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00:03I'm Steve Keogh, a former Scotland Yard murder detective inspector.
00:08I'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.
00:22On the front line, exposing how we solve the most heinous of crimes.
00:31Welcome to Secrets of a Murder Detective.
00:40The murder of Kenneth Ford in February 2022 was one of West Midlands most challenging cases.
00:47I'm going to be meeting the senior investigating officer on the case to reveal what really happened.
00:51The pressures, the setbacks and the methods in the investigation that brought the killer to justice.
00:57Michelle Fairgood, 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, detective sergeant,
01:12and then latterly detective inspector, also known as a senior investigating officer.
01:18Hi Michelle, thank you very much for coming in.
01:25Michelle, 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 within the homicide department of West Midlands Police.
01:39So a call did come in to West Midlands Police. Tell me about that.
01:44I've been at the service. 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.
01:56Landlords have been round to an address where they rented out the property
01:59and that they found a man that they believed to be deceased inside
02:03and obviously they'd made the call to West Midlands Police asking for help and officers to attend.
02:12So our unit of home colleagues would go out. They entered the premises.
02:20It was very blood covered premises. It was obvious to them straight away that something could go on with inside
02:27the premises.
02:28So they went up to the stairs and at the top of the stairs they found a bedroom
02:32and in that bedroom the deceased was on the floor of that bedroom.
02:40The victim's name was Kenneth Ford. He was 30 years old.
02:45And Kenny was the tenant of those premises.
02:49Today you've got the luxury of body-worn video.
02:51So those officers when they go in will turn their videos on and you get to see what is happening.
02:57Yes, from the minute they turned up and spoke to the caller outside all the way through as they walked
03:02through the premises
03:03and up the stairs into the room where they found the person.
03:08I was able to see exactly what it looked like, how 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 and understand,
03:22because there's nothing better than your own eyes at a scene,
03:25exactly what might have gone on.
03:28Because there's no replicating being there and sort of living it, breathing it, smelling it,
03:35being in there and fully understanding what a crime scene is.
03:37So this premises was a terraced house in like a relatively small side street.
03:47This happened in a road called Colbrook Road.
03:51This is in the Tysley area of Birmingham, quite a highly populated residential area,
03:57but also has some business very close to Birmingham city centre.
04:03Not an area where you routinely 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,
04:13because 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.
04:24So you wear full barrier clothing to go in?
04:27Yeah, fully clothed.
04:28So literally only your eyes are showing everything else is covered to ensure there's no contamination of that scene being
04:34brought in from,
04:35you know, any of us who've 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, not much else.
04:46There was a small settee that was absolutely covered in blood.
04:53There was some clothing strewn around the floor, a bag of tools,
04:57very strangely in the middle of the floor, strewn around the floor.
05:01Obvious signs of some sort of struggle had gone on by the fact the television was smashed.
05:07Initially entering the crime scene, obviously in my mind what might have happened was the, what was the murder weapon?
05:15Was the murder weapon still there?
05:18Looking around at what was on the floor, was 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 who was responsible?
05:32But as you looked up the stairs and up the banister, all the way up what would be the handrail,
05:38was lots of blood up the handrail.
05:41Got to the top of the stair, there was a bedroom, that was the room that the victim was found
05:45in.
05:46That was heavily, heavily bloodstained, fed literally to this side of the door, which was, there wasn't much left of
05:54the mattress that wasn't just awash with blood.
05:57There was a wardrobe here, there was blood all splattered at the wardrobe.
06:01There was a duvet on the floor.
06:04Behind what was the door, which again was absolutely covered in blood, there was blood at the radiator.
06:08I've been to lots of murder scenes and what struck me about that scene was the sheer volume of blood
06:14and the fact that it was upstairs and downstairs.
06:18It felt to me that it had started downstairs and gone upstairs, because that's obviously where the victim was.
06:26When I looked under the triangle of the stairs, where the settee was, there were marks, strange marks at that
06:35point in the overhang, almost as if something had been hitting it.
06:42He had injuries to his head, torso, his knees, his legs.
06:47I don't think there was any part of his body that hadn't suffered some sort of attack with some sort
06:55of weapon.
