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00:04A
00:05fatal fall into a stream in the remote British countryside.
00:09The police said there had been some sort of an accident involving Natalie.
00:15A young woman's life cut short in an instant.
00:27Was it just a tragic accident?
00:30Andrew Pearson gave an account that he'd gone for a walk with Natalie
00:33and she'd fallen and slipped into a stream.
00:37Or murder.
00:38All the police have at this point is suspicions.
00:41They've got questions.
00:41But that is not enough to provide evidence of guilt.
01:08Natalie Harker was born in North Yorkshire.
01:11She lived with her mum and dad, John and Deborah, and her brother Alistair.
01:16Natalie Harker was born in North Yorkshire.
01:18She was a caring sister.
01:20When we were younger, we were inseparable.
01:23My uncle used to call us the Gruesome Twosome.
01:26One day, me and Natalie were out playing in the fields and the farm that we lived on.
01:31And my sister dared me to sit on an ant hive.
01:34So I did.
01:35And then evidently got my bit.
01:38This was typical of what me and Natalie would get up to.
01:41We were like cats and dogs.
01:43We were always scrapping.
01:44But we were always close.
01:46A loving brother and sister.
01:49Natalie was described as kind, hardworking, loved by all of her friends and the community that she lived in.
01:56She was really popular.
01:57She didn't talk to anyone about anything.
02:00Everybody described her as a bright, happy, bubbly character who'd help anybody out.
02:07In early 2018, Natalie was living at home with her mum and dad when she began dating an older man
02:14named Andrew Pearson,
02:15who she'd met when they both worked at a local supermarket.
02:20And a few months after Andrew had quit his job, he came back in the store and asked her to
02:24be his girlfriend.
02:25And Natalie said yes, despite the 15-year age gap.
02:29It was what would seem like a fairy tale relationship.
02:34Natalie would talk in length about Andrew, that he was so kind and how amazing he was.
02:42By October 2019, 30-year-old Natalie had left her job at the supermarket and was working as a cleaner.
02:51Natalie was a really hardworking person.
02:54She worked two separate cleaning jobs, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.
02:58Natalie often worked unsociable hours, but she always was really reliable and would turn up on time every day for
03:06her shift.
03:11On October 9th, 2019, Natalie left her parents' house at 4.30am to cycle to her first cleaning job of
03:20the day.
03:24Natalie told her parents that she had a medical appointment at 10am after she finished work and she said that
03:30she would be home after that.
03:33But by 1pm, there was no sign of Natalie.
03:38Natalie's parents were becoming increasingly concerned at this point.
03:42They went out into the back garden. They could see that her bicycle wasn't there.
03:46And they called her mobile phone. It went straight to voicemail.
03:51John and Deborah were worried that maybe Natalie had got into some kind of accident.
03:56And they went to where she was meant to have had her appointment that day, but Natalie had never shown.
04:01At about half past two that day, I got a phone call from my dad saying Natalie had gone missing,
04:07didn't know where she'd gone and said, you need to come home.
04:11By this point, they thought something was seriously wrong.
04:14They called 999 and within 10 minutes, officers were at the house.
04:21Detective Inspector Steve Mingus of North Yorkshire Police was on duty that day.
04:28So the first responders arrived at Natalie's home.
04:30Those officers did a risk assessment to find out what Natalie's routines were, who her friends and family were, and
04:37to find out whether she was suffering any issues.
04:40Natalie would normally finish her work about 8am in the morning.
04:43She would then cycle back home and rest before her second shift.
04:48It was established that Natalie hadn't arrived at work, and she certainly hadn't arrived home.
04:55The police launched an urgent missing persons inquiry, and they asked the family to share some recent pictures of Natalie,
05:02which they then shared on social media.
05:05To help with their search, the police really needed to piece together what Natalie had done in the hours before
05:11her disappearance,
05:12particularly the route that she had taken to work.
05:15Natalie would normally use the main road.
05:18However, a few months before, she'd fallen off her bike and injured her ankle.
05:22And she was really scared that she might fall into the road where there might be passing traffic.
05:26So she chose to use a cycle route close by, which bypassed much of the road.
05:33The cycle path is quite narrow, and on October morning, it was really, really dark.
05:37It was unlit, it was cold, it was wet, and it was shrouded by trees and bushes.
05:44As detectives began to build a picture of Natalie's movements earlier that morning, at 4.43pm, over three hours since
05:53Natalie's parents had reported her missing,
05:56North Yorkshire police received a distressing 999 call from Andrew Pearson.
06:03Hello.
06:04Right, Andrew, listen to me, your girlfriend, okay? What exactly happened?
