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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.
00:21On 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.
01:21Morning.
01:25Michelle, the incident I'm 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.
01:38So, a call did come in to West Midlands Police. Tell me about that.
01:44I've been upset. Is the patient breathing?
01:46We can't tell. We're trying to get into the room.
01:49There's blood everywhere.
01:51It looks like the person's been stabbed.
02:20I'm sorry.
02:21There's blood everywhere.
02:23It's been a bit.
02:24them straight away that something had gone on with inside the premises so they went up to the
02:29stairs and at the top of the stairs they found a bedroom and in that bedroom the deceased was on
02:34the floor of that bedroom the victim's name was kenny ford he was 30 years old and kenny was the
02:46tenant of those premises today you've got the luxury of body-worn video so those officers when
02:52they go in will turn their videos on and you get to see what is happening yes from the minute
02:58they
02:58turned up and spoke to the caller outside all the way through as they walked through the premises
03:03and up the stairs into the room where they found the person i was able to see exactly you know
03:10what
03:10they looked like how much blood was there where he was lying what the yeah what we were going to
03:15be
03:15faced with when i actually attended in reality and for me priority then to go out and see myself and
03:21understand because there's nothing better than your own eyes at a scene uh exactly what might have
03:27gone on because there's no replicating being there and sort of living it breathing it smelling it being
03:35in there and fully understanding what a crime scene is so this premises was a a terraced house
03:40in like a relatively small side street
03:47this happened in a road called coldbrook road this is in the tisley area of birmingham quite a
03:55highly populated residential area but also has some business very close to birmingham city centre not an
04:03area where you routinely i would go to murders or expect a murder to occur so for me it was
04:10to get
04:10inside and try and understand what had happened because from what i'd seen from the body worn there
04:16was a lot of blood i'd seen that so you know trying to think what on earth has gone on
04:21in this address really
04:24so you wear full barrier clothing to go in getting fully clothed so literally only your eyes are
04:30showing everything else is covered to ensure there's no contamination of that scene being brought in from
04:35you know any of us who've been outside what met you when you first opened the door was
04:39it was very sparse there was a television on this wall that was broken um not much else
04:46there was a um a small settee that was absolutely covered in blood there was some clothing strewn around
04:55the floor a bag of tools very strangely in the middle of the floor strewn around the floor obvious
05:02signs of some sort of struggle had gone on by the fact the television was smashed initially entering the
05:08crime scene obviously in my mind what might have happened was the what was the murder weapon was the murder
05:16weapon still there looking around at what was on the floor was any of those objects did i think
05:22any of those objects would likely link to the murder and what within that scene could help me
05:29identify who was responsible but as you looked up the stairs and up the banister all the way up what
05:37would be the handrail was lots of blood up the handrail got to the top of the stair there was
05:42a bedroom
05:43that was the room that the victim was found in that was heavily heavily blood-stained bed literally
05:50to this side of the door which was there wasn't much left of the mattress that wasn't just awash with
05:56blood there was a wardrobe here there was blood all splattered at the wardrobe there was a duvet on the
06:02floor and behind what was the door which again was absolutely covered in blood there was blood at the
06:07radiator i've been to lots of murder scenes and what struck me about that scene was the sheer volume
06:13of blood and the fact that it was upstairs and downstairs it felt to me that it had started
06:20downstairs and gone upstairs because that's obviously where the victim was um when i looked under the
06:28the triangle of the stairs where the settee was there were marks strange marks at that point in the
06:36the overhang almost as if something had been hitting it
06:42he had injuries to his head torso his knees his legs i don't think there was any part of his
06:49body
06:49that hadn't suffered some sort of attack with some sort of weapon i personally have never dealt with
06:58such a frenzied killing with so many injuries in so many different areas of the body that's horrific
07:05yeah awful awful injuries the worst that i've seen the level of injury would suggest that this
07:11is a very dangerous person who carried out a very sustained and prolonged attack
07:21when news of kenneth ford's death broke uh the local community was was obviously surprised and in
07:28shock my name's carl jackson i've been a journalist for over 10 years now i've been a court reporter for
