The Story Of Exposing Jimmy Savile - Mark Williams-Thomas | Modern Wisdom Podcast 369

1. 0:00 – 0:34

   Intro

   1. MWMark Williams-Thomas0:00

      A large majority of sex offenders use power as an influence with their offending behavior, and I think that power played massively into him. You know, he was a completely narcissistic, egotistical control freak, and had his way, you know, nearly all the time. So when he thought that, "Well, I want it, I'll have it," he just went and did it. And of course, nobody challenged him. He was fairly untouchable. He was fairly unchallengeable. And he lived a consistent lie. (wind blowing)

   2. CWChris Williamson0:29

      How would you describe what you do for work?

   3. MWMark Williams-Thomas0:32

      Well, I, I think now,

2. 0:34 – 5:56

   Life as a Detective

   1. MWMark Williams-Thomas0:34

      it's probably as an investigative reporter. I, I do do some private consultancy, and I also run a risk management consultancy where I investigate and help organizations with dangerous offenders. So I'm a pretty busy person.

   2. CWChris Williamson0:48

      But you used to be a police officer, right? So what's the difference between a police officer and an investigator?

   3. MWMark Williams-Thomas0:55

      So yeah, former police detective. Uh, and not a massive amount, certainly not the way that I do it. I mean, there, there are many different investigators out there who do things in different ways. But my ethos and the way I operate is very much along the same lines as if I were a detective. Obviously, I don't have the powers of being a detective. I don't have the warrant. But what I do have is the skills that I've learned from being a police detective, and I just transfer them into the roles that I do now. I have the same ethical approach. I have the same, uh, moral approach in terms of how I do things. And all of my investigations are built around as if I was doing it for a criminal investigation, so the same levels of standards apply.

   4. CWChris Williamson1:36

      What are some of the restrictions that you have placed on yourself? Obviously, you're not gonna be able to go and arrest people, so is it your job as an investigator to put together a, a kind of case and then pass that up to authorities that can bring people to justice? How does it work?

   5. MWMark Williams-Thomas1:52

      Yeah, so obviously, I don't have power of arrest, so I can't force people to talk to me. I can't force people to come with me and do things. But, uh, as an investigator, in the way that I work within the media, often, that actually doesn't make that much of a difference 'cause what it does mean is that people will talk to me, and they'll often talk to me when they wouldn't talk to the police. And they'll give me information that they wouldn't or don't give to the police. So I have a, a great opportunity, I think, when I go and do these investigations as not being a police officer. That said, of course, I don't have access to the records that police officers do, so I can't gain as much information about people. Uh, but what I have to use is my own sources and also, the open source data that exists around the internet to try and find information about people when I'm doing an investigation. My ethos always is about helping people. So whenever I take on any investigation, uh, the starting point is, can I make a difference? Because more often than not, by the time people have come to me is they've tried everything else. They've failed with the police. They've failed with all the other organizations or media outlets. And they come to me in desperation. Can I help them? And what I will never want to do is to give people false hope. It is about being realistic to them. So if I can't, genuinely can't see anything that I can do as far as adding value, I'm no wizard, but what I do is obviously, um, thoroughly investigate and use my skills very successfully. If I can't help them, then I'll be honest upfront and say, "Look, uh, there is, there is nothing I can do," because there's nothing worse than being given false hope.

   6. CWChris Williamson3:29

      It seems crazy that you, without access to records, and fingerprints, and so on and so forth, that you can do more than the police. I guess it shows the power of finding sources, getting information from people, using those, I guess, what would you call them, sort of softer styles of investigation?

   7. MWMark Williams-Thomas3:48

      Yeah, I mean, I, I, I wouldn't say in every circumstance I'm better than the police at all. (laughs) I think what I can provide is a uniqueness in terms of a dedicated approach. Of course, the police have, you know, uh, huge workloads. Uh, my workloads are high, but they're in a very different way. So I have to prioritize and say, "Right, I'm gonna really focus on this case now and just, just totally look at it, put everything else to one side." Whereas the police can't always do that. They have to manage a number of cases at the same time.

   8. CWChris Williamson4:17

      Are you legally allowed to surveil people if you're not the police?

   9. MWMark Williams-Thomas4:21

      Yeah, absolutely. You, so, so, not necessarily in some foreign countries. It's a bit problematic. Certainly in Portugal, there's not meant to be doing any private investigations. But, uh, and I have done it in Portugal, and I've done it in many other countries. But in the UK, absolutely no problems at all. You know, you have to be aware of people's privacy, and you have to do it in a certain way. But you can absolutely do surveillance on people, and I very regularly do-do.

   10. CWChris Williamson4:46

       Do you tap people's phones? Is that something that's allowed?

   11. MWMark Williams-Thomas4:49

       No, you can't do that, and in fact, the police, you know, can't do that without very high authority. So you can't do anything that's overly intrusive. What you can do, of course, is use techniques that enable you to gain access to people. So sometimes, you know, we might run a decoy. We might run a courier pretending to, to look for somebody or deliver a package, and that will often lead to identifying where somebody is. Uh, we might use trackers. Uh, we might use listening devices, all of those little techniques now which are very readily available and, and easily applied to gather intelligence but, or, or information. But it's always about a bigger cause, you know? It's about being proportionate. If I'm investigating something, for example, if it was very minor, then one has to look at the proportionality of the techniques that you're employing. The more serious it is, the more serious the techniques that you can apply. If someone's wanted for murder or wanted for very serious offenses, then of course, the proportionality of what you're going to deploy and use increases.

   12. CWChris Williamson5:54

       What was your role in the Jimmy Savile

3. 5:56 – 10:48

   Mark's Role in the Jimmy Savile Case

   1. CWChris Williamson5:56

      case?

