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Secrets Of A Murder Detective - Season 2 Episode 5 - Fatal Frenzy
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00:00I'm Steve Keogh, a former Scotland Yard murder detective inspector.
00:08I'm going to take you deep inside murder investigations.
00:13Opening my contacts book for the first time.
00:17To reveal the secrets of what it really takes to be a murder detective.
00:22On the front line, exposing how we solve the most heinous of crimes.
00:30Welcome to Secrets of a Murder Detective.
00:41The 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.
01:01I was a police officer for 24 years, all served within West Midlands Police.
01:06I spent 19 years as a detective in the ranks of detective constable, detective sergeant,
01:13and then latterly detective inspector, also known as a senior investigating officer.
01:18Hi Michelle, thank you very much for coming in.
01:21Michelle, the incident we're going to be talking about today is from February 2022.
01:31What were you doing back then? What was your role?
01:33So in February 2022, I was a senior investigating officer within the homicide department of West Midlands Police.
01:40So a call did come in to West Midlands Police. Tell me about that.
01:44I've been at the service. Is the patient breathing?
01:47We can't tell. We're trying to get into the room.
01:50There's blood everywhere.
01:52It looks like the person's been stabbed.
01:56Landlords have been round to an address where they rented out the property
02:01and they found a man that they believed to be deceased inside
02:04and obviously they'd made the call to West Midlands Police asking for help and officers to attend.
02:08So our unit of home colleagues would go out. They entered the premises.
02:17It was very blood covered premises. It was obvious to them straight away that something could go on with inside the premises.
02:28So they went up to the stairs and at the top of the stairs they found a bedroom
02:32and in that bedroom the deceased was on the floor of that bedroom.
02:40The victim's name was Kenneth Ford. He was 30 years old.
02:45And Kenny was the tenant of those premises.
02:49Today you've got the luxury of body-worn video.
02:52So those officers when they go in will turn their videos on and you get to see what is happening.
02:56Yes, from the minute they turned up and spoke to the caller outside all the way through as they walked through the premises and up the stairs into the room where they found the person.
03:08I was able to see exactly what it looked like, how much blood was there, where he was lying, what we were going to be faced with when I actually attended in reality.
03:17And for me priority then to go out to the scene myself and understand, because there's nothing better than your own eyes at a scene, exactly what might have gone on.
03:28Because there's no replicating being there and sort of living it, breathing it, smelling it, being in there and fully understanding what a crime scene is.
03:37So this premises was a terraced house in like a relatively small side street.
03:47This happened in a road called Colbrook Road.
03:52This is in the Tysley area of Birmingham, quite a highly populated residential area, but also has some business very close to Birmingham city centre.
04:02Not an area where, you know, routinely I would go to murders or expect a murder to occur.
04:09So for me it was to get inside and try and understand what had happened.
04:14Because from what I'd seen from the body worn, there was a lot of blood, I'd seen that.
04:18So, you know, trying to think what on earth has gone on in this address really.
04:24So you wear full barrier clothing to go in?
04:27Yeah, fully clothed.
04:28So literally really only your eyes are showing everything else is covered to ensure there's no contamination of that scene being brought in from any of us who've been outside.
04:38What met you when you first opened the door was, it was very sparse.
04:42There was a television on this wall that was broken, not much else.
04:47There was a small settee.
04:49That was absolutely covered in blood.
04:53There was some clothing strewn around the floor, a bag of tools, very strangely in the middle of the floor, strewn around the floor.
05:01Obvious signs of some sort of struggle had gone on by the fact the television was smashed.
05:06Initially entering the crime scene, obviously in my mind what might have happened was the, what was the murder weapon?
05:15Was the murder weapon still there?
05:18Looking around at what was on the floor, was any of those objects, did I think any of those objects would likely link to the murder?
05:26And what within that scene could help me identify who was responsible?
05:32But as you looked up the stairs and up the banister, all the way up what would be the handrail, was lots of blood up the handrail.
05:41Got to the top of the stair, there was a bedroom, that was the room that the victim was found in.
05:45That was heavily, heavily blood-stained, fed literally to this side of the door, which was, there wasn't much left of the mattress that wasn't just awash with blood.
05:57There was a wardrobe here, there was blood all splattered at the wardrobe.
06:01There was a duvet on the floor.
06:04Behind what was the door, which again was absolutely covered in blood, there was blood at the radiator.
06:09I've been to lots of murder scenes and what struck me about that scene was the sheer volume of blood.
