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00:00I'm Steve Keogh, a former Scotland Yard murder detective inspector.
00:07I'm going to take you deep inside murder investigations,
00:13opening my contacts book for the first time
00:17to reveal the secrets of what it really takes to be a murder detective,
00:21on the front line, exposing how we solve the most heinous of crimes.
00:27Welcome to Secrets of a Murder Detective.
00:41The murder of Kenneth Ford in February 2022
00:44was one of West Midlands most challenging cases.
00:47I'm going to be meeting the senior investigating officer on the case
00:50to reveal what really happened, the pressures, the setbacks
00:53and the methods in the investigation that brought the killer to justice.
00:57Michelle Thurgood, retired detective inspector.
01:00I was a police officer for 24 years, all served within West Midlands Police.
01:05I spent 19 years as a detective in the ranks of detective constable,
01:11detective sergeant and then latterly detective inspector,
01:14also known as a senior investigating officer.
01:17Hi, Michelle. Thank you very much for coming in.
01:20Michelle, the incident we're going to be talking about today is from February 2022.
01:30What were you doing back then? What was your role?
01:32So, in February 2022, I was a senior investigating officer
01:36within the homicide department of West Midlands Police.
01:39So, a call did come in to West Midlands Police. Tell me about that.
01:43I've been upset. Is the patient breathing?
01:46We can't tell. We're trying to get into the room.
01:49There's blood everywhere.
01:51It looks like the person's been stabbed.
01:54It looks like the person's been stabbed.
01:56Landlords have been round to an address where they rented out the property
02:00and that they found a man that they believed to be deceased inside
02:03and, obviously, they'd made the call to West Midlands Police
02:06asking for help and officers to attend.
02:08So, our uniform colleagues would go out. They entered the premises.
02:21It was very blood-covered premises.
02:23It was obvious to them straight away
02:25that something had gone on with inside the premises.
02:28So, they went up to the stairs and, at the top of the stairs,
02:31they found a bedroom and, in that bedroom,
02:33the deceased was on the floor of that bedroom.
02:36The victim's name was Kenneth Ford.
02:42He was 30 years old
02:44and Kenny was the tenant of those premises.
02:48Today, you've got the luxury of body-worn video.
02:51So, those officers, when they go in, will turn their videos on
02:54and you get to see what is happening.
02:57Yes, from the minute they turned up and spoke to the caller outside,
03:01all the way through as they walked through the premises
03:03and up the stairs into the room,
03:05where they found the person,
03:07I was able to see exactly, you know, what it looked like,
03:11how much blood was there, where he was lying,
03:13what we were going to be faced with when I actually attended in reality.
03:17And for me, priority then, to go out to the scene myself
03:20and understand, because there's nothing better than your own eyes at a scene,
03:24exactly what might have gone on.
03:28Because there's no replicating being there and sort of living it, breathing it, smelling it,
03:34being in there and fully understanding what a crime scene is.
03:38So, this premises was a terraced house in like a relatively small side street.
03:48This happened in a road called Coldbrook Road.
03:52It's in the Tysley area of Birmingham, quite a highly populated residential area,
03:58but also has some business very close to Birmingham city centre.
04:03Not an area where, you know, routinely I would go to murders or expect a murder to occur.
04:09So, for me, it was to get inside and try and understand what had happened.
04:14Because from what I'd seen from the body worn, there was a lot of blood, I'd seen that.
04:18So, you know, trying to think what on earth has gone on in this address, really.
04:22So, you wear full barrier clothing to go in?
04:26Yeah, fully clothed.
04:28So, literally, only your eyes are showing everything else is covered
04:31to ensure there's no contamination of that scene being brought in
04:34from, you know, any of us who'd been outside.
04:37What met you when you first opened the door was, it was very sparse.
04:41There was a television on this wall that was broken.
04:44Not much else.
04:46There was a small settee.
04:49That was absolutely covered in blood.
04:52There was some clothing strewn around the floor.
04:55A bag of tools, very strangely, in the middle of the floor,
04:59strewn around the floor.
05:01Obvious signs of some sort of struggle had gone on by the fact
05:04that the television was smashed.
05:07Initially entering the crime scene, obviously, in my mind,
05:11what might have happened was the...
05:13What was the murder weapon?
05:15Was the murder weapon still there?
05:18Looking around at what was on the floor,
05:20was any of those objects, did I think any of those objects
05:23would likely link to the murder?
