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Britains Almost Perfect Murders - Season 1 - Episode 07: The Christmas Day Killing
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00:01The perfect murder, the unsolvable crime, does it really exist?
00:07In a TV first, we reveal the cutting-edge technology now 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.
01:12MUSIC CONTINUES
01:16It was Christmas Eve 1999, and about 4 a.m., my phone rang.
01:22It was explained to me that there'd been a shooting at a nightclub in town.
01:25One person was dead.
01:27We knew in the first hour that this was a guy called Jason Hill.
01:31All the media attention was built on the last Christmas of the millennium,
01:37building up to the year 2000.
01:40It was massive.
01:42So a murder taking place on Christmas Day had very little coverage.
01:48A lot of people, several years later, didn't even realise that this had taken place.
01:53It was almost like it was buried.
02:01The murder of Jason Hill.
02:04If ever there was a case which exemplified how a perfect murder turns into an almost perfect one,
02:14surely this is it?
02:16Absolutely.
02:17And in this particular case, we are talking about two murders.
02:23Let's set the scene.
02:24We're in Leicester, but this isn't normal middle class Leicester, is it?
02:30No.
02:31All of the individuals that we're going to talk about were heavily involved in the gangland scene in Leicester.
02:38So lots of violence, lots of threatening behaviour, lots of drugs and lots of firearms.
02:46It's in two blocks, isn't it?
02:49Yes, because in this particular case, we're looking at two separate murders that happened over a period of four or
02:57five years.
02:58Hill himself, let's start with him.
03:01Yeah.
03:02He's what?
03:04So Jason is part of a Leicester gang.
03:08There are several, two of which have got a particular issue with each other.
03:12He is not shy at all of threatening people and using violence in order to admit power and control over
03:22people,
03:23in order that he can deal drugs and go around his daily business in gangland, in gangland terms, without too
03:33much interference.
03:37The victim, Jason Hill, was an interesting guy.
03:41He was well known to the police.
03:43He'd served time in prison.
03:45He was an ex-soldier.
03:46I think he'd done some tours in Northern Ireland.
03:50But probably the most important thing that we knew about him was that there was a murder several years earlier,
03:56a murder of a guy called Eugene Hines.
03:59And Eugene Hines was shot and beaten.
04:02And Jason Hill stood trial for this.
04:06Eugene Hines was part of the opposing gangland group.
04:10Now, Hines had taken issue with Jason Hill and at some point had threatened Jason Hill's baby son with a
04:18handgun.
04:19That's an absolute no-no, isn't it?
04:21There is a code.
04:22And you don't break that code.
04:24And when you do break that code, there are consequences.
04:27And part of that code is you do not mess with people's families.
04:31Because the minute you do that, it's game on.
04:35It's certainly something within the kind of culture of these criminal fraternities that it can be almost a badge of
04:43honour.
04:43And to not commit the crime in some respects is worse than actually carrying out the murder and being caught.
04:50Because people have to maintain this level of authority and control over situations.
04:57And they have to be able to see where they are in this kind of hierarchy amongst criminal gangs.
05:04So Jason Hill has already started to plot out what he is hoping is going to be a perfect murder.
05:11He arranges for Hines essentially to be abducted.
05:15So he's giving himself an alibi and himself and another accomplice of his go to hospital to visit a friend.
05:23So at the time that Hines is abducted, should the police look into that, Jason Hill is nowhere near that
05:29scene.
05:30Oh, he's free and clear.
05:31Free and clear.
05:31And not only free and clear, he'll be available on CCTV, covered by the hospital.
05:38Hines gets taken out to a field.
05:41He does.
05:42A fairly remote location where Hill then joins his other two accomplices.
05:49Hines is forced out of the car.
05:51And while he's pleading essentially for his life, he's shot twice with a shotgun.
05:58But Hines is alive and so not one to shy away from violence, Jason Hill takes the butt of the
06:05gun and beats Hines around the head with her until he's dead.
06:09Somebody witnesses this, though, don't they?
06:12There is a passing car who actually witnesses the murder taking place.
06:16How random is that?
06:18It just goes to show you that actually you can take all the steps that you want to plan a
06:22perfect murder, but you can't control the actions of other people.
06:26Hill and his accomplices are arrested very quickly.
06:31Yes.