06:15The fact that it was upstairs and downstairs, it felt to me that it had started downstairs and gone upstairs, because that's obviously where the victim was.
06:26When I looked under the triangle of the stairs, where the settee was, there were marks, strange marks at that point in the overhang, almost as if something had been hitting it.
06:40He had injuries to his head, torso, his knees, his legs. I don't think there was any part of his body that hadn't suffered some sort of attack with some sort of weapon.
06:55I personally have never dealt with such a frenzied killing with so many injuries in so many different areas of the body.
07:04That's horrific.
07:06Yeah, awful, awful injuries. The worst that I've seen.
07:08The level of injury would suggest that this is a very dangerous person who carried out a very sustained and prolonged attack.
07:17When news of Kenneth Ford's death broke, the local community was obviously surprised and in shock.
07:28My name's Carl Jackson. I've been a journalist for over ten years now.
07:32I've been a court reporter for Birmingham Live for around five years.
07:35Kenneth Ford lived in a HMO on Colbrook Road in Tysley. It's an inner city area. It's a short walk or a drive away from the city centre.
07:45It's very urban and built up. The natural question a lot of them had to ask was, why has this happened?
07:51As the details started to emerge of what happened, especially the level of violence used, people's level of shock and surprise was intensified.
08:01Just a lot of unanswered questions.
08:09In any murder, a post-mortem needs to take place. And in the case of a murder, it will be a special post-mortem conducted by a forensic pathologist.
08:18So it goes into a lot more detail than a standard post-mortem. What was the result of that?
08:24The forensic pathologist was able to say that Kenny's cause of death was head injuries in the main, but significant injuries, in his opinion, caused by numerous blows.
08:38He was able to say, in his mind, that these injuries had been caused by a hammer 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, that's trying to stop them getting away from you.
08:58He had 112 altogether. That's a lot of injuries.
09:02112?
09:03112 injuries.
09:05I mean, that's a lot.
09:08That's a lot.
09:09In your career, I mean, how many times have you come across something like this?
09:15Never. Generally, people might have, I don't know, six or seven is a lot. A lot of people have one or two. One stab wound, two stab wounds, one punch, one blow.
09:26112, and I say they were from his head, all over his torso.
09:32In any murder investigation, Michelle, victimology is 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?
09:43What were you learning about this victim?
09:46He'd come over from Ireland some years ago. Once over in the UK, he was quite transient.
09:54He lived in various different places, particularly across the Birmingham area, and he just recently moved into this, as I say, supported housing association premises.
10:06I'd only moved in literally a week or so before. I was really, really proud, I think, of having his own house and coming to live here.
10:16He didn't work at the time of his death. He did have a girlfriend, someone he'd known, and quite a few friends in the Birmingham area that he'd made in the time he'd lived in and around Birmingham.
10:27He had been homeless at times, but there was nothing, you know, of concern in terms of a policing environment that might lead me to think that's why he's been murdered.
10:39In murders, the fast time arrest of suspects is important for three reasons.
10:52Firstly, it's in order to obtain evidence from them. The longer they evade arrest, the more evidence you're going to lose.
10:59So, for 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 evade justice completely, evade justice for the victim and their family.
11:16And finally, they've already shown that they have a propensity to violence. And there's always that danger that they may do so again.
11:30Any obvious weapons?
11:32There was hammers. They looked too clean. And it certainly didn't look like a scene that somebody had cleaned up after themselves.
11:38So, yes, there were things that, for me, needed to be looked at closely by a scientist, but nothing that was screaming out, there's your murder weapon.
11:47Who would you have called down to carry out that expert assessment of it?
11:51My view was we needed a blood pattern analyst. We needed somebody with that specialism who was able to say, well, in my view, this splatter, these markings, has been caused by...
12:04So, when I entered the crime scene, it was clear to me that there was actually quite an extensive distribution of blood.
12:13My name is Philip Field. I'm a forensic scientist at Westmillan's Police.
12:18And so it was clear to me there was a considerable amount of work to do to unravel an understanding of what all that blood staining meant.
12:27For instance, blows into wet blood can produce characteristic impacts, batter stains.
12:33Two key areas that stood out.
12:36One of those areas was in the downstairs of the property on a floor wall pattern settee,
12:43which was located underneath the stairs in the living room.
12:48That settee was really heavily bloodstained. There were staining and blood drips around it.
12:57There was some spat of blood on the wall behind the settee.
13:00So it indicated to me that clearly some measure of activity had occurred in this region
13:06and that Kenneth Ford had been located in that region whilst bleeding heavily from some injuries that he had already sustained.