06:56I personally have never dealt with such a frenzied killing with so many injuries in so many different areas of
07:03the body.
07:04That's horrific.
07:06Yeah, awful, awful injuries. The worst that I've seen.
07:09The level of injury would suggest that this is a very dangerous person who carried out a very sustained and
07:16prolonged attack.
07:22When news of Kenneth Ford's death broke, the local community was obviously surprised and in shock.
07:29My name's Carl Jackson. I've been a journalist for over ten years now.
07:32I've been a court reporter for Birmingham Live for around five years.
07:35Kenneth Ford lived in a HMO on Colbrook Road in Tysley.
07:39It's an inner city area. It's a short walk or a drive away from the city centre.
07:45It's very urban and built up.
07:46The natural question a lot of them had to ask was, why has this happened?
07:50As the details started to emerge of what happened, especially the level of violence used,
07:56people's level of shock and surprise was intensified.
08:00Just a lot of unanswered questions.
08:09In any murder, a post-mortem needs to take place.
08:12And in the case of a murder, it 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
08:44very 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 them getting away from you.
08:59He had 112 altogether, that's a lot of injuries.
09:03112?
09:04112 injuries.
09:05I mean, I mean that, that's, that's a lot.
09:09That's a lot.
09:10In your career, I mean, how many times have you come across something as, like this?
09:15Never.
09:16Generally people might have, I don't know, six or seven is, 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, when I 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.
09:59And 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.
10:10I was really, really proud, I think, of, you know, 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, and 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, but 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.
10:46In 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, evade justice for the victim and their family.
11:16And finally, they've already shown that they have a propensity to violence, and there's always that danger that they may
11:23do so again.
11:30Any obvious weapons?
11:32There was hammers.
11:33They looked too clean, and it certainly didn't look like a scene that somebody had cleaned up after themselves.
11:38So, yes, there were things that, for me, needed to be looked at closely by a scientist, but nothing that
11:44was screaming out,
11:46there's your murder weapon.
11:47Who would you have called down to carry out that 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, well, in my view, this splatter, these markings, has
12:02been caused by...
12:06So, when I entered the crime scene, it was clear to me that there were...
12:10..there was actually a quite extensive distribution of blood.
12:14My name is Philip Field, I'm a forensic scientist at Westmillan's Police.
12:18And so it was clear to me there was a considerable amount of work to do to unravel an understanding
12:24of what all that blood staining meant.
12:27For instance, blows into wet blood can produce characteristic impacts, batter stains.
12:33There were two key areas that stood out.
12:37One of those areas was in the downstairs of the property on a floor wall pattern settee,
12:43which was located underneath the stairs in the living room.
12:50That settee was really heavily blood stained.
12:54There were staining and blood drips around it, and there was some spat of blood on the wall behind the
13:00settee.
13:00So it indicated to me that clearly some measure of activity had occurred in this region,
13:06and that Kenneth Ford had been located in that region whilst bleeding heavily from some injuries that he had already
13:14sustained.
13:16And the other key area really was the bedroom at the back of the property where his body had been
13:26found.
13:28The key area was at a low level in the corner of the room formed by the window wall and
13:38the wardrobe.
13:39And in this location there was an enormous amount of transfer blood staining, indicating that heavily blood stained surfaces had
13:48been in contact with other surfaces in that location.
13:52And there were some spatter blood distributions there as well, indicating that blows into wet blood had been sustained in
14:02that location.
14:03So it suggested that that was very much a site of attack on 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? Was there anything in that area?
14:22There was some apparent ridge detailing blood which a colleague of mine tended to seem to conduct some chemical enhancement
14:31on to try and bring out the features of that ridge detailing blood
14:40so that they could be of sufficient quality for comparison against other fingerprints.
14:46The fact that a fingerprint is in blood can indicate that the blood was wet at the time that the
14:52fingerprint was deposited,
14:54which can indicate that it was at a time very close to when events were unfolding.
15:08Having called the police there, the landlord was clearly someone that needed to be spoken to to get an understanding
15:14of why he called the police,
15:15what was going on, etc. What did he say?
