- 3 hours ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:01Every 90 seconds, someone is reported missing.
00:06Many return to their families.
00:09For others, something has gone seriously wrong.
00:13Ordinarily, Tommy would always pick up the phone
00:15when my grandmother was trying to contact him.
00:18In London, a young entrepreneur is missing.
00:22And she was even more concerned now
00:24because he hadn't turned up for work.
00:26His mother had been trying to contact him for three days.
00:28Now, this was over a period of a weekend.
00:31A brutal killing triggers a countrywide manhunt.
00:34The worst blessings of blood brought the wall,
00:37consistent with a struggle of some description.
00:40What happens in the police investigation that follows?
00:44You could say at this time
00:45she was probably the most wanted person in Britain.
00:48What happens to the family at its heart?
00:51It was shattering. It was shattering. It really was.
00:55When missing, turns to murder.
01:20Tommy arrived in our lives when I was nearly ten years old.
01:30I was the eldest of the family.
01:32I'm only two years older than my sister Kathy.
01:35And the two of us were both delighted
01:39when we got a little brother around.
01:50He very, very quickly became that missing link that my mum wanted.
01:56He was the third member of the family that she wanted all the time.
02:01He became a very happy-go-lucky, cheeky little chappy.
02:08He grew up into a man that just loved to see people enjoying life and having a party.
02:18He absolutely adored living.
02:24Tommy was my uncle and godfather.
02:27My earliest memories of Tommy was quite a fun-loving person with a good sense of humour
02:32and never took life too seriously.
02:34Worked hard and played hard.
02:40Tom was the kindest, sweetest, most generous with his time and in his nature that I've ever met.
02:50It's rare that you meet a person like that and I don't think there was a mean bone in his
02:55body.
02:55He was just lovely, he was natural and he was easy and he was fun.
03:01Mum absolutely adored Tommy.
03:03He was really closely attached to Mum.
03:06And she lived down in Kingston.
03:10He was based down in Fulham later in life with his business.
03:14Tommy was very close to his mother when he moved back from the US
03:18after completing his studies over there.
03:21And yeah, they spent a lot of time with each other.
03:23She really, really loved him so much.
03:29And they did a lot of nice things together.
03:32The one thing I always remembered about Tom was whenever you saw him,
03:36whatever the situation, he always took huge pride in what he wore and how he presented himself.
03:45Tom Cressman was born in the UK to American parents.
03:50Tom's father had been a very successful car businessman.
03:55He owned Bristol Street Motors at one stage.
03:59Like his father, Tom Cressman also had an affinity for motoring.
04:04He was a car freak.
04:06Anything to do with cars was his passion.
04:09He spent hours under the bonnet or under the car covered in grease and dirt.
04:14But I think those were his happiest times underneath his car or the bonnet.
04:18He took great pride in his own appearance.
04:21And the same, he took great pride in making sure that his car was in tip-top condition.
04:27Any classic car.
04:28And his river boat, he would spend hours and hours polishing and restoring or whatever.
04:35He loved his cars.
04:37He got himself a soft-top Mercedes.
04:40He loved his little mini mokes.
04:43And he enjoyed playing with those cars and making them all tick and getting them all looking beautiful.
04:49Tommy enjoyed having his toys like his Reaver boat.
04:53He collected classic cars.
04:55He liked to collect antiques.
04:58When I went to university, Tommy was living in Fulham in London at the time, running a car covering business.
05:05So, you know, supplying protective covers that would fit over the top of the car.
05:09And they were quite bespoke, custom-fitted coverings for cars.
05:15You know, they were quite expensive, so attracting a certain kind of clientele.
05:19At that end of the market.
05:21And I think he had three or four, five people working for him out of his offices,
05:26which were in the same plot as his home.
05:31So he only had to walk across the courtyard to get to the office.
05:35He was a hard-working young man.
05:37He was trying to get on and making a business work and making a life for himself.
05:41Tom's successful business goes from strength to strength.
05:44He established this partnership with Stirling Moss.
05:47So, obviously, Tommy being a mad car fan and the history and the family with the car business,
05:52he was quite excited to get on board with Stirling Moss.
05:57I think Stirling saw a little bit of himself in Tommy as a bright young man.
06:02So I think the two of them got on like an absolute house on fire.
06:05When I would work with Tommy at the weekends, we would often have a Sunday lunch together.