06:31The way that this particular situation plays out is that the driver of the vehicle decides that he's going to
06:38try and get an out here.
06:40And he tells the police, I'll tell you what happened.
06:43Yes, I drove the car.
06:45Hill was responsible for the murder.
06:47We were told that he was just going to be taken out to a field and beaten up.
06:51We had no idea, no knowledge that he was actually going to be murdered.
06:57So the driver confesses to his part in the incident.
07:02So he's trying to get basically to work a plea deal.
07:05Absolutely.
07:06Yes.
07:07And that goes forward and it goes to trial.
07:09So obviously you've got the witness, the driver who was passing at the time.
07:13You've got the driver of the vehicle that was used to abduct Eugene Hines.
07:18Except when it gets to trial, three of the key witnesses don't turn up to court.
07:25The gang had got to them first quite clearly.
07:29And the result is?
07:30And the result is, is that the trial falls over.
07:34So at that point, the, really the only thing that the prosecution have got to rely on is the fact
07:40that they've secured CCTV evidence of Hill at the hospital, which is what he wanted them to do.
07:46The case then just wasn't that strong.
07:48And Jason Hill is acquitted of the murder.
07:51He walks free?
07:52He does walk free.
07:54What happens to the driver?
07:55The driver who's, um, who's turned Queen's evidence is jailed because he's pleaded guilty.
08:00So the one person out of that trio involved in that incident who, for whatever means, you can, you can
08:09think, you know, nefarious means he was trying to get himself a plea, it backfired spectacularly and he went to
08:15prison.
08:16So if you're Jason Hill, you're free and clear.
08:20You're the king of the castle by that point, aren't you?
08:23Jason Hill had got away with the perfect murder.
08:25Yes.
08:28So Hill had murdered Eugene Hines.
08:30Eugene Hines was a well-known criminal around Leicester.
08:34Eugene Hines' family and associates held Hill responsible.
08:38And it was known as well that Hill had boasted of this murder, uh, to people.
08:42But back in those days, there was no double jeopardy.
08:44There was no chance of a second go.
08:46The law as it stood then, the double jeopardy law, meant that Hill could not be tried twice for the
08:55same offence.
08:57And that meant, in his mind at least, he got away with the perfect murder.
09:05Four years passes, and we come to Christmas night, 1999.
09:15My two children were five years old and two years old.
09:19We stayed in for Christmas Eve.
09:21Christmas Day was going to be a family day.
09:23But I was on call, and about 4 a.m., my phone rang.
09:28The immediate information we got was that one man had been shot.
09:32He'd been shot in the back of the head.
09:34And another man had also sustained injuries.
09:37Uh, injuries, and he was, he'd gone to hospital.
09:40We didn't know what had happened.
09:41So we were faced with a really, really difficult crime scene.
09:47It took place at the Eden Night Club, a club that was rented out for one-off occasions.
09:53There was an upstairs area where there was a big bar, and downstairs was Dad's floor.
10:00It was a pretty decent-sized room.
10:02And I know that the people who came over from Birmingham who'd arranged it had literally rented it out full
10:08that night.
10:09A lot of the staff were from Birmingham.
10:11They weren't local.
10:12They didn't know any of the people in there, the customers in there.
10:17When you're in charge of these investigations, your head goes into overdrive in terms of what you need to do.
10:23Because we need scene management, we need forensic examiners, we need detectives calling out.
10:28We've got the person in the Royal Infirmary who we don't know what's happened, and he needs, obviously, protecting because
10:35there could be a further risk to him.
10:38Then you've got to have a calm thought through, harvesting the evidence and start to hypothesize what's happened.
10:45And they're almost a conflict in themselves.
10:49So what we saw was a guy who'd been shot in the back of the head.
10:55Now, those kind of things don't happen by accident, generally.
10:58It became fairly obvious this was deliberate.
11:03The word on the ground was, it's Jason Hill, and indeed it was Jason Hill.
11:20Jason Hill spoke openly about being in fear of his life.
11:24He said, I know that Eugene Hines' associates are going to come after me.
11:30But that didn't stop him shooting his mouth off.
11:34He bragged about having killed Eugene Hines.
11:39He boasted about how he'd got away with the perfect murder.
11:47So often people who are involved in organized crime find their way into this quite murky sort of underworld.