   2. MWMark Williams-Thomas5:58

      Well, Jimmy Savile, I was, I was g- actually coming back from...... uh, Interpol. I'd been over there making a film for BBC Newsnight, and the producer said to me, "Have you ever heard anything about Jimmy Savile as being a sex offender?" And I said, "Well, no, he's a very strange bloke, but I've never heard that." And he said, "No, he is. You know, my, my aunt was at, uh, a school where he used to visit, and there's a lot of chat online about it." And he said, "You know, we've been looking at it and we're looking to do something." And I said, "Well, I, I've never heard anything about that." Anyway, he then moves forward over the next few weeks and he said, "Look, we, we're aware that apparently he was arrested by a police force, either Surrey or Sussex. You know, do you think you can find out?" Well, I was in Surrey Police and, and I could tell him that it didn't happen during my time in the police, so it had, must have happened after that. And then when I looked into it, I established that it had been a case that Surrey Police had looked at, passed that back to him, and Newsnight at that point then said, "Well, we can't show any failings by the police, so we're gonna drop it." Uh, and he said to me, you know, "Newsnight aren't gonna run it." And I said, "Well, that's mad because I've now done some digging myself and there clearly looks to be something there." There still needs an awful lot of work to stand it up. I mean, they were a long way away from standing up a program to make any, any, uh, any difference. And I said, "Well, let me, let me look at it." So I did. So I set off on a path to try and establish victims and see what the accounts were, and as a direct result of that, 12 months later, made a program and, kind of, the rest is history really. You know, 3rd of October 2012 was a pretty momentous occasion, not just in terms of showing what Jimmy Savile did, but actually making a difference for the rest of, certainly the UK, and actually had ramifications around the world. I think if it hadn't have been for Jimmy Savile's exposure, I wonder whether Weinstein, um, and the other individuals who have now been exposed, Epstein, would actually have taken place. Because what it did do is it created a tidal shift of attitudes and approach from victims up to authorities who said, "Do you know what? We now need to get ahold of this and we now have to start to listen to people who are telling us about what's going on." You know, no longer should people be untouchable. And, and I think there was a, a massive, massive change in attitudes as a direct result of that program going out.

   3. CWChris Williamson8:29

      I think you're right. The reckoning around men in positions of power abusing that power to gain access to either women or minors... I mean, was it Rolf Harris who was also downstream from that? Who was the, who was the media guy in the UK?

   4. MWMark Williams-Thomas8:47

      So there was Max Clifford-

   5. CWChris Williamson8:48

      Yeah.

   6. MWMark Williams-Thomas8:48

      ... Rolf Harris.

   7. CWChris Williamson8:49

      Yep.

   8. MWMark Williams-Thomas8:49

      Um, yeah, there was a, there was the, the Eastern Knockout guy, I can't remember his name now, you know, um-

   9. CWChris Williamson8:55

      Bill Cosby?

   10. MWMark Williams-Thomas8:55

       There was a number of... Bill Cosby. You know, there's a number of individuals, certainly Rolf Harris and Max Clifford. You know, I was instrumentally involved in both of those cases as far as bringing them to the police and getting the police to investigate them. And, you know, people would turn around afterwards, there were some critics who said, "Yeah, but you're just going after the celebrities." Well, well what they didn't realize is as a result of getting those people who were the most powerful untouchable, it meant anybody was touchable, it meant anybody could be got, and therefore up and down the country, teachers, scout masters, you know, those people in positions of trust who were having access to children were being arrested. And I can tell you, the, the knock-on effect of that was phenomenal. You know, we got contacted by the NSPCC in the weeks after the, uh, program went out, you know, just telling us the massive difference that has... the result of our program has made to the amount of people calling into their hotline and the amount of cases that were coming in. And I know because of my work with police forces up and down the country that they saw a significant spike in new cases and as a result of that, victims coming forward and offenders being caught, and I think it genuinely did make offenders think that the next knock on the door could well be from the police.

   11. CWChris Williamson10:12

       Yeah, I mean, if you can get a Harvey Weinstein or a, an Epstein or a, a Rolf Harris or a whoever, you can get anyone.

   12. MWMark Williams-Thomas10:22

       Yeah.

   13. CWChris Williamson10:22

       It really does sort of plant a flag in the ground and say, okay, you think that you're safe in your position of power as, like you say, a teacher, scout master, priest, whatever it might be. If you can take down people at the top of the tree in terms of media, it really does, I suppose, put the shits up people that think they can get away with it being below the radar. So talk to me about the difficulties in investigating that. I mean, apart from the fact that he was this huge media personality, I, I guess there must have been

4. 10:48 – 17:02

   Investigating Jimmy Savile

   1. CWChris Williamson10:48

      so many obstacles in there.

   2. MWMark Williams-Thomas10:50

      Yeah, huge amounts. I mean, I've never spoken about it, and my book talks about the case, and you know, there's, there's bits and pieces that we did behind the scenes i- in order to get the program broadcast which I've never spoken about and, and I don't think I ever will do, because for me, it was about the five women that came forward and you... we had to do whatever we could to try and get it broadcast. And, and thankfully ITV did broadcast it. But it was really difficult. You know, there was... at no stage really during the course of that 12-month investigation was there any time that I thought, "Do you know what? This is a quite an easy investigation to do." At every stage, there was hurdles to face and there was, you know... first of all, how many victims could we find? Was four enough? Was five enough? Was six enough? Was seven enough? How many was enough? You know, would we get the authorities to believe us? Would we, would we get the public on our side? Were people prepared to talk to us? You know, would people give up their anonymity to go on telly and explain that they were a victim of abuse? What was the fear of being sued? You know, what was the damage to us doing? I mean, I remember very clearly that my producer and I, you know, we, we'd talk about it, yeah, during the course of that 12 months, it was a consistent thing, and I remember saying to her once, "You know, if we don't... if this program doesn't land right, we'll never work in telly again."Um, you know, we put our, we put ourselves on the line, absolutely, to make that program. And, and of course, the women did more, you know, those victims of his. For them, it was, you know, not only had they gone through a lot of abuse, but for them to give up their identity in the ways that they did, was, was huge, far bigger than the risk that I took. But there was a risk. You know, there was a personal risk and damage that I may never have ever worked in television again if we'd have got it wrong, and no one had supported us and gone with us. And even up until the last moment. I mean, I remember doing an interview for BBC Radio Leeds the day before the program broadcast, and the reporter there, who was very supportive of Savile, because Savile was from Leeds, was basically saying, "You know, who do you think you are to be the judge and jury, you know, to put this program together when the, when the man's dead?" I mean, my response very clearly was, and I wrote a piece about this and said, "Look. You know, I'm not judge and jury. All I'm doing is presenting the facts. You are the judge and jury. The public are the judge and the jury. Ultimately, you will decide whether or not you believe the evidence being presented. All I'm doing is putting it out there, and then it's up to you to make your decision."

   3. CWChris Williamson13:23

      So, Savile was alive when you started your investigation, but-

   4. MWMark Williams-Thomas13:29

      No, no.

   5. CWChris Williamson13:29

      ... no?

   6. MWMark Williams-Thomas13:29

      He died. He died by the time... So he was alive when Newsnight started theirs-

   7. CWChris Williamson13:34

      Yep.

   8. MWMark Williams-Thomas13:35

      ... then he died. But by the time I started my investigation, he had already died.

   9. CWChris Williamson13:40

      Did the fact that he was dead make things easier or harder?

   10. MWMark Williams-Thomas13:45

       Oh, it would never have broadcast in a month of Sundays if he'd had been alive. No one would have touched it. It was hard enough to get it touched when he was alive- when he was dead. Nobody would have touched it. You know, I did a, a big piece in The Guardian about that, that was very clear that had Savile still been alive, our program would not have gone off the ground. It wouldn't have even moved forward. There'd been no traction for it. Nobody would have been interested in broadcasting it. And that tells you a lot about the power that he had, even when he was still dead.