13:16And the other key area really was the bedroom at the back of the property where his body had been found.
13:28The key area was at a low level in the corner of the room formed by the window wall and the wardrobe.
13:40And in this location there was an enormous amount of transfer of blood staining indicating that heavily blood stained surfaces had been in contact with other surfaces in that location.
13:52And there was some spatter blood distributions there as well indicating that blows into wet blood had been sustained in that location.
14:04So it suggested that that was very much a site of attack on Kenneth Ford.
14:08There was some blood on the banister rail and the stairs.
14:12So what I asked at that scene was blood on the handrail.
14:16Did they think there was any fingerprint marking or palm marking? Was there anything in that area?
14:22There was some apparent ridge detailing blood which a colleague of mine attended the scene to conduct some chemical enhancement on to try and bring out the features of that ridge detailing blood.
14:40So they could be of sufficient quality for comparison against other fingerprints.
14:46The fact that a fingerprint is in blood can indicate that the blood was wet at the time that the fingerprint was deposited.
14:54Which can indicate that it was at a time very close to when events were unfolding.
15:01Having called the police there the landlord was clearly someone that needed to be spoken to to get an understanding of why he called the police what was going on etc.
15:17What did he say?
15:18What the landlord told the police was that he received a call from somebody by the name of Gary who he said was a friend of Kenny's and he'd asked him to go to the address because Kenny needed help.
15:29He was concerned by the fact that he was being asked to get Kenny help.
15:33So didn't obviously know why Kenny needed help.
15:36So that friend that phoned the landlord, clearly someone of significance, who was he?
15:42So having been given some brief details of Gary, the intelligence team they were tasked in trying to understand and find out who he was, what his surname was, where he might be, what was his connection to Kenny and how did him and Kenny know each other.
15:57So what we were able to establish was that Gary was in fact Gary O'Neill.
16:04He was also from Ireland that him and Kenny had known each other all their lives really since they were children.
16:14And it transpired that actually Gary was a really, really good friend of Kenny's.
16:20In fact, without exception, everyone we spoke to said they were like brothers.
16:24When they were children in Ireland, they were very close.
16:29At one point they were both in care together.
16:32Gary was very much a loner.
16:34Kenny looked out for him.
16:37In effect, it was almost a bit of a bodyguard for him when they were in care.
16:41So very much was his protector.
16:44That they both came over to England at a similar time.
16:50We found a video when we were going through Kenny's phone.
16:56And on that phone he was talking about how excited he was about the house.
17:01He shows a bedroom that he talks quite proudly about.
17:15You know, this is going to be Gary's room.
17:17Now that's the two beds, this is what Gary was doing to use.
17:22As you can see, it's a big room of Gary then.
17:27They had lost contact for a while, but shortly before the incident happened,
17:32Gary O'Neill had moved into the same bedsit as Kenneth Ford.
17:38On the face of it, this is someone who knows a lot more about what went on in that premises.
17:44What decision was made around him?
17:46The decision is to raise Gary to a suspect.
17:50And what comes with raising somebody to a suspect is putting them onto the police national computer
17:56as wanted on suspicion of murder.
17:58The reason, the rationale for that is should they get stopped by police officers anywhere in the country,
18:04that would flag up immediately that this is somebody that the police want to talk to.
18:08But we had no idea where Gary was.
18:10We literally had no idea where he'd gone or how to locate him.
18:15What sort of steps were taken to try and locate him?
18:18So what I then tasked my officers with was house to house just to see if anyone had seen or heard from him.
18:24And anyone we knew that knew him, close friends, he had an ex-partner,
18:28starting to speak to those people to say, have you heard from Gary in the last 24 hours?
18:34On the day that this happened, the 28th of February, Kenny and Gary had been out during the day,
18:40so they'd been out with these two particular friends and their child,
18:43and they'd gone back to the house together.
18:46On that evening, friends who went to the address with them will say that Gary was agitated.
18:53He was agitated over a PlayStation.
18:56There was some suggestion that in recent weeks something could happen between Kenny and Gary's ex-girlfriend.
19:05She disclosed to them, and was Gary not happy about that?
19:10And during the evening when the friends were there, Gary actually came downstairs and started to attack Kenny,
19:18and the friend intervened.
19:20What, physically attack?
19:21Yeah, physically attack him.
19:23Friend intervened and removed a hammer from him at that point.
19:29He then all calmed down and went back to normal.