11:54And it certainly takes a certain level of bravery, of kind of quite macho character to do that.
12:03And very often in these situations, you see that these people have to often deal with other characters.
12:09And there's often the excitement and the draw of it is this kind of battle between power and supremacy between
12:16these people.
12:17So often we see that these are quite dominant, sensitive people who see themselves as somebody who's willing to take
12:24on other people from other criminal fraternities.
12:31Jason Hill had come in the club and he was causing problems.
12:35And there was a group of people there who were friends of a previous murder victim called Eugene Hines.
12:50Hill's inside in the early hours.
12:53He's mouthing off.
12:54On the dance floor.
12:56Objectionable.
12:57Yeah.
12:57Arrogant.
12:58Yes.
12:59And he's overheard, isn't he?
13:01He's spotted.
13:02He is.
13:02And he is also in the club that night are James Goodman and Shane Heskey.
13:08Because of the community that these people operate in, they decided that they were going to really teach him a
13:15lesson.
13:15And they went and retrieved a gun from a local house of someone that they knew.
13:21And remarkably got back into the club with a gun.
13:26They are then back on the dance floor and on an absolute packed dance floor at four o'clock in
13:32the morning, they shoot Jason Hill.
13:37The shooting took place on the downstairs dance floor at the nightclub.
13:42The bullet penetrated Jason Hill's skull and it exited his face.
13:51I think it was his cheek.
13:53And it hit a guy called Carlton Mills, who was seriously injured as a result of that.
14:01It created absolute panic.
14:07When a firearm is used in a case, then the energies that are involved with that interaction are enormous.
14:16So it naturally, therefore, increases the potential and ability for forensic evidence to be distributed in that crime scene.
14:26So as an example, if I shoot someone at close range, then there are a number of interactions that can
14:34take place.
14:35First of all, the weapon can leave traces of itself onto the victim.
14:40And the victim can leave traces of themselves onto the weapon and the person firing that weapon.
14:46This includes blood traces, which are very often transferred in the form of blood spatter.
14:53Tiny little droplets of blood that transfer back from the person who has been injured.
15:00And if I stand close enough to my victim, those little tiny droplets of blood can be deposited onto the
15:07weapon.
15:08They can be deposited onto me as a person firing that weapon.
15:11And they can be deposited on parts of that firearm that might not necessarily be available to us when the
15:24weapon is in its relaxed state.
15:26So that very complex exchange of material in this very high energy environment means that forensics firearms investigation can be
15:40very complex, but can lead to a seam and a wealth of forensic evidence.
15:49Ordinarily, with a shooting, you would get massive media coverage, but on Christmas Day, the media don't want bad news
15:55stories.
15:55It's all happy clappy.
15:57So we didn't really get much media coverage, even though we did try.
16:01So you can see, apart from the detective bits of thinking, how do I investigate this, you've simply got a
16:07logistical bit about, get me resources out.
16:12The senior investigating officer, the SIO, there's a murder on the dance floor.
16:17Yes.
16:18It's the early hours of Christmas morning.
16:20How difficult would it have been for him to round up enough troops to deal with that situation?
16:27Yeah, I can imagine it would have been incredibly difficult.
16:31And what you've got to think of is you're not just dealing with the incident of the gun.
16:36So it's not just about the victim and potential suspects.
16:40This club, you have got hundreds of potential witnesses.
16:45And I've dealt with an incident similar to this.
16:47And one of the most critical parts of that was plotting out who was in the closest vicinity at the
16:55time and who would have seen what, who would have seen people leaving.
17:00And the plotting of those witnesses in a club is a really tricky and detailed thing to do.
17:06But you have to have the statements from the witnesses in the first place in order to do that.
17:11And to get the statements, you have to have the officers on the scene.
17:14Absolutely.
17:18This wasn't an ordinary Christmas.
17:20This was a millennium year.
17:22So ordinarily, you have Christmas Day and Boxing Day and bank holidays, which become very expensive resources.
17:27And then you have New Year's Day.
17:29That's it.
17:29Three bank holidays in that period.
17:31This one, I think there were seven or eight because of how it fell with weekends and Christmas being on
17:36a certain time.
17:38So the first thing is going to be a massive cost.
17:40The second thing, police officers, police staff, certainly in my experience, they love working overtime.