15:18What the landlord told the police was that he'd received a call from somebody by the name of Gary,
15:23who he said was a friend of Kenny's, and he'd asked him to go to the address because Kenny needed
15:29help.
15:29He was concerned by the fact that he was being asked to get Kenny help, so didn't obviously know why
15:35Kenny 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 in trying to understand and
15:49find out who he was,
15:51what his surname was, where he might be, what was his connection to Kenny, and how did him and Kenny
15:57know each other.
15:57So 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, since they were
16:14children.
16:14And it transpired that actually Gary was a really, really good friend of Kenny's.
16:20In fact, without exception, everyone we spoke to said they were like brothers.
16:24When they were children in Ireland, they were very close.
16:29At one point they were both in care together.
16:32Gary was very much a loner.
16:35Kenny looked out for him.
16:38In effect, he was almost a bit of a bodyguard for him when they were in care.
16:41So very much was his protector.
16:46That they came, they both came over to England at a similar time.
16:51We found a video when we were going through Kenny's phone.
16:56And on that phone he was talking about how excited he was about the house.
17:11He shows a bedroom that he talks quite proudly about, you know, this is going to be Gary's room.
17:26They had lost contact for a while, but shortly before the incident happened, Gary O'Neill had moved into the
17:33same bedsit as Kenneth Ford.
17:38On the face of it, this is someone who knows a lot more about what went on in that premises.
17:44What decision was made around him?
17:46The decision is to raise Gary to a suspect.
17:50And what comes with raising somebody to a suspect is putting them onto the police national computer as wanted on
17:57suspicion of murder.
17:58The reason, the rationale for that is should they get stopped by police officers anywhere in the country, that would
18:04flag up immediately that this is somebody that the police want to talk to.
18:08But we had no idea where Gary was.
18:10We literally had no idea where we'd gone or how to locate him.
18:16What 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 or
18:23heard from him.
18:24And anyone we knew that knew him, close friends, he had an ex-partner, starting to speak to those people
18:30to say, have you heard from Gary in the last 24 hours?
18:34On the day that this happened, the 28th of February, Kenny and Gary had been out during the day, so
18:40they'd been out with these two particular friends and their child, and 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.
18:56There was some suggestion that in recent weeks something could happen between Kenny and Gary's ex-girlfriend.
19:05She disclosed to them and was Gary not happy about that?
19:10And during the evening when the friends were there, Gary actually came downstairs and started to attack Kenny and the
19:18friend intervened.
19:21Physically attack?
19:21Yeah, physically attack him.
19:23Friend intervened and removed a hammer from him at that point.
19:29He then all calmed down and went back to normal.
19:32Kenneth Ford didn't seem too concerned about the attack.
19:35He reassured the friends that everything would be fine and he would put Gary O'Neill to bed.
19:40So 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.
20:00What was that telling you?
20:02And what that data was telling us was it looked as if he was moving up the country,
20:08specifically along the 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.
20:18For 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?
20:30Gary had no access to his own transport, no.
20:33So the fact that he was travelling up the M6 suggested he was on some mode of transport.
20:39Which you needed to try and find out what.
20:41Yeah, obviously we had to then try and work out what that could be,
20:45which the next step of that is what can my CCTV trackers tell us?
20:51People might mistakenly think, that's quite easy, isn't it? Just follow someone on CCTV.
20:57Not that simple, is it?
20:59No, it's really difficult. This is a residential area.
21:02So, the likelihood is there's not street cameras.
21:07Luckily, today, people have all sorts of security on their own addresses,
21:12which can be really useful to a police investigation.
21:15So, the starting point is that street, specifically overlooking Kenny's address.
21:20And then just trying to piece together, if we can pick Gary up on CCTV.
21:26Where does he walk? And at each point we lose him off a camera.
21:29Is there another camera?
21:31Street cameras, commercial cameras, house cameras.
21:35Getting hold of that footage, picking it up.
21:38And just keep following someone.
21:40The male and female with their child, who are friends of both Gary and Kenny.
21:44But when they're left, as the CCTV shows, Gary and Kenny are back smiling on the doorstep together.