06:12I've been camping for a few days. And, okay, so I met Natalie and we went for a walk.
06:21There was, like, an open area, and as we were going down there, she must have slipped and, like, dragged
06:30me, because I remember hitting my back.
06:34And then I realised she's in the water, and I just dragged her out.
06:41I'm first aid trained, so I did what I could. I thought she was breathing, and then I realized my
06:51tent's nearby, so I dragged her into it.
06:54And, well, I thought she was breathing at this point, and she seemed okay.
06:58And so we did what I'm trained to do, stripped her off, and we got her blanket.
07:12So you fell asleep, yeah? Walked up. What time did you wake up? Just take your breath.
07:20I don't, I don't know. A friend from America phoned me, I think, at 4 o'clock.
07:25Right, no problems. And did you try CPR again?
07:28She knew she was purple.
07:29No, no, no, no, no. Just take a breath. Slow yourself down. All right?
07:34Yeah.
07:34OK.
07:35So when you walked back up and she was purple, you did not perform any other first error?
07:40No, I checked. She's here. I found only calling.
07:45Following Andrew's 999 call to report that Natalie had died after falling into a stream, officers arrived at the scene.
07:54They found Andrew Pearson. He then directed him down the cycle path to a gate,
07:59where he pointed across the field and said that Natalie's body was in a tent within the wooded area.
08:05Meanwhile, Natalie's family were still frantically searching for their missing loved one.
08:10I said to my mum and my dad, I want to go out and see if I can find her.
08:15Mum came with me. We drove round for about 10, 15 minutes, looking in all the places we thought she
08:21maybe was.
08:22And I said to mum, we'll go and see if she's fallen off a bike.
08:26So we went down to the lane where Natalie would sometimes go on the way back from work.
08:32Then walked down the lane, heard a load of sirens that the police are coming.
08:36So we ran out to be greeted by Andrew Pearson and two police officers.
08:45The police said that Andrew had called and said that there had been some sort of an accident involving Natalie.
08:52Andrew was jumping round hysterically saying, this is the family, this is the family.
08:57The police said, stand over there, please. Andrew's found Natalie.
09:03In that moment, we had no idea what was going on.
09:05Both me and mum heard the air ambulance coming over and thought she was being saved.
09:11While Alistair and his mum, Deborah, awaited news on Natalie,
09:15officers followed Andrew's directions into the woodland where he claimed he'd been camping.
09:21Officers came across a thicket of wooded area, brambles, bushes, overhanging trees.
09:29And they scrambled down that towards a stream.
09:31Officers managed to get across the stream up the other side
09:34and they came across Andrew Pearson's tent, which was a highly camouflaged tent,
09:39which was underneath a tree canopy, which made it really difficult to be found in the first instance.
09:45Inside the tent, Natalie's naked body was found underneath the sleeping bag.
09:52Officers could see straight away that she had some severe bruising towards her upper torso and her neck area.
09:58When the police came back from bunting around for Natalie,
10:02they told us to sit in the back of a police car and wait for my father to come down.
10:07In that moment, we didn't know what was going on.
10:09The police said nothing to us.
10:11When my father arrived, a police person came up and said,
10:15we found a body and we believe it's Natalie.
10:24After North Yorkshire police discovered the body of 30-year-old Natalie Harker inside a tent on October 9th, 2019,
10:32they proceeded to question Andrew Pearson, who had called emergency services,
10:37claiming his girlfriend's death had been a tragic accident after she'd slipped and fallen into a stream.
10:45Andrew Pearson gave an account they'd met on the cycle path.
10:49He'd gone for a walk with Natalie, and during that walk, she'd fallen and slipped into a stream.
10:55He then stated that he'd pulled Natalie from the stream, given a CPR,
11:00and then dragged her to a tent that he'd pitched nearby in some woods.
11:03Andrew told the officers, whilst in the tent, she was obviously cold and wet,
11:07so he took her clothes off to try and get her warm.
11:09Pearson says that he felt unconscious from the pain of his back injury,
11:14and when he woke, he found Natalie dead.
11:18And he said that the only thing that woke him up was a call from a friend in America.
11:23This was some 12 hours after Natalie had cycled to work that morning.
11:27Her body was now found naked in a tent with some severe injuries.
11:32Natalie's brother, Alistair, and their parents were waiting at the scene
11:36when detectives confirmed they'd found Natalie.
11:40Mum and Dad both cried during this time.
11:43We were very, very angry.
11:46I felt numb all day and every day for about a week after.
11:51Nothing added up in our heads.
11:53Why would Natalie have gone down into the woods at 5.30 in the morning with it being dark?
