Britain's Almost Perfect Murders Season 1 Episode 2

Reality Movies TV

Britain's Almost Perfect Murders Season 1 Episode 2 # Bölüm Link Tele duyurusu: https://t.me/CinemaSeriesUSFilm "Bu videoyu beğendiyseniz ve gece geç saatlerdeki kahve ihtiyaçlarımızı karşılamamıza yardımcı olarak ekibimizi desteklemek istiyorsanız, lütfen PayPal aracılığıyla bağış yapın! ☕️ Küçük bir hareket – büyük bir etki. Hepinize çok teşekkürler! ❤️" Bağış yapmak için: [https://www.paypal.me/ngaxo] 🎬 Reality :Reality Movies TV – Türk dizilerinin buluştuğu yer 🌍 📺 Tam İngilizce altyazı, tüm diziler hızla güncelleniyor 💖 En yeni gişe rekorları kıran filmlerle sınırsız eğlence ✨ 👉 Hepsini izlemek için hemen katılın! 🔗 Resmi Kanal: [https://dailymotion.com/pulseframe] 👉 Tag : #  #RealityMoviesTV #dramazel #TurkishDrama #TurkishSeries #EngSubTurkishDrama #TurkishMovies #TurkishDramaWithSubtitles #TurkishRomance #TurkishDramaFans #TurkishSeriesEnglishSub #TurkishTVShows #Turkmenistan #TürkDizileri #TürkFilmleri #TürkDraması #TürkDizisi  #TürkSineması

Transcript

00:01The perfect murder, the unsolvable crime, does it really exist?

00:08In a TV first, we reveal the cutting-edge technology

00:12now used by British police to join the dots

00:15and reveal new evidence in all homicide investigations.

00:19I'm Tim Tate. I've been an investigative journalist for almost 50 years.

00:26I'm Sam Robbins and I'm a criminal intelligence analyst.

00:30For over 20 years, I've worked alongside detectives on major murder investigations.

00:34Together, in this new series, we are going to discover the fatal mistakes

00:39which prevented the perfect murder from ever being committed.

01:06If you are missing a couple, you won't go to the other university,

01:08and you're a criminal justice.

01:08The time you're missing a local crime is the existence of the substance.

01:08I've been a and a and an active detective.

01:09It's reallyammen-based, and very dangerous.

01:11or take a run a disciple.

01:13I just feel a bit different to learn a little bit over it.

01:14I'm a man-made liar and a young woman and a young woman.

01:15There's no man in the normal life of a companion.

01:17I was a man-made liar.

01:24The one on his own brother called a man-made liar.

01:25For about five years, Carol Ray thought she had got away with a double murder.

01:33Her husband and disabled daughter died in a fire.

01:37She had deliberately started at their council home in West Yorkshire.

01:43Carol posed as a victim and a hero,

01:47and she even got a commendation from the coroner at the inquest into her husband and daughter's death.

01:56But murder will always out.

02:06From start to finish, this is like a classical Greek tragedy.

02:11It's only going to end one way.

02:13The benefit that we've got in this case is that we're able to look at it retrospectively

02:17and what is quite telling here is the pattern of behaviour.

02:21So you're looking at triggers and then the acts of arson that Carol Ray undertakes.

02:27At the time these crimes and these police investigations took place,

02:32was this sort of timeline analysis a thing?

02:37Analysis in this country started to take off in the early 90s, really,

02:42and then it's grown from there.

02:43So we've now got the benefit of about 30 years' worth of crime intelligence analysis

02:48as a profession and as a career.

02:51Let's start with what we know about Carol Ray and her early life.

02:56Yes.

02:56I think it's fair to say this is a fairly tragic tale from start to finish.

03:02So Carol was born Carol Stoker in Hartlepool in 1957.

03:10Carol Ray was born to Linda and John Stoker.

03:13She was one of seven children.

03:15She had an unremarkable childhood.

03:18But at the age of 11, her father started sexually abusing her.

03:26That undoubtedly had an impact on her growing up.

03:29She was only 11 when that first happened.

03:32That would be something which really would have impacted on her ability to interact with other people,

03:39particularly trusting men.

