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00:01The New York Times
00:03The New York Times
00:07The New York Times
00:08The New York Times
00:11The New York Times
00:12The New York Times
00:15The New York Times
00:15He was always known as the one that got away with murder.
00:20I'm sure in his head he felt well, if I'm not guilty of that I can get away with it
00:23again.
00:26If you knock on my door again, I'm coming out of here.
00:29And I'm gonna beat the fucking living shit out of here.
00:31Please, please, Alan, please!
00:33Get out!
00:34It was such a devastation for all the investigation team involved.
00:39We just knew. We just knew it was him.
00:41And the jury found him not guilty.
00:44I knew it wasn't the last I had seen of him.
00:47I knew I was watching the killer walk away.
00:51Do not knock on my door again!
00:53If you knock on my door again, I'm knocking the crap out of you!
00:57It's just pure evil.
01:00And I knew that we had to get it right.
01:03The second time around.
01:10I can remember the day that we found out she'd been murdered.
01:14We were overwhelmed with fear.
01:18And there was speculation in the newspapers, was there a serial killer?
01:24To inflict that kind of damage more than was required.
01:28It was like an animal. It was just in a rage.
01:32But it was like a needle in a haystack.
01:34They just had absolutely no leads.
01:37Months and months and months and years of investigative work.
01:41When I spoke to the women, I realised violence had become part of just what they had to deal with.
01:47We were dealing with somebody who was a real threat to women in this country.
01:52Almost like a battle on the streets to survive.
01:55He has literally got away with murder.
02:11Back in the 1990s, I was a crime reporter at the Hull Daily Mail.
02:17Hull's always kind of the forgotten city.
02:20At the end of the M62, nobody comes.
02:22It's always very much that.
02:23Nobody comes to Hull.
02:24What is there to come to Hull for?
02:27But actually, it used to be a really important city.
02:31The port of Hull, situated in the east riding of Yorkshire, is the premier fishing port of Britain.
02:38In a year, deep water trawlers land over a quarter of a million tons of fish.
02:43A quarter of Britain's total supplies.
02:49But Hull in the 1990s had become very run down.
02:55Sadly, the fishing industry, which was the backbone of the city, had pretty much withered and died in the 1980s.
03:02Thousands of people had been employed in that industry and it was mass unemployment.
03:07I think it dragged the city down.
03:10As a young mum, a lot of mothers got dumped on housing estates.
03:15And unfortunately, the drug epidemic hit and it devastated communities.
03:20There's needles, there's glass, there's dirt, rubbish.
03:25It was quite brutal.
03:27And it was sad, you know, really sad that so many women were struggling.
03:34So, we'd run out of options.
03:44Every time I see the Humber, see the Humber Bridge, that's a constant reminder of that case.
03:49So, I was the duty detective inspector that Sunday morning, 26th of October 1997.
03:56A body had been found on the riverbank near the Humber Bridge on the foreshore there.
04:03My first thoughts, I've got to say, my first thoughts were that it was probably going to be suicide and
04:08somebody jumped off the bridge.
04:10Sadly, we have quite a few of those.
04:15But we hadn't had any calls or any indication that that was the case.
04:18So, clearly, a body found on the riverbank.
04:21My immediate thoughts as well have to be that this might well be a murder.
04:27And the way it works is that there's an SIO, Senior Investigating Officer, on call and Ken Bates was the
04:33SIO for that weekend.
04:37I was the detective superintendent head of major crime for the Humberside Force.
04:42It was the day that the clocks went back and I got a call at home here.
04:48I obviously attended. The tide was coming in and so we had to recover the unidentified body of the woman
04:56as quickly as possible.
04:57We were looking that she'd snagged on a rock, which prevented her actually being swept out to sea,
05:05which was obviously the intention that she would never, ever be found again.
05:10She was naked from the waist down, apart from one sock and one shoe on her right foot.
05:17And it was the clothing on the top of her body that had helped to stop her being swept out
05:22to sea.
05:24It was quite obvious from the scene that she'd been murdered, even though she was face down in the mud.
05:29You could see the ligature mark around her neck.
05:35In relation to the level of injuries, you actually question how somebody can be so damaging to another individual.
05:47I couldn't even tell that she was a woman. The damage to her face was that extensive.