   11. CWChris Williamson14:14

       Was that just him wielding solicitors left, right, and center and threatening to sue people?

   12. MWMark Williams-Thomas14:21

       Yeah, incredibly litigious. The victims wouldn't have stood up for it because they'd have been sued by him, and the broadcaster wouldn't have treaded, wouldn't have trodden there because they wouldn't have wanted to face the backlash from him and the financial implications from it.

   13. CWChris Williamson14:37

       Why is it that... So the police were notified of this, Sussex Police or Surrey Police had been notified that there was something to investigate, but they hadn't got anywhere with their investigation. How did it come to someone... Like, why was television the place that justice was found, as opposed to in the police?

   14. MWMark Williams-Thomas15:00

       Well, there was three allegations that were made. They went to Surrey Police, Surrey Police investigated it, and as a result of that, interviewed Savile at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, interviewed him in relation to sexual offenses. Didn't make any contact with the hospital to tell them that they were going to interview, what, an individual on their grounds for sexual offenses, which is astonishing. Uh, he gave his account, basically said none of it's true, absolute load of rubbish. Um, and Surrey Police decided to, well, with in conj- conjunction with the Crown Prosecution Service, uh, close the case, but significantly, without making any inquiries. Had they have followed up on some of the things he'd have told them, they could have shown that that wasn't true, that he was lying. Uh, and simply fell, sadly, years later to me to pick it up and, and do the job properly.

   15. CWChris Williamson15:49

       It seems crazy that there's things that you can do that the police can't, that there's lines of inquiry that get chased up. I suppose you're right. The fact that your, um, focus is narrowed for, for a period of time really, really does make one team look at a particular case. Yeah, I find that fascinating. I find it absolutely fascinating that you can have somebody who's got the expertise, and outside of the institution, that's able to do that work.

   16. MWMark Williams-Thomas16:16

       Yeah, I mean, I'm not the only person, I'm not the only investigative reporter that's out there that does these types of things. Um, but it's about... You know, it's also about having the experience and, and having the ability to go and do those things. I mean, the police officers that were investigating that case made some fatal mistakes. The Crown Prosecution Service made some very fatal mistakes. A- and, you know, sadly, whatever you do, you know, you could, you could easily say, "Well, they're busy, they're overworked, they've got so many cases." That doesn't wash, does it? It doesn't wash at all because as far as the victims are concerned, they don't care whether you've got another case. You know, "I want you to deal with my case properly." And so when one argues and says, "Well, I was just so busy, I didn't do it properly," it's like, "Well, you shouldn't have done it then."

5. 17:02 – 23:42

   Why Was Savile Different?

   1. MWMark Williams-Thomas17:02

   2. CWChris Williamson17:02

      Was there anything unique about Savile? Obviously, he's... Outwardly, he's a bit of a weird guy, but was there anything particularly unique about him that sort of came up during your investigation as well?

   3. MWMark Williams-Thomas17:13

      Yeah, I mean, I think the uniqueness of Savile, and it really is a uniqueness, it was his broad of his off- the broadness of his offending. So he offended against predominantly women, overwhelmingly women, uh, from all age groups, from 12, 13, all the way up to 50, 60. I think one of his latest victims was 70 or something. But, but real broad range of offending behavior, which is very strange because he quite clearly was interested in, in young children, you know, 14, 15, around, uh, puberty ages. But he also had an interest in women who were a lot older than that, which is very strange for an offender. You wouldn't normally have such a broad range of, of offending behavior targeting group.

   4. CWChris Williamson17:57

      What do you think that says about him?

   5. MWMark Williams-Thomas18:00

      Uh, well, I think a lot of it is the fact... I mean, uh, it becomes quite a complex process, but I think in terms of offenses, offenders, why do they offend? A large majority of sex offenders use power as an influence with their offending behavior, and I think that power played massively into him. You know, he was a completely narcissistic, egotistical, uh, control freak, uh, and had his way, you know, nearly all the time. So when he thought that, "Well, I want it, I'll have it," he just went and did it.And, of course, nobody challenged him. He was fairly untouchable. He was fairly unchallengeable. And he lived a consistent lie. You know, his idea is that he was out doing lots of, um, marathons and things like that. I mean, he, I think he finished two or three marathons in his life, and he was meant to have finished about 30 or 40. He would start the marathon, his rolls would pick him up, and he'd be dropped off just before the end and, and come out. You know, he'd go to charity events, and he'd be there for 10 minutes and then he'd disappear, be paid for the full time. He was a complete charlatan, you know, but very, very good at it. You know, he, he pulled the wool over his eye. And for a large majority of people, if I can work 20% but get paid 100%, I'll do it. And, and, you know, majority of people would work like that.

   6. CWChris Williamson19:19

      Do you think that him creating his children's shows was his way of gaining access?

   7. MWMark Williams-Thomas19:26

      I think it was. I wrote a piece in the Radio Times and, and there was a number of people who said that actually, you know, that's not true. But the evidence would suggest that it was. Whether it was subconscious or whether it was a deliberate act by him, there's no doubt that by having a ch- a chat show or a show like Jim'll Fix It enabled him to get access to children. And predominantly, his offending behavior was against young people, children. So, whether it was subconscious or not, or whe- whether it was a direct decision by him, I have no doubt that that played absolutely into his offending behavior.

   8. CWChris Williamson20:03

      Did he ever cross over to boys or men?

   9. MWMark Williams-Thomas20:06

      Well, there were a number of allegations of males that he'd sexually abused who were around the teenage, uh, years. I never saw any evidence about that, and I'm not suggesting that they weren't, they aren't correct, but I never saw any evidence of his offending against males.

   10. CWChris Williamson20:21

       Hmm. Interesting. So was it just his power that allowed him to get away with this for so long?

   11. MWMark Williams-Thomas20:29

       Yeah. I think essentially, I think he became fairly untouchable. And as a result of that... I mean, there were people through the y- over the years who could quite easily have stopped him, uh, before he became a very powerful person, but they didn't do anything about it. And as a result of that, his power increased, his offending behavior increased, and he could get away with it. He knew he could get away with it 'cause he knew that no one was ever gonna challenge him. 'Cause if he did challenge him, by the time he'd got to such a position, he was so, um, powerful, he, he was able to be very litigious.

   12. CWChris Williamson20:59

       Presumably, that means that there were other people who were either willfully ignorant or negligent or turned a blind eye or perhaps even complicit. I know that one of the bigwigs at the BBC had to resign in the aftermath of this. But do you think that there's still more fallout? Are there still more conspirators or enablers out there-

   13. MWMark Williams-Thomas21:22

       Ah.

   14. CWChris Williamson21:22

       ... that probably do need to be called to justice?