19:32Kenneth Ford didn't seem too concerned about the attack.
19:35He reassured the friends that everything would be fine,
19:38and he would put Gary O'Neill to bed.
19:41So the two friends left around 11.25pm that night.
19:49They were devastated, absolutely devastated that they'd left,
19:52and then, you know, such a thing had happened to Kenny.
19:55Now, you must have had Gary's phone number from the fact he'd called the landlord.
20:00What was that telling you?
20:02And what that data was telling us was it looked as if he was moving up the country,
20:08specifically along the motorway called the M6,
20:12that takes you from Birmingham, essentially anywhere up north.
20:16On the face of it, it appears like he's gone on the run.
20:18For me, he's trying to escape the police.
20:21When your intelligence cell built up the picture, the profile of Gary,
20:29did he have a car?
20:30Gary had no access to his own transport, no.
20:33So the fact that he was travelling up the M6
20:36suggested he was on some mode of transport.
20:39Which you needed to try and find out what?
20:41Yeah, obviously, we had to then try and work out what that could be,
20:45which the next step of that is, what can my CCTV trackers tell us?
20:49People might mistakenly think that's quite easy, isn't it?
20:55Just follow someone on CCTV.
20:57Not that simple, is it?
20:59No, it's really difficult. This is a residential area,
21:02so the likelihood is there's not street cameras.
21:06Luckily, today, people have all sorts of security on their own addresses,
21:12which can be really useful to a police investigation.
21:15So the starting point is that street specifically overlooking Kenny's address
21:21and then just trying to piece together.
21:23If we can pick Gary up on CCTV, where does he walk?
21:27And at each point, we lose him off a camera.
21:29Is there another camera?
21:31Street cameras, commercial cameras, house cameras?
21:34Getting hold of that footage, picking it up,
21:37and just keep following someone.
21:40The male and female with their child,
21:42who are friends of both Gary and Kenny,
21:44but when they're left, as the CCTV shows,
21:47Gary and Kenny are back smiling on the doorstep together.
21:50Gary O'Neil left Kenneth Ford's home shortly before 2am.
21:58He actually walked past an ambulance,
22:00which was there by coincidence, having attended another address.
22:03But the suspect didn't flag the attention of the ambulance,
22:06he just walked straight past it.
22:08He was captured on camera carrying a carrier bag
22:10and what looked like to be a hammer.
22:12From there, the suspect went to a McDonald's in Cape Hill.
22:15Staff noticed that there was some blood on him at the time.
22:19And we didn't lose him a few times,
22:24but we managed to track him all the way
22:26to what's called Dig the Coach Station.
22:29So that's in the city centre of Birmingham.
22:32We then got him in the coach station, asleep.
22:35So it's kind of a case of working out which coach,
22:39where are the stops.
22:41So you're on his trail, but you're not quite there yet.
22:45Yeah, so we're on his trail, obviously at a coach station.
22:48If someone's paid with a credit card or something,
22:50it's easy to be 100% where they've gone.
22:53Somebody pays with cash, then not so easy
22:55because there's no trace of that ticket being bought
22:57and there's certainly no name on the ticket.
22:59So for me, top, top priority now is to locate Gary
23:03and arrest him as soon as possible.
23:13When I was talking to Michelle, it was clear that there was no obvious motive
23:18for why that level of violence would be used against Kenneth.
23:24There was some suggestion of an argument over a PlayStation.
23:27But would that be enough to have led on to the type of death that he suffered?
23:33Well, the simple answer is yes, it could be.
23:36What I saw throughout my career was that the most horrific crimes
23:41can be committed due to the most minor event.
23:45Sometimes in an investigation you get a lucky break,
23:55but what's happening unbeknownst to us is that Gary gets to Carlisle
24:00and then gets off the coach and onto a normal bus,
24:04just a normal double-decker bus.
24:06And the bus travels into Scotland.
24:09He's gone and sat initially on the upstairs.
24:12He starts to behave very strangely.
24:15He's on the phone and he's overheard by a member of the public
24:18in a conversation where he talks about a hammer.
24:22That conversation worries the person that overhears it.
24:27They overheard him saying he'd straightened Ken out.
24:30They also heard him talking to a woman,
24:33it sounded like, saying he'd left someone in a bad way.
24:36During one of the calls that was overheard,
24:39the suspect said they needed to call an ambulance.
24:42They're throwing away the key.
24:44Gary is wandering around the bus, harassing passengers on the bus,
24:50wandering up to people, talking to them,
24:53wandering back, sitting down, getting back up.