06:10My grandmother, Barbara, would also join us for some of those lunches along with Tommy's girlfriend, Jane.
06:18Tom's partner, Jane Andrews, is the former dresser for Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York.
06:26When I first met Jane, she seemed very nice.
06:29She seemed to have a personality that fitted with my uncle Tommy.
06:32They seemed very happy together.
06:34They got on very well.
06:35It was just the beginning of the relationship, I guess, like any relationship in its infancy.
06:40There's that initial period of infatuation and I think they seemed very happy together.
06:45They met in London and they were introduced by another friend and seemed to obviously have hit it off.
06:56And things whizzed along, I think, at quite a pace.
07:00We found out very early on that she'd been employed and worked with the Duchess of York.
07:09She had got this certain lifestyle that she enjoyed amongst her old family with flights and, you know, to here
07:21there and everywhere and the pomp and ceremony that went with that.
07:25Turned out that Jane had then lost her job and it practically occurred overnight.
07:31I think, funnily enough, I think probably losing her job with the Duchess of York was a very unsettling thing
07:39to happen to her.
07:41I think when I started to work for Tommy, Jane had just began working for a small jewellery company in
07:47London.
07:48She was excited about this new job opportunity and she was, when she was talking about work, it was mainly
07:53around this jewellery business.
07:56In September 2000, the young couple embark on a dream holiday.
08:01Tommy and Jane went to the south of France.
08:04The main reason for the trip was for a boat show before we all headed back to the UK around
08:11the middle of September.
08:13Tom Cressman and Jane Andrews head back to London.
08:17But since their return, Tom appears to be missing.
08:20My grandma had obviously tried to speak to Tommy, I think by all accounts was unable to get hold of
08:26him.
08:27So I think my grandma started to have some concerns at that point in time as to why Tommy wasn't
08:35responding to any of her calls.
08:37It would have been very unusual having flown back from that holiday not to speak with Tommy.
08:45So I think the real alarm started to kick in.
08:52Ordinarily, Tommy would always pick up the phone when my grandmother was trying to contact him.
09:04So Tommy had been missing for three days.
09:06His mother had been trying to contact him for three days.
09:10Now this was over a period of a weekend.
09:13Barbara Cressman was quite frantic by this time, by the Monday,
09:18because she tried to ring Tom all over the weekend and indeed on the Monday and wasn't getting any answer.
09:26And she was even more concerned now because he hadn't turned up for work.
09:37So three o'clock on Monday, the 18th of September, 2000, that was when the call had received a 999
09:43call from one of Tommy's colleagues who'd gone round to his address to check on him.
09:48Thomas Cressman's mother, Barbara, had run one of Tom's employees who worked across the courtyard asking if he'd seen Tom.
09:56And he said he hadn't, which was unusual.
09:58So he hadn't turned up for work on the Monday.
10:01Because Thomas hadn't turned up at work and his mum had been trying to phone him and getting no response,
10:07she contacted a work colleague who went around to Tommy's address trying to find out what was happening, if he
10:15was OK.
10:16He had a set of keys to the house and he was very sure that the door was locked.
10:23So he used the keys to gain entry, went around the house, couldn't find Thomas Cressman,
10:28went upstairs to the bedroom and found Tom lying on the floor dead.
10:37He was very traumatised by this, as you can imagine.
10:40He went downstairs, left the house and rung 999.
10:47I hadn't spoken to my mum, but I had the police arrived here at about 9 o'clock at night.
10:53I need to speak to my mother.
10:57I can just remember it.
10:58I just said, I said, someone's, someone's killed our baby boy.
11:05And, um, and it was just, it was just, it was shattering.
11:11It was shattering. It really was.
11:17Police immediately attend the scene.
11:20When I turned up, there was a police cordon.
11:24I mean, really, there's no ideal place for a murder scene,
11:28but this is as good as you're going to get because it was a gated community.
11:33People couldn't walk through the scene.
11:36When officers first attended Tommy's address, there were no signs of a forced entry.
11:41So it kind of ruled out that there was potentially a burglary.
11:45Tommy had, um, stab wounds to his chest, but also when the body was examined closer,
11:51you see that there was also an injury to his head.
11:55The worst splatters of blood behind Tom's body and higher up the wall
12:00that were consistent with a struggle of some description.
12:03And he was slumped between the wall, uh, and the bed, uh,
12:07when his body was moved on further examination.