11:59I thought it was a very, very strange behaviour for Natalie.
12:03It's of course going to be very unusual for a family to be live at the scene itself.
12:08A family stumbling across the death of a loved one is going to be so distressing, so confusing,
12:14and there's not going to be any answers to the millions of questions
12:17that flood their mind in that moment.
12:20An investigation into Natalie's death was immediately launched,
12:25led by Detective Inspector Steve Mingus, who began to scrutinise Andrew's story.
12:31Andrew Pearson claimed to have met Natalie down this dark, dingy cycle path.
12:38In actual fact, the route from her home address went down the main road,
12:42and there were several places where Andrew Pearson could have met Natalie in a well-lit area,
12:47but he chose to meet her down this cycle path.
12:51As the investigation got underway, it wasn't long before his team uncovered a crucial piece of evidence.
12:58When the forensic examination took place with the tent,
13:01it was found that Natalie's clothing was folded neatly in a zipped storage compartment within the tent.
13:07However, I would have expected from Andrew Pearson's account that had he taken Natalie's clothing off to get her warm,
13:12that clothing would have been in a bundle, not stored in a storage compartment neatly folded.
13:18But that wasn't the only discovery that set off alarm bells.
13:23A number of items were found within Andrew Pearson's tent.
13:26A lot of survival items, dried food, axes, knives.
13:30But, willingly, what was found was some gaffer tape, which was very suggestive of a gag having been used on
13:36Natalie.
13:38Officers immediately became very suspicious of the account that Andrew's been given.
13:42Based upon that information, officers determined that Andrew Pearson should be arrested on suspicion of murder.
13:49You're under arrest on suspicion of murder, OK?
13:52What?
13:52Do you understand?
13:54Right.
13:55I'm just going to put some fuffs on you at the moment, OK?
13:58He is using a higher pitch voice.
14:01He is sort of trying to show off some body language of being really quite timid.
14:06And I have to question whether that is his natural reaction or whether that's quite intentional.
14:13Pearson looks very distressed. He looks very shocked.
14:16None of that naturally indicates guilt on its own.
14:20What it could be is that he's stumbled across a really awful scene and he's distraught at the loss of
14:26Natalie.
14:27Or it could be a tactic to try and garner some sympathy from those arresting him.
14:33Following his arrest, Andrew was taken to Harrogate Police Station.
14:38I felt a lot of anger towards Andrew when I found out he'd been arrested.
14:42Because I thought he was a kind, decent person and that he wouldn't have hurt Natalie.
14:49It's hard to describe, but it's sort of a numb feeling in your head that you just can't process anything.
14:57The police now just had 24 hours to either charge Andrew Pearson or to let him walk free.
15:05They were desperately hoping he could expand on that first 999 call he made.
15:10I would have thought that, given Andrew Pearson's original account, that Natalie had fallen to this stream.
15:16And this was a complete accident leading to her death.
15:19Having then been arrested on suspicion of murder, that he would have been very keen to give an accounting interview.
15:25However, in the police interview, Andrew almost disengaged from the police officers and refused to answer any questions.
15:30That became more suspicious for me as the senior investigating officer.
15:35It's a real contrast from that first 999 call where he's desperate for help to now somebody that looks really
15:42disengaged with helping the police understand what's just happened to somebody who he claims that he loves.
15:49It's relatively common that when someone has experienced a significant trauma that they go through a period of shock and
15:56that can be an immediate shock or it can be prolonged.
15:59And that can lead to displays of various different behaviors, including a kind of panic response where actually they entirely
16:06withdraw.
16:07You can also imagine if this is a case of someone innocent who's been arrested and, you know, is being
16:14questioned as if they had something to do with this death.
16:17That alone would be really traumatizing.
16:19It can make you, you know, totally withdraw into yourself.
16:23It could really make you question how safe you are.
16:28Whilst naturally you might think that if someone's girlfriend has had an accident and died in front of them,
16:34that they would be, you know, trying to provide as much information and context as possible to an investigation.
16:41But you also have to remember that trauma can do really unusual things to a person.
16:46There's even conditions like selective mutism, where people struggle to communicate at all verbally.
16:52And so what Pearson is doing here, whilst maybe looks unusual, is not entirely unheard of and cannot be enough
17:01to evidence their guilt.
17:03While police struggled to get information from Andrew, a forensic post-mortem was being carried out on Natalie's body.
17:11Natalie had suffered some external internal bruising to her upper torso and to her neck.
17:17But Andrew Pearson's account was that he had given CPR to Natalie at the point of taking her from the
17:22stream and at the tent.