24:56He had been harassing them for a phone charger on the way.
24:59He was also observed to be staring through people
25:02like they were a piece of glass.
25:04One passenger commented.
25:05So various people on the bus actually make a call
25:08to the Scottish police and say they're concerned
25:11about a person on the bus and his demeanour and behaviours.
25:16So what that prompts is the Scottish police
25:18to meet the bus at a bus stop.
25:21They get on the bus, identify the passenger
25:25that people are concerned about,
25:27they take him off the bus and speak to him, obviously.
25:30And part of that is asking him for his name and his details.
25:35And it's at the point that they then check
25:37on the police national computer that they realise
25:40that he's wanted in England for the offence of murder.
25:44One of the real complexities with this investigation
25:51was Scottish law and English law are very different.
25:56So the law of England does not stand in Scotland.
26:00So the officers in Scotland were not able
26:02to arrest Gary for murder.
26:05So they arrest him for a public order offence,
26:07in effect an offence relating to him harassing people,
26:11his demeanour, his behaviour, on a bus.
26:15They take him to custody in Glasgow.
26:18It isn't as simple as they can't arrest him for murder.
26:22What they also can't do,
26:24because actually a public order offence
26:26is a very low-level offence that he's in custody for,
26:29is they are unable to take any of the forensic samples,
26:32forensic swabbing, that, had he been arrested in England,
26:37would have been done straight away
26:39to ensure that we were securing and preserving
26:41any evidence that he might have,
26:43such as his hands, for instance,
26:45but also in terms of, you know, samples,
26:48blood samples that might show, you know,
26:50was he drunk at the time?
26:52Was he taking any form of drugs at the time?
26:54None of that can be done either,
26:56because of the difference between English law and Scottish law.
27:00When the suspect was being detained in Glasgow,
27:07he made a comment to the police asking
27:09whether the man in the West Midlands had died,
27:11and then he started crying.
27:13He then asked, how long do I get for murder?
27:15And then he made the comment,
27:17I wouldn't get done for murder if it was an accident.
27:20And at that point, obviously, make a call to us
27:22in the West Midlands to say,
27:24we think this person's wanted by you.
27:27So, in essence, you need to send officers
27:29up to Scotland and bring him back?
27:31So, yeah, the next step is to get officers
27:33to go from the West Midlands to Glasgow.
27:35His clothing and phone and everything
27:37had been seized by the Scottish police,
27:39so obviously we brought all those back with us.
27:41That was initially taken locally for initial screening
27:44to understand, was there likely any blood on his clothing?
27:48That showed that there was blood on the sort of hoodie
27:51that he was wearing.
27:52That was then transferred to the specialist scientists
27:56at the forensic laboratory for testing as to understand
28:01who did that blood belong to?
28:03Was it his blood? Was it Kenny's blood?
28:06Whose blood was it?
28:07And the distribution on it would be important
28:09to understand how that blood got there.
28:11Yeah, again, a blood pattern analyst
28:14would have a look at his hoodie
28:16and they would try and understand how was it transferred.
28:20It was his opinion that it was transfer blood
28:23and that the patterns of it, again,
28:26suggested potentially wet blood flicking off something.
28:29So, if you could imagine a hammer
28:32or such an implement being consistently used,
28:35a splatter actually come in,
28:37spraying off that article onto Gary's clothing
28:41and, obviously, DNA analysis confirmed
28:44it was Kenny's blood.
28:49Because Gary was a frequent visitor of the address,
28:52any normal DNA you would expect to find, you know,
28:55so if you found his fingerprints,
28:57if you found his DNA anywhere in the house,
28:59well, you'd expect to find that.
29:01So it was critical that any DNA was actually related to the blood,
29:07related to the attack, hence why the blood on the hoodie
29:11was so crucial because it showed
29:14at the time that Kenny was attacked,
29:16that hoodie, at very least, was in the address.
29:19And, obviously, as we know, nobody else was in the address,
29:22then Gary must have been wearing that hoodie
29:24at the time of the attack.
29:26When he's brought into the custody block,
29:28he's actually quite calm in his demeanour,
29:32quite doesn't say a lot, looks at the floor a lot,
29:37very, yeah, answers when he's spoken to,
29:40but doesn't say any more than that.
29:42And at some point, then, he's going to be interviewed?
29:52That's correct.
29:53He actually replied no comment to all questions put to him.
29:56You have Gary in custody,
29:58and you're confident that he's the person that killed Kenny,
30:02but you need to build a case against him.