12:10Uh, that's when they sort of noticed the, uh, injury to his head.
12:15But strangely enough, there was a cricket bat quite close to it as well.
12:21One of the things I noticed when I went into the bedroom,
12:24that Thomas Cressman's spectacles were on the side of the bed.
12:27They weren't on his face.
12:28That became quite important because his brother said
12:31that Thomas Cressman was nearly blind without a pair of spectacles.
12:36And clearly, if he'd gone to bed and was sleeping,
12:40he wouldn't have his spectacles on.
12:41And that was the case. They were lying by the bedside table.
12:47So clearly he'd been hit over the head,
12:49either when he was going to sleep or asleep,
12:52to stun him and then stabbed.
12:54And he wouldn't have put up any fight.
12:56And that was very clear because there were no defence wiggins on his hands.
13:01And indeed, we even asked for the police doctor to come to the scene.
13:05I said, how long do you think Thomas Cressman's been dead?
13:08And he said, probably around 12 to 18 hours.
13:13And he could tell that by rigor mortis, how it sets in.
13:20The detectives searched the rest of the house for more clues.
13:25You must act quickly and you must gather what evidence is available
13:29and maximise the opportunities for forensic evidence.
13:35I went downstairs then to the kitchen and the living room.
13:39And in the kitchen, it was clear to me that the murder weapon
13:43was a knife from the knife block in the kitchen,
13:48because that knife was missing.
13:50And it was upstairs next to Tom's body with the blood on it.
13:54So that clearly was the murder weapon.
13:57Somebody had gone downstairs, removed the knife from the knife block
14:02and then gone upstairs and stabbed Thomas Cressman with it.
14:09So we're looking at evidence of what has occurred here.
14:12We've got no idea.
14:13We know that basically in Tommy's bedroom,
14:17where we find Tommy, there is a dressing gown cord
14:21that was attached to the outside of the door handle.
14:25The cord from a dressing gown
14:28had been tied around the handle of the bedroom door
14:30and around the banister outside.
14:34So even if Tommy had got to the door,
14:37he wouldn't have been able to get out.
14:38The door had been secured so it couldn't be open from inside.
14:42I directed that the shower tray be forensically examined
14:45and the pipework beneath the shower tray,
14:48which is quite common these days,
14:50we would take that and check it for blood.
14:53And indeed there was blood in it.
14:55Some of it was Thomas Cressman's,
14:57which indicated to me that whoever had killed him
15:01had some blood from Thomas Cressman on him
15:04and then showered afterwards.
15:09I was told that I would be required to go to the mortuary at Fulham
15:15to identify Tommy.
15:18My mother wanted to know what Tommy looked like.
15:29And he was a very good-looking guy
15:31and he'd been hit over the head with the cricket bat.
15:37And I had to try to convince my mum
15:39that he was somehow still her beautiful boy.
15:46I'm sorry.
15:55Yeah.
15:56It's just the worst, worst, worst thing to tell you.
16:05And in a way lie to her.
16:12I couldn't say anything else.
16:15At the post-mortem,
16:17which was conducted by a very eminent pathologist,
16:20he said that the cricket bat had been used
16:23to hit Thomas Cressman on the forehead
16:26because he had a bruise or indentation on his forehead
16:30either when he was asleep
16:32or when he was slumbering, if you like,
16:35and that the knife had been used to stab him
16:38a number of times in the area of the heart and lungs.
16:42The cause of death, in fact,
16:44was given as a stab wound to the aorta.
16:48His ribcage cavity was filled up with blood,
16:51which is consistent with a stab wound
16:53in that area of the body.
16:55As information was coming in,
16:57we very quickly became aware
16:59from the initial inquiries
17:01that he had a partner, Jane Andrews,
17:04and that also she was missing.
17:07She wasn't at the address.
17:09Again, there was no signs of a struggle,
17:11but she was missing.
17:13And if Tommy had been murdered and she was missing,
17:15had something happened to her?
17:17Was she in danger?
17:18Had she been harmed in some way?
17:20And at this stage, all I knew was he had a living girlfriend, Jane Andrews.
17:26And what I was concerned about, was she in danger?
17:30Had she been abducted?
17:31Had she been murdered?
17:32Where was Jane Andrews?
17:34But what we did know, at this early stage,
17:37that her car was missing.