17:48You know, they're very happy to come overtime on any day you want.
17:51They'll work 20 hours a day except Christmas Day.
17:55Christmas Day is different.
17:56And it really is, for most people, it's a day when it's family, it's kids, it's wider friendship.
18:02And it's not a day when you want to come to work.
18:06I was actually out on Christmas Eve.
18:09I got home about probably around 3.30 a.m.
18:15And I was looking forward to a nice lie-in and then get up at lunchtime and have Christmas dinner,
18:19the usual thing, with the family.
18:24So I'd literally only had about an hour's sleep when there was a knock on the door.
18:29And we realised there was a police officer, a uniformed police officer on the door, and then straight to police
18:36station.
18:39It was probably one of the biggest logistical challenges I've had in terms of a major incident, because on Christmas
18:45Day, certainly then, nothing is open.
18:48Absolutely nothing.
18:50Not petrol stations, not McDonald's, and there's no way to get food for staff.
18:54But what we did do, we said to everyone, if someone can bring you some food in.
18:58One guy got a full roast turkey dinner.
19:01Another guy, his wife, cooked some lobster for him.
19:08Goodman and Heskey have committed murder.
19:12Witnesses on the night hear him say, I've done what I needed to do.
19:18Goodman hands Heskey the gun and the club very, very quickly empties with people trying to get out of there
19:26as quickly as possible as you can imagine.
19:27Like, all our panic must break out at that point.
19:30But Goodman and Heskey use that chaos in order to leave the club in a manner which they feel was
19:41not going to get them spotted.
19:44They have it on their toes?
19:45Yes.
19:45They literally flee the club along with everybody else.
19:52Investigations these days, the starting point tends to be digital.
19:56It's about mobile phones, ANPR, CCTV.
20:00This was 25 years ago.
20:02None of these things were as sophisticated as they are now.
20:05But we started to do a CCTV troll.
20:09And Leicester City had an embryonic CCTV system.
20:12So we got onto the operators there and they were magnificent.
20:17There they were immediately at four in the morning as the incident was being reported.
20:21They got the cameras on and they started looking at people.
20:24And they did some recording, which without that, I think the trial would have been a far more difficult trial
20:29to do.
20:30We got intelligence to say that Goodman had fired the gun.
20:36And there was CCTV footage recovered through the city centre showing Heskey and Goodman together walking away from the nightclub
20:45and walking in the general direction of Beaver Street, Rambi Street.
20:50But it was almost like, you know, you walk away from somewhere and you know exactly where you're going.
20:56You walk directly, but they weren't walking directly.
20:58They took a meandering kind of route as if they didn't know where they were and didn't know where they
21:04were going to go.
21:06One of the most interesting aspects of that was that Goodman appeared to be holding something in the waistband of
21:14his jeans or trousers.
21:16I strongly suspect he was holding a gun in the waistband of his trousers.
21:21We started to get the CCTV strategy together along with the witness trawl, along with forensics, along with the suspect.
21:29And before you know it, it's amazing. These things come together.
21:33You know, it's almost like, I don't know, baking a cake.
21:36You know, the ingredients by themselves don't mean anything.
21:38But when you start bringing them together, before you know it, the story starts to emerge.
21:45Heskey is from quite a well-known family.
21:48And the Heskey family were associated to Eugene Irons previously before he died.
21:54So there was a connection.
21:56When we established that he was with Goodman on the CCTV, officers went to arrest him.
22:02It was a pretty straightforward arrest.
22:04He came in, he was interviewed, there was very little evidence.
22:10That left James Goodman.
22:13For several hours, the police couldn't find him until they got a tip as to where they might locate him.
22:20But they faced a problem, they faced a dilemma, really.
22:25He was armed, known to be dangerous.
22:29And there was a very real risk that if the detectives went in and grabbed him from this house on
22:42a council estate,
22:43that Goodman would turn violent and turn the gun on the police.
23:02As the day went on, and it was a very long day, remembering we'd started at four in the morning.
23:07In the afternoon, late afternoon, we identified an address where we believed James Goodman was.
23:15We decided we had to try and arrest him.
23:17We believed he'd killed someone, he had access to a firearm.
23:21The risk was of him potentially shooting officers, shooting members of the public, maybe even injuring himself.