03:41And lots of cases we see like this often turn out to be quite tragic for the victim of these

03:47crimes.

03:50And it's not to excuse what she's done later on,

03:53but really it's something that will have impacted on her personality and her ability to grow as a person.

04:02It's so important to understand the background of any offenders and any victims

04:08to see what's happened in their past that could have caused them to take the path that they've taken.

04:14And sexual abuse beginning at the age of 11 is going to be a key trigger.

04:19Yes. Those are such formative years, aren't they?

04:21And when it's at the hands of someone that should be wholeheartedly trusted and is there to protect you,

04:27I can only imagine how traumatic that is.

04:30Carol tries to get away from her father and her family.

04:34She does.

04:36She ran away and made her way to the Halifax area and got herself a job.

04:41There she met Richard Ray.

04:45Carol's relationship with Richard was a sort of childhood sweetheart thing.

04:50She was infatuated with him. He was her supervisor at work.

04:55She stole him from another woman. She saw him as a love of her life.

05:00She meets Richard, who goes on to become her husband.

05:03Very early on in 1970. So she's 14 at that time.

05:09Which is probably an effort to try and move away because by 15, she's pregnant and has Mary her first

05:17child.

05:17So in 1971.

05:19Let's talk about her early married life. What sort of conditions is she living in?

05:26Carol's second child, Sean, is born in 1973.

05:30And then in 1974, Amanda is born as she has physical disabilities.

05:36That's an incredibly difficult dynamic.

05:39You've already got two children. You now have a child that has got extra needs.

05:42You're not very well off.

05:44You've got a husband who is drinking quite heavily and you've got a father that is abusing you.

05:50So in terms of her quality of life, it was traumatic and not very good at all.

05:58The relationship deteriorated with his alcoholism debt.

06:04He was terrible with money.

06:05But everybody thought he was a fun-loving person, happy-go-lucky.

06:08But Carol thought he was becoming evil and got them into debt and he was unfaithful with other women.

06:21But Richard Ray was not the only man in Carol's life or in her bed.

06:28Throughout the early years of her relationship with Richard Ray, even through the period where she gave birth twice to

06:41the couple's children,

06:43John Stoker continued sexually to abuse his daughter.

06:51Now, when someone is abused at such a young age and so extensively, it creates often very problematic behaviours, both

07:01in childhood and in adult life as well.

07:03You are not able to deal with things in a typical way often.

07:08You don't have healthy coping mechanisms very often.

07:13In 1977, Carol became pregnant with her father's child.

07:20She was forced to have an abortion to hide what he had been inflicting on her.

07:28And her life began spiralling ever further into depression and out of control.

07:39I mean, that's a perfect storm, isn't it?

07:41Absolutely.

07:42I mean, something has to break, doesn't it?

07:44It's such a build-up of dealing with so much that something has to give.

07:48How did Carol Ray's break happen?

07:52The first incident that we can pinpoint is the abortion of the child that would have been her father's.

08:00And that's in 1977.

08:02So, in December 1977, she sets fire to the family home.

08:09She set fire to a lot of clothes in the house and caused a big fire.

08:15Nobody was injured and they all escaped, but they had to move from the house.

08:20So, what we often see with particularly females who have been abused by family members is they lack a sense

08:27of control in their lives.

08:30And sometimes they will resort to problem behaviours to try and get that attention, to get some control over things.

08:36And one of those things that people often do is things like fire setting.

08:42And fire setting, particularly in arson, are often seen as types of crimes that will attract a lot of attention.

08:49It's very destructive, obviously, but also there will be fire engines and people and the whole kind of commotion that

08:56goes with it.

08:57And that, to the person who's trying to get that psychological input from the event, can be quite powerful.

09:05Statistically, it's quite unusual for an arsonist to be female.

09:10And Carol was quite prolific in her fire setting.

09:14And this was usually as a reaction to particularly stressful periods in her life,

09:20or they occurred after an accumulation of particular stresses.

09:28So, we know from your timeline that December 1977...

09:34Yes.

09:34..that's the first time that she starts a fire in response to trauma.

