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murder uk s03e06
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00:10I'm David Wilson, Emeritus Professor of Criminology, and for over 30 years I've
00:17investigated the phenomenon of murder and what it is that might motivate someone to kill.
00:27Every murder case is different, but time and again, a deadly pattern emerges of warning
00:34signs and red flags.
00:39In this new series, I investigate some of the UK's most harrowing murder cases to understand
00:48how and why these terrible crimes occur.
00:55This is Murder UK.
01:18It's 2014, and James Fairweather was no ordinary teenager.
01:25After school, he retreated behind his bedroom door, choosing dark, violent websites and video
01:32games over friends.
01:33For an isolated young man, the internet had become his world.
01:43It was certainly apparent that he was becoming increasingly obsessed with the material that
01:49he was viewing and accessing on the internet.
01:54Investigative psychologist Donna Youngs, whose work helps define 21st century criminal investigation,
02:00had a unique perspective.
02:04She believed Fairweather didn't fit the classic profile of a psychopath.
02:10In fact, the presence of empathy may have made him a greater threat.
02:18James Fairweather is actually a highly sensitive, highly reactive, highly responsive and, in fact,
02:26highly empathetic individual.
02:28He actually was particularly suggestible, prone to becoming affected by the material in
02:35the way that he was.
02:43His parents hoped for the best, but the signs were concerning.
02:48Excluded from school, alone in his room, 15-year-old James nurtured a secret fixation,
02:56learning the methods used by serial killers.
03:00It was a very unhealthy interest that he had developed, and grew from an unhealthy interest
03:08into an obsession.
03:10James Fairweather was living in a world of online make-believe.
03:15A world that was shaping a dangerous teenager.
03:20Millions of people play video games.
03:23Quite happily, it has little or no effect on them at all.
03:27But Fairweather was obsessed with them.
03:30And, rather surprisingly, I think, for a 15-year-old, he was obsessed with violent pornography.
03:43Just the sheer number of hours that he spent looking at this horrific material, violent sexual material,
03:53glorifying details of serial killer cases.
03:56And it was also immersive in the sense that it was prolonged.
04:00So, both the number of hours and these over a prolonged period of time.
04:05You know, the word obsession or obsessive gets thrown around a lot in our culture.
04:10And that does seem to me to capture a little of James Fairweather.
04:15But not the totality of his identity.
04:18Because I think his obsession is almost akin to an affliction.
04:24He forms his identity by totally immersing himself in an online world.
04:32An online world that's characterized by violence, by murder, and by serial murder.
04:40No one knew the extent to which James was immersed in the violent world of the video games and websites
04:48he visited.
04:49An awful lot of it was done in secret.
04:53I don't imagine his parents fully knew quite how much time he was spending viewing material like this.
05:05The crucial element in all of this is Fairweather's prolonged immersion and exposure to an online world of violence, murder,
05:17and serial murder.
05:19Now, that prolonged immersion involves him wearing headphones, sitting in a darkened room, staring at a screen for hours on
05:31end.
05:32He's almost in a sensory cocoon, and that sensory cocoon provides for him a way of internalizing a way of
05:42being.
05:43Internalizing how to be James Fairweather.
05:48And that involves him assuming an identity from those things that he's consuming about how to hurt, about how to
05:57kill, about how to become notorious.
06:00And in that world, killers and serial murderers become aspirational figures.
06:07They don't become someone to fear.
06:10They become someone to be.
06:14Prolonged exposure to screen violence was warping Fairweather's mind.
06:20While his peers lived normal teenage lives, he was plotting to kill, learning his trade from the most horrific platforms
06:29of the new century.
06:31Even at school, the friendless teenager exhibited odd, violent behavior in a desperate bid to win popularity.
06:41He searched out friendships by punching other kids and getting a high five for doing so.
06:48He was a bit of a stooge.
06:49He would do things for other older boys in order to try and win their friendship, but nothing really worked.
06:55Fairweather was now gripped by a cocktail of obsessions.
07:00Brutal internet pornography, violent video games, and the faces of serial killers.
07:07These three fixations combined to form his macabre career ambition.
07:13There was a part of him that wanted to present as this serial killer seeking fame.
07:23Growing up, Fairweather had been reading about his heroes.