17:39And we had a registration number,
17:40so we circulated that car to see if any police officers
17:46or even members of the public could find it.
17:49We had to do some press lines as well,
17:51around that there's been a suspicious death
17:53in Bagley's Lane, in the Maltings, in Fulham.
17:57A, to reassure the public, and B, appeal for witnesses.
18:01And the whereabouts of Jane Andrews.
18:05So, we're starting to investigate,
18:08and one of the things we did very early on,
18:12was to do what we call lifestyle inquiries,
18:15on Thomas Cressman, to find out what sort of person he was,
18:19and lifestyle inquiries on Jane Andrews,
18:23to find out what sort of person she was.
18:25So background checks, obviously, had carried out
18:27police indices for all sorts of information, intelligence,
18:30anything that's known about the individual,
18:33and also in relation to Jane, because Jane was his partner,
18:37Jane was also missing.
18:39And so, again, it's putting together the pieces of the jigsaw,
18:42you know, what's the story here, what's going on?
18:43But as information was coming in,
18:46we were finding out more and more about their relationship,
18:49and it became quite clear their relationship
18:51was quite a volatile one.
18:53There were calls made to the police
18:56with regards to them arguing.
18:58There was information that came from Tommy's family,
19:00about the fact that there had been quite heated disagreements
19:03between them.
19:05And so this was starting to build a picture of,
19:08well, is this more of a domestic matter?
19:11But there were concerns,
19:12because it gave a different picture than we first thought.
19:16I think the only crosswords we had ever
19:19were about his relationship with Jane Andrews.
19:23I'd made it very clear to him that I wasn't a huge fan,
19:28because it was quite clear he wasn't happy in that relationship.
19:32She was such a possessive person
19:36that he wasn't quite sure how to deal with it.
19:40It was information to say that Tommy was having some kind of cyber relationship
19:45with a female in America,
19:48and Jane had come across messages between the two
19:52where she wasn't spoken about too favorably in these messages,
19:57and that she'd subsequently phoned a friend in hysterics
20:00about the fact that she'd come across these messages.
20:03She took screenshots of this stuff on his computer,
20:07because she'd found it one day when he was out,
20:09and sent it to his friends and family.
20:13And it appeared that Jane had faxed those to Tommy's father,
20:18to his working business partner at the time,
20:22who was Sterling Moss,
20:23with a covering note of, you know,
20:25this is what your son is like.
20:31The police dig deeper into the tumultuous relationship,
20:35and learn that the couple's recent holiday with Tom's family in France
20:39ended in an explosive argument.
20:43Friday the 15th September 2000,
20:46when they were flying back from France,
20:49and this indeed was witnessed by some of the Cressman family,
20:53that they'd had a row.
20:55In the early part of that trip,
20:57when they were in the south of France and I was with them,
20:59they were both very happy together.
21:00There was no friction.
21:02There was no arguments.
21:03And I think that's probably in hindsight,
21:05because Jane was anticipating something more substantial
21:09happening by way of a proposal.
21:11They had been on a wonderful trip.
21:13They had been on a reaver boat that Tommy owned.
21:17It had been absolutely idyllic.
21:20And it appeared that Jane was absolutely convinced
21:24that Tommy was going to propose marriage.
21:26When he not only didn't propose,
21:29but actually told her that he wanted to finish the relationship,
21:33Jane had then contacted friends of hers and had ranted.
21:37And those rants had taken place in front of his mum and Tommy's nephew and Tommy.
21:45She had been on the phone saying how much Tommy had ruined her life,
21:48how he'd strung her along.
21:51This is all sitting next to Tommy.
21:54So it was clear she was really angry.
22:00I didn't necessarily know at that point in time what the arguments were about.
22:06But on our trip back to the airport,
22:09Jane was just arguing, shouting, having a go at my uncle Tommy.
22:14She phoned a friend of hers and started talking quite openly in the car
22:21whilst Tommy was driving.
22:22And my grandma and I could hear the entire conversation in the back
22:26about how Tommy hadn't made a proposal to her
22:30and how she wasted the last couple of years of her life
22:34and was just very abusive and aggressive towards Tommy.
22:37But it was a very uncomfortable car journey.
22:41He has to have made it clear to her that despite the pushing on her part,
22:49I think, to get married, it was clear that he didn't want to.
22:55And I just think that caused a lot of angst and upset.