09:39Yes. Was she trying to hurt people?

09:41Was she trying to hurt herself?

09:43It's certainly a trigger response pattern that we're seeing.

09:50Carol Ray was an arsonist because she was an abused child.

09:55And because she continued to be an abused adult.

10:17Richard and Carol marry.

10:19The children are taken into care.

10:22Richard then loses his job or becomes redundant.

10:26And that is causing him to drink heavily.

10:31So, whether Carol is then thinking that she's about to become the victim of two abusive men.

10:38Her father is still, you know, abusing her.

10:42She's got all that abuse in her background.

10:44And then Carol's sister confides in her that she has been abused by her father,

10:52which Carol had no idea of up until that point.

10:58Although Carol Ray tried to escape her dad and he tracked her down,

11:02and he continued that abuse so significantly that she needed to have an abortion

11:07because he had actually impregnated her.

11:10It's not unusual that that abuse would then trauma bond someone like Ray to her dad.

11:19When Ray actually finds out that her sister is being abused also at the hands of her father,

11:25she isn't able to cope with this.

11:28She becomes almost jealous of that.

11:31Carol loved her father because she said, she actually said, for all he did, I loved him.

11:36And I think she wanted him to herself, not to her sister and everybody else.

11:44While to people who haven't suffered that level of abuse, that would seem absolutely outrageous.

11:51It's this trauma bonding.

11:53And that happens when someone has been abused at such a young age and so significantly as well.

12:00That's where we see the fire starting as a response to being unable to cope with stress in a normal,

12:07healthy way.

12:11In November 1980, Carol sets her second house fire and this time there are eight people including herself in the

12:20house.

12:22She set fire to the close in the airing cupboard and caused a major fire from which she went upstairs

12:32allegedly to warn her parents.

12:35The three brothers jumped out of the bedroom window and got seriously injured with broken bones.

12:41She jumped out as well and broke her arm.

12:44The firemen who attended the scene said it was like a battlefield with them all laying round with injuries.

12:50The house became totally gutted but everything else was saved.

12:56It was eventually, though it was held to be a bit suspicious, put down to an electrical fault.

13:03In terms of forensic fire investigation, then there are three elements really.

13:12The cause of the fire, how it developed and then potentially who was responsible.

13:19So when you're dealing with a case from the 1970s when the fuel to start a fire was effectively our

13:30home furnishings,

13:32which could be ignited through very simple means of just holding a match,

13:37then it meant that the cause of fire was very often established to be the things that were available in

13:47the home.

13:47And the intent to start that fire suddenly becomes a very difficult prospect to investigate

13:55because we know that people who smoked in their homes would potentially cause these fires inadvertently or just totally by

14:05accident.

14:05So, of course, when that fire is started intentionally, it makes the investigation of intent very difficult indeed.

14:18It seems to have been the answer to all the problems is if I want a new house, I'll burn

14:23the monarch down I'm in.

14:24If I'm in debt, I'll set fires and I'll get some money.

14:28Or if Richard wasn't behaving himself, that she could force him due to the fire to conform, to stop drinking.

14:38I think what could be interesting in this particular case is that Carol is hospitalised for four weeks.

14:46So when you're in hospital, it's a lot more difficult for people to abuse you.

14:51You're being cared, you're warm, you're in a safe environment, people are actively taking care of you.

14:58In her mind, this isn't just releasing the safety valve that she needs when the pressure builds up too much.

15:05It actually rewards her.

15:07Yes.

15:08So after this oasis of calm, she's thrown back in the maelstrom of her family life.

15:14Yes.

15:15Or is this another reward that her children are returned to her?

15:19So that might be a double reinforcement in terms of the behaviours that you're then going to see going forward.

15:26But the underlying problem is still there.

15:28Yes.

15:29So November 1980 was a fire that caused her to be hospitalised and you've got a five-year build.

15:35So that's a long time.

15:36On the 24th of September, Carol sets light to her family home and this time it has fatal consequences.

15:48Again, she became unhappy with where she was.

15:52Richard was drinking again heavily.

15:54In fact, he was regularly falling asleep downstairs drinking.