07:26He'd been reading about these murderers who'd committed heinous crimes.
07:30Ted Bundy, the notorious killer in America, and Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper.
07:39That's who he idolized.
07:42He poured over every word written about them, every documentary, every book.
07:50He wanted to emulate them.
07:53At 15 years of age, the extent of his ambition was to be a serial killer.
08:01Ironically, those who would later examine the workings of Fairweather's mind found a complex, deeply troubled young man.
08:10James was a very odd young man.
08:16He had convictions.
08:18He'd criminally damaged a house.
08:21He'd beaten up another pupil at school.
08:26Over the following year, his violent behavior escalated.
08:31One evening, the wannabe serial killer armed himself with a knife, stealing 30 pounds from a shop cashier.
08:40The violence that defined his online obsessions had spilled into the very real world.
08:50Despite this twisted development, no one knew about James Fairweather's serial killer fantasies.
08:58But a man named James Atfield was about to find out.
09:06A man named James Fairweather.
09:11Living a few miles away in Colchester, James Atfield, known as Jim, was rebuilding his life after a difficult period.
09:20At 33, Jim was a father of four, cherished by his family.
09:25But his life was irrevocably changed following a catastrophic accident.
09:34He'd been involved in an accident some years previously, which had left him with some brain damage.
09:41It just completely changed his life, and he was never fully functional again.
09:49The lives of Jim Atfield and the serial killer-obsessed teenager, James Fairweather, were destined to intersect.
09:59By 2014, Jim Atfield lived in sheltered accommodation and enjoyed a local pint.
10:08On the evening of March 29, 2014, James Fairweather was doing what he always did, staring at a screen, watching
10:17virtual violence.
10:21While Jim Atfield was out having a beer, James Fairweather slipped out, climbing from his bedroom window so his parents
10:31wouldn't know he had left, so he could stalk the town.
10:36You see him moving across a landscape, and then he comes across James Atfield lying, drunk, disabled, and he's easy
10:43prey.
10:44It's as if he's part of a video game.
10:52Some voices are talking to me, you need to make a sacrifice or we're going to come and get you.
10:56You need to do it.
10:57Was James Fairweather about to turn his digital fantasies into a deadly reality?
11:13It was the early hours, mild and misty, as Jim Atfield walked home along this deserted riverside path in Colchester.
11:26That time of the morning, the time of the morning that Jim was killed, the path would have been deserted.
11:31During the day, it was somewhere where people would walk dogs or take a shortcut, but after dark and after
11:37midnight, it would just be a deserted park path.
11:42And you can imagine that Jim felt quite safe in lying on the bench or even lying on the floor
11:47there because there was nobody about and there was no danger to him.
11:52I mean, Jim was really vulnerable, absolutely defenseless, really.
12:01James Fairweather was intent on moving his online passions into the real world, copying the avatars he controlled to make
12:12his obsessions come true.
12:15He'd later claim that voices in his head dictated what happened next.
12:22I saw him.
12:23He was lying on the grass.
12:25It was like...
12:28Fast asleep is where he was drunk.
12:31Then he goes, he goes, he's the one, he's the one, he's the one.
12:34Do it, do it.
12:34So I went up to him.
12:35Can I stand up?
12:36Yes.
12:37Went up to him.
12:39Stood over like that.
12:41Nothing like that.
12:43I stabbed him first there.
12:45I done it a few times.
12:47While I was doing that, my voices were laughing and laughing and laughing louder and louder.
12:51With the exception of one individual, I've never interviewed a serial killer who wanted to talk about their crimes.
13:00In fact, I've characterised them as being silent and uncommunicative.
13:06Now, compare that with someone who's desperate to talk about what he has done.
13:13He's desperate to talk about what he's done because he needs to tell everybody, look at how dangerous I am.
13:20Look at how evil I am.
13:22He's been following a script and he wants all of us to know about that script.
13:28He wants all of us to be afraid of James Fairweather.
13:42Shortly before six o'clock that morning, a passerby discovered Jim's body.
13:47The police were quickly on the bloody scene where they found something both gruesome and highly unusual.
13:57He received in excess of 100 stab wounds.
14:04Most victims of murder who are stabbed tend to suffer one or possibly two wounds.
14:10In this case, Jim suffered over 100 separate stab wounds.