23:27And if we were going to arrest him, it had to be done with a ballistic approach so he could
23:32maintain any forensic evidence.
23:34And in the end, after speaking to him through hostage negotiators, he did give himself up and he came out.
23:42And then when he arrived at the police station, he was given his rights and he asked for a solicitor
23:48to attend.
23:49And I was tasked with planning the interviews, which was quite difficult because we had very little to go on.
23:58But the way I planned the interview was to ask a lot of details about background,
24:04questions about whether he'd actually been to the club on the night.
24:07And then we'd break and I'd go back to the briefing room and I'd find out what else we've established
24:19from our inquiries,
24:21because other officers were out making inquiries.
24:23We were really keen as an interview strategy to make sure we offered them the opportunity to tell their story,
24:31as opposed to us start telling them what evidence we had.
24:34Shane Heskey spoke and he gave us some detail.
24:38Goodman didn't. He wasn't forthcoming.
24:43It's a really difficult decision for the police at this point, isn't it?
24:47Time's running out. The clock's ticking.
24:50You've only got a certain amount of time before you have to release or charge.
24:56Yes, absolutely. And the problem is, at this point, is that they didn't know whether it was retribution.
25:02They didn't really know what they were dealing with.
25:06And it's always really vital when you're looking at motive to be able to suggest what a connection between people
25:13are.
25:15In Leicester, at the time, the charging authority came from me leading the investigation.
25:21So we made the decision, and it was the very end of his 92 hours in custody.
25:26We made the decision to charge Goodman with the murder.
25:31It was a difficult decision. The evidence was very, very limited.
25:34I was actually concerned that there would be the potential for him to be harmed on the outside.
25:41Goodman was going to be killed because Jason Hill had a network.
25:46And he was charged and went before court the next day.
25:50He'd never had the chance to basically get rid of all the items that had been involved,
25:55to lay down his defense with his friends, etc.
25:58And so putting him straight in prison left him isolated.
26:04In the midst of all of this, Carlton Mills has turned up.
26:09Yes. So Carlton Mills is taken to hospital.
26:13And the bullet that has killed Jason Hill,
26:17they actually managed to retrieve the cartridge from Carlton Mills' stomach.
26:23Retrieving the bullet is a big thing, isn't it?
26:26It's a massive, massive piece of evidence that you really want to try and secure in cases like this.
26:34Particularly because you're then going to know the type of gun that the bullet has come from.
26:40And obviously, bullets, when they are leaving guns, leave unique striations in the casing.
26:49So the forensic investigation of firearms in this country is far more developed than I think people understand.
26:56We have a very developed database.
26:59If a weapon is used in a particular case and then goes dark and then emerges in another case,
27:07we can establish that the same weapon has been used by the features that it left on not only the
27:14cartridge cases
27:15that might have been recovered from the first scene or the bullets that have been recovered from the victim.
27:21So there is a very sophisticated network of intelligence around firearms in this country.
27:28The clothing that Goodman was wearing when we recovered him on Christmas Day was sent off a ballistic examination.
27:36A few days it came back. It's covered in ballistic discharge.
27:40So that was great.
27:42The difficulty was the clothing that he was wearing when he was recovered that was covered in the discharge
27:48wasn't the clothing he was wearing on CCTV.
27:52Completely different clothing.
27:54So then we did some work where we looked at the ballistic discharge from his clothing
28:00against the firearm or the bullet that had killed Jason Hill, and they were different.
28:07So on the one hand, we had this lovely bit of news about ballistic discharge,
28:11but it was utterly irrelevant to the murder of Jason Hill.
28:15And to this day, we still don't know what that discharge is all about.
28:19I mean, that's a big hole in the case, isn't it?
28:21It's a big hole in the case.
28:23It also shows you the level of access that Goodman had to firearms.
28:29So if it's not that gun, what gun have you been firing with?
28:36So we had the four or five days of tremendously hard work for the team.
28:43And we traced numerous people who'd been in the nightclub, and a lot of these people wouldn't engage with us.
28:50They wouldn't speak to us, either because they were fearful, they hadn't seen anything,
28:55or they just didn't want to engage with the police.
28:57But some people did.
28:59I had one particular job, it was to speak to a barmaid.
29:03She told us that a particular guy, she only knew his first name, she said he was from Birmingham.