16:00Though he got well with the neighbours and they thought he was a nice person.

16:05He would spend long periods of time unemployed.

16:08He had an issue with alcohol and would often drink away what little money they did have as a family.

16:15And she also tried to support three children within that environment as well.

16:20Her youngest child was a daughter who suffered quite significantly due to disabilities which she was born with.

16:28That was again an additional stressor for Ray within that family environment.

16:36The night of Tuesday, September the 24th 1985 was pretty much like any other night in that family's life.

16:46Richard got drunk on cider and passed out on the sofa.

16:52Carol put the children to bed.

16:56She'd come to a stage where Richard's drinking that she couldn't live with it anymore in her mind.

17:04So he'd been out to a pub, had a few drinks and on the way back he'd met a neighbour.

17:11And they were both out actually walking the dogs.

17:15And the neighbour said he was in a good mood, there was nothing to it.

17:19But he went back home and then he continued drinking bottles of cider until he fell asleep.

17:25Which had sort of become a practice.

17:30On those occasions Carol couldn't manage to wake him up again.

17:34So on this night, she'd had enough.

17:39They were in debt.

17:41And she was fed up of him drinking.

17:45Her anger and her pain was bubbling up.

17:50And while her husband snored, she struck a match and carefully placed it on the arm of a chair.

18:06Very quickly, the living room went up in flames.

18:12The television exploded.

18:16The windows blew out.

18:19Carol's screams woke up her children.

18:22Mary, who was then 14, grabbed her brother, Sean, then aged 12, and dragged him to safety out the front

18:33door.

18:35Amanda, 11 years old, was so severely disabled that she wasn't able to escape.

18:48Amanda was left in the house.

18:51Carol made no attempt to go back in and get Amanda or to help her husband out of the fire.

18:59There was an eyewitness account and it said that Ray was just stood in the living room, motionless, looking out

19:07into the world.

19:09And it was only after a period of time that she then tried to escape.

19:18Carol was standing inside the house as the flames were building up and yet she did nothing.

19:27What does that indicate to you?

19:30There are several scores of thought here, isn't there, or several lines of thought that you could go down.

19:34Was she waiting to be rescued?

19:37Was she waiting to die?

19:40Was she hoping that the fire wouldn't spread as much as it did?

19:44I think it's difficult to tell her mindset.

19:48Was she finally ready to go with the rest of the family and didn't want to be separated from them?

19:55There's a couple of things which can be read from that potentially.

19:57That is someone who doesn't really have much consideration for any life around her.

20:03Someone who is completely resigned to the fact that she's going to die and she has set this house on

20:10fire.

20:11And it almost in kind of a suicidal ideation.

20:16But then there's also the other side to that, where she doesn't relate setting the fire to causing harm, particularly

20:24to her children.

20:26And the neighbours describe her as just walking about impassive.

20:33Outside as if in a trance, and not really bothered about what was happening, until she noticed people watching at

20:40her when she would start screaming, saying,

20:42My children are in the house.

20:44The fire brigade came and found Richard dead, having died through inhalation of smoke.

20:53And Amanda was in the bedroom. She had 35% degree burns.

20:59And they resuscitated at the scene. And she was taken into hospital.

21:07Twelve days after Carol Ray set that fire, her daughter Amanda died.

21:31Carol Ray causing a fire, which has ultimately led to the death of her own child, is incredibly shocking and

21:38incredibly sad.

21:40A parent's main job in their life is to look after their child, is to make them feel safe.

21:47And there's often more emphasis placed on this when it's a mother and a child.

21:51Because of that historic maternal role.

21:56In terms of forensic fire investigation, then it would have definitely been an observation-based investigation.

22:06So firefighters would have entered that property with the primary purpose of extinguishing any fire.

22:15And then beyond that would have then tried to establish the cause of that fire.

22:20Now, if the cause of that fire was a piece of furniture that had been ignited in the property, then

22:27it's very difficult to suddenly start to pick that apart from an accident versus something that was intentional and effectively

22:37started in order to commit murder.

22:41She convinced everybody that he'd caused the fire by accidentally dropping a cigarette while drunk.