05:27And what within that scene could help me identify
05:30who was responsible.
05:32But as you looked up the stairs and up the banister,
05:35all the way up what would be the handrail,
05:38was lots of blood up the handrail.
05:40Got to the top of the stair, there was a bedroom.
05:43That was the room that the victim was found in.
05:46That was heavily, heavily blood-stained,
05:49fed literally to this side of the door,
05:51which was...
05:52There wasn't much left of the mattress.
05:54It wasn't just awash with blood.
05:56There was a wardrobe here.
05:58There was blood all splattered at the wardrobe.
06:00There was a duvet on the floor.
06:02Behind what was the door, which, again, was absolutely covered in blood.
06:06There was blood at the radiator.
06:08I've been to lots of murder scenes
06:10and what struck me about that scene was the sheer volume of blood
06:14and the fact that it was upstairs and downstairs.
06:17It felt to me that it had started downstairs and gone upstairs,
06:22because that's obviously where the victim was.
06:25When I looked under the triangle of the stairs,
06:30where the settee was, there were marks, strange marks at that point
06:35in the...the overhang,
06:38almost as if something had been hitting it.
06:43He had injuries to his head, torso, his knees, his legs.
06:47I don't think there was any part of his body
06:49that hadn't suffered some sort of attack with some sort of weapon.
06:56I personally have never dealt with such a frenzied killing
07:00with so many injuries in so many different areas of the body.
07:04That's horrific.
07:05Yeah, awful, awful injuries.
07:07The worst that I've seen.
07:09The level of injury would suggest
07:11that this is a very dangerous person
07:13who carried out a very sustained and prolonged attack.
07:19When news of Kenneth Ford's death broke,
07:24the local community was obviously surprised and in shock.
07:28My name's Carl Jackson.
07:29I've been a journalist for over ten years now.
07:32I've been a court reporter for Birmingham Live
07:34for around five years.
07:35Kenneth Ford lived in a HMO on Colbrook Road in Tysley.
07:38It's an inner-city area.
07:40It's a short walk or a drive away from the city centre.
07:44It's very urban and built up.
07:46The natural question a lot of them had to ask was,
07:48why has this happened?
07:50As the details started to emerge of what happened,
07:53especially the level of violence used,
07:55people's level of shock and surprise was intensified.
08:01Just a lot of unanswered questions.
08:03In any murder, a post-mortem needs to take place.
08:12And in the case of a murder,
08:14it will be a special post-mortem conducted by a forensic pathologist.
08:18So it goes into a lot more detail than a standard post-mortem.
08:22What was the result of that?
08:24The forensic pathologist was able to say that Kenny's cause of death was head injuries in the main,
08:31but significant injuries, in his opinion, caused by numerous blows.
08:38He was able to say in his mind that these injuries have been caused by a hammer because of the very specific indentation,
08:47particularly on the injuries to his skull.
08:50He also had significant injuries to his kneecaps.
08:53His knees were completely shattered.
08:55Somebody's knees, that's trying to stop him getting away from you.
08:58He had 112 altogether.
09:01That's a lot of injuries.
09:03112?
09:04112 injuries.
09:05I mean, that's a lot.
09:08That's a lot.
09:10In your career, I mean, how many times have you come across something like this?
09:15Never.
09:16Generally, people might have, I don't know, six or seven is a lot.
09:22A lot of people have one or two.
09:23One stab wound, two stab wounds, one punch, one blow.
09:27112, and they say they were from his head all over his torso.
09:32In any murder investigation, Michelle, victimology is essential, isn't it,
09:36to get an understanding of who the victim is, what's going on in their life,
09:40is there anything in there that can indicate why someone would harm them?
09:43What were you learning about this victim?
09:48He'd come over from Ireland some years ago.
09:51Once over in the UK, he was quite transient.
09:55He lived in various different places, particularly across the Birmingham area.
10:00And he'd just recently moved into this, as I say, supported housing association premises.
10:06And then he moved in literally a week or so before.
10:10He was really, really proud, I think, of having his own house and coming to live here.
10:16He didn't work at the time of his death.
10:19He did have a girlfriend, someone he'd known,
10:22and quite a few friends in the Birmingham area that he'd made
10:25in the time he'd lived in and around Birmingham.
10:27He had been homeless at times,
10:29but there was nothing, you know, of concern in terms of a policing environment
10:36that might lead me to think that's why he's been murdered.