05:56We were dealing with a very callous, brutal killer who had lost control totally.
06:02To inflict that kind of damage more than was required to actually kill someone.
06:08It was frenzied. It was brutal.
06:14We'd gone down to the lab.
06:16It was then I was contacted to say that they were pretty sure that they'd identified who the body was.
06:24And that was the first time I'd heard the name Samantha Klass.
06:30Samantha Klass was a really well-liked person.
06:34I think that's what came across right from the outset.
06:39She was the mother of three children aged 2, 4 and 11.
06:43She was devoted to them and was a really lovely person.
06:47And that's what everyone said about her.
06:50She was a sex worker that was known.
06:53She was a drug user.
06:55So that's why we identified her so quickly from her fingerprints.
06:59You know, and it was very sad to have to break the news to the family that she was dead.
07:10I had a really, really good relationship with the police, particularly with Ken and Phil.
07:15At that time, there was no social media.
07:16So the only real way of getting the news out was through the local media.
07:21Her body was found on Sunday morning lying on the Humber foreshore near to the village of North Ferriby.
07:27She'd been strangled.
07:28Detectives are still unsure about how she got here.
07:31They're continuing to search the area for clues.
07:34We knew that she hadn't actually gone into the water there because there was no marks in the mud.
07:42The Humber is a big river.
07:44It drains a large part of Yorkshire.
07:45Although we believe she's only been in the river six to twelve hours,
07:49it's a very, very strong tidal river with currents that could have brought the body from anywhere almost.
07:56The discovery of a body on the Humber, it was such an unusual location, slightly outside of the city.
08:02There was an element of why there.
08:06I knew Hull University were carrying out detailed studies of the Humber estuary
08:12in terms of tides, strengths, currents.
08:16We contacted them straight away and I went down to the university.
08:21And they did calculations based upon the tide strengths that night.
08:25And they actually said to me, you need to go no more than 1.4 kilometres upriver.
08:35That's where she'll have gone in the water.
08:43We were then able to put a helicopter up in the air and do a visual scan and absolutely spot
08:52on.
08:54This is the very end of Brickyard Lane where Sam's body was put into the river.
09:00And we know that because obviously we found a shoe.
09:03And there were also blood spots on some of the stones that were leading out into the river.
09:09And there was also a trail of footprints that were quite deep into the mud that were still evident when
09:15we were there the next day.
09:17This is the first location we knew that our killer had been.
09:22There were obvious lines of inquiry.
09:24She had broken ribs and a rupture of her heart through somebody driving a car over her body just after
09:34her death.
09:37And one of her arms was a tire mark.
09:41So it was imperative that we traced that car.
09:48A detailed forensic examination of the house where Samantha Klass lived began in the early hours of this morning.
09:55Detectives must now construct a picture of her lifestyle to establish her friends, her acquaintances, her clients.
10:02Any investigation into the murder of a sex worker, it's very difficult to put it mildly.
10:07They have a chaotic lifestyle where they mix with some very undesirable people.
10:13And everyone is a potential suspect.
10:16Every client she had, every drug dealer she dealt with.
10:21We knew she was working that night because some of the other working girls had told us.
10:26And it was a Saturday night and that would bring her into contact with potentially hundreds and hundreds of potential
10:33suspects, maybe more, using the red light area of the city of Hull.
10:37We were genuinely looking for a whodunit. It was a whodunit case.
10:42We would just like anyone that saw her to please contact us.
10:45We need to know who she was with and where she was going.
10:49Our concern was that whoever had been responsible for murdering Sam would go out and do it again.
10:56If we trace the last person to see her alive, we're near to the killer.
11:00Everyone knows what she did, but no matter what she did, she doesn't deserve what she's got.
11:04So, it's a shame really.
11:13The brutal business of being a loser on the day after the election, as John Major is unceremoniously dumped at
11:19Madame Tussauds, and into the spotlight steps Tony Blair, the youngest Prime Minister this century.
11:26At that time, I was working as a journalist for The Observer.
11:29Young voters who, for the first time in their lives, were waking up to a Labour victory.
11:34I think you did have a lot more optimism about women's progress in terms of political and economic empowerment.
11:41This is just amazing.
11:42We'd seen an explosion of the numbers of women in Parliament.
