
31:15And so they went back and they got forensics
31:18to reanalyse the semen stains
31:21they'd picked up from the ladies' clothing.
31:24When they'd done the original match two years before,
31:26they said there was a 1 in 2,000 chance
31:29of it being Canan's semen.
31:31Now it was 1 in 260 million chance.
31:37So with great pleasure,
31:39police were now able to charge John Canan
31:41for the first time with the Reading rape.
31:44At his trial at Exeter Crown Court in April 1989,
31:54John Canan was charged with 16 different offences,
31:58including the 1987 murder of Shirley Banks,
32:02the Reading rape in 1986,
32:04and even the assault on his ex-partner in 1980,
32:08who felt brave enough to come forward almost a decade later.
32:12It was very unusual for a judge to accept
32:16more than one previous allegation charge,
32:21and a number of charges were tried at the same time
32:26by the same jury in this particular case,
32:28and the judge allowed it.
32:29On the 28th of April 1989,
32:34John Canan faced the jury's verdict.
32:38I have to say, having sat there in court that day,
32:41I believed he thought he would get away with it,
32:44even though the weight of the evidence in that trial
32:46was clearly going in one direction.
32:49But he thought he would still get away with it.
32:52John Canan looked stunned by the first verdict.
32:58Once the first verdict of guilty,
33:00which was the sex attack on his ex-girlfriend,
33:03he knew that the rest, like dominoes,
33:05would just fall in the same direction.
33:08John Canan was found guilty
33:11and told he would spend life behind bars.
33:14The judge, Mr Justice Drake,
33:19described him as vile and evil,
33:22violent, horrible,
33:25beneath his veneer of charm,
33:27in a very telling statement.
33:29He also said,
33:30this man should never be put at liberty.
33:33He made it quite clear that he intended
33:36that this man should have a life-means-life tariff.
33:38Safely locked away in prison,
33:42John Canan was no longer a threat to women,
33:45but his story was far from over.
33:48Evidence linked the killer
33:49to one of the hottest cold cases in British history,
33:53the disappearance of Susie Lampleau.
33:56In April 1989,
34:1035-year-old John Canan
34:12had been sentenced to life in prison
34:14for a number of offences,
34:15including rape, assault, and murder.
34:19Since his incarceration,
34:21he's been linked to a number of unsolved cases.
34:23But his unwillingness to cooperate with police inquiries
34:27has led to many investigations reaching a dead end.
34:32I have no doubt that there are other victims of Canan,
34:35whether those are women he's killed,
34:38whether they're women he's raped and sexually assaulted.
34:40I don't believe that he will ever reveal details of them
34:45that would lead to a conviction.
34:47I think he's going to sprinkle a few details here and there.
34:50He's going to drop a few hints
34:51because he quite enjoys toying with people in that way.
34:56Possible links have been explored between Canan
34:59and the unsolved murder of 27-year-old Sandra Court
35:03in Bournemouth in May 1986.
35:06And he remains the prime suspect
35:08for one of Britain's most infamous cold cases,
35:12the disappearance of Susie Lampleau.
35:15Susie was last seen on the morning of 28th of July 1986.
35:22She turned up for work.
35:24It was a Monday morning in Sturgis' estate agents in Fulham Road.
35:29And in her diary, she had an appointment with a Mr Kipper
35:32for later that morning.
35:34She subsequently left the estate agents,
35:39got into the company car and drove to view a house in Cheryl's Road
35:44and another one near Bishop's Park in Fulham.
35:49And she never returned.
35:51And she's never been seen or heard of since.
35:55From the day that 25-year-old Susie went missing,
35:58her brother Richard has experienced a whole range of emotions.
36:04As someone who's missing,
36:07you don't want to look at it and sort of think,
36:10oh, she's dead, or, oh, she's, you know...
36:13You always want to think positively and feel positive.
36:17And so you want to always keep your hopes up
36:21that she might just walk through the door.
36:24And that's what I felt.
36:25I didn't feel like it was time to grieve or anything.
36:28It wasn't time to miss her.
36:30I just wanted a happy outcome.
36:34You get to the stage where, you know,
36:36after maybe two months, you sort of think,
36:39oh, maybe she's not coming, but, you know, maybe that is it.
36:43So I felt myself,
36:46I was trying to keep my hopes up all the time,
36:49which is quite exhausting in a way,
36:51but I think it's a way of sort of coping with it.
36:54By 1999, when Jim Dickey took over the investigation,
37:01the Susie Lampleau case had gone unsolved for 13 years.
37:07The original investigation petered out after a number of years.
37:13Everything that could be followed up,
37:15that was obvious, had been followed up.
37:17It wasn't put away, as we say in police plants,
37:21i.e. it's filed away and, you know, is left to gather dust.
37:26That wasn't done.
37:26It was still an open inquiry,
37:28but just no one was actually working on it.
37:32Jim believes that John Canan attacked Susie
37:35just after he'd been freed from serving five years in prison
37:39for the rape of the pregnant mother in her knitwear shop.
37:42He was released from prison on the 26th of July.
37:47Susie went missing on the 28th of July.
37:50And we have witnesses that put Canan
37:53staring into the estate agent's window on the Sunday, the 27th.
37:59We have a cab driver witness
38:01who dropped John Canan in Fulham Broadway on the 28th.
38:07Two witnesses compiled an e-fit with a police officer
38:12and that picture, if you looked at it today
38:15and it was published in all the media,
38:18you would say, looking at a photograph of John Canan,
38:21that was John Canan.