29:09He'd been working at the nightclub.
29:11And he had been with Jason Hill when he was shot.
29:18So my next task was to go and see him, revisit him, and persuade him to tell the truth.
29:27After quite a long time with him, he decided to tell us the truth.
29:34He knew that Shane Heskey was right behind them.
29:37He could hear him still giving Jason Hill abuse.
29:40He's right behind the pair of them.
29:43And he heard a click.
29:48It's in a millisecond.
29:50He's turned round to one side to see what that was.
29:57And as that happened, the gun went off.
30:00So the gun was fired.
30:02He only half turned around.
30:05He didn't fully turn around to look at Shane Heskey.
30:09And he didn't see James Goodman.
30:13So he was convinced that Shane Heskey had shot Jason Hill.
30:17But he obviously realised he hadn't seen him with a gun in his hand.
30:21That made a huge difference to the whole investigation.
30:24Because Shane Heskey was suddenly implicated and was arrested again and interviewed at length.
30:34He came in again, this time with a different solicitor.
30:37Bear in mind, first time round, he'd spoken to us.
30:40This time he went no comment.
30:42And I've always thought about Shane Heskey.
30:44It was a difficult position for him because, on the one hand, he could have explained and he could have
30:49been what they call assisting offender.
30:51A completely different offence.
30:53But he didn't and he pushed himself, I'm not telling you what went on, I'm not going to give an
30:58explanation, I'm not going to give any kind of testimony.
31:01So the decision then was to charge him and he was charged as a principal with the murder.
31:05So then we had Goodman and Heskey both charged.
31:11One of the classic difficulties in murders is if there is no connection between killer and victim.
31:21How does that play out in Jason Hill's case?
31:26You've got to look for your motive.
31:28What is the motive of someone taking a gun onto a packed dance floor and shooting someone with hundreds of
31:35witnesses around?
31:36Police started to look at the associates and locations of Goodman and Heskey to see if they had connection.
31:45Were they part of Jason Hill's gang and they'd fallen out or had firearms gone between them, had drugs been
31:51dealt between them and they couldn't find anything.
31:54Which means really that you're essentially lacking a motive other than someone's gone a bit crazy with a gun on
32:00the dance floor, which doesn't seem that logical.
32:02Until eventually they find an obituary that is written for Eugene Hines.
32:10Lo and behold, we go into the obituary column at Leicester Mercury and from when Eugene Hines died.
32:17And there's all the people giving obituaries about him and there's one from James Goodman who was a child and
32:29it was a glowing one, virtually a loved one from James Goodman.
32:36And obviously we could trace back and find out when it was put on, by who it was put on.
32:40But that was again crucial because suddenly there's the motivation.
32:45The minute the police see that, the connection is then made of thinking, right, this is a revenge killing for
32:53the killing of Eugene Hines.
32:57A lot of the evidence that was gathered during this particular investigation was gathered after Goodman was charged because he
33:04was clearly trying to dispose of the gun and he was speaking to his friends and relatives about disposing of
33:11the gun.
33:12Well known as a matter of public knowledge in prison, all the calls are recorded.
33:17So when you make the calls as a serving prisoner, the prison service record the call.
33:22And so we had the authority to be able to listen to Goodman's phone calls.
33:26And in that time, early on, he obviously was panicking because he was on the phone and he was asking
33:34people to destroy things, which became part of the trial later on.
33:38And in our view, that was him asking people to get rid of the gun, the gun that he'd used
33:43to kill Jason.
33:58James Goodman in jail made a succession of phone calls to his associates in the criminal networks on the outside
34:08and was recorded asking them to destroy.
34:13The evidence of his crimes that was the crucial factor that the police had, their big card when the case
34:23came to trial.
34:25But even then, at trial, Goodman and Heskey almost got away with murder.
34:37They came very close to getting away with it.
34:43James Goodman pleaded not guilty.
34:45And it's a classic because this happens on a lot of occasions.
34:49They get advised to look a certain way when they go to the court.
34:54And he was a very young-looking guy.
34:57He almost looked like he was a schoolboy.
35:01And he turned up at court wearing a blazer, looking really smart.
35:08And from a jury perspective, they were looked at him and probably couldn't possibly believe that he was capable of
35:15murdering somebody.