14:15That's a really frenzy attack.
14:18Criminologists use the term overkill to describe what we see here.
14:23You know, stabbing someone a hundred times is using much greater violence than would be necessary to achieve the death
14:32of the victim.
14:34So the fact that there's overkill present means that we're dealing with some unexpressed psychological need to use that many
14:43stab wounds.
14:44And in relation to what's happening with Fairweather, we see some of those stab wounds aimed directly at the eyes
14:52of the victim.
14:53And that brings us into the territory of that immersive behavior that we know that Fairweather engaged in, where he
15:01had become obsessed with the crimes committed by the Yorkshire Ripper.
15:05And therefore, how this can be seen as emulating one of those people that he saw as heroic, one of
15:14those people that he aspired to.
15:16There's almost something of the avatar about the way in which James Fairweather is conducting himself. It's almost as if
15:25he is imagining himself in a game.
15:29An autopsy revealed a highly distinctive, savage style of stabbing.
15:36Not all these wounds were life threatening. Some of them were superficial, almost like little jabbing wounds.
15:44It was too early to make the link. But had detectives known about Fairweather's obsession with serial killers, the style
15:54of the attack might have rung a bell.
15:57Fairweather had picked this up from Peter Sutcliffe, the notorious Yorkshire Ripper, because he'd done exactly the same.
16:05Sutcliffe also stabbed his victims in the eyes. And guess what? Fairweather did exactly the same.
16:16The manner of the killing was horrific. And in particular, the pathologist who gave evidence remarked that it was highly
16:26unusual for the eyes themselves to be made the subject of stabbings.
16:31He was carrying out things that he'd copied from things he'd read on the internet or in books. You know,
16:38he was a wannabe serial killer. And he was acting out that fantasy.
16:43For investigative psychologist Donna Youngs, the nature of the attack itself revealed the inner workings of the mind of the
16:53killer.
16:53It doesn't suggest somebody dealing with another person in the way that we used to trying to understand murderous interactions.
17:01It doesn't suggest a real interpersonal encounter. What it suggests to me is somebody acting out a role themselves as
17:11if they are in a virtual reality, acting out a role almost irrespective of the victim.
17:20Early signs indicated this was going to be a profoundly difficult investigation for the Essex police.
17:29This type of attack, this type of murder, where it's obvious it's a stranger attack and there's no reason for
17:36it, they're the very difficult ones.
17:39They're the most difficult ones for detectives to solve. And you have to gather in every possible piece of evidence
17:45and take your time and go through it.
17:47You know, the detectives would have been horrified and shocked by the severity of the attack. But that doesn't tell
17:53you who did it.
17:56There was simply insufficient evidence from the body found near the bench. This was a crime like no other.
18:04It's a psychological style of murder. From somebody who's learned to murder on the internet, they are seeing themselves as
18:12some kind of avatar rather than the regular murders that the police are probably used to.
18:19Aside from the brutal method of the murder, police had little to go on. The killer had worn gloves, leaving
18:27no fingerprints. There were no immediate suspects in the frame.
18:32When you get an investigation like this, the adage is, show me how he lived and I'll tell you how
18:38he died.
18:38You have to look into the victim's contacts, friends, acquaintances, enemies, you know, see if anybody had some reason to
18:46kill him.
18:47And if that draws a blank, you start looking at things like, you know, was it a robbery? Well, here,
18:52there's no evidence that Jim had been robbed.
18:54Was he involved in drugs at all? There was no evidence of that. You start looking for a motive and
19:01find them and you realise you've just got a random killing with this immense savagery.
19:08And you know it's going to be a really long haul. It's going to be a really difficult job to
19:12investigate.
19:15The first one remained unsolved, but was a single murder. And as somebody in my line of work, that's not
19:26uncommon.
19:28It's fair to say that in the early days of the investigation, the police were struggling a bit. They had
19:34no murder weapon. They didn't have a suspect in mind. You know, they were, they were really up against it.
19:41Fairweather had, in fact, left a scene often associated with an experienced killer. He was using the forensic awareness skills
19:51he had meticulously learned online.
19:54Some of the things that he's done, the forensic awareness, some of the ways in which he's used the knife,
19:59are things which we would have taken as indications of somebody much older, somebody with much, much more criminal experience.