07:33birmingham live for around five years kenneth ford lived in a hmo on coldbrook road in tiesley
07:39it's an inner city area it's a it's a short walk or a drive away from the city center it's
07:45very urban
07:46and built up the natural question a lot of them had to ask was why has this happened as the
07:51details
07:51started to emerge of what happened especially the level of violence used uh people's level of
07:57uh of shock and surprise was it was intensified just a lot of unanswered questions
08:08in any murder a post-mortem needs to take place and in a in the case of a murder it
08:14will be a special
08:14post-mortem conducted by a forensic pathologist so it goes into a lot more detail than a standard
08:21post-mortem what was the result of that the forensic pathologist was able to say that kenny's cause of
08:28death was head injuries in the main but 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
08:43uh because of the very specific indentation particularly on the injuries to his skull
08:50he also had significant injuries to his kneecaps his knees were completely shattered somebody's knees
08:56that's trying to stop him getting away from you he had 112 all together that's a lot of injuries 112
09:03112 injuries i mean i mean that that's that's a lot that's a lot in your career i mean how
09:12many times
09:12have you come across something as like this never generally people might have i don't know
09:19six or seven is is a lot a lot of people have one or two one stab wound two stab
09:24wounds one punch
09:26one blow 112 and i say they were from his head all over his torso in any murder investigation michelle
09:34victimology essential isn't it to 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 what were you learning about this victim
09:48he'd come over from ireland some years ago once over in the uk he was quite transient and he
09:55lived in various different places particularly across the birmingham area and he just recently
10:01moved into this as they supported housing association premises and only moved in literally a week or so
10:09before i was really really proud i think of you know having his own house um and coming to live
10:15here
10:15and he didn't work at the time of his death um he did have a girlfriend and someone he'd known
10:22and
10:22and quite a few friends in the birmingham area that he'd made in the time he'd lived in and around
10:27birmingham he had been homeless at times uh but there was nothing you know of concern in terms of a
10:33policing
10:35um environment that 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 firstly it's in order
10:53to obtain evidence from them the longer they evade arrest the more evidence you're going to lose so
10:59for instance forensic evidence they may discard clothing the weapon or even change their description
11:05then they may try and abscond they may try and run away and if they do that ultimately they may
11:11evade
11:12justice completely evade justice for the victim and their family and finally they've already shown that
11:19they have a propensity to violence and there's always that danger that they may do so again
11:30any obvious weapons there was hammers they looked too clean and it certainly didn't look like a scene
11:36that somebody had cleaned up after themselves so i guess there were things that for me needed to be
11:42looked at closely by a scientist but nothing that was screaming out there's your murder weapon who would
11:47you have called down to carry out that expert assessment of it my view was we needed a blood
11:54pattern analyst we needed somebody with that specialism who was able to say well in my view this splatter
12:01these markings has been caused by so when i entered the uh crime scene it was clear to me that
12:10there were
12:10there was actually a quite extensive distribution of blood uh my name is philip field i'm a forensic
12:16scientist at westmillan's police um and so it's clear to me there was a considerable amount of work
12:22to do to unravel an understanding of what all that blood staining meant for instance blows into wet
12:29blood can produce characteristic impacts batter stains two key areas that stood out one of those areas
12:38was in the downstairs of the property on a floor wall pattern settee which was located uh
12:45underneath the stairs in the living room um that settee was really heavily bloodstained there were
12:55staining and blood drips around it there was some spattered blood on the wall behind the settee so
13:01indicated to me that clearly some measure of activity had occurred in this region and that kenneth ford
13:07had been located in that region whilst bleeding heavily from some injuries that he had already
13:14sustained and the other key area really was the um the blood was the the bedroom at the back
13:23uh of the property where his body had been found the key area uh was uh at a low level
13:32uh
13:34in the corner of the room formed by the window wall and the wardrobe and in this location there was
13:40an enormous amount of um transfer blood staining indicating that heavily heavily blood stained surfaces
13:48had been in contact with with other surfaces in that location and there was some spatter blood