35:18It comes to trial, two defendants.
35:21Big risk at this point for the prosecution, isn't there?
35:24Yes, big risk.
35:26What happened in this particular case is a cutthroat defence took place.
35:34So Heskey essentially turned on Goodman to say,
35:40wasn't me, all over to him, he just handed me the gun.
35:43It was him, he was the shooter.
35:45Handed me the gun on the dance floor.
35:46I didn't know, I just thought it was going to threaten him.
35:48And what's he want in return?
35:50And he wants a plea in return.
35:51Oh, a lesser charge.
35:53Yes, which is exactly the same thing that we saw in 1995 with the driver of the vehicle, the Eugene
36:00Hines.
36:00So that same scenario has played out again, the cutthroat defence is put forward.
36:08So we got the call from the QC who was leading the prosecution.
36:13And ordinarily, at that stage, it's generally the barrister and the CPS who will make the decision, but they wouldn't.
36:20So they said to me and the assistant chief constable, Heskey had offered to plea.
36:27He's offering a plea of assisting offender, which means we would have got a conviction, albeit not for the murder,
36:33because it wasn't the strongest case, but he would have got a conviction, and then he would give evidence against
36:40Goodman.
36:41So on the face of it, that sounded great.
36:44But then, if you think it through, when he gives evidence against Goodman, Goodman's defence would be very simple.
36:51No, he did it.
36:52He is the one in the club with the gun.
36:54He is the one in the club carrying it.
36:58And it was high risk, in my opinion.
37:01And also, for the prosecution to use Heskey as a witness of truth is a bit far-fetched at this
37:08stage of the case.
37:09So I'm sitting with the assistant chief constable, and I said, what should we do?
37:13He says, well, it's your decision, Mick.
37:15So, OK.
37:15And I actually heard them.
37:17There's a bell in the Crown Court, and they're calling back in.
37:20So the CPS and the barristers are saying, come on, what do you want to do?
37:23So I made the decision.
37:25I said, no, go with it.
37:26We'll carry on.
37:27Don't take the plea.
37:33The police don't accept it.
37:34They don't, no.
37:35It's really worth saying that.
37:37Goodman chose to take the stand on this case, and he came across so poorly to the jury.
37:45And ultimately, he gave evidence in the witness box, which he has advised to do that, and he decided it
37:53was a way forward.
37:54But he had a very distinct patois-type accent, which I think straight away, I imagine, would have surprised the
38:04jury.
38:05They were expecting him to sound different.
38:07He certainly, to the jury, I think, appeared a liar.
38:11The more he went on, the more he was convicting himself.
38:14The language he used on the telephones from prison about cutting things up, he clearly wanted the gun to be
38:22cut up.
38:23But he was saying in court, oh, no, no, it was about cutting a safe up.
38:29He said that it was for a safe that he needed to cut up from a robbery.
38:38So, I distinctly remember the judge asking him, which robbery was the safe from?
38:45And he actually said in the witness box, no comment to the judge, which I think didn't help his case
38:53very much.
38:54And the judge certainly wasn't very happy with him, and pointed out that you cannot say no comment to questions
39:01asked while you're in the witness box.
39:04He didn't do himself any favors, but on the other hand, if he hadn't given testimony, I think it would
39:09have been just as bad.
39:10So, he was in between a rock and a hard place.
39:12And the long and the short was, the case concluded.
39:16It was a strong case, built on evidence, but no forensics, no CCTV that showed it happening.
39:24Very few witnesses, but it was still a strong case.
39:27And I think the jury were out for about three hours.
39:30The gallery was full of relatives of both men, and when the jury pronounced guilty for both of them, there
39:39was actually quite a lot of screaming and crying in the gallery.
39:43It was quite tense.
39:45The judge obviously threatened to clear the court at one stage, as this went on for a few moments.
39:51It was a very dramatic moment.
39:56At the end of the day, I think they got 18 and 19 years, and that was based partly on
40:04their ages.
40:05I think had that murder been committed now, with different sentencing guidelines, it would have been a lot longer.
40:13Chaneski, if he'd have, when he was arrested, told the truth, and said that James Goodman had committed the murder,
40:20he would have got a dramatically less sentence.
40:24Shane Chaneski was convicted by the jury, he was found guilty as a principle of the murder.