23:03He was having second thoughts.
23:05And in fact, one of the rails they had was at the airport in the south of France
23:10and it was captured on CCTV, which we managed to secure from the French police.
23:16And it was very clear that it was an argument, quite a substantial argument.
23:20It wasn't a tiff.
23:22It was a full-blown difference of opinion.
23:25I was shocked at the change in dynamic between Tommy and Jane.
23:29I'd never seen that side of their relationship.
23:31And all of a sudden, here we are in a beautiful part of the world
23:34in the south of France and nothing but arguing and verbal abuse.
23:42The investigation reveals that Tom had called the police on a Saturday,
23:46the day after the couple returned from their holiday.
23:50There was evidence obtained that there was a 999 call
23:54that was made by Tommy to the police on the Saturday prior to him being found dead.
24:01This was a full-blown 999 call, you know, to the police emergency operator.
24:08The context of the call was basically he was phoning
24:12because he'd had an argument with Jane, a very heated argument,
24:16and that she'd stormed out and he was worried about what would happen when she returned.
24:23He said words to the effect, if someone doesn't come and intervene,
24:27someone's going to get hurt.
24:28And in the background, the operator could hear faint screaming.
24:34Now, what is quite clear from this, it was Thomas Cressman that rung the police,
24:38not Jane Andrews.
24:39And it was clear that the difference of opinion was escalating.
24:47Given the high-profile connections to those involved in the case,
24:51the investigators are met with a media frenzy.
24:54The media hype was phenomenal, and we were like a storm.
25:00It was brewing all around us, and we had to be very clear
25:04what we were doing and how we were doing it.
25:06It was unbelievable.
25:09When this broke and Sarah Ferguson's name was connected to this,
25:14the fact that they had photographs of her and Jane Andrews,
25:18you know, nicking onto an aeroplane, you know,
25:22and lying on sunbeds, etc.
25:24The interest and the press, it was phenomenal.
25:30It was something I'd never, ever had to experience and manage.
25:34And the pressure that myself and my team were under from the media
25:38and indeed from senior officers, because they wanted to make sure
25:42we got it right and there was no mistakes, which I totally understand,
25:46but it didn't help the pressure we were under.
25:49After discovering about their unstable relationship
25:52and being placed under the media spotlight,
25:55for the investigators, finding the still-missing Jane Andrews
25:59becomes their number-one priority.
26:01The investigation into Tommy's murder was taking place.
26:04There were lines of inquiry that were being carried out there,
26:06but also there were lines of inquiry that needed to be followed up
26:09to try and find Jane, and where was Jane?
26:12And we'd use the same principle for a high-risk missing person
26:16as you would for a murder, in that, well, if you have a murder
26:19when you haven't got a body, where are they?
26:21What were their last movements?
26:22How would we try and find out where they were?
26:24So you start checking things like mobile phones,
26:27checking things like bank details, bank cards.
26:31Are there any usage of them in relation to their bank account?
26:35She obviously had a car. Her car was missing.
26:38Where was her car? So inquiries to try and locate the car.
26:41On the many parts of the roads in the UK,
26:43we have automatic number plate recognition cameras.
26:47Was the car going to be picked up by one of them?
26:49So where exactly would that be?
26:51So there were lots of inquiries were taking place to try and find Jane,
26:55who, as I say at this time, was being treated as a missing person.
27:01So Jane had now been missing for 24 hours at least.
27:06And so those lines of inquiry had been followed up.
27:09And at that point, there was nothing.
27:10But we did then get a breakthrough that her car registration number
27:15had activated a camera.
27:18And we knew that she had stopped at a petrol station on the A3 heading out of London.
27:25CCTV from within that petrol station confirmed that it was Jane.
27:29And whilst this was being looked into,
27:32obviously then there were inquiries made via her mobile phone.
27:36In the event, by cell site analysis,
27:40we were finding out that she was travelling west.
27:44And in fact, we managed subsequently to get some CCTV footage
27:48of her in the shopping centre in Southampton,
27:51buying some clothes, which we retrieved.
27:54But as time progressed,
27:56we made an appeal to the general public for a whereabouts.
27:59So we knew at a certain time she was still alive
28:03and that she was driving her own car,
28:05which then changed our perspective slightly because,
28:08OK, she hasn't been abducted.
28:11It doesn't appear like as if she's under anybody else's control.