22:48At the inquest, she persisted with that story to the extent that the jury believed her and recorded an accidental

22:56verdict for the deaths.

22:59The coroner commended her for her actions in getting the other two children out, which in fact she hadn't.

23:08What is interesting is that Carol then receives a commendation from the coroner.

23:15So although her husband and her disabled daughter have been killed because of the fire she started, Carol is essentially

23:24treated as a hero.

23:26Yes.

23:28So, we're going back to that positive reinforcement.

23:31Yep.

23:32She's come out and been rewarded for starting a fire.

23:37In terms of that positive reinforcement of behaviours, that's now the second time that you've started a fire and you've

23:45got something positive from it,

23:47despite the fact that her husband and her child have died.

23:54It's very likely that Ray got a release from starting the fires.

24:00She had no outlet for her anger, for her frustration, for her trauma.

24:06So often setting a fire would be akin to a release for her.

24:10However, when she was then praised for rescuing members of her family from one of the fires,

24:17that potentially would have given her a bit of a thrill because she was suddenly seen as someone who was

24:22important,

24:23who was useful, someone who had a purpose in life and someone who was needed as well.

24:29She obviously was of the belief that nobody would catch her.

24:33Having gone through the coroners and got an accidental death verdict, she thought she'd got away with it.

24:38In fact, committed the perfect murder.

24:45And for the next five years, because it is, from what your chart shows, it is another five years between

24:52that fatal fire and the next one.

24:55Yes.

24:56Carol Ray essentially gets away with murder.

24:58Yes, she does.

24:59I mean, that is as close to a perfect murder, if you like, as you can imagine, isn't it?

25:07Yes, yeah.

25:08And is rewarded for her efforts.

25:11Yeah, absolutely.

25:13But all of the underlying familial problems, apart from her husband...

25:20Yes.

25:21..and disabled daughter...

25:23Yes.

25:23..still exist.

25:24They do.

25:29Ray got away with the murders of her family members for many years.

25:34This may have been something which she felt haunted her

25:39because their deaths were never premeditated or it was never intentional to kill them.

25:44But she also was able to quite convincingly lie about the cause of the fires initially.

25:51So it might have been something that haunted her.

25:54But actually, she also may have just tried to forget that this had happened and move on.

26:00Particularly if it wasn't intentional and this fire starting came from a need for a release of trauma and stress.

26:12By 1990, she, Mary and Sean were living in a new council house in Gargrave Close, Rastrick,

26:23just six miles from the scene of the fire which had killed her husband and daughter.

26:29She was living with another woman, a woman whom she'd taken in as a lodger who had a young daughter.

26:38They had started a relationship. We could never get to the bottom of exactly what the relationship was.

26:45Unfortunately, that lodger, Dawn Holdroyd, had a boyfriend.

26:49And on the night of Wednesday, January the 24th, 1990, Dawn went out on a date with her boyfriend,

26:56leaving her infant daughter in Carol Ray's care.

27:01And Carol thought, if I start a small fire, she'll come back home straight away.

27:06So she set fire to the curtains in the dining room.

27:12The fire got out of control, but she got the children out of the house that was there and the

27:18fire brigade came.

27:20In the aftermath of the fire, Ray explained that it was an accident, that it had potentially been caused by

27:27an electrical fault.

27:28And that was something which, in hindsight, was seen as quite unusual because she had obviously started the fire,

27:37but then was very calm and very calculated in the way that she described it as being an accident.

27:44That fire, fortunately, no one died in.

27:48No fatal consequences to that fire, no.

27:50But it did have consequences.

27:53Yes.

27:54By this point, the association between Carol Ray and house fires is starting to become evident.

28:03One of the firemen who was there thought it suspicious that he'd been to her house on three occasions where

28:11there was a fire,

28:12and Carol Ray was always present.

28:14And he mentioned it to one of the uniformed police officers who was there, who reported the conversation to a

28:23detective constable, Philip Jagger, who came to me with it and said,

28:31give, outline the circumstances and what the fire brigade believed was a deliberate fire in the house.