10:39In murders, the fast-time arrest of suspects is important for three reasons.
10:52Firstly, it's in order to obtain evidence from them.
10:55The longer they evade arrest, the more evidence you're going to lose.
10:59So, for instance, forensic evidence.
11:01They may discard clothing, the weapon, or even change their description.
11:05Then they may try and abscond, they may try and run away.
11:09And if they do that, ultimately they may evade justice completely,
11:13evade justice for the victim and their family.
11:16And finally, they've already shown that they have a propensity to violence,
11:21and there's always that danger that they may do so again.
11:30Any obvious weapons?
11:32There was hammers.
11:33They looked too clean, and it certainly didn't look like a scene
11:36that somebody had cleaned up after themselves.
11:38So, I guess there were things that, for me,
11:41needed to be looked at closely by a scientist,
11:43but nothing that was screaming out,
11:45there's your murder weapon.
11:47Who would you have called down to carry out
11:49that expert assessment of it?
11:51My view was we needed a blood pattern analyst.
11:55We needed somebody with that specialism who was able to say,
11:58well, in my view, this splatter, these markings,
12:02has been caused by...
12:06So, when I entered the crime scene,
12:08it was clear to me that there was actually
12:11quite extensive distribution of blood.
12:13My name is Philip Field.
12:15I'm a forensic scientist at Westmillan's Police.
12:18And so it was clear to me there was a considerable amount
12:21of work to do to unravel an understanding
12:24of what all that blood staining meant.
12:27For instance, blows into wet blood
12:30can produce characteristic impacts, batter stains.
12:33Two key areas that stood out.
12:36One of those areas was in the downstairs of the property,
12:41on a floor wall pattern settee,
12:43which was located underneath the stairs in the living room.
12:48That settee was really heavily blood stained.
12:54There were staining and blood drips around it,
12:57and there was some spattered blood on the wall behind the settee.
13:00So it indicated to me that clearly some measure of activity
13:04had occurred in this region,
13:06and that Kenneth Ford had been located in that region
13:10whilst bleeding heavily from some injuries
13:13that he had already sustained.
13:15And the other key area really was the bedroom at the back
13:24of the property where his body had been found.
13:28The key area was at a low level in the corner of the room
13:36formed by the window wall and the wardrobe.
13:39And in this location there was an enormous amount
13:42of transfer of blood staining,
13:45indicating that heavily blood stained surfaces
13:48had been in contact with other surfaces in that location.
13:52And there was some spatter blood distributions there as well,
13:55indicating that blows into wet blood
13:58had been sustained in that location.
14:04So it suggested that that was very much a sign of attack
14:06on Kenneth Ford.
14:08There was some blood on the banister rail and the stairs.
14:12So what I asked at that scene was blood on the handrail.
14:16Did they think there was any fingerprint marking or palm marking?
14:19Was there anything in that area?
14:22There was some apparent ridge detail in blood,
14:25which a colleague of mine attended the scene
14:29to conduct some of chemical enhancement on
14:32to try and bring out the features of that ridge detail in blood,
14:40so they could be of sufficient quality for comparison
14:44against other fingerprints.
14:46The fact that a fingerprint is in blood can indicate that
14:50the blood was wet at the time that the fingerprint was deposited,
14:54which can indicate that it was, at a time, very close to when events were unfolding.
15:04Having called the police there,
15:10the landlord was clearly someone that needed to be spoken to
15:13to get an understanding of why he called the police, what was going on, etc.
15:16What did he say?
15:18What the landlord told the police was that he'd received a call from somebody by the
15:22name of Gary, who he said was a friend of Kenny's, and he'd asked him to go to the address
15:28because Kenny needed help. He was concerned by the fact that he was being asked to get
15:32Kenny help, so didn't obviously know why Kenny needed help.
15:36So that friend that phoned the landlord, clearly someone of significance, who was he?
15:43So having been given some brief details of Gary, the intelligence team, they were tasked
15:48in trying to understand and find out who he was, what his surname was, where he might
15:53be, what was his connection to Kenny, and how did him and Kenny know each other.
15:58So what we were able to establish was that Gary was in fact Gary O'Neill.
16:06He was also from Ireland, that him and Kenny had known each other all their lives really
16:13since they were children. And it transpired that actually Gary was a really, really good
16:19friend of Kenny's. In fact, without exception, everyone we spoke to said they were like brothers.