30:04What evidence were you able to obtain whilst he was in custody?
30:08We did a lot of work in terms of CCTV on the address,
30:13and what we were able to categorically say is,
30:17at the time we can say the last people not Gary or Kenny
30:22left the address to when Gary left the address,
30:26nobody else went in, nobody else came out,
30:29to categorically say the only two people in the address
30:32at the time of Kenny's death were him and Gary.
30:36What you're building up now is a strong case against him
30:40that is Gary that has killed Kenny.
30:43You go to the CPS with this to seek an authority for charge.
30:48What do they say?
30:49They authorise charge for murder,
30:51and he's charged in the early hours of the morning.
30:53How does he respond to that
30:55when he's told he's being charged with his friend's murder?
30:57He makes no response.
30:59The charges for murder serve between the 27th of the 2nd of 22
31:02and the 28th of the 2nd of 22 in the county of Birmingham
31:05and murdered Kenny for your country to Commonwealth.
31:08But Gary, have you got any replies to that charge?
31:10It seems like I've got to be charged.
31:12Getting someone charged is just one stage of a prosecution.
31:15There's a lot more work that needs to be done
31:17to get a case ready for trial.
31:19In terms of the forensics, that takes a lot of time
31:22for the scientists to bring that all together.
31:25What evidence were they able to give you?
31:28They were able to ascertain that that blood
31:30was in fact Kenny's blood,
31:32and actually the palm prints in it was also Kenny's.
31:35What they were able to tell us about the house
31:37was the marking in the top of the stairs
31:40was consistent with an implement, probably a hammer being swung,
31:44and that's what had caused the marks in the plaster.
31:48It was confirmed that the blood on Gary's clothing was Kenny's
31:52and what the blood pattern analyst was able to say was
31:55the way it was spread around his clothing
31:58was consistent with a sustained attack,
32:01likely with a weapon.
32:02So somebody's swinging something
32:04and that transfer was splattering small particles
32:08as opposed to, you know, a knife wound,
32:11which might be a gushing wound and create a lot of blood.
32:16When we combined that with the results
32:18of the forensic post-mortem,
32:20it showed that Kenny had suffered 112 injuries
32:24all over his body.
32:26The scientists, or the pathologist again,
32:29was able to say that some of the marks on his skull,
32:33his head, were consistent with that claw of a hammer,
32:37having carried out those injuries.
32:40So all of that evidence together
32:42was really strong evidence
32:44of some sort of, you know,
32:46frenzied attack happening in that address.
32:48When somebody's going to trial,
32:50what they are supposed to do, they're obliged to do,
32:53is serve what's known as a defence case statement,
32:55where essentially they outline
32:57what their defence is going to be to the prosecution.
33:00Did that happen in this case?
33:02It did.
33:03When we received the defence case statement from Gary,
33:06he said from the offset
33:07that he was responsible for the death of Kenny,
33:11but he said he'd acted in self-defence
33:14because Kenny had attacked him first.
33:21He said they'd had an argument
33:23and Kenneth Ford had asked him to leave the house,
33:25but he said before he wanted to go,
33:27he wanted to get his PlayStation,
33:29but Kenneth Ford wouldn't let him have it.
33:31At that point,
33:32he said Kenneth Ford attacked him
33:34and struck him to the head.
33:35At that point,
33:36he said he picked up the hammer from a toolbox
33:38and started striking Kenneth Ford with it.
33:40He apologised for killing Kenneth Ford.
33:43He said it was never his intention that night.
33:45He also said
33:46that he suffers from mental health issues
33:48and he blamed those mental health issues
33:51on some ten years ago,
33:53he tried to commit suicide
33:55which had resulted in a severe head injury.
33:58He suffered with some various different mental health issues
34:01and attributed that as well
34:04to what happened on that night.
34:06So essentially what he's putting across
34:08isn't just one defence, it's two.
34:10So self-defence, if believed,
34:13would mean that he would not be found guilty of anything.
34:16He's then putting forward a case of diminished responsibility,
34:20which, if believed,
34:22wouldn't be murder,
34:23would be dropped down to manslaughter.
34:26So he's edging his bets.
34:28Yeah, and that's exactly how it felt.
34:30I mean, luckily for us,
34:31in terms of Kenny attacked me first,
34:34Kenny was a much bigger person than Gary,
34:37taller, wider,
34:39generally much, much bigger than Gary.
34:41Kenny, we've already talked about,
34:44112 horrific injuries.