21:54Gary O'Neil left Kenneth Ford's home shortly before 2am.
21:59He actually walked past an ambulance, which was there by coincidence, having attended another address.
22:03But the suspect didn't flag the attention of the ambulance, he just walked straight past it.
22:08He was captured on camera carrying a carrier bag and what looked like to be a hammer.
22:12From there, the suspect went to a McDonald's in Cape Hill.
22:16Staff noticed that there was some blood on him at the time.
22:22And we did lose him a few times, but we managed to track him all the way to what's called
22:28Dig the Coach Station.
22:29So that's in the city centre of Birmingham.
22:32We then got him in the coach station, asleep.
22:35So that's kind of a case of working out which coach, where are the stops.
22:42So, you're on his trail, but you're not quite there yet.
22:45Yeah, so we're on his trail, obviously at a coach station.
22:48If someone's paid with a credit card or something, it's easy to be 100% where they've gone.
22:53Somebody pays with cash, then not so easy, because there's no trace of that ticket being bought.
22:57There's certainly no name on the ticket.
22:59So, 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 that level of
23:20violence would be used against Kenneth.
23:24There was some suggestion of an argument over a PlayStation.
23:27But 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.
23:37What I saw throughout my career was that the most horrific crimes can be committed due to the most minor
23:44event.
23:51Sometimes in an investigation, you get a lucky break.
23:55But what's happening unbeknownst to us is that Gary gets to Carlisle and then gets off the coach and onto
24:03a normal bus, just a normal double-decker bus.
24:06The bus travels into Scotland.
24:09He's gone and sat initially on the upstairs.
24:12He starts to behave very strangely.
24:14He's on the phone and he's overheard by a member of the public in a conversation where he talks about
24:21a hammer.
24:22That conversation worries the person that overhears it.
24:26They overheard him saying he'd straightened Ken out.
24:30They also heard him talking to a woman.
24:33It sounded like saying he'd left someone in a bad way.
24:36During one of the calls that was overheard, the suspect said they needed to call an ambulance.
24:43They're throwing away the key.
24:44Gary is wandering around the bus, harassing passengers on the bus, wandering up to people,
24:53talking to them, wandering back, sitting down, getting back up.
24:56He had been harassing them for a phone charger on the way.
25:00He was also observed to be staring through people like they were a piece of glass.
25:04One passenger commented.
25:05So various people on the bus actually make a call to the Scottish police and say they're concerned about a
25:13person on the bus and his demeanour and behaviours.
25:16So what that prompts is the Scottish police to meet the bus at a bus stop.
25:22They get on the bus, identify the passenger that people are concerned about.
25:27They take him off the bus and speak to him, obviously.
25:30And part of that is asking him for his name and his details.
25:34And it's at the point that they then check on the police national computer that they realise that he's wanted
25:41in England for the offence of murder.
25:48One of the real complexities for this investigation was Scottish law and English law are very different.
25:55So the law of England does not stand in Scotland.
26:00So the officers in Scotland were not able to arrest Gary for murder.
26:05So they arrest him for a public order offence, in effect an offence relating to him harassing people, his demeanour,
26:12his behaviour on a bus.
26:14They take him to custody in Glasgow.
26:18It isn't as simple as they can't arrest him for murder.
26:22What they also can't do, because actually a public order offence is a very low level offence that he's in
26:28custody for, is they are unable to take any of the forensic samples, forensic swabbing.
26:34And that, had he been arrested in England, would have been done straight away to ensure that we were securing
26:40and preserving any evidence that he might have, such as his hands, for instance.
26:45But also, in terms of, you know, samples, blood samples that might show, you know, was he drunk at the
26:52time, 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, asking whether the man in
27:10the West Midlands had died, and then he started crying.
27:13He then asked, how long do I get for murder? And then he made the comment, I wouldn't get done
27:18for murder if it was an accident.
27:20And at that point, obviously, make a call to us in the West Midlands to say, we think this person's
27:26wanted by you.
27:27So, in essence, you need to send officers up to Scotland and bring him back?
27:30So, yeah, the next step is to get officers to go from the West Midlands to Glasgow.