28:38I then asked Philip to do a full antecedent history on her, on Carol Ray.

28:48The Halifax area was broken up into three areas and she had moved between all three and the fires had

28:55been committed in those three areas.

28:58And, of course, there were different fire stations that dealt with them.

29:01In effect, each time there was a fire, it was as if it was the first time that she had

29:07done it.

29:08Because we didn't have the technology available to digitally link these situations together quickly, then it would provide that kind

29:20of distance and time

29:24that prevented the situations being linked immediately.

29:29But, of course, once you start to put police work on top of that and forensic fire investigation and start

29:37to identify patterns in the way that the fires took place,

29:43and the circumstances around those fires took place, then it starts to close that net, really, around Carol Ray.

29:53We created a timeline of her offending. We spoke to as many of the people who lived near her at

30:01the time, especially the one where her husband died.

30:04And they had all said that they had raised concerns about that fire at the time, but nobody could prove

30:12anything.

30:13Some of them gave evidence at the coroner's call, but her previous fires were never known about or became evidence

30:22in that inquest.

30:25A large part of investigation now is looking at patterns and themes of crime.

30:33So the data analysis around investigation is so much more sophisticated, potentially, than it would have been in the 1970s.

30:42We have databases available. We have linked computer systems that allow us to predict and identify patterns in crime.

30:54And so, in this case, these fires are persistently happening on her watch.

31:00And, of course, now that would be flagged immediately as a pattern that would almost certainly require investigation.

31:13At this point, the police arrested Carol Ray for the murder of her husband, Richard, and of her daughter, Amanda,

31:22and for setting three other fires with intent to endanger life.

31:32They interviewed her, but she didn't confess when she first came in.

31:38Unusually, but with Carol Ray, they had to interview her the opposite way round.

31:42They had to start with her last offence, because we had clear evidence then that it wasn't an accident.

31:50So it was then talking to her about that, then introduce the other offences.

31:55And the more they talked about the one with her husband dying and the previous offences of arson at the

32:04parents' house when everybody got injured,

32:06she suddenly realised that she wasn't going to get away with it.

32:10So then she used the defence.

32:12It was all because her father had been committing incest with her and was still committing incest with her up

32:20to two years before she was arrested.

32:25She has a story to tell, doesn't she, which she says explains why she starts fires.

32:33Carol reveals the background of abuse that her and her sister have been subjected to.

32:38And as a result of that, John Stoker is arrested and he's charged with sexual assault.

32:46We actually did arrest the father and he served ten years for incest.

32:54It's difficult to know whether Ray meant to intentionally kill her family members,

32:59but she also continued to start fires at particular stressed points within her life.

33:05When she was finally arrested, she seemed almost pleased and relieved to be able to confess to the murders.

33:13So it suggests that it may have been playing on her mind for some time.

33:17But that's not to say that she felt gleeful that she had got away with murder.

33:23If she hadn't meant to cause such significant harm,

33:27she may have felt that this was almost now a cathartic release being able to confess.

33:34During the interview, she then started to talk about herself actually in the third person.

33:39There was no real sign of a mental illness, any kind of delusional behaviour that would have explained that.

33:46And it's almost like she couldn't accept that she'd done it, but she was willing to talk about the crime

33:53and explain what had happened, but using a third person.

33:56We sometimes find these situations where people will talk about, you know,

34:00I was there when the person died, but I wasn't responsible for the murder, but there was nobody else there

34:05either.

34:05And it's the kind of way of protecting themselves and protecting their own integrity,

34:10because they're not quite able to come to terms with what they've done.

34:15It's difficult to comprehend how you could have looked at all of this, fire after fire after fire,

34:24two deaths, severe injuries.

34:28Yes.

34:29And then heard someone say,

34:31yeah, I did start the fires, but I didn't mean to.

34:35Yes.

34:36I mean, that's going to engender a fairly sceptical response, isn't it?

34:40Yes, it absolutely would.

34:42And the minute you make the connection between the September 85 and then November 1980 fires,

34:51it automatically would have sent us back in time to look.

34:53And then if you see a 1977 fire where Carol is, you then start to see the pattern of behaviour.