17:23So that could partially account for some of the injuries that Natalie had received.
17:28Police would have to wait for the post-mortem report to find out if it would provide further information about
17:34how Natalie died,
17:35and whether she had fallen into the stream, as Andrew claimed, or if she had been pushed to her death.
17:42All the police have at this point is suspicions, they've got questions.
17:46But that is not enough to provide evidence of guilt.
17:50And so they need a lot more information before they can start truly answering any of those questions.
17:56They're going to be looking for alibis, they're going to be looking at the timelines,
18:00they're going to be looking at the crime scene, things like phone records,
18:03anything that can indicate where Andrew was before and during the event of Natalie's death.
18:09With Andrew Pearson still in custody, police decided to look into his cell phone,
18:14which had been seized during his arrest, to see if it could provide any clues as to how Natalie died.
18:24Andrew Pearson was asked for his PIN number to access that phone.
18:28He refused to give that PIN number, even though he was told it could be an offence and it could
18:32be prosecuted.
18:33for not providing the PIN number.
18:35Again, that raised even more suspicion as to why Andrew Pearson wasn't assisting the police.
18:39I believed at that point that that phone could be really key to our investigation.
18:44It was really key that that phone was forensically examined as soon as possible
18:49to try and provide some evidence to support the investigation.
18:52While Andrew was still in custody, the post-mortem results came in.
18:58At this stage of the investigation, the Crown Prosecutor Service would have asked for a call.
19:04Unfortunately, the forensic post-mortem was inconclusive at that time.
19:08The initial post-mortem examination confirmed that Natalie had several broken ribs,
19:14consistent with Andrew's account that he administered CPR,
19:18but was not able to confirm a definitive cause of death.
19:24The forensic pathologist needed some more investigation to be conducted,
19:27which included histology, toxicology, and also to check for isotopes that may have been in Natalie's body.
19:35Isotopes are unique to different bodies of water.
19:38And obviously, if Natalie had been in the stream, I would expect isotopes from the stream to be Natalie's system.
19:44The police were still no closer to discovering if this had been a terrible accident
19:50and Natalie had fallen into the stream, as Andrew claimed, or if she had been pushed.
19:55I was left in a very difficult position.
19:58Andrew Pearson's account was partly supported by the forensic pathology report.
20:03However, more investigation needed doing.
20:06Those investigations were going to take days, weeks, and months.
20:09For myself and the investigation team, it was really frustrating that we were not in a position
20:14to charge Andrew Pearson with Natalie's murder.
20:17We're now left in a position where I had to bail him with safeguarding conditions
20:21until those investigations could take place.
20:31In October 2019, Andrew Pearson was arrested for the suspected murder of his girlfriend, Natalie Harker.
20:39You're under arrest of suspicion of murder, okay?
20:42What?
20:42Do you understand?
20:43I'm just going to put some cuffs on you at the moment.
20:46But when questioned, he wouldn't talk.
20:48And with no clear cause of death, police were forced to release him on bail.
20:54Behind the scenes, detectives raced to uncover the truth.
20:58Had Natalie slipped and fallen into the stream, as Pearson claimed,
21:02or had Andrew pushed her to her death?
21:06It was a really tense time for the investigation team.
21:08And for myself, as a senior investigating officer, we knew that we'd potentially
21:11had a really dangerous man on bail, albeit with safeguarding conditions,
21:16that we had to work really hard to get back into custody.
21:19At this point, all the police had to go on were their suspicions.
21:23But of course, that is not enough.
21:24They needed hard evidence.
21:25And they wanted to try and piece together a timeline, really,
21:29from locations, phone records, as a way of trying to establish the facts of what happened.
21:35We all felt a lot of anger when we found out that the police had placed him.
21:39Because we all had a feeling that he'd maybe done it.
21:42We were all worried as to how or what Andrew was going to do when he was released from police
21:48custody.
21:50While police awaited further post-mortem tests and the forensic results from Andrew's cell phone,
21:55detectives began digging into Natalie and Andrew's relationship.
22:02What we discovered was that within a few weeks or months of Andrew Pearson and Natalie Harker
22:07becoming involved in a relationship, Andrew lost his job.
22:10And he spent most of his time gaming on games consoles.
22:14And he became more and more dependent on Natalie,
22:16while Natalie was securing the finances with two jobs.
22:20She would pester him to try and get a job, but he refused to do so.
22:24He even told a friend that he wouldn't be told by Natalie to get a job.
22:28Natalie got sick and tired of always having to pay for the cinema, meals out, days out and things like
22:36that,
22:37as he never had any money.