11:45In 1997, it all seemed so hopeful for the so-called Blair Babes.
11:50We were seeing a lot more women across the board in corporate life.
11:54But I think what it showed me at the time was so often how little was changing for women underneath
12:02that, in terms of the everyday sexism and the violence.
12:06And particularly with women who had fewer choices in their lives.
12:10When I started to look into the story about Samantha, I really wanted to go and just see for myself
12:17to hear the women's own voices.
12:20So I went to Hull, waited until I felt the time would be right to go and walk around and
12:27talk to the women who were working on the streets that evening.
12:30And one of them, in particular, knew Samantha really well, and this is what she said about her.
12:38When I met Sam, she wasn't a prostitute.
12:41I'd see her playing rounders in the street with the kids.
12:45There'd be all the neighbourhood kids out there, and she was the only parent who could be asked to join
12:48in.
12:50She used to get really into it and get excited, and I used to think, what a great mam she
12:54is.
12:55I thought, if I'm ever lucky enough to have a kid, I hope I'm as good a mam as she
13:00is.
13:02She was one of the nicest people you could ever meet.
13:05She was just really bubbly.
13:07The sort of person that would get on with anybody.
13:10Down to earth.
13:13I did speak to Sam's mum on quite a few occasions, and we had quite a good relationship.
13:20From conversations with the mum, it was quite apparent that Sam was almost completely out of place doing what she
13:27was doing.
13:28I mean, she clearly needed to find some income. She had three young kids.
13:32That was her prime reason for doing what she was doing.
13:38This killer has no conscience.
13:46And it could happen to any time to someone else.
13:50No one knows how near it can be to home.
13:54And I never thought that would happen to Samantha.
13:57Anyone at all that can help in this situation, please help if I'm the killer of Samantha.
14:04That's all I'm asking, before someone else gets killed.
14:10This is the Humber Bridge.
14:12A lot of punters used to come out here, do you know, with sex workers, to do business.
14:18I knew of Sam's class.
14:21She, like all of us, was working the streets. She was a young mum.
14:26Families were really struggling. A lot of men lost their jobs, so a lot of women had to come out
14:31and work as street-based sex workers.
14:34Do you know, I had three young children as well.
14:36I struggled with finances, struggled with life.
14:41A lot of us, we needed the money.
14:43And then you're left with the final option, which was sex work.
14:49I can remember the day that we found out she'd been murdered and was waiting to score.
14:55And the police arrived to search a house and social services turned up as well to pick her kids up.
15:05I can remember the shock in the room. This young mum had lost her life.
15:10We were overwhelmed with fear of, that could have been us.
15:19Diane is one of a dwindling band of prostitutes still daring to walk the streets of Hull, despite the lure
15:25of making up to £1,000 a week on the game.
15:28It's just frightening, do you know what I mean, to know that there's a maniac out there really, do you
15:32know what I mean.
15:34Throughout history, we've had working girls being targeted.
15:39And the police response and society's response is it must have been our fault.
15:46And there was no shortage of potential suspects.
15:50At the post-mortem, we took all the necessary samples from Samantha's body.
15:55We did get not just one DNA profile, but two.
15:59One, a very strong one, where the semen had been deposited within 24 hours.
16:04And one that was weaker and not a full profile, that was obviously deposited maybe three or four days before.
16:12Having two DNA samples was a complication we didn't particularly want.
16:17But it meant we could focus on two people that had had contact with Sam before she was murdered.
16:23But to trace them, it would involve us sampling thousands of men.
16:29But there's no way around it. It had to be done.
16:33Detectives have compiled the details of more than 1,100 men known to use Hull's red light area.
16:40Some are suspected to have been clients of Samantha Klass.
16:43All of these men are being urged to come forward for a simple DNA test demonstrated here by police officers.
16:50If they don't volunteer, the police will come looking for them.
16:55You pray for a match.
16:58But in order to get that match, you've got to go through a lot of elimination.
17:02We actually screened out 2,000 men.
17:06Just the sheer numbers of men they were picking up who were visiting sex workers.
17:11It is truly shocking to me.
17:13As a result of the mass screening, we were able to eliminate the weaker of the two DNA profiles.
17:22That person had a watertight alibi which left one DNA sample.