20:09The police interviewed a number of witnesses. In fact, three people drew up ephits of a potential suspect.
20:20The ephits were accurate portrayals of men seen nearby, but none were the killer. Fairweather had learned all too well
20:32from the internet how to avoid detection.
20:36He'd clearly spent a long time thinking about when was the right time to go out, how he was going
20:43to carry out the killing, and how he was going to cover his tracks afterwards.
20:47And the fact that he was able to avoid detection for so long does show how carefully he'd thought it
20:54through.
20:55Disposing of weapons, disposing of clothing, and so forth.
20:59So the police made a public appeal. They've recovered 38 knives. They've taken 106 statements. They visited over 300 houses.
21:12The reward was taken up to £10,000. And still, they didn't have their man.
21:25As the investigation intensified, Fairweather tracked the police's progress from the comfort of his bedroom using the internet and TV.
21:36The released ephits, looking nothing like him, offered him comfort.
21:42He was free to kill again. And that was his plan.
21:50Just two miles from the first murder scene, students from across the globe attended Essex University.
21:57It was here that 31-year-old science graduate, Nahid Al-Mania, was completing her PhD in 2014.
22:07She was a highly intelligent and caring young woman. She had high hopes and ambitions for her life, both back
22:15at home in Saudi Arabia.
22:17But had come to England, loved it in England, and come here to complete her studies.
22:22Nahid had been in England for six months. She'd been to the university for six months.
22:26She'd found it the welcoming and friendly and relaxing place that university campuses often are.
22:32And she felt absolutely at home there. And she was popular with her other students and fellow students and friends,
22:39and was enjoying life there.
22:51It was a drab, grey day when Nahid set off for her lectures.
22:57At half past ten in the morning, in broad daylight, she is on her way to her lectures.
23:04Nahid Al-Mania wasn't even five foot tall. She was wearing sunglasses and had a headscarf on. She was tiny.
23:16Her diminutive size may have made her appear vulnerable, an easy target.
23:22The other thing that strikes me, and again it's a subtle psychological aspect, is that the victims that James Fairweather
23:31picks on are very vulnerable.
23:34Fairweather had these ideas to be a serial killer, but he wasn't brave about it.
23:40He chose people that he knew he could easily overpower, the disabled, the small in stature.
23:46You know, he didn't want to fight, he just wants to kill.
23:50So what he's seeking are victims who are not going to put up a fight. He wants to dominate, he
23:56wants to control. He doesn't want somebody to challenge what he's doing.
24:01Because remember, he's been a victim himself at school. He himself knows what it's like to have been bullied, so
24:11he wants to choose people he feels he'll be able to overcome without them putting up much resistance.
24:20As she studied for a career in healthcare, Naheed had only known kindness in Essex.
24:26She was oblivious to the threat lurking adjacent to the riverside walk.
24:31James Fairweather, who had now begun his chosen career as a serial killer, and who needed another victim for his
24:40resume of violence.
24:43My voices were laughing and laughing and laughing and louder and louder.
24:56James Fairweather had decided he would kill the next person who walked along the Salary Brook Trail.
25:05He was skulking in broad daylight adjacent to the riverside path.
25:11Hiding in the bushes, as if it's a game, a hunting game.
25:15I think he'd been empowered by murdering Atfield and thinking that he'd got away with it.
25:22That attack was at night. This attack was in the day. He was getting bolder.
25:30Equipped with his gloves.
25:32This was around 10.30 in the morning. Naheed was in her traditional Islamic dress.
25:38And she's just making her way towards her lectures and just going about her everyday business as a student.
25:46Not knowing that Fairweather's lying in wait for her.
25:52And ready to pounce.
25:55Fairweather was wearing gloves, latex gloves.
26:03He came up behind Naheed silently.
26:09And attacked her.
26:14And he spun her round.
26:17As he did that, her sunglasses fell off.
26:19He stabbed her through the eye.
26:23She went to the ground. He stabbed her again through the other eye.
26:26And she actually suffered a fracture of the base of her skull.
26:30I mean, this is a terrible, cowardly attack on a defenceless person, resulting in horrible injuries.
26:36But also injuries that were just there for sadism, I guess.
26:54Naheed was found with 16 stab wounds.
26:58A lot less than he'd inflicted on Atfield.