34:59She'd accepted what she'd done in her mind and she felt justified.

35:05But now she was just looking for excuses why she did it,

35:09to try and mitigate the full effect of what it was and her criminality.

35:16But there's no doubt when things didn't go her way,

35:21she saw her answer to it was to start fire.

35:25That's what she did in every time when there was a crisis in her life.

35:29We didn't be so, you know what she did in every time.

35:43Carol Ray essentially got away with murder for years.

35:47If her intention wasn't to kill certainly her daughter,

35:52then that is something which may have played on her mind for that entire time.

35:59She is someone who was very calm,

36:03explaining that the fire was an accident initially,

36:06but then when she was later arrested,

36:08she seemed almost relieved to admit what she had done,

36:12so it's very likely that it might have played on her mind,

36:15particularly if it wasn't an intentional death

36:19for her daughter, at least.

36:26So, looking at the family, the family association chart you drew up,

36:31at this point, in 1990,

36:34her father is on remand for sexual abuse,

36:37her sister is recovering or dealing with trauma from sexual abuse,

36:42so is Carol, her husband is dead, her disabled daughter is dead.

36:47I mean, this is metaphorically a fire that's consuming

36:50this entire family, isn't it?

36:53Yes, yes.

36:54And all based in childhood trauma.

36:59On the surface, it might be very easy to say

37:01that Ray had psychopathic behaviours.

37:04However, we need to remember the significant trauma

37:07that she had experienced throughout her life

37:10and the way that trauma manifests itself as people mature.

37:15This is not to excuse what she has done,

37:18but to explain why she has taken the quite unusual action

37:23of starting fires.

37:26She was incredibly let down by the first man

37:31who is supposed to protect her,

37:33and yet he was someone who essentially hunted her down

37:37when she fled and tried to escape him,

37:40and he continued to abuse her, even into adulthood.

37:42So these are things that most people, thankfully,

37:46would never have to deal with and would never have to manage.

37:52She is charged with murder.

37:54She is.

37:55And endangering life.

37:56Yes.

37:57And she offers a plea, doesn't she?

38:02She says, I won't plead guilty to murder,

38:04but I will plead guilty to manslaughter.

38:08And the police and the prosecutors won't accept that.

38:11No.

38:11They say, no, you're going to trial.

38:13So by this time, the case would have been built.

38:16The investigation would have understood the pattern that had formed,

38:19and that actually Carol is the common denominator in all four fires.

38:25And manslaughter is a plea that is put forward for when somebody dies

38:31and is in accidental circumstances.

38:35There was no great premeditation.

38:36There was no great premeditation.

38:38You look at four fires, and you have to ask,

38:44were they planned?

38:45Not necessarily they were a response to trigger,

38:48but you carried on doing it.

38:49And that third fire killed your husband and your daughter,

38:54so you knew what the potential consequences were.

38:58Really, she knew at the second fire

38:59how hurt people could become in house blazes,

39:03and she chooses to carry on that behaviour.

39:08Carol Ray, pleading guilty to manslaughter,

39:11would save the substantial cost of a full trial

39:16and would spare witnesses from the trauma

39:20of having to relive what they had seen.

39:24But the police and prosecutors, to their credit,

39:28refused to do that.

39:30They said, no, Carol Ray, you deliberately set those fires.

39:36You did so knowing that people were in the house

39:40and you were reckless at best as to whether they would survive.

39:47And so, in December 1990, Carol Ray went on trial for murder.

39:55Two counts of murder, three counts of arson.

40:00She pleaded originally guilty to manslaughter,

40:05saying that she had set the fires but didn't intend to injure anybody.

40:10This wasn't acceptable to the prosecution or the police,

40:14and we persisted with the trial for murder.

40:19After the judge sent the jury out, after his summing up,

40:22they deliberated for three hours.

40:25They came back with guilty verdicts on the murders.

40:29They didn't accept the manslaughter,

40:33and the judge said that it was the only outcome.

40:37He thought she was a danger to the public,

40:39and I always would be,

40:41with the persistence of fires when she had a personal problem,

40:45and gave her five life sentences.