17:28The one strong DNA profile was the one that we needed to find.
17:34And that was more difficult than we anticipated.
17:39This is the key to the whole investigation, this one DNA sample.
17:43But they were starting to think, are we ever going to get this?
17:47They couldn't find the perpetrator.
17:51Sam's murder was in October.
17:52We were starting to get into the summer and there was just no breakthrough.
18:00The police didn't tell us much information.
18:02They didn't tell us any information, in fact.
18:05Back in the 90s, we had Vice Squad.
18:09Literally, as soon as you saw a police officer or a police car, you'd start walking in the opposite direction.
18:16They'd literally just drive around the red light district and over the tannies shout at us to go home, get
18:22off the street corner, move along.
18:27Sam was murdered and then afterwards, another working girl went missing.
18:34It became, oh my God, there's a serial killer.
18:40So the fear really grew.
18:43The climate of fear stems first from the murder last October of Samantha Klass, her body found near the Humber
18:49Bridge.
18:50Next in May, the suspicious death of Hayley Morgan, found in Central Hull.
18:54Then the murder of Natalie Clubb, her body found last month at Sutton-on-Hull.
18:59The investigation into Samantha's death carried on as normal, if you like, but when two more prostitutes were killed, before
19:08anybody had been arrested and charged in connection with Samantha's case, people started wondering what the hell was going on.
19:15On a normal night, up to 200 prostitutes might be operating here in the red light district of Hull, but
19:21tonight, with the fear of the three killings still uppermost in the women's minds, only a handful are working the
19:27streets.
19:27Women had been killed in horrifically violent ways, you know, strangled, dumped in rivers, body dismembered, and nobody had been
19:38arrested.
19:39The national press were dubbing Hull as having a serial killer.
19:44We knew that wasn't the case.
19:46One was killed by her boyfriend, her pimp, and the other sex worker died because of a high level of
19:53drug use.
19:55The police that I spoke to were very clear that there was no connecting threads between the murders.
20:01But I'm not sure that the women I spoke to found that reassuring.
20:05In a way, it almost made it feel more random and, you know, the violence can just come from anywhere,
20:10anytime.
20:12Client or killer, these days, the women who work the back streets aren't sure.
20:18Some fear their next customer might be their last.
20:21When I spoke to the women, I realised this was the tragedy, that violence had become part of just what
20:27they had to deal with as sex workers at that time.
20:32Think about it too much, then it paralyses you.
20:36You know, you just get in that car and keep your fingers crossed that it's not going to be you
20:42that's attacked, raped or murdered.
20:47They just told us to look out for a maniac.
20:50Very worried, very scared, very frightened.
20:53The DNA search went on for month after month after month. It was a considerably long time.
21:00And of course, it wasn't just the DNA screening. Each one also had their cars examined.
21:07And if their tyres looked as if they were close-matched to the one that we found on Samantha's arm,
21:14their car was taken away and frantically examined.
21:19It becomes a bit of a marathon, but we just had to keep looking.
21:25The longer a police investigation goes on, then all sorts of rumours start to fly as to why it's not
21:30progressing.
21:31We knew the police were looking for DNA.
21:35And it was potentially a needle in the haystack because nobody had been arrested, nobody had been charged.
21:48But then, on the 29th of October, at three o'clock in the afternoon, I remember it well, I received
21:56a call from my head of scenes of crime.
21:59And he said, Ken, we've got a hit on the DNA profile for Samantha Klass.
22:05That was the best news anyone could get, that we now had a suspect.
22:11So we were unbelievably, unbelievably surprised because it hadn't come as a result of our DNA process that we'd been
22:20doing.
22:23The gods were smiling because a junior rookie police officer had seen a car driving erratically.
22:30So Paul, the driver over, who had been found to be over the limit, he had to submit a DNA
22:36test and that DNA test prove a match to Samantha.
22:43That individual was Gary Arthur Allen, who from that moment on became suspect number one for the murder of Sam
22:50Klass.
22:52We've had a breakthrough. We've got the breakthrough we've been waiting for and working towards for a whole year.
22:58Just a quirk of fate. It was almost like there's light at the end of the tunnel now.
23:03We had a suspect who hadn't come forward.