22:39As police continued to question friends and family about their relationship,
22:43some concerning information came to light.
22:47We found out that Andrew Pearson started separating Natalie from her friends and her family,
22:51and he became very controlling over Natalie.
22:54He determined when she could see people, who she could see,
22:57and really controlled a lot of her life.
23:00Natalie's friends definitely noticed a change in her.
23:03They said that she changed her personality, the way that she dressed,
23:07and just became a lot more disengaged from her social life, her church,
23:12which she had been really heavily involved with in the community.
23:15During the course of the relationship,
23:17Pearson becomes increasingly reliant on Natalie, financially, emotionally.
23:23And then on top of that, he starts restricting her freedom of movement.
23:27And you often see that in relationships that involve coercive control,
23:31people do this to isolate their partner intentionally,
23:35so they can have greater control over them.
23:39Pearson is clearly insecure about the fact that he's not bringing anything to this relationship.
23:44And so by coercively controlling, by manipulating her,
23:47he's able to feel some power when he's actually probably feeling quite powerless in the rest of his life.
23:5418 months into her relationship with Andrew, Natalie had turned to her family for advice.
24:00Natalie had come to me, mum, and dad, and spoken to us about
24:04she wasn't feeling happy in the relationship.
24:07So the three of us and Natalie all decided, if she wasn't happy any more, to call it quits.
24:15She texted Pearson saying the relationship was over, to not get in contact with her again.
24:21And it had taken a lot for her to get to this point.
24:23She was really optimistic, looking forward to a fresh start in life.
24:28At the start, we thought that Andrew had taken the breakup really well.
24:32It was only afterwards we discovered that he hadn't.
24:37Pearson bombarded Natalie's phone with text messages.
24:40He refused to accept her decision and he wasn't going to take no for an answer.
24:45He would get friends and family to message her.
24:48He would send her messages on social media and actually bump into her to and from her workplace.
24:55Natalie is understandably trying to fully disengage at this point.
25:00She's not responding to any of the messages.
25:01And you can understand why.
25:04This needs to sort of be a cut and dry moment.
25:07People normally go through high emotional stress periods and then it sort of just starts to fade out.
25:13That's the normal way of a breakup.
25:15But in the case of Andrew Pearson, this does the opposite.
25:19Because this isn't so much about the breakup or the loss of love.
25:23For him, this is the loss of control.
25:25And so now, not having even the ability to raise a response from Natalie, that's going to be infuriating to
25:33someone like Andrew Pearson.
25:35When Andrew's tactics failed to win Natalie back, he posted a message on social media.
25:43In that message, he portrayed Natalie to be the bad person, the person who was stringing him along, using him,
25:50and that he was a perfect gentleman in that relationship.
25:54What he was trying to do, in my view, was to soil Natalie's name so that if he couldn't have
25:59her, nobody else would want her.
26:02Andrew Pearson is clearly narcissistic.
26:05He has these extreme senses of sort of grandiosity.
26:10And so someone like that, being broken up with, shakes them to their core.
26:15Because what are internal feelings of inadequacy?
26:18It brings them to the surface.
26:20And anyone who exposes that inadequacy is immediately an enemy to someone like Pearson.
26:27What he's doing at this point is just another way of him trying to assert control over her,
26:33over the narrative of their relationship, and positioning himself as the victim.
26:39When Natalie didn't respond to the message, Andrew's behaviour took a turn for the worse.
26:46Andrew Pearson's attitude towards Natalie completely changed.
26:50It now escalated to sending her really nasty text messages to upset her
26:54and to blame her for the breakup in the relationship.
26:58Andrew was saying that he was going to reveal that Natalie had been sleeping around
27:02during their relationship.
27:04I could not get my head around by anybody, let alone somebody that claimed to love them, would do that.
27:11It made me really, really angry.
27:13This resulted on the 18th of September, Natalie sending in Andrew Pearson a message
27:18saying that the relationship was finished and pleading with him to leave her alone,
27:24not to contact her and not to turn up at her work.
27:27In the aftermath of the breakup, Natalie tried to move on with her life.
27:33Friends of Natalie saw a real positive change in her whole demeanour,
27:37having ended the relationship with Andrew Pearson.
27:39She was wearing makeup, she was doing more things socially,
27:42she was going to church more, going to church events.
27:44But Andrew continued to harass her.
27:48She mentioned to a number of people, friends, people from church, work colleagues,
27:52that Andrew Pearson was concerning her by turning up unexpectedly at her workplace
27:58or bumping into her when she was going to or from work.
28:01It was really apparent that his behaviour was escalating quite dangerously, stalking behaviour.