34:46Gary didn't have a single injury,
34:48so Kenny attacking him
34:52didn't make any sense whatsoever.
34:54Under English law,
35:05there are certain defences to murder.
35:07There are full defences,
35:09such as self-defence,
35:11and if accepted,
35:12the killer won't be convicted of anything.
35:14And there are what's known as partial defences,
35:17and one of these is diminished responsibility.
35:20So if somebody pleads guilty to manslaughter
35:23by diminished responsibility,
35:25essentially they're accepting the act,
35:27i.e. yes,
35:28I did kill the person,
35:29but at the time of doing so,
35:31I was suffering from what's known as a defect of the mind.
35:34Essentially saying,
35:35I was suffering from a mental illness
35:38that affected my reasoning and decision-making.
35:41And if accepted,
35:42it will be a far lesser sentence
35:44than it would be for murder.
35:46And then once someone puts forward a defence
35:53of diminished responsibility,
35:55some processes then kick in, don't they?
35:57They do, that's right.
35:58So what happens initially is
36:00both the defence and the prosecution
36:03have their own forensic psychologists.
36:06They will write a report for the court
36:08or for the Crown Prosecution Service
36:10or for the defence.
36:11Those reports are reviewed,
36:13and sometimes our prosecution expert will say,
36:17you need to accept this,
36:19because categorically,
36:20every part of the diminished responsibility is met.
36:23In this case, it went before the judge
36:25and both parties, defence and prosecution,
36:28put forward that we needed to understand better,
36:32could that head injury from ten years ago
36:35have any impact on his mental health.
36:39So a specialist neuroforensic psychiatrist
36:45was asked to write a report
36:48and he was purely focused on brain injury.
36:51And what did this expert say?
36:54So having done all of his tests,
36:57he said as a result of the head injury,
37:01his belief was that Gary functioned
37:05in terms of his ability to understand
37:07what he was doing, react to right or wrong.
37:11He was in a very small percentage
37:14of not being able to do that.
37:16So 99% of the population
37:18would know exactly what they were doing
37:20and understand the ramifications of it.
37:22He sat in that 1% that potentially might not.
37:27What happened then?
37:29My view at this point was a jury should decide,
37:34a jury should be faced with all the evidence,
37:36because sometimes you'll get to a position
37:38where all the forensic psychologists
37:42will say they agree.
37:44But in this occasion, that wasn't the case.
37:46There was a disagreement.
37:47So I felt it was right that a jury should hear
37:50what all those experts said and formulate that
37:53and based on the evidence
37:55and what Gary may or may not say.
37:58during trial as to whether he was guilty or not.
38:09So the decision was we're going to go to trial.
38:11Absolutely.
38:12And I suppose in many ways what you're looking at
38:16is more than just this brain injury
38:18and you want to look at that bigger picture
38:21and not just that snapshot of that moment.
38:23And that's exactly it.
38:24I felt it was right.
38:25It was right for Kenny.
38:26It was right for Kenny's family
38:28to let the jury have that picture
38:31and let the jury decide what their view was.
38:34So then we come to the trial.
38:41So it took place at Birmingham Crown Court
38:44and it was about 18 months after Kenny's death
38:47that the trial actually took place.
38:49Obviously his mum's there, so family, you know, for them,
38:53they've come over from Ireland,
38:55so it's a very tense time for them.
38:58Essentially that's what we're doing the job for as well, isn't it?
39:01It's all about the families.
39:02Yeah, family are always your priority.
39:04You can't do anything for the victim,
39:06but what you can hopefully do
39:08is get some justice and closure for the family.
39:11Kenny's mum was obviously extremely upset.
39:17She couldn't understand why Gary would murder him.
39:21She too saw them as friends and close friends.
39:24That probably added to her anger and upset
39:28because Kenny, as far as everybody was concerned,
39:32had been nothing but kind to Gary throughout his life.
39:36Any murder victim's family always want
39:40you know, a murder conviction
39:44and the longest possible sentence,
39:46which is life for murder.
39:51But as the prosecution opened the case,
39:53the full details were revealed.
39:54In all the years I've been covering murder cases
39:58and serious violence cases in the West Midlands,
40:01this was one of the most brutal lot I've ever seen.
40:06The prosecutor said they'd had some sort of falling out
40:08the previous night
40:09and that Gary O'Neill had accused him of being a pervert
40:12and having done something to his girlfriend in the past.
40:14He also accused him of smoking his cannabis.
40:17So, a real mixed picture of,
40:21was it to do with the PlayStation?