13:53distributions there as well um indicating that blows into wet blood had been um sustained in that
14:03location so it suggested that that was very much a site of attack on on kenneth ford
14:08there was some blood on the banister rail and stairs so what i asked at that scene with blood on
14:14the
14:14handrail you did they think there was any fingerprint marking or palm marking was there anything
14:21in that area there was some apparent ridge detail in blood uh which colleague mine attended the scene to
14:29conduct some chemical enhancement on to um try and bring out the features of that uh ridge detailing blood
14:40so that they could be of sufficient quality for comparison uh against um other fingerprints the fact
14:47that a fingerprint is in blood can indicate that the blood was wet at the time that the fingerprint was
14:53deposited which can indicate that it was um 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
15:13an understanding of why he called the police what was going on etc what did he say what the landlord
15:19told
15:19the police was that he received a call from somebody by the name of gary who he said was a
15:24friend of
15:25kenny's and he'd asked him to go to the address because kenny needed help he was concerned by the
15:30fact that he was being asked to get kenny help so didn't obviously know why kenny needed help so that
15:36friend that phoned the landlord clearly someone of significance who was he so having been given some brief
15:44details of gary the intelligence team they were tasked in trying to understand and find out who
15:50he was yeah what his surname was where he might be what was his connection to kenny and how did
15:55how
15:56did him and kenny know each other so what we were able to establish was that gary was in fact
16:01gary o'neil
16:06he was also um from ireland that him and kenny had known each other all their lives really since
16:13they were children and we it transpired that actually gary was a really really good friend
16:19of kenny's in fact without exception everyone we spoke to said they were like brothers when they were
16:25children in ireland they were very close at one point they were both in care together gary was very much
16:33a loner kenny looked out for him in effect was almost a bit of a bodyguard for him when they
16:41were in care
16:41so very much was his protector um that they came they both came over to england at a similar time
16:50uh we found a video when we were going through um kenny's phone and on that phone he was talking
16:58about
16:58how excited he was about the house now it's just my house don't like the servants don't get me wrong
17:06live on him again carbon's going to be changed he shows a bedroom that he talks quite proudly about
17:14you know this is going to be gary's room now that's got two beds this is what gary was used
17:22as you can see it's a big real love game
17:26they had lost contact for a while but shortly before
17:29uh the instance happened gary o'neill had moved into the same bedsit as kenneth ford
17:37on 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 the decision is to raise gary to a suspect
17:50and what comes with raising somebody to a suspect
17:54is putting them onto the police national computer as wanted on suspicion of murder
17:58the reason the rationale for that is should they get stopped by police officers anywhere in the
18:03country that would flag up immediately that this is somebody that the police want to talk to
18:08but we had no idea where gary was we literally had no idea where we'd gone or how to locate
18:14him
18:15what sort of steps were taken to try and locate him so what i then tasked my officers with was
18:20house to house just to see if anyone has seen or heard from him and anyone we knew that knew
18:25him
18:26close friends he had an ex-partner starting to speak to those people to say have you heard from
18:32gary in the last 24 hours on the day that this happened the 28th of february kenny and gary
18:38had been out during the day so they've been out with these two particular friends and their child
18:42and 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 he was
18:53agitated over a playstation there was some suggestion that in recent weeks something could happen
19:01between kenny and gary's ex-girlfriend she disclosed to them and was gary not happy about that
19:09um and during the evening when the friends were there gary actually came downstairs and and started
19:16to attack kenny and the friend intervened and was physically yeah physically attacking friend
19:24intervened and removed um a hammer from him at that point it then all calmed down and went back to
19:31normal kenneth for didn't seem too concerned about the attack he reassured the friends that everything
19:37would be fine and he would put gary o'neill to bed so the two friends left around 11 25
19:43pm that night
19:48they were devastated absolutely devastated that they'd left and then you know such a thing had
19:54happened to kenny now you must have had gary's phone number from the fact he'd called the landlord
20:01what was that telling you and what that data was telling us was it looked as if he was moving