16:25When they were children in Ireland, they were very close. At one point they were both in
16:31care together. Gary was very much a loner. Kenny looked out for him. In effect, was almost a
16:39bit of a bodyguard for him when they were in care. So very much was his protector. That they
16:47came, they both came over to England at a similar time. We found a video when we were going through
16:53Kenny's phone. And on that phone he was talking about how excited he was about the house.
17:02Now this is just my house. Don't like this house. Don't get me wrong. I've only milked in.
17:07Carbon's going to be changed.
17:09He shows a bedroom that he talks quite proudly about. You know, this is going to be Gary's room.
17:17They had lost contact for a while, but shortly before the incident happened, Gary O'Neill had
17:32moved into the same bedsit as Kenneth Ford. On the face of it, this is someone who knows
17:40a lot more about what went on in that premises. What decision was made around him?
17:45The decision is to raise Gary to a suspect. And what comes with raising somebody to a suspect
17:54is putting them onto the police national computer as wanted on suspicion of murder. The reason,
17:59the rationale for that is should they get stopped by police officers anywhere in the country,
18:04that would flag up immediately that this is somebody that the police want to talk to.
18:08But we had no idea where Gary was. We literally had no idea where we'd gone or how to locate him.
18:15What sort of steps were taken to try and locate him?
18:18So, what I then tasked my officers with was house to house just to see if anyone had seen
18:22or heard from him. And anyone we knew that knew him, close friends, he had an ex-partner,
18:28starting to speak to those people to say, have you heard from Gary in the last 24 hours?
18:33On the day that this happened, the 28th of February, Kenny and Gary had been out during the day.
18:39So, they'd been out with these two particular friends and their child,
18:43and they'd gone back to the house together.
18:47On that evening, friends who went to the address with them will say that Gary was agitated.
18:53He was agitated over a PlayStation. There was some suggestion that in recent weeks,
19:00something could happen between Kenny and Gary's ex-girlfriend. She disclosed to them and
19:07was Gary not happy about that? And during the evening when the friends were there,
19:12Gary actually came downstairs and started to attack Kenny and the friend intervened.
19:20What, physically attacked? Yeah, physically attacked him.
19:23The friend intervened and removed a hammer from him at that point. It then all calmed down and went
19:30back to normal. Kenneth Ford didn't seem too concerned about the attack. He reassured the friends that
19:36everything would be fine and he would put Gary O'Neill to bed. So, the two friends left around 11.25pm that night.
19:48They were devastated, absolutely devastated that they'd left and then, you know, such a thing had happened to Kenny.
19:55Now, you must have had Gary's phone number from the fact he'd called the landlord. What was that telling you?
20:02And what that data was telling us was it looked as if he was moving up the country, specifically along
20:10the motorway called the M6 that takes you from Birmingham, essentially anywhere up north.
20:16On the face of it, it appears like he's gone on the run. For me, he's trying to escape the police.
20:25When your intelligence cell built up the picture, the profile of Gary, did he have a car?
20:30Er, Gary had no access to his own transport, no. So, the fact that he was travelling up the M6
20:36suggested he was on some mode of transport. Which you needed to try and find out what?
20:41Yeah, obviously, we had to then try and work out what that could be, which the next step of that
20:46is what can my CCTV trackers tell us? People might mistakenly think, that's quite easy,
20:55is it? Just follow someone on CCTV? Not that simple, is it? No, it's really difficult. This is a
21:01residential area, so the likelihood is there's not street cameras. Luckily, today, people have all
21:09sorts of security on their own addresses, which can be really useful to a police investigation.
21:15So, the starting point is that street specifically overlooking Kenny's address. And then just trying
21:22to piece together, if we can pick Gary up on CCTV, where does he walk? And at each point,
21:28we lose him off a camera. Is there another camera? Street cameras, commercial cameras, house cameras?
21:35Getting hold of that footage, picking it up, and just keep following someone.
21:40The male and female with their child, who are friends of both Gary and Kenny. But when they're
21:45left, as the CCTV shows, Gary and Kenny are back smiling on the doorstep together.
21:54Gary O'Neill left Ken Ford's home shortly before 2am. He actually walked past an ambulance,
22:00which was there by coincidence, having attended another address. But the suspect didn't flag the
22:05attention of the ambulance, he just walked straight past it. He was captured on camera carrying a
22:09carrier bag and what looked like to be a hammer. From there, the suspect went to a McDonald's in Cape
22:14Hill. Staff noticed that there was some blood on him at the time.