23:06If you're an innocent person, you would have come forward.
23:10We didn't arrest him immediately. We wanted to find out more about him.
23:14So we carried out surveillances. We did inquiries with every government agency.
23:21We learned that he was from a very disturbed background. He was an extremely violent person.
23:29In fact, he was attacking people from the age of eight. He attacked his own mother with an iron pole
23:36when she was laid in bed.
23:38He had a particular dislike of women, girls. He was attacking girls in school.
23:46There was information about violence all his life against women.
23:51We found little bits of circumstantial evidence that when they're all put together, it forms a picture.
23:57You can see what happened.
24:01Brickyard Lane will be forever in my memory.
24:04And there's a reason, obviously, why I don't necessarily come down here.
24:06But from an investigative point of view, it was a critical location.
24:13About nine to ten miles from the city centre of Hull.
24:18Samantha's body was actually put in the river Humper at the bottom of Brickyard Lane.
24:23You had to know it to know that you could actually get to the river.
24:27I'm from West Hull. I've lived there 60 plus years up until 1997.
24:32I'd never even heard of Brickyard Lane. Certainly never been down it.
24:37And when we discovered from the social services records that Gary Allen was in foster care in Brickyard Lane for
24:44two years, it all fell into place.
24:46You knew the area intimately.
24:49It's pitch black. It's four in the morning. There's a lot of obstacles in the way.
24:53They cannot have known what they were going to find when they came down to this location.
24:59We found out what vehicle he had, which was highly important to us, to the investigation.
25:07On the Monday morning, he'd actually run up a breakers yard, a scrapyard, and arranged for the vehicle to be
25:15taken in.
25:16Before, really, we'd got Samantha identified.
25:19He sold it for £25 to a scrapyard to be squashed and crushed. The car was gone.
25:26Had we got the car at the time, we would have found some blood, DNA.
25:34We'd have found a tyre, which would have matched the tyre mark on Sam's arm.
25:40The big question mark, I suppose, was the DNA showed that Gary Allen had sex with Samantha Klass at some
25:47point on the night.
25:47But there wasn't any clear evidence of Alan being actually at the scene of the killing or the dumping of
25:55the body.
25:58Do you think that you got it wrong? Was there any doubt in your mind that, wait a second, maybe
26:02I've got it wrong for this?
26:03No. I can honestly say I never, ever thought that. Everything fell into place with him.
26:10We were satisfied that he was the killer.
26:14Gary Allen was charged with murder on the 20th of November and was remanded in custody for trial.
26:23The trial was scheduled for Sheffield's Crown Court.
26:32I covered every day of the trial. It's the last piece of the jigsaw, and particularly on a murder trial
26:36and something as big as this, and particularly when you've covered it from day one.
26:41You know, I was in regular contact with Ken and Phil.
26:46This is the end. This is where you hope you're going to get your justice.
26:51Gary Allen appeared in the dock, and there was a total transformation of his appearance.
26:57He'd gone from being scruffy and unkempt to his hair neat, wearing a suit, carrying books under his arm.
27:08He had an air of arrogance.
27:12He had this air of, I'm above all of this.
27:19The British criminal justice system is based on the adversarial system.
27:25One side puts a case, the other defends the case, and a decision is made by a jury of 12
27:32members of the public,
27:33some of whom are interested in the case and actually follow the evidence,
27:38and some who really don't want to be there, and they follow their own instincts and intuition.
27:46As a journalist, I've sat in lots of trials.
27:48I always kind of have a look at the jury and, oh, what do we think?
27:51And, you know, is there more men? So if there's more men, will they be sympathetic to, you know, sort
27:56of Sam's lifestyle?
27:59Or, you know, or if there's more women, are they going to be a little more empathetic?
28:05So this trial, seven men and five women.
28:09And Gary Allen was obviously very well schooled.
28:14Everything he said came out as though it was well rehearsed.
28:18But the bit that sticks in my mind the most was, he was asked, you know, when he'd heard about
28:23the murder,
28:24did he feel any sympathy? And he said no.
28:26And I think his words were along the lines of, well, you know, she deserved it because it was the
28:29job she was doing.
28:32His story, and this is the story he kept to, was that he'd picked up Samantha Glass in his car,
28:39that he'd taken her nearby.