   15. MWMark Williams-Thomas21:25

       Undoubtedly. I mean, there are people out there who knew, knew that he was offending. Not to the degree necessarily of what it was. I don't think anybody knew about that other than him. But there will be other people who knew about his offending or knew about his inappropriateness working in the fields that he was and did nothing about it. Uh, and one of the massive problems is in t- so there's a number of television programs being made at the moment. His anniversary is coming up very soon, and there's a number of programs that were made, that they're being made around it. Uh, and I've not taken part in any of those, and quite simply because, you know, Savile now really is a matter of put it behind me. It's a f- it's a position, I've done the job, I've d- I've done my work. I've let other people now get on with their bits. But it's still unfinished in terms of holding people to account. And until somebody wants to commission or make a program which actually holds people to account, then I've got no interest. You know, it's, for me, it's not about going over, you know, his offending behavior again. We know that. That's been covered extensively. And what we now need to do is hold people to account, and until somebody wants to do that and commission a program to do that, then I'm not interested.

   16. CWChris Williamson22:35

       How many people do you think he abused?

   17. MWMark Williams-Thomas22:38

       Well, when we did the investigation, we said in excess of 500. Uh, and that might seem strange to people, but it's a figure, having worked in child protection for a long time, that I know that someone of a- his age is likely to o- incur that amount of contact with vi- that many victims. And it's interesting, when we met the officer in charge of the Metropolitan Police Operation Yew Tree, he came to meet us at ITV, and we had a meeting and he said, "You know, after an initial, uh, assessment of the case, we reckon there's probably about 30 or 40 victims." And I went, "500." And he went, "Really?" And I went, "Yeah." He said, "Well, I'll bow to your, (laughs) y- your knowledge having investigated him for the last year." And of course, when the final report came out, there was just in excess of 500 victims.

   18. CWChris Williamson23:28

       I suppose-

   19. MWMark Williams-Thomas23:29

       So, that's what I told him.

   20. CWChris Williamson23:30

       ... that's what happens when you're around for that long, right? If you've been in this position of power for such a long amount of time-

   21. MWMark Williams-Thomas23:36

       Mm-hmm.

   22. CWChris Williamson23:37

       ... it just gives you this constant access. Yeah, that's, um,

6. 23:42 – 28:56

   The Louis Theroux Documentary

   1. CWChris Williamson23:42

      that's terrifying. Another thing to consider as well that I thought was quite interesting is obviously Louis Theroux, who from what I know is a pretty shrewd guy, seems like a smart fella, he's able to exist on multiple planes at once, he can play with power dynamics within the documentaries that he does to great comedic effect, and he didn't see it, not the first time that he met him.

   2. MWMark Williams-Thomas24:05

      No. I, I mean, (laughs) no. Uh, I think it's... When you're immersed in that, I mean, I know Louis fairly well. When you're immersed in something like that, I think it, i- it's very easy to have the wool pulled over your eyes unless you step back from it and you have the ability to, to be objective and detangle yourself from the whole thing. And I think Louis got caught up in it all, and as a result of that, actually became friends with him. I mean, I th- there's a very strange Louis Theroux program which was the one that he did...... probably his last program about Savile, where he said- it was- was really about Louis. It was a very strange program where he talked about the impact that it's had on him, about he became friends with him, he spent a lot of time with him. Um, and, yeah, I mean, you know, he- he- he had the opportunity. I mean, he was- in a way you could say, well, Louis missed it because Louis had the opportunity when he was in the car with him talking about, you know, interested in children, to take it to the one step further and- and actually talk to people around and find out those people that didn't like Savile and why didn't they like him or what was everything going on. But I think he- he got caught up in it all. And of course, when you are immersed in that and you being given access to an individual, the access they'll give you is the access they want to give you.

   3. CWChris Williamson25:24

      Yeah. He's the gatekeeper here.

   4. MWMark Williams-Thomas25:27

      He's totally the gatekeeper. So you then have to step outside that and go, do you know what? You know, when I investigated, uh, Oscar Pistorius, you know, in terms of the case or the program that we made for Oscar, one of the things I said right at the very beginning is, "Oscar, you know, I'm going to go to perhaps places that you are uncomfortable with. Uh, you know, I will- I will set the scene here, not you. You're giving me access, but I'll take where- I will go wherever I want to go and that might mean asking you difficult things." And he was absolutely fine with that. You could never have done that with Jimmy Savile. Jimmy Savile would have gone, "No, no, no, I'm telling you where to go."

   5. CWChris Williamson26:03

      He controls the frame. You are stepping into my world.

   6. MWMark Williams-Thomas26:06

      Totally. Totally. And you saw that- well, you see that actually with the majority of people that Louis goes and visits. You know, he's visit- it's great access to TV, but ultimately he's always doing it on their terms.

   7. CWChris Williamson26:17

      Correct. Yeah, but that's the- that kind of side eye, um, what's it called? Gonzo style of reporting, that's- that- that's the way that it works, right? The point is that it's a fly on the wall sort of candid approach.

   8. MWMark Williams-Thomas26:31

      Yeah.

   9. CWChris Williamson26:31

      Yeah, I think as well, maybe another thing to- to play devil's advocate for Louis, Savile is such an eccentric overall. You- you kind of don't know what's character, what's truth. There's a lot being thrown at you. I mean, there's that clip that Louis did put just after he's cycling around his living room, which is like a bizarre scene from like some horror movie in itself. And he says... there's this clip of Jimmy looking at the camera and going, "Women know too much. I don't like women. They shouldn't know so much." And you think, that's... in isolation when you take it with the frame of everything else, it makes sense. But when you've got this guy that says, "I'm going to go out backwards, so when people look at me, they'll think that I'm coming in- I'm coming in forwards. They won't know whether I'm coming or going," and you think, right okay, this is just a litany of a fucking weird guy.

   10. MWMark Williams-Thomas27:22

       Mm-hmm. And I think one of the- and you're right, and I think one of the problems with Savile is that he made himself incredibly eccentric. So people didn't know, you know, whether... o- or a lot of people just said, "Well, that's just him."

   11. CWChris Williamson27:36

       Yep. Yeah.

   12. MWMark Williams-Thomas27:36

       "You know, that's just how he behaves. That's what he is." And I think in order to properly pull Savile apart, it- it also requires you having knowledge of how offenders operate and how devious they are and how they operate in- in grooming and- and, you know, Louis didn't have that knowledge. Understandably so, you know, he doesn't come from that background. So I think it's very difficult to- uh, t- for anybody to have been in an environment around Savile in those days and for the majority of people to actually know to pick up on it. Uh, they were- he was weird, you know, definitely a strange bloke, but you'd- i- if- if you spent some time with him and you had the knowledge of how offenders operate, I think alarm bells would be ringing very quickly.

   13. CWChris Williamson28:26

       You reckon?