28:14She seems to be going about things as she wants.
28:17So if that's the case,
28:19why has she not been in contact with anybody?
28:22Why has she not contacted Tommy's family or friends
28:26or returned to the address for that matter?
28:32The detectives hear from a family friend,
28:34Lucinda Ellery, who claims to be receiving text messages
28:39from Jane Andrews.
28:41Lucinda Ellery had spoken to Tom Cressman
28:45on the telephone on Saturday
28:46and she was the last person that had any contact with him.
28:50On the 19th of September, 2000,
28:54we got information from Lucinda Ellery
28:56that she had an open, ongoing text conversation
29:00with Jane Andrews.
29:01So we left the incident room and drove down to Surrey
29:05to go and see Lucinda.
29:07The detectives proceed to analyze the texts
29:10Lucinda has received from Jane Andrews' number.
29:13I mean, we're talking in the days where mobile phones
29:16were not as advanced as they are now.
29:18And her memory on her mobile phone from the text messages
29:23that she'd been receiving from Jane and her responses,
29:28they were full.
29:29And so she couldn't actually take any more messages in
29:32and couldn't send any more out.
29:34So ideally, you want to keep, for evidential purposes,
29:39you want to keep the text on the phone
29:42that's either received it or sent it.
29:44So we were telling her,
29:46and I think Glyn at one stage was saying
29:48that he had to physically handwrite the messages
29:52because they were in danger of losing them
29:54because there was so much data being used up on the phone.
29:59Such was the texting and the dialogue between her and Jane Andrews.
30:03And so we got to the stage where I'd obviously deleted
30:06enough space for messages to come in,
30:09and then messages then started to arrive again from Jane.
30:12And she was saying things like,
30:14is Tommy okay? I can't get hold of him.
30:18Has anything happened to him? What's wrong?
30:21And because at that stage,
30:22Jane had gone from being more than just a missing person.
30:26She was potentially either the suspect
30:29or involved in what had happened to him.
30:35Detective Glyn Jones needs to tread carefully
30:38when replying to the messages
30:40so as not to alarm Jane Andrews
30:43and potentially lose their crucial lead.
30:47So I was very mindful about the wording of text messages
30:51that would be sent back to her,
30:53and not to alert her to the fact that police,
30:56obviously, wanted to speak to her
30:57and that she was potentially being seen as a suspect.
31:01I didn't know how she would react.
31:03She could destroy or dispose of evidence,
31:04or she could harm herself.
31:07Don't give anything away.
31:08Don't say anything that's going to antagonize Jane.
31:12It was just about trying to get Jane to say things
31:15about where she was rather than putting her on alert
31:18that the people were trying to find her.
31:24And those messages continued to say for a couple of hours
31:27until it was quite late into the night,
31:29and they stopped.
31:31Nothing all was coming in.
31:33And so I said to Lucinda,
31:36look, I'm going home now.
31:37If you receive any other messages from Jane, call me.
31:42And I'd literally just got into bed, and the phone rang.
31:49And I actually ended up speaking to Lucinda's daughter.
31:52And we had this kind of bizarre setup
31:54where Lucinda was on the phone to Jane.
31:57At the same time, Lucinda's daughter was on the phone to me.
32:00I was then dictating to the daughter
32:04the kind of question that Lucinda should ask Jane.
32:07And this kind of bizarre setup went on for a few minutes.
32:11But from that, we were able to ascertain
32:14that she was somewhere between Plymouth and Liscard,
32:17she was in her car,
32:19and that she had taken an overdose of pills.
32:24But this then really raised the concern about Jane's welfare
32:28and also given that she was a suspect,
32:32and you could say at this time
32:33she was probably the most wanted person in Britain.
32:39But it was crucial in us trying to pinpoint where she actually was,
32:43which we did in the event.
32:45We got her moving into Cornwall.
32:50And it was important that I could get enough information
32:53to be able to direct officers in the southwest,
32:58in Devon and Cornwall, to where she was actually parked up.
33:02And so immediately after coming off the phone from Lucinda's daughter,
33:06contacted Devon and Cornwall police,
33:09explained the situation,
33:10and requested that they put up the police helicopter
33:13and put transport units out to look for whereabouts she could be.
33:18And in tandem, I was directing Devon and Cornwall Constabulary
33:22to search for Jane's vehicle,
33:26because we believed she was in it.