27:35His clothing and phone and everything had been seized by the Scottish police,
27:39so obviously we brought all those back with us.
27:41That was initially taken locally for initial screening, to understand, was there likely any blood on his clothing?
27:48That showed that there was blood on the sort of hoodie that he was wearing.
27:52That was then transferred to the specialist scientists at the Crime Forensic Laboratory for testing, as to understand, who did
28:02that blood belong to?
28:03Was it his blood? Was it Kenny's blood? Whose blood was it?
28:07And the distribution on it would be important to understand how that blood got there.
28:11Yeah, again, a blood pattern analyst would have a look at his hoodie and they would try and understand how
28:18was it transferred.
28:19It was his opinion that it was transfer blood and that the patterns of it, again, suggested potentially wet blood
28:28flicking off something.
28:29So, if you could imagine a hammer or such an implement being consistently used, a splatter actually coming, spraying off
28:39that article onto Gary's clothing.
28:42And, 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, you know, so
28:55if you found his fingerprints, if you found his DNA anywhere in the house, well, you'd expect to find that.
29:01So, it was critical that any DNA was actually related to the blood, related to the attack, hence why the
29:10blood on the hoodie was so crucial, because it showed, at the time that Kenny was attacked, that hoodie, at
29:17very least, was in the address.
29:19And, obviously, as we know, nobody else was in the address, then Gary must have been wearing that hoodie at
29:24the time of the attack.
29:26And, when he's brought into the custody block, he's actually quite calm in his demeanour, quite...
29:34..doesn't say a lot, looks at the floor a lot, very, yeah, answers when he's spoken to, but doesn't say
29:41any more than that.
29:49And, 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 need to build
30:03a case against him.
30:04What 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
30:15say is,
30:17at 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,
30:29to categorically say the only two people in the address at the time of Kenny's death were him and Gary.
30:36What you're building up now is a strong case against him that is Gary that has killed Kenny.
30:43You go to the CPS with this to seek an authority for charge.
30:48What 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?
30:57Er, he makes no response.
30:59The charges for murder, so between the 27th of the 2nd of 22 and the 28th of the 2nd of
31:0322,
31:04in the county of Birmingham, murdered Kenny for your country to Commonwealth.
31:08But Gary, have you got any replies to that charge?
31:12Getting someone charged is just one stage of a prosecution.
31:15There's a lot more work that needs to be done to get a case ready for trial.
31:20In terms of the forensics, that takes a lot of time for the scientists to bring that all together.
31:25What evidence were they able to give you?
31:28They were able to ascertain that that blood was in fact Kenny's blood, and actually the palm prints in it
31:34was also Kenny's.
31:35What they were able to tell us about the house was the marking in the top of the stairs was
31:41consistent with an implement,
31:43probably a hammer being swung, and that's what had caused the marks in the plaster.
31:47It was confirmed that the blood on Gary's clothing was Kenny's,
31:51and 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.
32:02So somebody's swinging something, and that transfer was splattering small particles,
32:08as opposed to, you know, a knife wound, which might be a gushing wound, and creates a lot of blood.
32:16When we combined that with the results of the forensic post-mortem,
32:19it showed that Kenny had suffered 112 injuries all over his body.
32:27The scientists, or the pathologist again, was able to say that some of the marks on his skull,
32:33his head, were consistent with that claw of a hammer having carried out those injuries.
32:40So all of that evidence together was really strong evidence of some sort of, you know,
32:46frenzied attack happening in that address.
32:48When 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,
32:55where essentially they outline what their defence is going to be to the prosecution.
33:00Did that happen in this case?
33:02It did. When we received the defence case statement from Gary,
33:06he said from the offset that he was responsible for the death of Kenny,
33:11but 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,
33:29but Kenneth Ford wouldn't let him have it.
33:31At that point, he said Kenneth Ford attacked him and struck him to the head.
33:35At that point, he said he picked up the hammer from a toolbox and started striking Kenneth Ford with it.
33:40He 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 some ten
33:52years ago.
33:53He tried to commit suicide, which had resulted in a severe head injury.