   14. MWMark Williams-Thomas28:26

       But you'd have- but you'd have to have that knowledge.

   15. CWChris Williamson28:29

       Yeah.

   16. MWMark Williams-Thomas28:29

       And you'd have to spend the time with him and you'd have to ask searching and difficult questions and you'd have to know how to do that. So I think it's a... you know, he was on a pretty safe wicket, wasn't he, getting Louis in there? Because... uh, and the same with Max Clifford, you know, Max Clifford had Louis in and, you know, for both of those, of course it raised some slightly strange stuff, but ultimately they all came out of it okay or well.

7. 28:56 – 34:27

   Covering Predatory Characteristics

   1. MWMark Williams-Thomas28:56

   2. CWChris Williamson28:56

      I'm not sure if you've seen the Andrew Cuomo, uh, allegations that are coming out of America at the moment. I think he's the governor of New York and he has been accused of being very inappropriate with a number of the women that are in his office. And one of his defenses around this is that he's a very touchy, affectionate person. So there's some photos and videos that come out, and what it's made me think is, you were talking about Jimmy used his global personality as a smokescreen to make it very difficult to pick out what elements of his personality were predatory and which elements of it were just more of the eccentricity.

   3. MWMark Williams-Thomas29:35

      Mm-hmm.

   4. CWChris Williamson29:36

      Whereas Andrew Cuomo has said pre- pretty much exactly the same thing, talking about h- he- his team released a bunch of photos or someone got a bunch of photos together of him, you know, holding hands with other men, hugging other men, sort of kissing men on the cheek, just generally being overly affectionate. And you think, well, if you presume that someone isn't that smart, then maybe that's just the way that they go about it. But if someone's a very clever predator, then what they can do is think, right, if it does come out that, uh, there are accusations around me having touched people, I have this huge backlog of all of this media here that I've created. And I think, um, underestimating the level of planning that these people go to is probably an error that we shouldn't be making.

   5. MWMark Williams-Thomas30:22

      Yeah, and I think actually, I mean, I- I can't talk about his case because I don't know it, but I think also there are cases where individuals are- are very, you know, contact... they- they do have a lot of contact and actually what ends up happening is that they take that contact too far, uh, or they end up touching somebody o- obviously when there is no consent applied. And I think that's what happens with a lot of people and- and, you know, when we... all these people started to be arrested and- and there was a lot of chat obviously around, you know, these crimes happened a long time ago. Well, let's be very clear-... a sexual assault in the 1970s, '80s, and '90s is no different than a sexual assault in 2020. You know, the- the nature of the offense was the same. It was about, you know, not having consent to touch, so nothing changed. What happens is the whole attitude has changed slightly or significantly because what used to be accepted, it wasn't acceptable, but it was accepted because by reporting it, nobody would do anything. You wouldn't be listened to. There wouldn't be any action from it, so people's, people just simply put up with it. As a result of that, nothing was done. Of course, then when they have a voice and they're being listened to and that the view is actually, you know, that isn't acceptable... I mean, there are many people who will be able to tell you, "Well, those things used to happen at, in offices, you know, up and down the country. People, bosses would do mostly inappropriate things." And absolutely, they are wrong. You know, they've never been acceptable. So those people who have carried out those acts, you know, should, should be worried that there are, someone that's going to come forward. But let's be clear, you know, the allegations against those people that were convicted and the ones we're talking about were very serious allegations. You know, we're talking about, you know, s- full sexual contact and, and full, you know, sexual abuse of children.

   6. CWChris Williamson32:22

      Yeah, this is the premier league of, of predators that we're talking about here. Yeah.

   7. MWMark Williams-Thomas32:27

      Well, yeah. I mean, the scale of the offending is, is of a horrific nature and repeatedly and repetitively. And then, of course, they've used their position of trust to abuse. And up and down the country, there will be other people. You know, I went into, I went into a prison. There's a, uh, Gren- Grendon Prison, uh, in the UK, which is, uh, I think it's in Oxfordshire and there's a, um... It's a therapeutic prison. And I went and spent half a day there, sat in a room with about 15 or 16 other offenders in there. And part of the process is they have to be very open about their offending behavior and they went around the room, each explaining the offenses they'd had, they'd committed. And the first man sits there and he talks, he said, "Oh, I, I raped a five-year-old, murdered her and then murdered the, her par- her partner." Um, and then there's other people talking about it. Um, and what was interesting when, when I was talking to them is that every single one of them said at some stage they knew they were gonna get caught. It was just a matter of time. And there was one guy who said, "Look, you know, I used to come home from work and I'd drive around the corner and almost every night I'd imagine that there was a police car on the drive. You know, I was waiting for when that police car was going to be on the drive." And I think in one way, that's quite reassuring that offenders think that they will get caught one day. The sad reality is that they don't always get caught. Uh, you know, and I spent... most of my time now is spent away from my private work around managing dangerous sex offenders, is very much around investigating murders, unsolved murders. And up and down the country, there are sadly people walking around who are responsible for a murder who have got away with it and have not yet got caught. And, and that is, that is, for me, horrific. You know, they've taken somebody's life and sadly-

   8. CWChris Williamson34:23

      Mm-hmm.

   9. MWMark Williams-Thomas34:23

      ... we have far too many unsolved murders in this country.

8. 34:27 – 46:04

   Mark’s Most Disturbing Cases

   1. CWChris Williamson34:27

      What are some of the most disturbing cases that you've investigated?

   2. MWMark Williams-Thomas34:33

      I think the hardest ones are when I know somebody's guilty, I know someone has done it, but I just can't get enough evidence to get them prosecuted. And that might be a case of, you know, there's Nicola Payne, who was an 18-year-old young girl who went missing in Coventry in 1991 and actually we're featuring her case at, at CrimeCon this year. And, well, I've done an awful lot of r- work around that and I have no doubt who the offenders are, absolutely no doubt. The evidence is c- is pretty compelling against them but just not enough to get them convicted. I've got a, uh, another case that I've taken on more recently which is the murder of two young boys in Liverpool in the 1980s. And I've now managed to get an interview with the person I believe responsible and actually, incredibly, he has opened up for the first time and has admitted to being the last person that saw them alive and admitted to something happening when he was with them. And I hope... You know, we're currently working on that to try and get it to a position where we make it into a program which forces the hands of the Crown Prosecution Service and the police to arrest him and prosecute him. They've gone... You know, these are two young boys and the case, a lot of people don't even know about it. You know, that's horrific. Two boys murdered in the 1980s. Why don't we all know about that? And there are other cases. I did a, a big article recently about unsolved murders because I did a, a Freedom of Information request to every police force to get details of their murders, unsolved murders. And it is frightening, it is genuinely frightening how many murders there are that remain unsolved. I mean, there's, there's a horrific case of a young baby who was sexually assaulted and then, um, cemented into a barrel and, you know, that most probably while she was still alive. You know, that offender's never been caught or offenders have never been caught. There's other case, there's another case where an individual was cut up and put into a big, uh, barrel, uh, an oil barrel. I mean, there are, there are shockingly cases where offenders have never ever been caught. And, and that for me is the, you know, the, the, uh, the drive that makes me get out of bed in the morning and go, "Do you know what? I'm gonna go and try and catch somebody else." And I have, you know, I have an incredible amount of, of workload. You know, my next podcast on the Detective Series is Lee Boxhall-... uh, we're just cutting s-, uh, episode one, and that will be released within the next couple of weeks. And it's a three-parter. And I... and the evidence we have uncovered is phenomenal. It is... You know, we... I will name who I think the killer is. He died, uh, about six months ago, actually died during COVID. I wish he was still alive. And actually, I probably couldn't have... I couldn't have been so forceful if he'd still been alive because of the, uh, of naming him. But he's now dead, so I can name him, and I will categorically tell you that I think he is responsible. And actually, we've got evidence now from his son and his daughter, who for the very first time have given me some evidence which pinpoints him as being the offender.