28:41They'd had sex, and the condom burst, and she got upset with him.
28:48He paid her, and she walked off into the night where she obviously met her killer.
28:55He said that it was the first time he'd ever had sex with a sex worker,
28:59and he appeared all sweetness and light and innocent, an innocent young man.
29:04But he got rid of the car the next day.
29:08And he said he got rid of his car after he'd seen Sam's picture in the whole Daily Mail.
29:15He got rid of the car on the Sunday, and we didn't publish Sam's name until Tuesday.
29:21There's discrepancies there in what, in what he's saying that wasn't true.
29:24His flatmate said he heard the washing machine going at early hours of Sunday morning,
29:27and, you know, why would you, why would you do that? Why would you wash your clothes at that time?
29:32But the difficulty with this, it's all circumstantial.
29:34You know, there was nobody who could place Gary Allen at the scene.
29:38There was nobody who could say she actually got in a car.
29:41The only bit of evidence linking him to Sam was that DNA.
29:47And, unfortunately, there were items of evidence that the trial judge excluded.
29:55And we were not allowed to put to the jury things like Gary Allen's background and his violence to women
30:01from a very early age that we thought was evidence of similar facts.
30:07The fact that Samantha had been so brutally, brutally killed.
30:12And then that's it, jury out.
30:16And I think this jury were out for 16 hours.
30:20That's quite a long time. That's a really long time.
30:24So the nervous energy does start ramping up because you're thinking, well, if it's not that cut and dried, what
30:29are they talking about?
30:33But then we're all sat outside the courtroom and the clerk comes back in saying the jury's coming back.
30:41The adrenaline is just off the scale.
30:46So everybody assembles in the courtroom.
30:50Ken is sat next to me on the press bench.
30:54And my palms are getting sweaty just talking about it.
30:58And I was actually, we were actually, I was actually holding his hand because it was also, this was also
31:03his last case before he retired.
31:06So he was wanting to go out on a high, bringing the justice for Samantha.
31:11Gary Allen is brought into the dock and continues standing for the verdict.
31:15And then the judge asked the foreman on the counts of murder, do you find Gary Allen guilty or not
31:21guilty?
31:22And the words not guilty came out.
31:26And you could have heard a pin drop.
31:30I have to say my first emotion was shock and disbelief.
31:35And there was a gasp around the court.
31:37And I looked at the judge and he himself looked surprised.
31:43And I just remember Ken and I squeezed each other's hands so hard.
31:50The deflation in that room, the atmosphere in that room.
31:58When they bring a verdict in, that's it. It was done. There was no going back.
32:07I've reported on a lot of murder trials.
32:09It's very, very rare to hear a not guilty verdict coming after a long, detailed murder case.
32:16And we don't know why. We don't know. It was, I think it was an 11-1 majority.
32:22So there was one person who thought he'd done it, but 11 didn't.
32:28I was shocked by that and I still remain shocked as to how they came to that decision.
32:34I think we've got to be honest here.
32:36And whilst I didn't agree with the general views some people held back in the 90s that sex workers were
32:44looked down upon,
32:46but that does colour people's judgement. It colours people's opinions.
32:50There's a lot of hasty editing goes on in circumstances like this where we had a story ready to go
32:55based around a guilty verdict.
32:58And I remember Gary Allen glancing over and he had a slight smile on his face.
33:04It was, you know, I've won. And he had.
33:08I don't know what I want to tell you, what I would like to have done.
33:11The ponytail defendant, Gary Allen, showed no emotion.
33:15He turned on his heel and briskly left the dock after more than 15 months in custody.
33:21So Ken was obviously at the trial and I got a call to say that Gary Allen had been found
33:28not guilty.
33:29And it was, I could hardly speak, it was beyond comprehension.
33:35We knew we'd got the right person.
33:38Police did indeed say the inquiry was not reopening.
33:41Due to the significant evidence presented to the court and gathered during the course of the investigation,
33:47we will not be reopening the inquiry, nor will we be looking for any other person in connection with that
33:54crime.
33:57Yeah, I mean, him walking out of court, I recall seeing that on the TV.
34:03It was hard to get your head round because obviously I felt a personal responsibility to Sam's mum
34:08and she needed to see somebody convicted and we weren't able to do that.