33:28You know, this was a very dynamic search and rescue.
33:31And indeed, a police sergeant, uniformed police sergeant,
33:35as a result of our cell site
33:37and the information we were getting out of the Texas,
33:39managed to find Jane Andrews' car in a lay-by just outside Plymouth.
33:46She was slumped over the wheel of the car
33:50and that she had vomited.
33:52So the pills she had taken,
33:54they didn't know how much of that she vomited up,
33:57but she was semi-conscious.
33:59And so an ambulance was called and she was taken to hospital.
34:03The doctors need to act quick
34:05so the police don't lose their prime suspect.
34:10She went to Derriford Hospital in Plymouth.
34:13They had to pump her stomach out
34:14to get rid of the tablets that she'd taken.
34:17Jane was examined and treated for the overdose.
34:22Thankfully, when she vomited,
34:23she'd actually brought up a lot of what she'd taken.
34:26Although she did have some damage,
34:29it wasn't life-threatening, life-changing,
34:31and she was actually discharged from hospital
34:35into the custody of police officers.
34:37But when she was given the all-clear by the hospital staff,
34:42I directed that she'd be taken to the local police station,
34:46that she'd be arrested, given her rights,
34:49and be seen by a police doctor to say she was fit to be detained
34:55and fit to be interviewed.
34:57And thirdly, most importantly,
34:59fit enough to be taken back to London
35:01to be interviewed at Belgravia police station.
35:10We had an interview strategy.
35:13We wanted to ask her about the murder scene.
35:15We found blood in the shower tray and in the pipe work,
35:20and we wanted to ask her about the bathrobe cord
35:24that was from the door to the banister.
35:27So when Jane was interviewed back at the police station,
35:30she certainly didn't admit to killing Tommy.
35:34She was painting a picture of their relationship
35:37and how she was the victim of domestic abuse.
35:40If that was the case,
35:42why would she not then contact the police and say,
35:45there's been a domestic incident, I've killed my partner.
35:48He was being really cruel to me.
35:50She had not made any other effort to come forward
35:53and then was making out she had no knowledge.
35:57of what had happened to Tommy.
35:59Well, she knew full well.
36:01She'd stabbed him and hit him with a cricket bat.
36:03She was in the parallel universe.
36:05She was trying to portray herself as the victim.
36:08And we'd been looking at Jane as a high risk missing person,
36:11treating her as missing,
36:13when actually she was a perpetrator
36:15who was trying to escape justice.
36:18We sent a report to the Crown Prosecution Service
36:22and they agreed with us
36:23that there was sufficient evidence to charge her with murder,
36:26which we did.
36:27She was remanded in custody,
36:29went to magistrate's court the next day,
36:31again remanded in custody,
36:33and she subsequently got bail.
36:35Normally, murder suspects,
36:37with the amount of evidence,
36:39are in custody.
36:41But she was given bail.
36:43As the investigators build their case
36:45before Jane Andrews' trial,
36:47Tom Cressman's American family hold his funeral in Los Angeles.
36:54I'm thinking it was probably into November
36:57by the time we went to Los Angeles
36:59and did his funeral at the Wee Kirk of the Heather Chapel
37:04in Forest Lawn.
37:06Homicide detectives, we go to the funerals of victims of homicide.
37:13And Paula, who was the FLO, the Family Liaison Officer,
37:17at the behest of the family, went with another detective.
37:21They went to California, they attended the funeral.
37:23It was a terrible day, but it was also a day of seeing
37:30a lot of people who loved him.
37:33And that was very reassuring, I think,
37:38for all of us in the family,
37:41to see the amount of outpouring of love and affection for Tommy
37:47and of support for all of us.
37:55Barbara did ask me to write anything
38:00that might possibly contribute towards his funeral.
38:05I wrote a few words that I'd found somewhere.
38:07There are some people that come into our lives and quickly go,
38:12and there are some that stay a while
38:14and leave footprints on our heart,
38:16and we are never the same again.
38:24The trial started the following year,
38:27so we're into 2001 now.
38:30Late April, and the trial went on through May.
38:33And we were still investigating.
38:36We were investigating up to the day
38:39that the prosecution case finished.
38:42Because what Jane Andrews clearly did at the trial,
38:45she wanted to sully Thomas Cressman's reputation.