33:57He suffered with some various different 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.
34:11So self-defence, if believed, would mean that he would not be found guilty of anything.
34:16He's then putting forward a case of diminished responsibility,
34:20which, if believed, wouldn't be murder, would be dropped down to manslaughter.
34:26So he's edging his bets.
34:28Yeah, and that's exactly how it felt.
34:30I mean, luckily for us, in terms of Kenny attacked me first,
34:35Kenny was a much bigger person than Gary, taller, wider, generally much, much bigger than Gary.
34:42Kenny, we've already talked about, 112 horrific injuries.
34:46Gary didn't have a single injury.
34:48So Kenny attacking him didn't make any sense whatsoever.
35:00He's the only one.
35:01He's the only one.
35:01He's the only one.
35:02He's the only one.
35:04He's the only one.
35:04Under English law, there are certain defences to murder.
35:07There are four defences, such as self-defence, and if accepted, the killer won't be convicted of anything.
35:14And there are what's known as partial defences, and one of these is diminished responsibility.
35:20So if somebody pleads guilty to manslaughter by diminished responsibility, essentially they're accepting the act, i.e., yes, I did
35:28kill the person.
35:29But at the time of doing so, I was suffering from what's known as a defect of the mind.
35:34Essentially saying, I was suffering from a mental illness that affected my reasoning and decision-making.
35:41And if accepted, it will be a far lesser sentence than it would be for murder.
35:51And then once someone puts forward a defence of diminished responsibility, some processes then kick in, don't they?
35:57They do, that's right.
35:59So what happens initially is both the defence and the prosecution have their own forensic psychologists.
36:06They will write a report for the court, or for the Crown Prosecution Service, or for the defence.
36:11Those reports are reviewed, and sometimes our prosecution expert will say,
36:17you need to accept this, because categorically every part of the diminished responsibility is met.
36:22So in this case, it went before the judge and both parties, defence and prosecution, put forward,
36:29that we needed to understand better, could that head injury from ten years ago have any impact on his mental
36:38health?
36:39So a specialist neuroforensic psychiatrist was asked to write a report,
36:48and he was purely focused on brain injury.
36:51And what did this expert say?
36:54So having done all of his tests, he said as a result of the head injury,
37:01his belief was that Gary functioned in terms of his ability to understand what he was doing,
37:09react right or wrong.
37:11He was in a very small percentage of not being able to do that.
37:16So 99% of the population would know exactly what they were doing and understand the ramifications of it.
37:22He sat in that 1% that potentially might not.
37:27What happened then?
37:29My 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.
37:44But in this occasion that wasn't the case, there was a disagreement.
37:47So I felt it was right that a jury should hear what all those experts said and formulate that,
37:53and based on the evidence and what Gary may or may not say during trial as to whether he was
38:00guilty or not.
38:09So the decision was we're going to go to trial.
38:11Absolutely.
38:12And I suppose in many ways, what you're looking at is more than just this brain injury,
38:18and you want to look at that bigger picture and not just that snapshot of that moment.
38:23And that's exactly it. I felt it was right, it was right for Kenny,
38:26Kenny's family to let the jury have that picture and let the jury decide what their view was.
38:38So then we come to the trial.
38:41So it took place at Birmingham Crown Court,
38:44and it was about 18 months after Kenny's death that the trial actually took place.
38:49Obviously his mum's there, so family, you know, for them, they've come over from Ireland,
38:54so it's, you know, a very tense time for them.
38:58Essentially that's what we're doing the job for as well, isn't it?
39:01It's all about the families.
39:02Yeah, family are always your priority.
39:04You can't do anything for the victim, but what you can hopefully do is get some justice and closure for
39:10the family.
39:14Kenny's mum was obviously extremely upset.
39:17She couldn't understand why Gary would murder him.
39:21She too saw them as friends and close friends.
39:24That probably added to her anger and upset,
39:28because, you know, Kenny, as far as everybody was concerned,
39:32had been nothing but kind to Gary throughout his life.
39:36Any murder victim's family always want, you know, a murder conviction
39:44and the longest possible sentence, which is life for murder.