34:16And I felt that shamed that I never got back in touch with her.
34:21And to this day, I still feel shamed by that.
34:25Because I should have got back in touch.
34:31We did get angry, you know, that somebody had been cruelly taken and nobody was facing punishment for that.
34:40It was like Sam didn't get any justice.
34:44The family didn't get justice.
34:47It didn't surprise us.
34:50I think it was that, almost, we don't matter.
34:54Our lives didn't matter.
34:57You know, we could be murdered and nobody gets prosecuted for it.
35:02At that time there was double jeopardy, so he couldn't be tried again for the same crime.
35:08So that was the end of it.
35:12This is the front page that we ran the day after the acquittal.
35:16So who did kill Samantha?
35:18It was perhaps a headline that was asked a bit ironically because we all knew really who did.
35:23We trusted in the police as to what they'd been telling us on and off the record.
35:27So who did kill Samantha?
35:29The reporters in the whole Daily Mail, the stance that they took,
35:34which was quite a brave stance at the time, I remember,
35:36for the press to actually question the verdict of a jury.
35:40And they did it very courageously.
35:44Lisa was absolutely excellent.
35:45She had the courage of her convictions.
35:48We didn't get the right result for Sam, but, you know, we tried to do our best for her.
35:53So immediately after the court case, we ran a series of articles
35:58on the background of both Samantha and Gary Allen.
36:01And in particular Gary Allen's case, we concentrated on his violent background,
36:05which couldn't be revealed at the time.
36:09The sidebar here is the exclusive social services report that we had sight of
36:14that actually details violent attacks and violent outbursts on his mother.
36:18his younger brother and sister, and that he was referred to a child psychiatrist.
36:22There was a real concern by the police that he could go on to do similar crimes.
36:29Because I knew in my heart of hearts, and it was a terrible, depressing feeling I had, that I knew
36:36I was watching a future killer walk away.
36:43If you've met Gary Allen, you know, when you look Gary Allen in the eyes, he's got dead eyes.
36:53They're lifeless, uncaring, no compassion or feeling or emotion for anything or anyone.
37:01And you know that, how dangerous that individual is, because he'll do anything he wants
37:10to satisfy his own desires.
37:14He is the man that quite literally got away with murder.
37:20So it was, it was like, this isn't the end of it.
37:24Somebody else will have to suffer.
37:27My instincts were fear for women, and sex workers in particular, because sex workers are vulnerable.
37:35They're an easy target for a man like Gary Allen.
37:42I think it comes down to, we're just disposable or pieces of meat to be used.
37:54It's a very male-dominated world.
37:56So women are at risk, have been taken advantage of, coerced or exploited.
38:02It becomes almost like, like a battle on the streets, you know, to survive.
38:10And often, you know, hard times, people, you know, women have to do hard things.
38:38In 2019, I was a detective chief inspector in South Yorkshire Police, and I was one of the forces
38:42senior investigating officers. I've never dealt with a case like this in my 29 years' worth of service,
38:48and I don't think I'll deal with one again.
38:51Allen had come to the UK from Slovakia with her family, with her husband, William, and some small children.
38:58They'd come to the UK for a better life.
39:02I think it's fair to say that, unfortunately, some of the people that she was knocking about with in the
39:07local area
39:08didn't have her best interests at heart.
39:10Our concerns are Alina has a chaotic lifestyle, which brings vulnerability,
39:16and it's that vulnerability that leaves us to really concern for her welfare at the minute.
39:20The fact that she's been missing for over one month now really leaves us grave concern for her welfare.
39:30I was working in the CID department at Rotherham when Alina Grilakova had been reported missing.
39:37It appears that she lost her way a little bit and became involved in alcohol and drugs.
39:44There was some suggestion that Alina was involved in sex work.
39:48She did what she had to do, I think, to survive for food, for alcohol, money to see her children.
39:55She would see her children when she could.
39:58We'd had numerous sightings of Alina, but nothing since 24th, 25th, 26th of December.
40:06At the same time the family had not had any contact with her in Slovakia,
40:09so they'd also reported that to the Slovakian police.