22:22And we didn't lose him a few times, but we managed to track him all the way to what's called
22:27Dig the Coach Station. So that's in the city centre of Birmingham. We then got him in the coach station,
22:35asleep. So it's kind of a case of working out which coach, where are the stops. So you're on his trail,
22:44but you're not quite there yet. Yeah, so we're on his trail, obviously at a coach station. If someone's
22:49paid with a credit card or something, it's easy to be 100% where they've gone. Somebody pays with cash,
22:54then not so easy, because there's no trace of that ticket being bought, and there's certainly no name on
22:58the ticket. So for me, top, top priority now is to locate Gary and arrest him as soon as possible.
23:13When I was talking to Michelle, it was clear that there was no obvious motive for why
23:18that level of violence would be used against Kenneth. There was some suggestion of an argument over a
23:26PlayStation. But would that be enough to have led on to the type of death that he suffered?
23:33Well, the simple answer is, yes, it could be. What I saw throughout my career was that the most
23:39horrific crimes can be committed due to the most minor event.
23:52Sometimes in an investigation, you get a lucky break. But what's happening, unbeknownst to us,
23:57is that Gary gets to Carlisle and then gets off the coach and onto a normal bus, just a normal
24:05double-decker bus. The bus travels into Scotland. He's gone and sat initially on the upstairs. He
24:12starts to behave very strangely. He's on the phone and he's overheard by a member of the public
24:18in a conversation where he talks about a hammer. That conversation worries the person that overhears it.
24:26They overheard him saying he'd straightened Ken out. They also heard him talking to a woman,
24:33it sounded like saying he'd left someone in a bad way. During one of the calls that was overheard,
24:39the suspect said they needed to call an ambulance, throwing away the key. Gary is wandering around
24:47the bus, harassing passengers on the bus, wandering up to people, talking to them, wandering back,
24:54sitting down, getting back up. He had been harassing them for a phone charger on the way.
24:58He was also observed to be staring through people like they were a piece of glass. One passenger
25:05commented. So various people on the bus actually make a call to the Scottish police and say they're
25:10concerned about a person on the bus and his demeanour and behaviours. So what that prompts is the Scottish
25:18police to meet the bus at a bus stop. They get on the bus, identify the passenger that people are
25:26concerned about. They take him off the bus and speak to him, obviously. And part of that is asking him
25:32for his name and his details. And it's at the point that they then check on the police national computer
25:39that they realise that he's wanted in England for the offence of murder.
25:44One of the real complexities for this investigation was Scottish law and English law are very different.
25:56So the law of England does not stand in Scotland. So the officers in Scotland were not able to arrest
26:03Gary for murder. So they arrest him for a public order offence. In effect, an offence relating to
26:09him harassing people, his demeanour, his behaviour on a bus. They take him to custody in Glasgow.
26:18It isn't as simple as they can't arrest him for murder. What they also can't do, because actually
26:24a public order offence is a very low level offence that he's in custody for, is they are unable to take
26:31any of the forensic samples, forensic swabbing, that had he been arrested in England, would have been
26:38done straight away to ensure that we were securing and preserving any evidence that he might have,
26:43such as his hands, for instance. But also in terms of, you know, samples, blood samples that might show,
26:50you know, was he drunk at the time? Was he taking any form of drugs at the time?
26:54None of that can be done either, because of the difference between English law and Scottish law.
27:05When the suspect was being detained in Glasgow, he made a comment to the police,
27:09asking whether the man in the West Midlands had died, and then he started crying. He then asked,
27:14how long do I get for murder? And then he made the comment, I wouldn't get done for murder if it
27:19was an accident. And at that point, obviously make a call to us in the West Midlands to say,
27:25we think this person's wanted by you. So in essence, you need to send officers
27:29up to Scotland and bring it back? So yeah, the next step is to get officers to go from the West
27:34Midlands to Glasgow. His clothing and phone and everything had been seized by the Scottish
27:38police, so obviously we brought all those back with us. That was initially taken locally for initial
27:43screening to understand was there likely any blood on his clothing. That showed that there was blood
27:50on the sort of hoodie that he was wearing. That was then transferred to the specialist scientists
27:56at the Crime Forensic Laboratory for testing as to understand who did that blood belong to? Was it his
28:03blood? Was it Kenny's blood? Whose blood was it? And the distribution on it would be important to
28:09understand how that blood got there? Yeah, again, a blood pattern analyst would have a look at his hoodie
28:16and they would try and understand how was it transferred. It was his opinion that it was transfer
28:22blood and that the patterns of it again suggested potentially wet blood flicking off something.