27:02Maybe he'd spent longer stabbing Atfield because it was dark and he felt he was unlikely to be seen.
27:09Whereas his attack on Naheed was in broad daylight.
27:14Perhaps he had to act more quickly in order to do what he wanted to do and then make his
27:20escape.
27:21These stab wounds were just as lethal as the fractured skull.
27:26His initial stabbing went through the liver.
27:31Just separated Naheed's liver.
27:33He stabbed her in the breast with such force that it broke the ribs beneath her chest.
27:40And the stab wounds he inflicted on her eyes were so deep that the knife actually penetrated through to her
27:46brain.
27:47And this was an attack of, you know, unusual and shocking savagery.
28:00Fairweather disposed of the weapon in the fast flowing stream and bent his bloody clothing, copying his behaviour from the
28:08first murder.
28:11Fairweather's home contained the book, The World's Worst Crimes, which detailed Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, stabbing a victim in
28:20the eye.
28:21In his pursuit of infamy, Fairweather had again copied one of his heroes.
28:29We wouldn't have seen that, that style, that subtle psychological style, we wouldn't have seen a few years ago.
28:35To my mind, there's something about this which suggests somebody acting not from a visceral, angry, internal drive,
28:46but somebody slightly tentatively trying out things that they've seen, that they've learnt about for the first time,
28:55and therefore they pick an easy, easy target.
28:58We can see an escalation between Fairweather's first and second murders.
29:05You know, he kills Jim Atfield at night, but in his second murder, he's going to kill Nahid Al-Mania
29:14during the day.
29:16Now, that in itself is an escalation, because the risks of committing a crime during the day are quite clearly
29:25greater than the risks of committing a crime at night time.
29:30Why does he engage in that risky behaviour?
29:34Well, it gives a greater sense of thrill.
29:38It gives to him a greater sense that he really is the frightening serial killer that he's always aspired to
29:47be.
29:47The danger, though, is with that kind of escalation, it won't simply stop, it will continue,
29:54and therefore there might be a third, a fourth, or indeed a fifth murder.
30:01Though separate teams initially dealt with each murder,
30:05the commonality of features and the methods used meant that they had to be linked.
30:12This was now a hunt for a double murderer.
30:16The first issue that Essex police would have thought about is,
30:21has he stopped? Is there going to be another one?
30:24You know, we've had these two horrific murders in the same area with a commonality of method and, you know,
30:31features that make you think,
30:33yes, it's probably the same person.
30:36Is there literally a killer on the loose?
30:39How long have we got? Can we stop him before he strikes again?
30:43When you're looking at this situation and worrying about is there going to be another offence,
30:49it's kind of, will we get a lead?
30:52Will we get something that will take us to him before he does strike again?
30:55Has he made a mistake?
30:57How much planning has he done? Is there a chink in his armour? Can we get there?
31:01And one thing that the officer in charge will be thinking is,
31:05do I need to put more resources into this?
31:07Is this such a danger? Is this such a danger posed to the public that I need to put as
31:14many resources as I can possibly lay my hands onto to make sure we catch this man before somebody else
31:19is murdered?
31:22140 knives were submitted for forensic examination.
31:30550 hours of CCTV footage was poured over and examined.
31:38Over 1,500 police officers and 180 police staff worked on those enquiries in the search for a truth.
31:45There were significant searches in parks, waterways and open public spaces.
31:50The enquiry that was carried out into those two murders was the largest type of enquiry carried out by Essex
31:58police for over a decade.
32:01Yet another ephod was produced from witnesses.
32:06Police then initiated an operation to interview anyone with a history of knife crime in the area over the previous
32:15two years.
32:15The police scooped up 70 people, all of whom had a history of committing offences with knives.
32:24Two weeks after the murder, James Fairweather was interviewed as part of the operation.
32:29He told police he'd been at home all day playing video games and trawling the internet.
32:36He was not arrested.
32:38The police interviewed Fairweather, so there they had it, a double killer, sitting in front of them.
32:50They didn't have the evidence and they let him go.
32:58You need some evidence, you need fingerprints, you need DNA, you need eyewitness sightings, they had none of that.
33:04With Fairweather, we see this almost autodidactic self-taught forensic awareness.