   3. CWChris Williamson37:50

      What happened to those Asian guys that you featured in a series-

   4. MWMark Williams-Thomas37:56

      Mm-hmm.

   5. CWChris Williamson37:56

      ... of podcasts that you did? What was the comeuppance with them?

   6. MWMark Williams-Thomas37:59

      So, so that was for the first series of the detective podcast, which was the f- uh, four men in jail for a, um, terrorist attack. They were accused of being involved in a terrorist attack in the West Midlands. And quite clearly the evidence had been planted by the, uh, the police. The police had planted the evidence. Everything tells you that. There's no doubt. Even the judge, you know, alluded to that. He couldn't go as far as to say that it was, but everything pointed that. They constructed it, they put the, put the matters there. But as is the case sadly for some of these things, when they go wrong, very often the police will just close ranks, the judiciary will close ranks. And I can't tell you whether or not those individuals had any intention to commit a terrorist attack in the UK. But what I can tell you, that the evidence that they were convicted on was fabricated, was made up. And it goes to the heart of any investigation, in fact, my podcast uses this at the very end, is that there is never, in my mind, a case where the means justifies the end. So in other words, you can't make something up just because you think it's right. We have a judicial system in this country, and we have to see that through properly. So by creating evidence, by fabricating evidence, that for me i- is never acceptable. And I think that's what happened with them. And in fact in my series two of the podcast, we look at a mur-, a lady that was a, a, um, Harman Hinder Sangheri, who was prosecuted for a murder in Manchester. And it's absolutely clear that it's not murder, it's suicide. She got jailed for what is a suicide. And everyone thought it was a suicide at the time, and then the senior investigating police officer came in and, as a result of the poli-, the pathologist saying, "Well, this looks like murder." And then there follows a path where they then go to prove murder. They had no evidence that it was murder in any way at all. I've looked at it now. We've done a full forensic examination. We've reconstructed the crime scene, we've reconstructed the fight with the, or the so-called fight, we've looked at the injuries, and it's now currently sitting with a new pathologist, who I hope will concur with my decision. She's out of jail now, she's on, out on license.

   7. CWChris Williamson40:22

      Oh, so she, she's no longer in jail?

   8. MWMark Williams-Thomas40:25

      She's just come out on license. But she's still a convicted, uh, killer. And I hope that the pathologist will concur with, with my conclusion and will get it to the Court of Appeal and her, her, um, verdict will be quashed. And interestingly, uh, the senior investigating officer, who I know actually, who gave me an interview and I think she probably regretted massively giving me an interview. But she gave me an interview, and, and I... One of the things I said to her is, "You know, there's no evidence to say that this was murder. It... Everything pointed to suicide. It all looked like suicide. The whole crime scene looks like suicide." You know, "Why did you decide that it was murder when it looked like suicide? You know, when it looks like suicide, it is suicide." And, and her response was, "If it looks like a duck, it quacks like a duck, it's a duck." And I went, "Exactly." You know? And, and what a strange analogy for her to make. I s-... Well, you, you're spot on there. "You made the wrong call, didn't you?" And she said, "Well, no, I don't think we did." I said, "Well, you did. You know, you put an innocent person to jail." I mean, this is a person, she never... She- she's a- alleged to have turned up with the knife in her handbag and then left without taking the knife with her. And there's none of her forensics on there. And what makes this whole case absolutely bonkers is that it's based on the premise that the v-... the offender turns up at the crime scene, puts a whole forensic suit on, including gloves, hat, shoes, commits the murder. In the middle of the murder, she changes her s-... her gloves and puts a different pair of gloves on. She then leaves the property, not leaving a single trace outside of the bedroom, takes her forensic suit off, disposes of her forensic suit somewhere. And that is the basis of the prosecution's case, th- that's why she had no blood on her clothes, because she carried it out wearing a full forensic suit. Has that ever occurred at any other crime in the UK? No. Not that I can find out. Has it ever occurred in any other country? No. (laughs) You know, their analogy or the reasons why they say that this had to be murder was the sheer number of wounds that the victim incurred. And, you know, 40 plus wounds. But that takes out, and what they failed to acknowledge, both the pathologist and the senior investigating officer, is that that might be the case in your limited understanding and research around stab wounds. But if you do a little bit of research around the world, you'll find...

   9. ... that there are people who have stabbed themselves in excess of a hundred times. And there are lots of cases where people have carried out exactly the same types of injuries that she had. And so, when you do the research properly, when you look at it properly, it's a travesty. It's an absolute travesty. She should never have gone to jail. And I hope that the pathologist will concur with our decision and we'll get it back to the Court of Appeal. And, and she's languished in jail for all those years. Thankfully, she's now home. But hopefully, we can clear her name.

   10. CWChris Williamson43:42

       This is some Line of Duty shit.

   11. MWMark Williams-Thomas43:47

       It, it is funny really. I mean, you know, by and large, the police are not corrupt at all. No. Uh, and in fact, I often get asked this, you know, do, do the police set people up? Occasionally they do. Of course they do. It happens in every line of work, and particularly when you've got poli- police officers who hold a lot of power. But overwhelmingly, it's incompetence. It's overwhelmingly a vision that they are right. So one of the positions of the murder manual is... and, and training, is to allow senior investigating officers to come up with hypotheses in terms of, of what's happened. Because of course, the victim's dead and the only other person that probably knows what's happened is the offender, so you have to start guessing. And you have to start thinking, "Well, if this evidence is telling us this, this is what's likely to have happened." And sometimes that's right. But what ends up happening is senior investigating officers come up with this hypothesis and then, of course, they then look for evidence to fit that. And you can take all kinds of evidence and make it as strong or as weak as you want to make it. And this is what happens with senior investigating officers. They run down a blind alley to prove their hypothesis, which unfortunately in itself, when you look at it in the light of day without those blinkered visions, blinkered goggles on, you look at it and go, "Well, that doesn't make sense." Because what is the likelihood of an offender turning up at a crime scene, putting a whole forensic suit on, positioning the body in a certain way, leaving the knife there, coming out of the house making a phone call immediately to a friend and telling her exactly what happened within the house? All of that doesn't make any sense. And it doesn't make any sense unless you want to change the narrative to make it suspicious.