28:30So if you could imagine a hammer or such an implement being consistently used, a splatter actually come in,
28:37spraying off that article onto Gary's clothing and obviously DNA analysis confirmed it was Kenny's blood.
28:49Because Gary was a frequent visitor of the address, any normal DNA you would expect to find,
28:55you know, so if you found his fingerprints, if you found his DNA anywhere in the house,
28:59well, you'd expect to find that. So it was critical that any DNA was actually
29:06related to the blood related to the attack, hence why the blood on the hoodie was so crucial,
29:13because it showed at the time that Kenny was attacked, that hoodie at very least was in the
29:18address. And obviously, as we know, nobody else was in the address, then Gary must have been wearing
29:23that hoodie at the time of the attack. When he's brought into the custody block, he's actually quite
29:30calm in his demeanour, quite doesn't say a lot, looks at the floor a lot, very, yeah, answers when
29:38he's spoken to, but doesn't say any more than that.
29:41And at some point, then, he's going to be interviewed.
29:52That's correct. He actually replied no comment to all questions put to him.
29:56You have Gary in custody, and you're confident that he's the person that killed Kenny, but you
30:02need to build a case against him. What evidence were you able to obtain whilst he was in custody?
30:08We did a lot of work in terms of CCTV on the address. And what we were able to categorically say
30:16is, at the time we can say, the last people not Gary or Kenny left the address,
30:23to when Gary left the address, nobody else went in, nobody else came out.
30:29So categorically say the only two people in the address at the time of Kenny's death were him and Gary.
30:37What you're building up now is a strong case against him that it's Gary that has killed Kenny.
30:43You go to the CPS with this to seek an authority for charge. What do they say?
30:49They authorise charge for murder, and he's charged in the early hours of the morning.
30:53How does he respond to that when he's told he's being charged with his friend's murder?
30:57He makes no response.
30:58The charges for murder, so between the 27th of the 2nd of the 22 and the 28th of the 2nd of the 22,
31:04in the county of Birmingham, a murder Kenny for all the country to Commonwealth.
31:08Look how, have you got any replies to that charge?
31:12Getting someone charged is just one stage of a prosecution. There's a lot more work
31:16that needs to be done to get a case ready for trial. In terms of the forensics, that takes a lot of time to,
31:22for the scientists to bring that all together. What evidence were they able to
31:27give you? They're able to ascertain that that blood was in fact Kenny's blood,
31:32and actually the palm prints in it was also Kenny's. What they were able to tell us about the house was
31:38the marking in the top of the stairs was consistent with an implement, probably a hammer being swung,
31:44and that's what had caused the marks in the plaster. It was confirmed that the blood on Gary's clothing
31:50was Kenny's and what the blood pattern analyst was able to say was the way it was spread around his clothing
31:58was consistent with a sustained attack likely with a weapon. So somebody's swinging something
32:04and that transfer of splattering small particles, as opposed to, you know, a knife wound which might be
32:12a gushing wound and create a loss of blood. When we combined that with the results of the forensic
32:18post-mortem, it showed that Kenny had suffered 112 injuries all over his body.
32:27The scientist or the pathologist again was able to say that some of the marks on his skull,
32:32his head, were consistent with that claw of a hammer having carried out those injuries. So all of that
32:40evidence together was really strong evidence of some sort of, you know, frenzied attack happening
32:47in that address. When somebody's going to trial, what they are supposed to do, they're obliged to do,
32:53is serve what's known as a defence case statement, where essentially they outline what their defence
32:58is going to be to the prosecution. Did that happen in this case? It did. When we received the defence
33:04case statement from Gary, he said from the offset that he was responsible for the death of
33:10Kenny. But he said he'd acted in self-defence because Kenny had attacked him first.
33:21He said they'd had an argument and Kenneth Ford had asked him to leave the house.
33:25But he said before he wanted to go, he wanted to get his PlayStation. But Kenneth
33:29Ford wouldn't let him have it. At that point, he said Kenneth Ford attacked him and struck him to the
33:34head. At that point, he said he picked up the hammer from a toolbox and started striking Kenneth
33:39Ford with it. He apologised for killing Kenneth Ford. He said it was never his intention that night.