28:09Natalie told her family and friends that she thought when she cut off contact
28:13this would all just kind of go away, but Pearson was really relentless.
28:17He would not leave Natalie alone and she was getting frightened.
28:21She told friends that she never knew what he was capable of
28:25and that he had a really volatile personality.
28:29After Natalie had finished with him, she'd said to me,
28:32what do I do if I see Andrew?
28:35And I said to her, all you need to do is if you see him, walk away,
28:40go to somewhere where there's lots of people and you'll be all right.
28:43At this point, I felt very angry towards Andrew
28:45as I didn't know why he wouldn't leave Natalie alone.
28:49And now Natalie has fully cut contact with Andrew.
28:53He is now escalating his behaviour even further
28:56because this is just another step of his control being challenged.
29:00He's obsessing over the end of this relationship, this loss of control.
29:05And so this is his way of trying to strike fear into her.
29:09And it's working.
29:11We didn't know at the time that Andrew was stalking Natalie and turning up at her workplace.
29:17Natalie was a very independent person.
29:20She didn't tell us about what was going on.
29:23She felt that we were going to start not letting her go out on a bike and taking her to
29:29places.
29:29And that would have taken her independence away.
29:32We now had a really good understanding of Andrew Pearson's behaviour towards Natalie.
29:37And he developed a motive to harm Natalie.
29:42Natalie was so concerned about Andrew Pearson's behaviour that she warned him that she'd report him to the police if
29:47he didn't leave her alone.
29:49Unfortunately, she never did.
29:51Despite the damning testimony police had gathered about Andrew's controlling and threatening behaviour,
29:58it wasn't enough to prove that he had murdered Natalie.
30:01But then came a major breakthrough in the case.
30:05The forensic examination managed to get into Andrew Pearson's phone.
30:09What we discovered were a series of photographs that had been deleted but were managed to be recovered.
30:16And that showed that Andrew Pearson had been plotting some week or so before Natalie's death.
30:23Evidence showed that he'd been photographing up the cycle path, down the cycle path,
30:28which gave alternate views of what he could see and what Natalie could see as she was cycling down the
30:33path.
30:34He photographed the gateway, the field, the barbed wire fence, through the wooded area, over the stream,
30:41and up to the area where Andrew Pearson would eventually pitch his tent.
30:45The discovery of the photographs taken from Andrew Pearson's phone was a key missing piece of the investigation.
30:51These photos just go to show exactly how obsessive Pearson was becoming.
30:56Because this is now someone who is not just mentally stewing on this breakup and becoming internally frustrated.
31:04This is someone who's now actively planning ways to scare and potentially hurt their ex-partner.
31:11These pictures are evidence that Pearson's initial account of what occurred,
31:15that he just had a chance meeting with Natalie along the path, is total nonsense.
31:19These pictures prove that this is premeditated, this is planned, and Pearson can no longer be believed.
31:27The phone data also provided critical information about Andrew's whereabouts in the days leading up to Natalie's death.
31:35Further evidence gained from the phone was cell site evidence.
31:39We can show that the morning before Natalie was murdered,
31:42he'd been in the field or at the gate watching for when Natalie cycled past on her way to work,
31:48so he knew exactly the time that she would pass.
31:51Almost a dry run for the events that would take place the following day.
31:55This showed that contrary to what Andrew Pearson had stated,
32:00where he said that he'd been camping out in the days before he met Natalie on that cycle path,
32:05in actual fact he hadn't.
32:06The night before Natalie was murdered, he was actually at home in bed.
32:11We could also have evidence from his phone that Andrew Pearson had set an alarm that morning
32:15to get down to the scene and be there in preparation when Natalie cycled down that cycle path.
32:21This was not a chance meeting with Natalie.
32:24This data shows, so this is clearly someone who has methodically mapped out exactly what he intends to happen.
32:31And it's really sinister, it's really chilling, it's very telling of his mental state at that moment.
32:37This is someone out to attack, out to assert their control.
32:42As police continued to build their case, another key piece of evidence surfaced from the morning Natalie died.
32:50Further examination of Andrew Pearson's mobile telephone showed that it was powered down at 7.12am that morning.
32:57Andrew Pearson claims that when he got back to the tent and having taken Natalie's clothing off,
33:02he collapsed his unconscious for a number of hours due to severe back pain that he'd suffered.
33:06Even though Andrew Pearson had powered down his mobile telephone,
33:10another device in his possession showed that he was actually moving around the field
33:14at a point where he claims to be unconscious.
33:16This just demonstrated that Andrew Pearson's account was completely untrue.
33:20But what police would discover next would be the most damning evidence yet.