   12. CWChris Williamson45:41

       Yeah. You're finding... You're repurposing the facts of the case in order to fit the predefined idea that you have about what happened.

   13. MWMark Williams-Thomas45:48

       And that's what happens. And it's happened in many, many cases. It's happened in, um, Jeremy Bamber, it's happened in Jill Dando, it's happened in this case, and I'm sure it's happened in a number of other cases that, you know, I... that I'm not aware of.

9. 46:04 – 54:12

   How Accurate is Line of Duty?

   1. MWMark Williams-Thomas46:04

   2. CWChris Williamson46:04

      Speaking of Line of Duty, apart from the corruption and people shooting their ways out of, of, uh, interviews, and that really, really, really long buzzer that happens-

   3. MWMark Williams-Thomas46:14

      (laughs) Yeah.

   4. CWChris Williamson46:14

      ... when they start an interview, how accurate is that as a, a representation of what life is like for the police?

   5. MWMark Williams-Thomas46:21

      Yeah, I mean, it's very accurate in many ways. And, and you know, Jed Mercurio is a, is a inspirational writer. He's very, very clever. I know World Productions very, very well. Um, actually, you know, I've, I've grown up in their stable and have a very good relationship with them. They are brilliant. They're absolutely brilliant. But, of course, you know, there is poetic license to some of it. Of course there is. Um, but overwhelmingly, it is, it is pretty accurate i- in most parts. And, and some of it... I, I think probably the last series slightly stretched the imagination in certain ways (laughs) , uh, and it probably wasn't the best of endings.

   6. CWChris Williamson46:59

      No. God, what a fucking shit way to finish a season. Yeah.

   7. MWMark Williams-Thomas47:03

      Slightly dis-... Yeah.

   8. CWChris Williamson47:04

      Cliffhanger.

   9. MWMark Williams-Thomas47:04

      Very sli- very disappointing really. And I think some of it got, um, uh, yeah, it got lost, lost along the way slightly.

   10. CWChris Williamson47:11

       Yeah.

   11. MWMark Williams-Thomas47:11

       Which is a real shame because it is an amazing program. Um, you know, corruption does happen in the police force. Of course it does, uh, because police officers are all very powerful people. They can do an awful lot of things, more so years gone by. You know, the '70s, '80s and '90s, police corruption was at its highest. Really, really bad. Uh, it's far less now because the police do police themselves i- in some times better than they police the public, which is disappointing. Um, and I think sometimes they go after ridiculous things. But Line of Duty, uh, of course they go after bent coppers. That's the basis of what there is. Um, you know, Ted's view is, you know, is, is that... is he is after bent coppers all the time. And of course they're around and, and they should be eliminated. You know, they, they need to find those people and get them out of the force as quickly as possible. A- and people will cover up for other people. Organized crime: is organized crime involved in some aspects of policing? Yeah, I think the, I think there will be, there will be. Less so in the UK. When you go to some of these other foreign countries, absolutely. I mean, the chief of police in, in one of the areas in Thailand, I think it's Bangkok, he is currently on the run. You know, he's on the run in relation to having shot somebody in the head with his team because they wanted him to pay a 20,000 pound bribe, and now they've said, th- well, during the course of the interview they actually upped it to, I think, 40,000. But the background to him is that he cur- he... on his drive and his house, he has Ferraris, uh, Rolls-Royces... Because the pla- the pay is so bad for the police in Thailand that tends to... what happen is when they go to a location to do a search of something, if they have cars there for the offenders, there's a picking order in terms of...... seniority of the police-

   12. CWChris Williamson49:11

       Oh, God.

   13. MWMark Williams-Thomas49:11

       ... take the cars.

   14. CWChris Williamson49:12

       (laughs) That's crazy.

   15. MWMark Williams-Thomas49:13

       And they will take, and they will take the cars, and-

   16. CWChris Williamson49:16

       (laughs)

   17. MWMark Williams-Thomas49:16

       ... and that becomes their own cars. You... And you take that to other countries, you know, Ca- I've done a lot of work in Cambodia, Thailand, total corruption. You buy yourself out of these places in Cambodia. You know, if you get arrested in Cambodia for child abuse, you can pay your way out of it. Uh, South Africa, you can do that. You know, so the, the corruption in, in the UK police force is-

   18. CWChris Williamson49:38

       Pales-

   19. MWMark Williams-Thomas49:39

       ... nowhere near.

   20. CWChris Williamson49:39

       ... pales in significance.

   21. MWMark Williams-Thomas49:40

       Oh, pales in insignificance when you go to other countries around the world. Uh, but it has been significantly impacted on. There's no doubt that the British police force of the '70s, '80s and '90s, compared to what it is now, is a world away. The corruption that existed in the... in those periods of times was frightening. And thankfully, the police has got a grip of so much of it now, and those people are no longer in the police force because there's no room for it. There's no room for it at all. You know, as police officers, we have a, you know... I say we, I was, you know, we sign an oath. We, we sign an oath to the queen to do our duty to the crown, and, you know, we... It is down to us to act professionally, morally responsible the whole time. And we have to, to keep that. And whatever the power is, I mean, you can see the power go to some of these people's heads. But whatever it is, you know, we have to be upholding the law. And the moment that we step the wrong side of the law, then we're, we're as bad as they are, aren't we?

   22. CWChris Williamson50:50

       Yeah. Did you watch Murder Next Door? That Chris Watts-

   23. MWMark Williams-Thomas50:54

       Yeah.

   24. CWChris Williamson50:54

       ... story?

   25. MWMark Williams-Thomas50:54

       Brilliant.

   26. CWChris Williamson50:54

       What was your, what was your assessment of him?

   27. MWMark Williams-Thomas50:57

       Oh, I mean, I... Firstly, I have to say, it's probably the best program I've w- best film I've watched because

   28. NANarrator51:03

       (laughs)

   29. CWChris Williamson51:03

       All archive footage as well, wasn't it? All police cam and just-

   30. MWMark Williams-Thomas51:06

       Oh, it was-
10. 54:12 – 1:00:32

    Thoughts on Making A Murderer

    1. MWMark Williams-Thomas54:12

    2. CWChris Williamson54:12

       Making a murderer. What's your thoughts?