33:45He also said that he suffers from mental health issues and he blamed those mental health issues on
33:52some ten years ago. He tried to commit suicide, which had resulted in a severe head injury. He suffered with
33:59different mental health issues and attributed that as well to what happened on that night.
34:06So essentially what he's putting across isn't just one defence, it's two. So self-defence, if believed,
34:13would mean that he would not be found guilty of anything. He's then putting forward a case of
34:19diminished responsibility, which, if believed, wouldn't be murder, but would be dropped down to
34:24man-slaughter. So he's edging his bets. Yeah, and that's exactly how it felt. I mean,
34:30luckily for us, in terms of Kenny attacked me first, Kenny was a much bigger person than Gary,
34:37taller, wider, generally much, much bigger than Gary. Kenny, we've already talked about 112 horrific
34:45injuries. Gary didn't have a single injury, so Kenny attacking him didn't make any sense whatsoever.
35:04Under English law, there are certain defences to murder. There are four defences, such as self-defence,
35:11and if accepted, the killer won't be convicted of anything. And there are what's known as partial
35:16defences. And one of these is diminished responsibility. So if somebody pleads guilty
35:22to manslaughter by diminished responsibility, essentially they're accepting the act, i.e.,
35:27yes, I did kill the person. But at the time of doing so, I was suffering from what's known as a
35:32defect of the mind, essentially saying I was suffering from a mental illness that affected my reasoning and
35:40decision-making. And if accepted, it will be a far lesser sentence than it would be for murder.
35:52And then once someone puts forward a defence of diminished responsibility,
35:55some processes then kick in, don't they? They do, that's right. So what happens initially is both
36:00the defence and the prosecution have their own forensic psychologist. They will write a report for the
36:07court or for the Crown Prosecution Service or for the defence. Those reports are reviewed. And sometimes
36:13our prosecution expert will say, you need to accept this because categorically every part of
36:20diminished responsibility is met. In this case, it went before the judge and both parties, defence and
36:26prosecution, put forward that we needed to understand better, could that head injury from 10 years ago
36:35have any impact on his mental health. So a specialist neuroforensic psychiatrist was asked to write a report
36:48and he was purely focused on brain injury. And what did this expert say? So having done all of his tests,
36:57he said as a result of the head injury, his belief was that Gary functioned in terms of his ability
37:06to understand what he was doing, react to right or wrong. He was in a very small percentage of not being
37:15able to do that. So 99% of the population would know exactly what they were doing and understand the
37:21ramifications of it. He sat in that 1% that potentially might not. What happened then?
37:30My view at this point was a jury should decide, a jury should be faced with all the evidence,
37:36because sometimes you'll get to a position where all the forensic psychologists will say they agree.
37:43But in this occasion, that wasn't the case. There was a disagreement. So I felt it was right that a jury
37:49should hear what all those experts said and formulate that and based on the evidence and
37:55what Gary may or may not say during trial as to whether he was guilty or not.
38:01So the decision was we're going to go to trial. Absolutely. And I suppose in many ways,
38:14what you're looking at is more than just this brain injury and you want to look at that bigger picture
38:20and not just that snapshot of that moment. And that's exactly it. I felt it was right. It was right for
38:26Kenny's family to let the jury have that picture and let a jury decide what their view was.
38:38So then we come to the trial. So it took place at Birmingham Crown Court and it was about 18 months
38:45after Kenny's death that the trial actually took place. Obviously his mum's there, so family, you know,
38:52they've been there for them. They've come over from Ireland. So it's a very tense time for them.
38:58Essentially, that's what we're doing the job for as well, isn't it? It's all about the families.
39:02Yeah, family are always your priority. You can't do anything for the victim,
39:06but what you can hopefully do is get some justice and closure for the family.
39:14Kenny's mum was obviously extremely upset. She couldn't understand why Gary would murder him.
39:21She too saw them as friends and close friends. That probably added to her anger and upset because
39:29Kenny, as far as everybody was concerned, had been nothing but kind to Gary throughout his life.
39:36Any murder victim's family always wants, you know, a murder conviction and the longest possible
39:45sentence which is life for murder.
39:50But as the prosecution opened the case, the full details were revealed. In all the years I've been
39:55covering murder cases and serious violence cases in the West Midlands. This was one of the most brutal
40:02that I've ever seen.