20:06up the country specifically along the motorway called the m6 that takes you from birmingham
20:13essentially anywhere up north on the face of it appears like he's gone on the run
20:18for me he's trying to escape the police
20:24when 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 so the fact that he was traveling up the m6 suggested
20:36he was
20:37on some mode of transport which you needed to try and find out what yeah obviously we had to then
20:42try
20:42and work out what that could be which the next step of that is what can my cctv trackers tell
20:49us
20:51people might mistakenly think quite easy is it just follow someone on cctv not that simple is it
20:59no it's really difficult this is a residential area so likelihood is there's not street cameras luckily
21:07today people have all sorts of security on their own addresses which can be really useful to a police
21:14investigation so the starting point is that street specifically overlooking kenny's address and then
21:21just trying to piece together if we can pick gary up on cctv where does he walk and at each
21:28point we
21:28lose him off a camera is there another camera street cameras commercial cameras house cameras
21:35getting hold of that footage picking it up and just keep following someone
21:40the male and female with their child who are friends of both gary and kenny but when they're
21:45left as the cctv shows gary and kenny are back smiling on the doorstep together
21:54gary o'neill left kenford's home shortly before 2am he actually walked past an ambulance which was
22:01there by coincidence having attended another address but the suspect didn't flag the attention of the
22:06ambulance he just walked straight past it he was captured on camera carrying a carrier bag and
22:10what looked like to be a hammer from there the suspect went to a mcdonald's in cape in cape hill
22:16staff noticed that there was some blood on him at the time
22:22and we didn't lose him a few times but we managed to track him all the way to
22:27what's called dig the coach station so that's in the city centre of birmingham
22:31we then got him in the coach station asleep so it's kind of a case of working out which coach
22:39where are the stops um so you're on his trail but you're not quite there yet yeah so we're on
22:46his trail
22:47obviously at a coach station if someone's paid with a credit card or something it's easy to be 100
22:51where they've gone somebody pays with cash then not so easy because there's no trace of that ticket
22:57being bought and there's certainly no name on the ticket so for me top top priority now is to locate
23:03gary and arrest him as soon as possible when i was talking to michelle it was clear that there was
23:16no
23:16obvious motive for why that level of violence would be used against kenneth there was some suggestion of
23:25an argument over a playstation but would that be enough to have led on to the type of death that
23:32he suffered well the simple answer is yes it could be what i saw throughout my career was that the
23:39most
23:39horrific crimes can be committed due to the most minor event
23:51sometimes in an investigation you get a lucky break but what's happening unbeknownst to us
23:57is that gary gets to carlisle and then gets off the coach and onto a normal bus just a normal
24:05double-decker bus the bus travels into scotland he's gone and sat initially on the upstairs he
24:12starts to behave very strangely he's on the phone and he's overheard by a member of the public in a
24:19conversation where he talks about a hammer that conversation worries the person that overhears it
24:26they overheard him saying he'd straightened ken out they also heard him talking to a woman it sounded
24:33like saying he'd left someone in a bad way um during one of the calls that was overheard the suspect
24:40said
24:40they needed to call an ambulance uh they're throwing away the key gary is he's wandering around the bus
24:48harassing passengers on the bus yeah wandering up to people talking to them wandering back sitting down
24:55getting back up he had been harassing them for a phone charger on the way um he was also observed
25:01to be staring through people like they were a piece of glass uh one passenger commented so various people
25:06on the bus actually make a call to the scottish police and say they're concerned about a person on
25:13the bus and and his demeanor and behaviors so what that prompts is the scottish police to meet the bus
25:19at a bus stop they get on the bus identify the passenger that people are concerned about they
25:27take him off the bus and speak to him obviously and part of that is asking him for his name
25:33and his
25:34details and it's at the point that they then check on the police national computer that they realize that
25:40he's wanted in england for the offense of murder one of the real complexities with this investigation
25:51was scottish law and english law are very different so the law of england does not stand in scotland
25:59so the officers in scotland were not able to arrest gary for murder so they arrest him for a public
26:06order
26:06offense in effect an offense relating to him harassing people his demeanor his behavior on a bus