40:49And he told her she was and would remain a danger to the public.

40:58When Carol was sentenced, she showed no sign of remorse.

41:02She was impassive to the sentence,

41:05as if she knew what she'd done,

41:07and she was accepting what was coming.

41:10By the time Carol Ray emerges, if she ever does,

41:15she will be a pensioner.

41:19It's very difficult to know

41:21what Ray's prospects for rehabilitation would be,

41:25because it would require significant therapy

41:30and significant work around the trauma

41:33that she has been exposed to throughout her life.

41:37She would have to do some significant work

41:39around unpicking all of that

41:42and dealing with those issues

41:43to get past all of that trauma,

41:46not least the trauma

41:47that would probably have come from the fact

41:49that she'd also killed her own child.

41:52Is there a lesson you draw from this?

41:56Because there is for me.

41:57It is really looking at trauma

42:02and the fatal effects that that can have on somebody

42:06and trying to get interventions and support in

42:10as early as you possibly can

42:12to stop those behaviours developing.

42:14If you don't interrupt the cycle,

42:18if you don't investigate early,

42:21then you're going to be fishing bodies out of houses later on.

42:25I think for here you're talking about

42:27where should the intervention points have been

42:29and where should that support

42:32and social support have come from

42:34to make sure that that social support

42:36isn't disruptive or destructive.

42:39So taking Carol's children away

42:42might not necessarily have been the right course of action

42:46and may have just added to that.

42:48And also looking at abuse

42:50and the effect that has that early trauma

42:53is something that needs a lot more care and attention around it.

43:00I remember this, Chris,

43:04because it's unusual that you find somebody

43:07who persistently sets fires

43:10with a view of changing her life.

43:14Normally people do it because they enjoy watching fires

43:17or they have a fascination for them.

43:20But hers was for a specific purpose.

43:23She was in debt.

43:24She didn't like her house.

43:26The council would rehouse her.

43:28She didn't like her husband.

43:29She can kill him.

43:31She didn't like a girlfriend

43:32who she was living with,

43:34going out with another man.

43:36I'll set a fire and she'll come home and stay with me.

43:39It was all to do with what she wanted.

43:43How she felt emotionally.

43:45And she put everything down to her father.

43:51It's a case which could have been avoided.

43:55Carol Ray engaged with some very, very unhealthy coping mechanisms

44:00to deal with the trauma that she had experienced throughout her life.

44:04Had she have had more support,

44:08had she have had someone who cared for her,

44:12someone who didn't abuse her in the way that her own father did,

44:16then she might never have reached a point in her life

44:18where she set fires and ultimately fires which were lethal.

44:22So I think what sticks in my mind is,

44:25although this is utterly horrific,

44:26there were several victims left behind

44:30in terms of Carol Ray's behaviour.

44:32It's also quite a tragic case

44:34because of the level of trauma and abuse that Carol Ray suffered.

44:39She went on then to cause significant harm to her own family members.

44:47Ultimately,

44:48Carol Ray almost got away.

44:52She did for five years.

44:54What stopped her getting away with it?

44:58Her next offence.

45:00Compulsion?

45:01Undoubtedly.

45:02What really struck me when I looked at this

45:05incredible timeline you drew up with all the key events

45:09was that

45:12right from there,

45:14right from that first moment

45:17where John Stoker went into

45:20his 11-year-old daughter's bedroom

45:22and raped her.

45:24Yes.

45:26That end point

45:29was always going to be the outcome.

45:31Yes.

45:31Or something very similar.

45:33Yeah.

45:33And the culpability.

45:35And it's only when you see it laid out like that

45:38that it becomes crystal clear.

45:41Yes.

45:42During the investigation,

45:45it became clear

45:46that in 1985

45:48she had committed

45:50the perfect murder.

45:52She had got away with it.

45:53She showed no remorse.

45:55And it took her five years

45:57for her criminality

46:00and her actions

46:01to come to light properly

46:02and for her to be sentenced

46:04for the crime

46:06that she did commit

46:06five years earlier.

46:10For the crime

46:10in

46:11in

Category

Transcript

Comments

Recommended