38:49She murdered him in life,
38:51and then she went on to murder him in death
38:54by trying to ruin his reputation.
38:57She tried to portray herself as the victim,
39:01that, you know, what am I doing here?
39:03I'm innocent.
39:04And she wasn't.
39:05She was very manipulative,
39:07very, very cunning, and told numerous lies.
39:11And it all started to unfold.
39:13As it turned out at the trial,
39:15she ran virtually every defence there was.
39:18She said she suffered from diminished responsibility
39:20because she was suffering from a medical ailment,
39:23a psychological thing,
39:25and she called an expert to say that,
39:28but it's only his opinion.
39:29And we called our expert,
39:31who gave his opinion,
39:33which was totally at odds with what she said.
39:36And we had the forensic evidence.
39:38We had Tom Cressman's blood
39:40on the inside of her bathrobe.
39:42We had Tom Cressman's blood in the shower tray
39:45and in the pipework.
39:46We had the murder weapon.
39:48We had the cause of death.
39:49We had the fact that she absconded.
39:51We had the fact that she had taken an overdose
39:54and that she is now admitting that she had stabbed him,
40:00but he was in self-defence.
40:02It was deeply disturbing.
40:04I mean, including some of the accusations
40:08and Jane trying to tarnish my uncle's character
40:11with some of the lies around the abuse
40:15that she suffered from my uncle
40:18was really difficult to take.
40:20He was good through and through,
40:23which sounds a little bit too good to be true,
40:26and I cannot think of one bad thing
40:29or anything that leads me to sit on the fence
40:33about his character.
40:35We were able to prove
40:36that it wasn't a spur-of-the-moment thing.
40:39She had physically gone downstairs,
40:42picked the knife from the knife block in the kitchen,
40:45gone back upstairs,
40:46took the cricket bat from another room,
40:48hit Thomas over the head
40:51because his glasses were on the side.
40:53He musked him slumbering and asleep.
40:55They had forensic evidence from the cathologist
40:58about the wound to the head
40:59where she hit him with the cricket bat
41:00and stabbed him at least twice.
41:02And clearly, the intent was to cause him
41:06grievous bodily harm or murder,
41:09and that's all you have to prove.
41:10That's the prosecution's case.
41:12Because I was one of the last people
41:14to see my Uncle Tommy alive just a couple of days before
41:17in the south of France,
41:19I gave evidence at the trial
41:21to testify around the nature of the relationship
41:25at the point in time when they returned
41:27from their trip to Italy.
41:29Giving evidence at the Old Bailey was, again,
41:32a very difficult moment for me.
41:35After 12 hours, the jury return with their verdict.
41:42The whole family was obviously on edge,
41:46feeling, you know, unsure what the verdict was going to be
41:50and hoping that justice would prevail
41:52and Jane would be found guilty.
41:54Jane Andrews is found guilty of Thomas Cressman's murder.
42:00She was given a mandatory life sentence
42:02with a tariff that she should serve no less than 12 years.
42:06I remember receiving a call from someone at the court
42:10informing me that Jane had been found guilty of Tommy's murder.
42:15And then later that day, a number of us travelled to meet up
42:19to celebrate the fact that it was a successful case,
42:23all the hard work that had been put in,
42:25and we had got a good result out of it
42:28and also got justice for Tommy and his family.
42:32When the final verdict came through
42:34and Jane was found to be guilty of murder,
42:37there was a huge sense of relief for the family.
42:40In terms of the sentence itself,
42:42whilst we were pleased that she had been given the maximum sentence,
42:47at the end of the day,
42:48it will never be enough justice for our family.
42:55It's heartbreaking, you know, key moments in our family's life
42:59not being shared with Tommy.
43:02A tragedy like that must inevitably have huge, disturbing ripple effects.
43:10For parents to lose a child,
43:12I can't begin to imagine the pain that they went through.
43:15And I know that Rick, his brother, is still hugely troubled
43:22and just wants to see Tom's reputation where it belongs,
43:28which is at the top of the tree.
43:30And in my experience and opinion, his character remains untainted.
43:38We do our utmost to keep his spirit and memory alive
43:42and try and live our lives to the fullest as Tommy would want us to do so.
43:48Yeah, life for Mum was never the same at all.
43:52It wasn't the same for any of us.
43:54But for Mum, losing Tommy was just devastating.
44:15To be continued...
44:17To be continued...
Comments