26:14they take him to custody in glasgow it isn't as simple as they can't arrest him for murder
26:22what they also can't do because actually a public order offense is a very low level offense that he's
26:28in custody for is they are unable to take any of the forensic samples forensic swabbing that had
26:35been 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 uh but also in terms of
26:47you know samples blood samples that might show you know was he drunk at the time was he taking any
26:53form of drugs at the time none of that can be done either because of the difference between english law
27:03and scottish law when the suspect was being detained in glasgow he made a comment to the police asking
27:09whether the man in the west midlands had died and then he started crying he then asked how long do
27:14i
27:14get for murder and then he made the comments i wouldn't get done for murder if it was an accident
27:19and at that point obviously make a call to us in the west midlands to say we think this person's
27:26wanted
27:26by you so in essence you need to send officers up to scotland and bring it back so yeah the
27:32next step
27:32is to get officers to go from the west midlands to glasgow his clothing and phone and everything had
27:37been seized by the scottish police so obviously brought all those back with us that was initially
27:41taken locally for initial screening to understand was there likely any blood on his clothing that showed that
27:49was blood on the sort of hoodie that he was wearing that was then transferred to the specialist
27:54scientists at the crime forensic laboratory for testing as to understand who did that blood belong
28:03to was it his blood was it kenny's blood whose blood was it and the distribution on it would be
28:08important
28:09to understand how that blood got there yeah again a blood pattern analyst would have a look at his hoodie
28:15and they would try and understand how is it transferred it was his opinion that it was transfer blood and
28:23that the patterns of it again suggested potentially wet blood flicking off something so if you can imagine
28:31a hammer or such an implement being consistently used the splatter actually come in spraying off that article
28:39on to gary's clothing and obviously dna analysis confirmed it was kenny's blood
28:49because gary was a frequent visitor of the address any normal dna you would expect to find 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
29:09blood on the hoodie was so crucial because it showed at the time that kenny was attacked that hoodie
29:17at very least was in the address and obviously as we know nobody else was in the address then gary
29:22must
29:23have been wearing that hoodie at the time of the attack when he's brought into the custody block he's
29:29actually quite calm in his demeanor quite doesn't say a lot looks at the floor a lot very yeah answers
29:38when he's spoken to but doesn't say any more than that and at some point then he's going to be
29:51interviewed
29:52that's correct he actually replied no comment to all questions put to him you have gary in custody
29:58and you're confident that he's the person that killed kenny but you need to build a case against
30:03him what evidence were you able to obtain whilst he was in custody we did a lot of work in
30:10terms of
30:10cctv on the address and what we were able to categorically say is at the time we can say the
30:19last
30:20people not gary or kenny left the address to when gary left the address nobody else went in nobody else
30:28came out to categorically say the only two people in the address at the time of kenny's death were him
30:35and gary what 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 what do they say they authorize charge
30:50for
30:51murder and he's charged in the early hours of the morning how does he respond to that when he's told
30:55he's being charged with his friend's murder he makes no response he charges for murder so between
31:01the 27th of the second 22 and the 28th of the second 22 in the county of birmingham and murdered
31:06kenny for your country's common law look how you've got any replies to that charge
31:12getting someone charged is just one stage of a prosecution there's a lot more work that needs to be
31:17done to get a case ready for trial in terms of the forensics that takes a lot of time to
31:22for the
31:23scientists to bring that all together what evidence were they able to give you they're able to ascertain
31:30that that blood was in fact kenny's blood and actually the palm prints in it was 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
31:41with an implement probably 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 and what the blood pattern analyst was
31:53able to say was the way it was spread around his clothing was consistent with a sustained attack likely
32:01with a weapon so somebody's swinging something and that transfer of splattering small particles
32:07as opposed to you know a knife wound which might be a gushing wound and create a lot of blood
32:15when
32:16we combine that with the results of the forensic post-mortem it showed that kenny had suffered 112 injuries