    3. MWMark Williams-Thomas54:15

       Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, listen, it could never have broadcast in British television because it was totally one-sided, unbalanced, um, and lacked any integrity from anything other than the one side. Um, it drew huge fans. It was a massive, massive success. But ultimately, do I think that he was responsible? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I, I... You watch the program and you come away after and you think, "Yeah, he was, he was guilty as hell." You know, how on earth did human remains end up in, you know, being burnt in the grounds of your place? You know, I'm sorry, that's because she was burnt there and you would known about it. Now the, the cousin, I think it's the cousin.

    4. CWChris Williamson55:00

       Brendan, yeah.

    5. MWMark Williams-Thomas55:01

       Who ended up being... Bren- Brendan. I mean, I think Brendan is absolutely innocent. Uh, and very sadly should never have ever been prosecuted. I mean, the, the actions of that investigator.

    6. CWChris Williamson55:14

       Yeah. Pretty despicable.

    7. MWMark Williams-Thomas55:16

       ... shocking, absolutely shocking. You know, he should be convicted himself. Uh, and the defense, you know, were, were very poor. You know, they could have really highlighted a whole load of things that would never have got him convicted. So, yeah, uh, uh, a, a great visual and I suppose entertainment program, but didn't do very much for any credibility. It, as a, as an investigator, uh, it was poor.

    8. CWChris Williamson55:44

       The thing that's really interested me during this conversation is understanding the forcing function of putting something onto television to cause downstream impacts with regards to what happens judicially.

    9. MWMark Williams-Thomas56:02

       Mm-hmm.

    10. CWChris Williamson56:02

        I, I, I would've never thought watching... How many seasons of, of your thing is on Netflix now, The Investigator thing?

    11. MWMark Williams-Thomas56:09

        There're two.

    12. CWChris Williamson56:09

        Yeah.

    13. MWMark Williams-Thomas56:10

        Two seasons out.

    14. CWChris Williamson56:10

        Two seasons of that and consistent one-offs and specials and so on and so forth. And you watch it, and you think, "Well, this is, this is interesting." It's almost like it's there for our entertainment. But you forget that after that airs, there are downstream implications that cause investigations to be reopened within the police, for evidence to be looked at because there's now societal public pressure. There's press a- attention. There's more, um... It galvanizes presumably the families and other people as well that are a part of that. That to me is, you know, f-... I, I enjoy watching, uh, True Crime on Netflix, I think they have some really awesome stuff, but I never realized that it was, apart from being entertaining, it's actually like a, a, a service being done to the investigation itself.

    15. MWMark Williams-Thomas57:00

        I mean, all of my programs are. A- all of my programs are. P- there's a backend to all of my programs. They all have a value, they all have a purpose. I mean, my most recent program on ITV, which was the, uh, murder of Stephen Clark, you know, as a direct result of our involvement in that program, the parents got cleared of murder. You know, we, we... Without us involving, without my involvement in the program, they would never have been cleared. And I don't know if you've seen it, but it's quite a fascinating program. Um, and, and I think, you know, the ser- season two, no season one of The Investigator when we focus on, uh... And in fact, I'll tell you, I'm right, season two when we look at Jessie Earl's murder, the young girl in Beachy Head. You know, following that, one of the areas that we focused on and looked at is could we get a new inquest? Because if we can get a new inquest, potentially, we can have the body exhumed, and then we can collect some evidence from the body. The DNA has never been taken from the body.

    16. CWChris Williamson57:55

        And that, that's happening, right? Haven't you got some huge turnaround?

    17. MWMark Williams-Thomas57:59

        So, yeah, so in relation to Jessie Earl on series two, we as a result of that have all put in a very detailed application to the attorney general and we've now got a position where the attorney general has allowed us to appeal the conviction, and we're waiting now in h- in, for the High Court to hear the case very soon, and we're hoping that that inquest will be overturned, which is unheard of. You know, you're lucky if you get one inquest overturned every couple of years. They are so, so rare. So we've managed to get that. And the purpose of it is, and this is where the interest comes, you see. So you, so you could say, "Okay, well, get them an o- a new inquest." Fine, you know, it may get an outcome which is positive, but how is that helpful? Well, the situation is, is that as a direct result of that, we are now hoping that the body will be exhumed, that we can get DNA from the body, we can put DNA onto the national database. We can collect, we can check that DNA across the, uh, unsolved, uh, crime database and the existing marks, and it might link up to items being recovered from an offender that as a result of that could be linked to her. So it all has a purpose.

    18. CWChris Williamson59:13

        Talk to me about the psychological price that you pay for what you do.

    19. MWMark Williams-Thomas59:18

        Yeah, I mean, I think you pay a massive price. I didn't probably think that it was that big an impact on me until more recently. You know, I have suffered with my mental health over the last two years, and, and I do have dark days, um, which is, you know, I, I never thought I'd talk about really because of how dark it's been, but it has had an impact on me. Um, and I try and deal with it, you know, sport and, and, uh, getting in the garden, and those types of activities have been really important for me. But it is hard, and I think it's hard because you're taking on other people's pain, taking on other people's sadness, and I live in a pretty dark world because of the type of work that I do. But that said, I love it. I wouldn't do anything else. I can't do anything else. Um, and, and I'm passionate about what I do.

    20. CWChris Williamson1:00:13

        Genuinely looks like you're built for this, uh, like you were designed in some lab somewhere to be in this position.

    21. MWMark Williams-Thomas1:00:22

        Well, if only I was. Was it... I can't remember the guy's name that was The Six Million Dollar Man, but that would be lovely.

    22. CWChris Williamson1:00:28

        (laughs) Mark Williams-Thomas, ladies and gentlemen.

11. 1:00:32 – 1:01:34

    Where to Find Mark

    1. CWChris Williamson1:00:32

       If people want to keep up with what you're doing, where should they go?

    2. MWMark Williams-Thomas1:00:35

       Yeah, so I've, I've got a, um, Instagram account which is MWilliamsthomas. I've got a Twitter account which is MWilliamsthomas, and I've got a TikTok account which is MWilliamsthomas.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:00:44

       (laughs)

    4. MWMark Williams-Thomas1:00:44

       And I keep them all up-to-date with, with crime-related things. Uh, my next program to come out will be The, uh, Yorkshire Ripper, which is the Tapes of the Ripper. You can check out my podcast, @thedetective, which is on a- which is on all the podcast platforms. And I'm currently working on, and I'll just leave you with a bit of a tease, I'm currently working on a three-part investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:01:09

       Serious stuff. Mark, thank you for today. Thank you very much.

    6. MWMark Williams-Thomas1:01:14

       Thank you. Take care. Bye-bye.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:01:16

       Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that, then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few months. And don't forget to subscribe. It makes me very happy indeed. Peace.

Episode duration: 1:01:34