39:50But as the prosecution opened the case, the full details were revealed.
39:54In all the years I've been covering murder cases
39:57and serious violence cases in the West Midlands,
40:01this was one of the most brutal lot I've ever seen.
40:05The prosecutor said they'd had some sort of falling out the previous night
40:08and that Gary O'Neill had accused him of being a pervert
40:11and having done something to his girlfriend in the past.
40:14He also accused him of smoking his cannabis.
40:17So, a real mixed picture of, was it to do with the PlayStation?
40:22Was it to do with an ex-girlfriend?
40:25Was it to do with nothing? What was it?
40:27And really, we've never got to the bottom of what was the cause.
40:33Did Gary give evidence?
40:34He did give evidence, yeah.
40:36What did he say?
40:37He maintained that actually in that, the window of the assault, attack, murder,
40:44that he didn't remember what happened.
40:47He could remember what happened beforehand, to a degree,
40:50but that window, he never really gave an account
40:53for what happened in that window.
40:55But really, from the point where the friends left,
40:58didn't have any recollection, so he said, of what had happened or gone on
41:03or how Kenny had ended up so severely injured.
41:06Throughout this whole investigation, the court trial, etc.,
41:10had Gary ever shown remorse for what he did to Kenny?
41:15Not that I saw.
41:16So, particularly if I put myself in Kenny's mum's shoes,
41:20she was never given any understanding or never given any sort of remorse apology for what had happened to her
41:28son.
41:29Having seen all the evidence, heard all the witness testimony,
41:37why do you think Gary, the best friend of Kenny, went on to kill him in the way that he
41:46did?
41:46I've never been able to reconcile what could have happened for him to react in such a violent manner.
41:54So, 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 the killer.
42:08The 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.
42:23The most tense part of any trial is when the jury are about to come back with their verdict.
42:28Given the overwhelming evidence in this case, I think a lot of people that had overheard it,
42:32certainly myself, were certain that Gary O'Neill was going to get convicted of murder.
42:48They decided not guilty of murder, which by default meant he was guilty of manslaughter to diminish responsibility.
42:55They 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.
43:03How did that feel?
43:05It's devastating. You always want the result that you believe to be the right result.
43:11And I always believed that Gary was guilty of murder.
43:16And there was visible surprise and shock when the jury delivered the verdict of not guilty to murder.
43:26Kenny's mother was extremely upset and angry.
43:30In her mind, Gary had quite literally got away with murder.
43:35She knew Gary, she'd known Gary all his life as well, so she didn't believe this was diminished responsibility.
43:45He actually got 15 years, so in the grand scheme of manslaughter, was a better sentence than I expected.
43:59But would never be enough for a family.
44:01It doesn't equate to life, it doesn't equate to 27, 28 years, which he probably would have got had he
44:06been 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 what
44:19they believe a verdict should have been.
44:2315 years is a lot for manslaughter by diminished responsibility.
44:28As we've been sat talking, Michelle, what you've described to me is up there with one of the most horrific
44:35murders I've heard of.
44:37I can see that you are personally invested, and you're invested for Kenny's family.
44:43And that comes down to your dedication, your professionalism, and your thoughts for the family.
44:50So, on behalf of Kenny, I want to say thank you, Michelle, for the professionalism you showed in this investigation,
44:59and literally the care for his family.
45:15In modern murder investigations, wrongly, in my opinion, pressure can be put on an SIO to make decisions that aren't
45:24in the interest of justice,
45:26but they're in the interest of convenience or budgets.
45:30Michelle was presented with the opportunity to take a plea for manslaughter.
45:38She was presented with what was essentially an easy out, except a plea for diminished responsibility.
45:46But would that have been justice?
45:49Her determination to do what was right for Kenneth and his family ultimately led to the same result.
45:57But she was absolutely right that this had to go before a jury.
46:02I was so impressed that Michelle stood up for what was right and not what was easy.
46:37I was so impressed with her.
46:37She was all in the first half of years of July and his family.
46:37The standard of the discovery for the discovery for the discovery for the discovery was 30 years ago.
46:37I was so impressed with her and the discovery for the discovery for the discovery.
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