33:12He knows how to ensure that the forensic evidence won't connect him to the crime.
33:20He knows about putting various materials and water to flush away forensic evidence.
33:27He's immersed himself not just in the world of serial killers.
33:32He's immersed himself in an online world that would tell him how to avoid being caught for any crime that
33:41he'd like to commit.
33:4411 agonising months followed.
33:48Fairweather's obsessions continued to dictate his life.
33:53Meanwhile, police issued appeals for help, releasing a photograph of a distinctive Italian-made jacket,
34:01described by a witness as worn by a man in the area after the second murder.
34:06Now, here's a great lesson in the value of public appeals by the police.
34:14About a year later, a woman is out walking and she sees somebody wearing a jacket and she thinks,
34:23there's that distinctive Italian jacket. I've heard about that.
34:29She picks up the phone and she calls the police.
34:35Hi, I wonder if you can help me.
34:37I'm actually on the Salary Brook, the long ridge end of the trail where that murder was last year.
34:44And there's a very suspicious guy down there who's just standing there.
34:48And it's like obviously a dog trail.
34:51And he's just on his own and it's quite an excluded area.
34:56I don't think there's anyone around to have a look.
34:58And he's got like a, I don't know, I could be wrong, but he's got a jacket that looks very
35:05similar to what was all over the paper and everything.
35:08And it's on the same trail as what happened almost a year ago.
35:14The collar stayed on the line, bravely observing the man she suspected of being the killer.
35:23Well, to be honest with you, he's on a bridge and yeah, not a footpath.
35:28He was stood behind some of the trees and there it's obviously, it's only like a dog place.
35:34I saw himself hiding.
35:37And it made me freeze.
35:40Concerned it was the killer, she walked away.
35:43Found a friend with a large dog and cautiously walked back towards the spot.
35:50The man she was describing was standing yards from the scene of the two murders.
35:57No, he's practically hiding, he's practically, he's on a bridge just practically, yeah, he's in a secluded area.
36:06It's the long bridge end of the Salary Group Trail.
36:10Yeah, so it's a little bridge that goes across into the Bowman's Ford.
36:17It was James Fairweather and he was looking for his third kill.
36:32The collar, who recognised the distinctive jacket, left the scene.
36:38Police arrived quickly, located Fairweather and arrested him.
36:46Fairweather is searched.
36:47He's got a lock knife, he's got latex gloves, he's prepared, he's plotting, he's planning, he's lying in wait.
36:56That woman who made that phone call is a hero.
37:01Almost a year after his second victim, and on the very day he planned a third kill,
37:06Fairweather was finally in custody.
37:09The screen violence obsessive seemed eager to claim his moment of fame,
37:15to be acknowledged, like his heroes, as a serial killer.
37:19When Fairweather was interviewed, he admitted both murders
37:23and he claimed he was going to kill and kill and kill again.
37:29He wanted to claim the lives of another 15 people.
37:33Fortunately, he was denied that opportunity.
37:40Fairweather's claim that he wanted to kill another 15 people is part of his fantasy.
37:46Frankly, he's a wannabe.
37:49Serial killers themselves are not these incredible, sophisticated predators.
37:54Serial killers are often what I call betas, desperate to become alphas.
37:59They desperately want to have power and control in a culture in which they feel they have been rendered powerless.
38:09With Fairweather, we've just got somebody who's desperate for fame.
38:13And murder, the use of lethal violence, is the way that he believes he can become famous.
38:20Fairweather would have murdered again. It excited him. He loved doing it.
38:24He wanted to go on and on until he was caught.
38:27If Fairweather hadn't been caught, he would have gone on to kill again, probably on that very same day.
38:40When the police searched Fairweather's home, they found all the books and DVDs about serial killers,
38:48all the evidence of his obsession.
38:51They found Nahid's DNA. They found a knife and a latex glove.
38:57And they also found a file which contained all the newspaper cuttings about the murders that he'd committed.
39:07Fairweather had achieved fame through infamy, but there was a twist to his story.
39:12After admitting to the killings, he returned to his web world, this time for inspiration in seeking legal defence.
39:21We know that James Fairweather looked online for a potential defence for his crimes.
39:26We know that he researched the case of the Stockwell Strangler, who pleaded diminished responsibility in court and got his
39:34murder charges reduced to manslaughter.