32:24all over his body the scientists or the pathologist again was able to say that the
32:31some of the marks on his skull his head were consistent with that claw of a hammer having
32:38carried out those injuries so all of that evidence together was really strong evidence of
32:44some sort of you know frenzied attack happening in that address when somebody's going to trial what they
32:50are supposed to do they're obliged to do is serve what's known as a defense case statement where
32:55essentially they outline what their defense is going to be to the prosecution did that happen in
33:01this case it did when we received the defense case statement from gary he said from the offset that
33:08he was responsible for the death of kenny but he said he'd acted in self-defense because
33:16kenny had attacked him first
33:21he said that had an argument and kenneth ford had asked him to leave the house
33:25but he said before he wanted to go he wanted to get his playstation but kenneth ford wouldn't let
33:30him have it at 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 apologized for killing kenneth ford he said it was never his intention that night
33:44he also said that he suffers from mental health issues and he blamed those mental health issues on
33:51some 10 years ago he tried to commit suicide which had resulted in a severe head injury
33:58he suffered with some various different mental health issues and attributed that as well to what
34:05happened on that night so essentially what he's putting across isn't just one defense is two
34:10so self-defense if believed would mean that he would not be found guilty of anything he's then
34:17putting forward a case of diminished responsibility which if believed wouldn't be murder would be
34:24dropped down to man slaughter so he's edging his bets yeah that's exactly how it felt i mean luckily for
34:30us in terms of kenny attacked me first kenny was a much bigger person than gary taller wider generally much
34:39much bigger than gary kenny we've already talked about 112 horrific injuries gary didn't have a single injury
34:48so kenny attacking him didn't make any sense whatsoever
35:03under english law there are certain defenses to murder there are full defenses such as self-defense
35:11and if accepted the killer won't be convicted of anything and there are what's known as partial defenses
35:17and one of these is diminished responsibility so if somebody pleads guilty to manslaughter by
35:23diminished responsibility essentially they're accepting the act i.e yes i did kill the person
35:29but at the time of doing so i was suffering from what's known as a defect of the mind essentially
35:35saying i was suffering from a mental illness that affected my reasoning and decision making and if
35:41accepted it will be a far lesser sentence than it would be for murder and then once someone puts
35:53forward a defense of diminished responsibility some processes then kick in don't they they do that's
35:58right so what happens initially is both the defense and the prosecution have their own forensic
36:04psychologist they will write a report for the court or for the crown prosecution service or for the
36:10defense those reports are reviewed and sometimes our prosecution expert will say you need to accept
36:18this because categorically every part of the diminished responsibility is met in this case it went before
36:24the judge and both parties defense and prosecution put forward that we needed to understand better
36:31could that head injury from 10 years ago have any impact on his on his mental health
36:39so a specialist neuro forensic psychiatrist was asked to write a report and he was purely focused on
36:50brain injury and what did this expert say so having done all of his tests he said as a result
36:58of
36:59the head injury his belief was that gary functioned in terms of his ability to understand
37:07what he was doing react to right or wrong he was in a very small percentage of
37:14not being able to do that so 99 of the population would know exactly what they were doing and understand
37:21the ramifications of it he sat in that one percent that potentially might not what happened then
37:29my view at this point was a jury should decide a jury should be faced with all the evidence because
37:36sometimes you'll get to a position where all the forensic psychologists will say they agree but in
37:44this occasion that wasn't the case there was a disagreement so i felt it was right that a jury should
37:49hear what all those experts said and formulate that and based on the evidence and what gary may or
37:56may or may not say during trial as to whether he was guilty or not
38:09so the decision was we're going to go to trial absolutely and i suppose in many ways
38:14what you're looking at is is more than just this brain injury and you want to look at that bigger
38:20picture and not just that snapshot of that moment and that's exactly it i felt it was right it was
38:25right for kenny it was right for kenny's family to let the jury have that picture and let a jury
38:32decide
38:33what their view was
38:38so then we come to the trial uh so it took place at birmingham crown court and it was about
38:4418 months