33:25The next inconsistency in Andrew Pearson's account was that he claimed having gone unconscious next to Natalie,
33:31he woke up because he received a call on his mobile telephone from a friend in America.
33:36However, the evidence showed that having powered up his mobile telephone at 3.06pm in the afternoon,
33:43he actually tried to make a video call to a friend in America.
33:46This video call was either rejected or not connected.
33:50Andrew Pearson then sends a text to his friend in America saying,
33:55Goodbye, I've killed Natalie, I'm going to hand myself in.
34:00Even though Andrew Pearson had deleted the iPhone message in an effort to destroy the evidence,
34:05the forensic examiners were able to recover the message.
34:08The iPhone message led to his friend in America phoning Andrew Pearson.
34:13Then followed a long telephone conversation,
34:17during which Andrew Pearson tells him that Natalie had fallen to the stream and had died.
34:23The friend tells Andrew Pearson to contact the police.
34:26As the senior investigating officer for this investigation,
34:29this was a massive breakthrough.
34:31This suggested to me that this was a pre-planned, pre-meditated
34:35kidnap and murder of Natalie Harker.
34:40Investigators were finally able to piece together what happened on the day Natalie died.
34:46Had she fallen to her death, as Pearson suggested, or was she murdered?
34:52Based now on all this new evidence,
34:54I believe that Andrew Pearson had waited down that cycle path.
34:58And when she cycled towards him, he jumped out, dragged Natalie off the bike,
35:03and then forced her over the fence, across the field, through the thicket to the stream.
35:09I believe at some point, Andrew Pearson has tried to drown Natalie in the stream.
35:14He's then taken her to his tent, where he's stripped of her clothing.
35:18Once in his tent, I believe Andrew Pearson has powered down his phone to try and hide his location.
35:22From the point of the kidnap of Natalie at 4.45am to the 999 call is some 12 hours.
35:30I believe that Andrew Pearson had to remain in the tent with Natalie's body,
35:33because he was disturbed by some men working in the woods.
35:36That meant he couldn't emerge from the tent or fear of being seen.
35:39With all of the evidence from the break-up of the relationship between Andrew Pearson and Natalie,
35:45from the evidence of Andrew Pearson stalking Natalie,
35:49to the mobile telephone which showed the movements of Andrew Pearson,
35:53I felt that we were in a really strong position to rearrest Andrew Pearson
35:56for the offence of the kidnap and murder of Natalie Harker.
36:05By late October 2019, Andrew Pearson was out on bail,
36:11claiming that Natalie had died after slipping and falling into a stream.
36:16But behind the scenes, detectives were building a case,
36:20one that pointed not to a tragic accident, but to murder.
36:25Police now had evidence which included the photographs of the cycle path,
36:30messages which Pearson had deleted from his friend in America,
36:33and also evidence from his devices which showed that he'd been on the move
36:38when he claimed he'd been unconscious.
36:41And the police also had the evidence of their break-up as the motive.
36:45So all the jigsaw pieces were there for them to re-arrest and charge Pearson
36:50with the kidnapping and murder of Natalie.
36:54I deployed officers early one morning to go to his family home to make that arrest.
36:59Those officers told me he'd made no reaction to that arrest.
37:02When I found out that Andrew had been re-arrested on charges of murder,
37:07I felt very, very happy.
37:10I thought to myself, they've got them.
37:13Andrew was taken to Harrogate Police Station and interviewed by detectives
37:17who presented the overwhelming evidence they had against him,
37:21that they believed proved Pearson had pushed Natalie to her death.
37:27He continued to be disengaged from the interviewing officers
37:30and failed to respond to any of the questions posed of him,
37:33despite all this new evidence that was put to him.
37:36This continued to demonstrate to me that Andrew Pearson was guilty of this offence.
37:41Following those final interviews with Andrew Pearson,
37:44we approached the Crown Prosecution Service asking for charges of kidnapping and murder of Natalie Harker,
37:50those who were authorised, and Andrew Pearson was charged and remanded into custody.
37:55In the months that followed, police continued to build their case
37:59to try and prove that Andrew had kidnapped and killed Natalie in cold blood.
38:05But there was still no definitive cause of death
38:09until the forensic pathologist's full report finally came in.
38:15The evidence showed that Natalie Harker had died as a result of neck injuries
38:20and the fact that both her mouth and nose had been submerged under water.
38:25Natalie's cause of death was a result of strangulation and drowning.
38:29To identify the location where Natalie was murdered,
38:33an isotope analysis of the water in her lungs had also been carried out and examined.
38:39The isotopes within Natalie's system matched those from the stream
38:43close to where Andrew Pearson had pitched his tent.