39:38The man tasked with Fairweather's defence was Simon Spence.
39:42His job was clear, argue for a reduction from murder to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
39:49My first involvement with James Fairweather's case was shortly after he'd been arrested.
39:55He was arrested on the 26th of May of 2015 and had a solicitor present in his interviews.
40:03And the solicitor then instructed me to represent James at his trial.
40:08He was clearly a very troubled young man when I first met him.
40:15I was doing that and my voices were laughing and laughing and laughing louder and louder.
40:19He accepted the killings. He'd given a very detailed account.
40:23And he'd also said in his interviews that he was hearing voices in his head.
40:28And they were telling him to go out and make sacrifices.
40:32The issue was whether those claims were genuine or not.
40:36And if they were, whether that amounted to the defence of diminished responsibility.
40:40According to his defence, Fairweather's isolated lifestyle, friendless, obsessive and his autism diagnosis were key factors.
40:51To Simon Spence, that condition amplified the dangerous obsessions, suggesting a case for diminished responsibility.
41:02And, of course, obsession is a very recognised characteristic of somebody suffering from autism.
41:10And the obsession was clearly growing.
41:14We had provided to us by the prosecution a schedule of the websites he'd accessed, how long he'd been on
41:21them, when he'd accessed them.
41:23And you could see a growing trend of this material being accessed.
41:29Somebody being autistic does not make them violent.
41:33The difficulty is that somebody suffering from autism can be more obsessive than somebody who is not.
41:42And if the thing they become obsessed with is extreme violence, then that is what can put their obsession with
41:53extreme violence and make it a reality.
41:56And that's the role that I felt James' autism had to play.
42:02Four psychiatrists accepted Fairweather was autistic.
42:07But critically, this is neither a defence nor an excuse for murder.
42:13Most autistic people manage perfectly well without committing acts of violence.
42:18The consensus was that the voices in the head were a charade.
42:25I don't subscribe to the view that killing is motivated by voices in the head.
42:32Clearly, there's no direct relationship between autism and violence.
42:37But I think in this case, his autistic challenges put him in a position where he fell into a lifestyle
42:48of being immersed in this material, which was highly dangerous.
42:56He was convicted of murder and sent to prison for life.
43:01On being told he would serve a minimum of 27 years in prison, Fairweather showed no emotion.
43:10He was a very unemotional individual.
43:14Anybody who saw the way he described what was happening in his police interviews could see how unemotional he was.
43:22Some voices are talking to me.
43:24You need to make a sacrifice or we're going to come and get you. You need to do it.
43:27That was what he was actually like until I saw him after he'd been sentenced.
43:33I'd never seen him frightened or shed a tear or anything.
43:37He was remarkably matter-of-fact about what had happened.
43:42Now, whether that was part of his mental problems or whether he was just cold and callous,
43:49and that's what led the prosecution expert to say he was an emergent psychopath, perhaps only time will tell.
43:57But he was remarkably unemotional and detached from the whole proceedings all of the times that I saw him.
44:07James Fairweather was born in 1999, the eve of the new millennium.
44:12He craved notoriety, sought it through becoming a serial killer, and learned his trade on the internet.
44:20His mind was warped by the violent pornography and video games that he played in his room.
44:28With James Fairweather, I'm not sure that he had those very early experiences,
44:33which we would normally expect to see in somebody that became a serial killer.
44:37So, actually, what made him a serial killer, I am convinced, was the material that he was exposed to,
44:45rather than anything about his predisposition or his very early life.
44:50Fairweather's story tells us how some people will react
44:56when we elevate the serial killer into becoming an aspirational figure.
45:02When we begin to see the serial killer as somebody who possesses incredible intelligence,
45:09somebody who we can admire,
45:11that's the problem about how our media sometimes reacts to the phenomenon of serial murder and serial killers.
45:21Now, that having been said, we've got to remember a serial killer is still defined as somebody who will kill
45:27three or more people
45:28in a period of greater than 30 days.
45:31But I've got no doubt that if Fairweather hadn't been stopped,
45:35he would have continued to have killed,
45:38because that was his dream, that was his aspiration,
45:42that's who he wanted to be.
45:46For that sake of the ever- effectively,
45:52it's been well.
46:12For that sake of the ever-
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