40:23Was it to do with an ex-girlfriend?
40:25Was it to do with nothing?
40:27What was it?
40:28And really we've never got to the bottom of what was the cause.
40:33Did Gary give evidence?
40:34He did give evidence, yeah.
40:36What did he say?
40:37He maintained that actually in that,
40:40the window of the assault, attack, murder,
40:44that he didn't remember what happened.
40:47He could remember what happened beforehand to a degree,
40:50but that window,
40:52he never really gave an account for what happened in that window.
40:55But really from the point where the friends left,
40:58didn't have any recollection,
41:00so he said of what had happened or gone on
41:03or how Kenny had ended up so severely injured.
41:06Throughout this whole investigation,
41:08the court trial, et cetera,
41:10had Gary ever shown remorse for what he did to Kenny?
41:13Not that I saw.
41:16So particularly if I put myself in Kenny's mum's shoes,
41:21she was never given any understanding
41:23or never given any sort of remorse apology
41:27for what had happened to her son.
41:29Having seen all the evidence,
41:32heard all the witness testimony,
41:35why do you think Gary, the best friend of Kenny,
41:44went on to kill him in the way that he did?
41:47I've never been able to reconcile
41:50what could have happened for him to react
41:52in such a violent manner.
41:55So I don't know is the honest answer.
41:57I really don't.
41:59In the UK, around 100 murders a year
42:02are directly attributed to severe mental illness
42:06on behalf of the killer.
42:08The sad thing for me in my experience
42:10when you're dealing with these crimes
42:12is that it's normally those closest to the killer
42:16that become victims, friends, families, loved ones.
42:20All around, they're just such tragic cases.
42:23The most tense part of any trial
42:25is when the jury are about to come back with their verdict.
42:28Given the overwhelming evidence in this case,
42:30I think a lot of people that had overheard it,
42:32certainly myself,
42:33were certain that Gary O'Neill
42:35was going to get convicted of murder.
42:47They decided not guilty murder,
42:50which by default meant he was guilty of manslaughter
42:53to diminish responsibility.
42:54They didn't have to decide on that.
42:56Obviously, that was already admitted to,
42:58so they only had to decide on
43:00was he guilty or not guilty of murder.
43:02How did that feel?
43:04It's devastating.
43:06You always want the result
43:09that you believe to be the right result.
43:11And I always believed that Gary was guilty of murder.
43:16And there was visible surprise and shock
43:20when the jury delivered the verdict of not guilty to murder.
43:27Kenny's mother was extremely upset and angry.
43:31Yeah, in her mind,
43:33Gary had quite literally got away with murder.
43:36She knew Gary.
43:37She'd known Gary all his life as well.
43:39So she didn't believe this was diminished responsibility.
43:45He actually got 15 years.
43:47So, in the grand scheme of manslaughter,
43:51was a better sentence than I expected.
43:59But would never be enough for a family.
44:01It doesn't equate to life.
44:02It doesn't equate to 27, 28 years,
44:04which he probably would have got
44:06had he been found guilty of murder.
44:09So when you say 15 years to me,
44:11I know through my experience
44:16that a judge's sentence often reflects
44:19what they believe a verdict should have been.
44:2315 years is a lot for manslaughter by diminished responsibility.
44:28As we've been sat talking, Michelle,
44:30what you've described to me is
44:33up there with one of the most horrific murders I've heard of.
44:36I can see that you are personally invested
44:39and you're invested for Kenny's family.
44:43And that comes down to your dedication,
44:45your professionalism,
44:46and your thoughts for the family.
44:49So, on behalf of Kenny,
44:51I want to say thank you, Michelle,
44:54for the professionalism you showed in this investigation
44:58and just literally the care for his family.
45:15In modern murder investigations,
45:17wrongly, in my opinion,
45:19pressure can be put on an SIO
45:22to make decisions that aren't in the interest of justice,
45:26but they're in the interest of convenience or budgets.
45:30Michelle was presented with the opportunity
45:34to take a plea for manslaughter.
45:37She was presented with what was essentially an easy out,
45:42except a plea for diminished responsibility.
45:45But would that have been justice?
45:48Her determination to do what was right for Kenneth
45:53and his family ultimately led to the same result.
45:57But she was absolutely right that this had to go before a jury.
46:02I was so impressed that Michelle stood up for what was right
46:06and not what was easy.
46:08It was the first time to do what was quiet and not what was easy.
46:12Transcription by CastingWords
46:42CastingWords
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