40:12One of those people was actually Alina's mother, who she'd had contact with on Christmas Day,
40:18and she identified that Alina was actually, the last time she spoke to her,
40:22she was talking about coming home because she was upset and sad,
40:26and I think she'd had enough of her life in Rotherham,
40:28and she was looking at getting back to Slovakia.
40:32But, at the same time, we began to look at the mobile phone traffic that Alina had had,
40:39and who she'd been in contact with, etc.
40:43One of the last contacts that she'd had on the 26th of December was with a sex offender,
40:53called Gary Allen,
40:56who'd had a history with the police and was living in Rotherham,
41:00in the Parkgate area at the time that Alina disappeared.
41:06And then the decision was made to arrest him, because of the suggestion that Alina was involved in sex work,
41:14so he was in breach of a sexual harm prevention order that was not to have contact with sex workers.
41:21So we were able to search his house, she wasn't there,
41:24but also we were able to interview him about how he knew Alina,
41:27and how his phone had been in contact with her number.
41:33He told us that he'd met Alina a few weeks before,
41:37I think they'd met at a bus stop.
41:39They had had sex, but he was keen to stress that he didn't believe that she was a sex worker,
41:44because that obviously would have been a breach of his order.
41:48But we were able to search his address and seize a number of electronic devices,
41:54mobile phones, laptop, and an MP3 player.
41:58I'll be honest, I was just expecting to listen to a few music files.
42:02There were two folders. The first folder contained various songs,
42:06and then there was a second folder with a number of files that were just randomly named.
42:13We later found out it was a date, date and time stamp.
42:16I started listening to those. I heard a male voice, who I believe to be Gary Allen.
42:22You can stay here tonight. I'll get you a blanket and that.
42:26And then you hear a female voice in broken English.
42:31I think that must be Alina.
42:35And stay. You ask me, go and go.
42:39And some of the first recordings were just a chat between them.
42:53And then there was one recording that just made me sort of stop.
43:00And sort of almost take a deep intake of breath and think, what is this?
43:05Every time you come here, you've cost me money.
43:08Um, take for money, I don't understand. Please, Alina.
43:12I understand fully well.
43:15You're taking me for a fucking idiot.
43:18And I don't need it.
43:19And I don't want you.
43:21And I don't want this fucking bullshit.
43:23He was very angry.
43:24He sounded drunk.
43:26Alina was asking him for help.
43:28She was asking him for water.
43:30Let me. No good me.
43:32Give me water.
43:34Water, please.
43:36Get out of my life, Alina.
43:37She just seemed very vulnerable.
43:39She didn't really have anywhere else to go.
43:42She'd obviously gone to his address for warmth.
43:47She wasn't really dressed particularly well for the weather.
43:50It was December.
43:51Are you cold?
43:52Good.
43:53Get the fuck out of my life.
43:54I don't give a shit.
43:56Speak, speak, Alina, speak.
43:58She would do anything to try and stay within his flat.
44:01And stay there, stay warm.
44:03As the recording goes on, he builds up.
44:06His anger builds.
44:08Get out!
44:09Okay.
44:10Get out!
44:11To a point where he, you can hear him physically throwing her out of his flat.
44:20Go on, fuck off.
44:22And Alina, if you knock on my door again, I'm coming out of here and I'm going to beat the
44:26fucking living shit out of you.
44:27I'm not fucking kidding.
44:29I want you to fuck off.
44:31And you saw, like, my heart sort of sank.
44:34I obviously notify Mark, the senior investigating officer.
44:38He needs to know about it because it changes everything.
44:41So through your police career, there's certain moments that you'll always remember.
44:45And certainly when the officer came in and played me, Gary Allen and Alina arguing on the evening of the
44:5026th, that was a complete game changer for me.
44:55This is the 26th of December, which is the last time we've had a sighting of her.
45:00Get out of my life.
45:02Get walking.
45:03Don't come back here again.
45:05Do not knock on my door again.
45:08There's a clear threat there. He's screaming at her.
45:10If you knock on my door again, I'm knocking the crap out of you.
45:15Somebody who's already been part of the missing persons inquiry because of his contact with Alina, making threats to harm
45:24her on the night she was last seen.
45:26It tipped us, in my opinion, from a missing from home into a murder inquiry and a bodiless homicide.
45:48We'll see you next time.
45:50We'll see you next time.
46:07Bye.
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