40:05The prosecutor said they'd had some sort of falling out the previous night and that Gary O'Neill had
40:10accused him of being a pervert and having done something to his girlfriend in the past. He also
40:14accused him of smoking his cannabis. So a real mixed picture of was it to do with the PlayStation?
40:22Was it to do with the next girlfriend? Was it to do with nothing? What was it? And really,
40:28we've never got to the bottom of what was the cause.
40:32Did Gary give evidence? He did give evidence, yeah.
40:35What did he say? He maintained that actually in that, the window of the assault, attack, murder,
40:44that he didn't remember what happened. He could remember what happened beforehand to a degree,
40:50but that window, he never really gave an account for what happened in that window. But really from the
40:56point where the friends left, didn't have any recollection. So he said of what had happened or
41:02gone on or how Kenny had ended up so severely injured. Throughout this whole investigation,
41:08the court trial, et cetera, had Gary ever shown remorse for what he did to Kenny?
41:15Not that I saw. So particularly if I put myself in Kenny's mom's shoes, she was never given any
41:22understanding or never given any sort of remorse apology for what had happened to her son.
41:29Having seen all the evidence, heard all the witness testimony, why do you think Gary,
41:40the best friend of Kenny, went on to kill him in the way that he did?
41:46I've never been able to reconcile what could have happened for him to react in
41:52such a violent manner. So I don't know is the honest answer. I really don't.
41:58In the UK, around 100 murders a year are directly attributed to severe mental illness on behalf of
42:07the killer. The sad thing for me in my experience when you're dealing with these crimes is that
42:12it's normally those closest to the killer that become victims, friends, families, loved ones.
42:19All around, they're just such tragic cases. The most tense part of any trial is when the jury are
42:26about to come back with their verdict. Given the overwhelming evidence in this case, I think a lot
42:31of people that had overheard it, certainly myself, were certain that Gary O'Neill was going to get
42:36convicted of murder.
42:47They decided not guilty murder, which by default meant he was guilty of manslaughter to diminish
42:54responsibility. They didn't have to decide on that. Obviously, that was already admitted to,
42:59so they only had to decide on was he guilty or not guilty of murder. How did that feel?
43:05It's devastating. You always want the result that you believe to be the right result. And I always
43:12believed that Gary was guilty of murder. And there was visible surprise and shock when the jury
43:21delivered the verdict of not guilty of murder. Kenny's mother was extremely upset and angry.
43:31Yeah, in her mind, Gary had quite literally got away with murder. She knew Gary. She'd known Gary all
43:38his life as well. So she didn't believe this was diminished responsibility. He actually got 15 years.
43:47So in the grand scheme of manslaughter was a better sentence than I expected.
43:59But would never be enough for a family. It doesn't equate to life. It doesn't equate to 27,
44:0328 years, which he probably would have got had he been found guilty of murder.
44:09So when you say 15 years to me, I know through my experience that a judge's sentence often reflects
44:19what they believe a verdict should have been. 15 years is a lot for manslaughter by the minister's
44:27responsibility. As we've been sat talking, Michelle, what you've described to me is
44:32up there with one of the most horrific murders I've heard of. I can see that you are personally
44:39invested and you're invested for Kenny's family. And that comes down to your dedication,
44:45your professionalism and your thoughts for the family. So on behalf of Kenny, I want to say
44:53thank you, Michelle, for the professionalism you showed in this investigation and just literally
45:01the care for his family. Thank you.
45:03In modern murder investigations, wrongly in my opinion, pressure can be put on an SIO to make
45:23decisions that aren't in the interest of justice, but they're in the interest of convenience or budgets.
45:30Michelle was presented with the opportunity to take a plea for manslaughter. She was presented with
45:39what was essentially an easy out except a plea for diminished responsibility. But would that have
45:47been justice? Her determination to do what was right for Kenneth and his family ultimately led to the same
45:56result. But she was absolutely right that this had to go before a jury. I was so impressed that Michelle
46:04stood up for what was right and not what was easy.
46:18She was silent.
46:23She was absolutely right.
46:26Her son was not a matter of being a father to the family.
46:29She was a man who did not want to translate that for him as she was perhaps a boy.
46:33She was so impressed with her mother.
46:36She was an adult girl who was a part of her mother.
46:40She was a girl who was a boy who was a boy.
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