40:29But we've never suggested that Shane Chaneski pulled the trigger.
40:32The trigger was pulled by James Goodman, but they were acting, they were acting jointly, it was a joint enterprise.
40:39And why Chaneski would specifically want Jason Hill killed is less relevant.
40:45I think the fact is that it was Goodman that was the motivated one, and it was Chaneski who was
40:50with Goodman on that night.
40:53I don't think either of them had any remorse about the killing.
40:56I think both of them knew what happened.
41:01I think both of them were involved in what happened.
41:04I think genuinely, Chaneski was assisting the offender, Goodman.
41:10I think he clearly walked away from the nightclub with him.
41:14I think they wanted to murder Jason Hill, Goodman carried out the murder, and Heskey assisted him.
41:20And I don't think they've ever shown any remorse, as far as I'm aware.
41:25So often the murder of somebody who's been seen to be caught up in the criminal fraternity or a criminal
41:31gang
41:32is often seen, maybe by the public, as less important than maybe a murder of a young female by a
41:42stranger in the street.
41:43Even though those two crimes are exactly the same, and there is obviously a victim, and justice needs to be
41:49served in these situations.
41:51But I think we often see those people who choose to engage in those criminal activities as sort of part
41:58players in their own downfall, maybe.
42:01And perhaps we see that that is something that is almost their destiny.
42:05They chose to get involved in those crimes, and, you know, there's this kind of an eye-for-an-eye
42:10type of killing.
42:12It's just something that goes with the territory.
42:19To what extent did Goodman and Heskey think they could get away with the perfect murder?
42:26I questioned how much thought they put into that.
42:29I think they saw their opportunity.
42:31They most certainly had the motive to kill Jason Hill.
42:37It's a very high-risk strategy.
42:40They had access, so they had opportunity, they had motive, they had access to a firearm.
42:46Whether they thought they were going to get away with the perfect murder is questionable,
42:51whether their heart was rolling their head at that point.
42:55But to take a firearm into an environment where there are so many people and then shoot it and murder
43:03somebody on the dance floor,
43:05my only guess is they did think that in the ensuing panic that they would be able to get away
43:10unseen.
43:15He didn't carry out the perfect murder.
43:18In fact, far from it.
43:19But I think at that point he probably wasn't thinking that rationally.
43:24But he probably thought, I can get away with this.
43:29He was in a situation where he would have thought he committed a perfect murder.
43:35And the evidence was really, really thin.
43:38We literally had intelligence and we had CCTV footage of him walking away from the scene.
43:45And me questioning him about, did he have a gun down the waistband of his trousers?
43:49And him choosing to say no comment.
43:53But had he given an explanation and said it might have been his mobile phone?
43:59Or had answered questions, saying he was at the nightclub and he walked away with his friend
44:04after the shooting had happened, because he was scared, etc.
44:08And he was worried about what was going to happen.
44:11He probably wouldn't have been charged.
44:13And he probably would have disposed of the gun and we would have had absolutely no evidence.
44:20He could so easily have not been charged and we probably would never have proved this murder.
44:27And he would have, he would never have appeared before a court.
44:34The reality is investigators have got so much opportunity to look at the history of the victim,
44:43to look at the location, to look at the potential offenders,
44:48that if people do manage to escape justice, it's not because they've carried out the perfect murder.
44:56It's simply the evidence hasn't been able to be put together.
45:03Without question, one person did get away with the perfect murder, at least for a while.
45:11Yes, and that was most certainly Jason Hill.
45:15What does it tell us about what makes the difference between a perfect murder and an almost perfect one?
45:23Arrogance and overconfidence plays into the actions that someone takes after.
45:30After they commit a murder, you can't control, even if you try really hard, as was the case with the
45:36usual times,
45:37you can't control who sees what, that you can't control that part of it.
45:46But the minute that your arrogance and your confidence take over and you brag about the fact that you have
45:55got away with murder,
45:57you're setting yourself up for a fall.
45:59And if there is one thing that people in gangland groups have, it's they've got very long memories.
46:08It cost the force of fortune, because obviously there were six or seven bank holidays in that time.
46:13But on the other hand, you can't put a cost around the investigation of someone's death.
46:21And we did what we had to do.
46:49And we did what we had to do.
46:53We did what we had to do.
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