38:45after kenny's death that the trial actually took place obviously his mom's there so family you know
38:52for them they've come over from ireland so it's you know a very tense time for them
38:58but essentially that's what we're doing the job for as well isn't it it's all about the families
39:02yeah family are always your priority you can't do anything for the victim but what you can hopefully
39:07do is get some justice and closure for the family
39:14kenny's mom was obviously extremely upset she couldn't understand why gary would murder him she too
39:21saw them as friends and close friends that probably added to her anger and upset because kenny as far
39:31as everybody was concerned had been nothing but kind to gary throughout his life any murder victim's
39:39family always want you know a murder conviction and the longest possible sentence which is life for murder
39:50but as the prosecution opened the case the full details were revealed in all the years i've been
39:55covering uh murder cases and serious violence cases in the west midlands this was one of the most
40:02brutal that i've ever seen the 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 and having done something to his girlfriend
40:13in the past he also accused him of smoking his cannabis so a real mixed picture of was it to
40:21do
40:21with the playstation was it to do with the next girlfriend was it to do with nothing what was it
40:27and really we've never got to the bottom of what was the cause did gary give evidence he did give
40:35evidence yeah what did he say he maintained that actually in that the window of the assault attack
40:43murder that he didn't remember what happened he could remember what happened beforehand to a degree
40:49but that window uh he never really gave an account for what happened in that window but really from
40:56the point where the friends left didn't have any recollection so he said of what had happened or gone on
41:03or how kenny had ended up so severely injured throughout this whole investigation the court trial etc
41:10had gary ever shown remorse for what he did to kenny not that i saw so particularly if i put
41:17myself in
41:19kenny's mom's shoes she was never given any understanding or never given any sort of remorse apology
41:27for what had happened to her son having 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 i've never
41:47been able to reconcile what could have happened for him to react in such a violent manner so i don't
41:55know
41:55what is the honest answer i really don't in the uk around 100 murders a year are directly attributed
42:04to severe mental illness on behalf of the killer the sad thing for me in my experience when you're
42:11dealing with these crimes is that it's normally those closest to the killer that become victims friends
42:18families loved ones all 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 were certain that gary o'nell was going to get convicted of murder
42:47they decided not guilty murder which by default meant he was guilty of manslaughter to diminish
42:54responsibility they didn't have to decide on that obviously that was already admitted to so they only
42:59had to decide on was he guilty or not guilty of murder how did that feel
43:05it was it's devastating you always want the result that you believe to be the right result and i
43:11always believed that gary was guilty of murder and there was visible surprise and shock when the jury
43:21delivered the verdict of not guilty to murder kenny's mother was extremely upset and angry yeah in her mind
43:33gary had quite literally got away with murder she she knew gary she'd known gary all his life as well
43:39so she didn't believe this was diminished responsibility he actually got 15 years so
43:49in the grand scheme of manslaughter was a better sentence than i expected
43:58but will never be enough for a family it doesn't equate to life it doesn't equate to 27 28 years
44:04which
44:04he probably would have got had he been found guilty of murder so when you say 15 years to me
44:13i know through through my experience that a judge's sentence often reflects what they believe
44:21a verdict should have been 15 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
44:34horrific murders i've heard of i can see that you are personally invested and you're invested for
44:42kenny's family and that comes down to your dedication your professionalism and your thoughts
44:48for the family so on behalf of kenny i want to say thank you michelle for the professionalism you showed
44:56in
44:57this investigation and and just literally the care for his family thank you
45:15in modern murder investigations wrongly in my opinion pressure can be put on an sio
45:22to make decisions that aren't in the interest of justice but they're in the interest of convenience or
45:29budgets michelle was presented with the opportunity to take a plea for manslaughter she was presented with
45:39what was essentially an easy out except a plea for diminished responsibility but would that have 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 i was so impressed that michelle
46:03who stood up for what was right and not what was easy
46:07for me
46:13no
46:14no
46:14no
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