38:24During the investigation into the disappearance
38:27of Shirley Banks, who Canan murdered in 1987,
38:31her mini was discovered at his home.
38:33It had been repainted
38:35and the registration number had been changed.
38:38It was this alteration that piqued many people's interests.
38:44SLP 386S.
38:46There is a theory, Susie Lampleau, third victim of 86.
38:53That's one school of thought.
38:55Another school of thought, it could be a map reference
38:57for the deposition of a body on an ordnance survey map.
39:01Now, whether that is right or not, I don't know,
39:05but it's pretty close to where Shirley Banks' body was recovered,
39:10which is near Dead Woman's Ditch in the Quantocks in Somerset.
39:14In December 2000, officers from Jim Dickey's team
39:19had the opportunity to interview John Canan in prison.
39:23Throughout the interrogation,
39:25the 46-year-old killer maintained his composure.
39:28He was quite quick-witted, I'll give him that,
39:33because when we interviewed him,
39:35what he does, and we knew this because we researched it,
39:39that he would try and turn the interview in its head
39:42so that he's asking you questions,
39:44as opposed to us asking him.
39:46And we were prepared for that.
39:47We knew that.
39:49We knew he was going to do that.
39:50And what did he do?
39:51He did exactly that.
39:52But if you look at his body language on the video,
39:55it says it all.
39:56Some questions he did not have an answer for,
39:59and he was very, very uncomfortable.
40:02And as far as I'm concerned, it's very simple.
40:05If something looks like a duck,
40:07waddles like a duck, and cracks like a duck,
40:10I think we can say,
40:11what could a duck?
40:12You often find him saying these cryptic things to people,
40:18and these things that are supposed to get people going,
40:22what?
40:23And that is because he enjoys being in control.
40:25He likes to be the one who's pulling the strings.
40:29It's a crime.
40:29I've done many things wrong in my life,
40:31and things that, believe me, I am genuinely sorry for.
40:35One or two things I haven't been caught for.
40:42John Canan has always denied any involvement
40:45in the disappearance of Susie Lampleau.
40:48Without a body and with no forensic evidence,
40:52the Crown Prosecution Service decided
40:54there was not enough evidence to prosecute.
40:57But in November 2002,
41:00the Metropolitan Police announced
41:02they weren't looking for anyone else
41:04in connection with the case.
41:06There are people who know things.
41:08If they came forward,
41:09we would only need a small amount of fresh evidence now.
41:12And to bring what we believe
41:14would be a credible prosecution.
41:17I was there at the press conference,
41:21and yes, it was unprecedented for them to do this.
41:25But there was the only course of action
41:29that they could take.
41:30It does seem like he's got away with it.
41:33He obviously hasn't been prosecuted
41:35for my sister's murder,
41:37but it all seems,
41:39the roads, as they say,
41:41all seem to lead to him.
41:44In 2018,
41:47police excavated the garden
41:48at Canan's mother's former home.
41:51They'd received information
41:52that Canan laid a new patio
41:54in the months following Susie's disappearance
41:57and hoped to have finally found her.
42:01Nothing was uncovered.
42:03In my view,
42:05John Canan will take the secrets
42:06of Susie Lempleau's death to his grave.
42:09I cannot see him opening up
42:12and admitting that he had anything to do with it
42:15or showing any remorse about what happened at all.
42:18I have nothing but contempt for this man.
42:24I would love to bury Susie
42:26where we want it as a family to bury her
42:29rather than where he has buried her.
42:35Although Canan was sentenced to life in prison,
42:38he is due for parole in the near future
42:41after serving 35 years behind bars.
42:48You just hope and pray
42:49that they don't let this man out
42:51because I think it would be
42:53a horrific situation
42:55if they were to let him out
42:56because really, you know,
42:59this is a man
43:00who should not be at large in society.
43:04He sees himself
43:05as of superior intelligence,
43:08intellect,
43:09and the rest of us are just plebs.
43:11We might be plebs in his eyes
43:13but he's an arrogant, serial sex offender
43:16and if he's ever released from prison,
43:18God knows what he will do.
43:22For now, John Canan remains behind bars,
43:26a convicted rapist and murderer
43:28who ruins so many lives.
43:31The pain he inflicted not just on Shirley Banks
43:34but on her family should never be forgotten.
43:38I have four kids of my own.
43:40I cannot think what it's like
43:42to have to bury your child
43:45and to do it under those circumstances
43:47and to have lived through a period
43:49when her body hadn't been found as well
43:53is just utterly, utterly appalling.
43:55I think in all of this,
43:57we shouldn't forget, you know,
43:59the broad range of victims of Canaan
44:02because it's not just those individuals
44:05who were victims.
44:06All sorts of members of their families
44:08were victims too.
44:10They were all victims of John Canaan.
44:16Canaan is a violent sexual predator.
44:19He has displayed no remorse
44:22for any of his crimes
44:23from raping a pregnant woman
44:25in front of her own mother and child
44:27to killing a newlywed for nothing more
44:30than his own self-gratification.
44:33Hiding behind the veneer
44:35of a suave businessman,
44:37John Canaan thought he was God's gift to women
44:40but in fact, he was the devil in disguise
44:43and undoubtedly one of Britain's most evil killers.
44:48Hiding behind the veneers
45:18Hiding behind the veneers