38:47The pathology results concluded there was no evidence of a brain injury,
38:52despite Andrew's claim that she had fallen into the stream.
38:56All of the forensic evidence, and the evidence gained from the scene,
38:59didn't show that Natalie had fallen into the stream.
39:03My belief is Andrew Pearson dragged Natalie to that stream and tried to drown her.
39:07Armed with evidence that Andrew had pushed Natalie underwater and drowned her,
39:13police received further devastating details about Pearson's actions
39:17on the day Natalie died.
39:20So the initial post-mortem report suggested that there had been
39:23some sexual activity that had taken place.
39:26Pearson raping Natalie is just another way that he is yet again
39:30trying to insert control over her, because he is physically in that moment dominating her.
39:39And I think this is just another element where you're seeing how insidious
39:43and how controlling this person really is.
39:47Pearson was in the tent with Natalie for hours, and this was a person who he claimed to have loved.
39:56At Teesside Crown Court in November 2020, almost a year after his arrest,
40:01Andrew Pearson stood trial for the murder of Natalie Harker.
40:05We were in the courtroom, we heard the 999 call that Andrew had made,
40:09and I remember thinking to myself,
40:12you little... how dare you make yourself look like a victim?
40:16Despite all of this overwhelming evidence,
40:19the fact of the mobile telephone, the fact of the history,
40:22all of the forensic evidence,
40:24Andrew Pearson continued to deny the fact that he kidnapped and murdered Natalie Harker.
40:29In court, he stuck by the story that they'd met together,
40:33they'd walked across the field, they'd had sex in the field,
40:36and then she'd fallen into the stream by accident,
40:39following which he dragged her to the tent.
40:42The jury had to sit through and listen to all of the evidence,
40:45first from the prosecution and then the defence.
40:48It was harrowing evidence.
40:49But not only the jury, Natalie Harker's family had to sit through the evidence too,
40:53so it was really tough for them.
40:55When we were in the courtroom listening to all the evidence brought against Andrew,
41:00I kept looking over at him and I saw absolutely no emotion whatsoever,
41:05no remorse, no anything, just a blank expression.
41:10Going into the trial, I felt really confident in the investigation that the team had conducted.
41:15The evidence was overwhelming.
41:17However, it's a jury trial.
41:19The jury have to listen to both the prosecution case and the defence case,
41:23and then have to make up their own minds based on the evidence as to what they believe.
41:27The jury heard evidence for over three weeks in this trial,
41:31yet they took just three hours to return a verdict.
41:37Andrew Pearson was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 25 years for the kidnap
41:44and murder of Natalie Harker.
41:48When the jury came back with a guilty verdict, it was a massive relief both to the investigation team and
41:52Natalie's family.
41:53When we heard the verdict, I was at home with my mother, and my father rang me and said,
41:58they've got him, and I jumped up, and I said, we've finally got justice for Natalie, they've got the little...
42:06Both my mum and dad were feeling very, very happy, as was I, but we were all still very numb
42:11and very hollow.
42:12At no point through this whole process, from Andrew Pearson being arrested to the point he was sentenced by a
42:18judge,
42:19did he show any remorse for the kidnap and murder of Natalie Harker.
42:23As a murder detective, I've investigated lots of murders.
42:27However, this was quite striking in the fact that Andrew Pearson sought revenge on Natalie.
42:32Andrew Pearson controlled the relationship with Natalie Harker.
42:36However, once she got that control back, he couldn't cope with that.
42:40This was a matter of power, revenge against Natalie Harker.
42:44This is just such a tragic and upsetting case.
42:49You have this young woman that was trying to leave this relationship with such an abusive man,
42:55and you just hope that the verdict gave her family a real sense of justice and closure.
43:06In the years following Natalie Harker's death, her memory lives on through her friends and family.
43:14We got a commemorative bench in Natalie's favourite place, the church.
43:19It's a lovely place to go and sit, contemplate Natalie, just think about how much of a lovely young lady
43:26she was.
43:27How happy and kind she was, all the friends she's left behind, and the family that she's left behind.
43:36I'll go and visit the bench on Natalie's birthday, or the anniversary of when she was killed, and think about
43:43how bright, beautiful and amazing of a sister she really was.
43:50When me and my wife Amanda got married, Natalie would have been a big part of this.
43:56But with her life being so cruelly taken, we decided that we'd have some photos taken by her memorial bench,
44:05so that it felt like she was part of the day and part of our lives.
44:11She was a kind, loving human being, with so much love and life to give.
44:19And that's how I'd like my sister to be remembered.
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