Crimes That Shook Britain is a television series first aired in 2008 on Crime & Investigation UK, focusing on uncovering the truth behind crimes that shocked the nation. Some episodes were also rebroadcast in random episode order from 2014 to 2019, on Channel 5 originally under the title Britain's Worst Crimes.
Through drama reconstructions, witness accounts, interviews with police and the victims families, the series explores some of Britain's most infamous cases and murderers.
Episodes Series 1 (2008) Source:
The Hungerford massacre; in August 1987, 27-year-old Michael Ryan shot dead 16 people (including his elderly mother) in the Berkshire town of Hungerford before turning the gun on himself. Harold Shipman; in January 2000, 54-year-old Greater Manchester GP Harold Shipman was convicted of murdering 15 patients between 1995 and 1998; a government inquiry later found that in total, he killed more than 200 people while practising in Greater Manchester and North Yorkshire. Stephanie Slater; Birmingham estate agent Stephanie Slater is abducted and held hostage in January 1992, with her abductor demanding ransom money for her release, before she is set free a week later. Michael Sams is arrested soon afterwards and 18 months later is jailed for life for the abduction and false imprisonment of Miss Slater, as well as the murder of 18-year-old Leeds prostitute Julie Dart in July 1991. The Russell Murders; in July 1996, Lin Russell and her six-year-old daughter Megan are bludgeoned to death in a Kent country lane. Mrs Russell's other daughter, nine-year-old Josie, suffers serious head injuries but survives. Two years later, 38-year-old drug addict and psychopath Michael Stone is found guilty of the murders and sentenced to life imprisonment. Stone's convictions were quashed in 2001 and he was granted a re-trial, but was convicted of the murders at his second trial. Beverley Allitt; in 1991, four young children died and nine others were attacked (some of them suffering serious and life changing health issues or disabilities) at a Lincolnshire hospital. Staff nurse Beverley Allitt is arrested and charged with the murders and other attacks. She is found guilty in May 1993 and sentenced to life imprisonment in a psychiatric hospital. Murder of Sarah Payne; in July 2000, an eight-year-old girl goes missing while playing with her siblings near her grandfather's seaside home in West Sussex. A police manhunt is launched and media appeals for her safe return are made, but 16 days later a body is found in another part of the county and is soon identified as that of Sarah. The discovery of Sarah's body sees a murder inquiry launched, while Sarah's family co-operate with the national media - mostly the News of the World - for public access to the sex offender's register, as well as more severe sentences for anyone found guilty of sexual offences against children. Roy Whiting, a local man with a previous conviction for child abduction and indecent assault, is found guilty of the murder in December 2001 and sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommendation that he should never be released.
Series 2 (2011) Source:
The London Nail Bombings; in the spring of 1999, three nail bomb attacks in London killed three people and injured 140 others. David Copeland, a neo-Nazi extremist, was arrested soon afterwards and found guilty the following year, being sentenced to life imprisonment. The Murder of Jill Dando; TV presenter shot dead on her West London doorstep in April 1999. Barry George was found guilty of her murder in 2001 and sentenced to life imprisonment, but was released in 2008 after winning an appeal against his conviction. The Dunblane Massacre; the fatal shooting of 16 children and their teacher at a primary school in Dunblane, Scotland, by local man Thomas Hamilton, who then shot himself dead. The massacre contributed to stiffer gun laws, as well as tighter security in schools. The White House Farm murders; the bodies of Nevill and June Bamber, along with their adoptive daughter Sheila and six-year-old twin grandsons, are found dead from gunshot wounds at the family's Essex farmhouse. The shootings are initially treated by the police and reported by the media as a murder-suicide, as Sheila had a history of psychiatric illness. However, the couple's surviving adopted child, 24-year-old son Jeremy, is soon arrested and charged with the murders, with his cousin and former girlfriend both informing police that he had told them of his plans to carry out the killings in order to inherit a six-figure fortune. He is tried for the murders a year later, found guilty and jailed for life. The Murder of Rhys Jones; an 11-year-old boy who died in Liverpool after being hit by a stray bullet near his home in August 2007. Local teenage gang member Sean Mercer was found guilty of his murder more than a year later and sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommended minimum term of 22 years. The Murder of Stephen Cameron; a 21-year-old man who was stabbed to death by another motorist on the M25 in a "road rage" incident, in front of his 17-year-old girlfriend. Kenneth Noye is found guilty of the murder.
Series 3 (2012) Source:
The murder of Victoria Climbié; eight-year-old Victoria Climbie died in February 2000 following a campaign of horrendous abuse at the hands of her aunt and her aunt's partner in North London, where she was being raised by her relative under the wishes of her parents, who felt that she would have a better education in England than in her native Ivory Coast. The Omagh Bombing; in August 1998, a terrorist bomb explodes in the Northern Ireland town of Omagh, killing 29 people (including a pregnant woman) and injuring many others. A Republican terrorist organisation calling themselves the "Real IRA" later claims responsibility for the atrocity. The "Crossbow Cannibal" (Stephen Griffiths); between June 2009 and May 2010, three women are brutally murdered in Bradford, West Yorkshire. 41-year-old local man Stephen Griffiths is then arrested and admits the murders at his trial in December that year. He is sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommendation that he should never be released. The murder of James Bulger; On 12 February 1993, 2 year old James went missing at a Merseyside shopping centre. His mutilated body was found on a railway line two days later. A CCTV image shows James being led away by two older boys, which quickly leads the police to two 10-year-old local boys, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables. They were soon charged with the murder on 20 February 1993. The two boys were found guilty of the murder nine months later and were sentenced to be detained for "very, very many years". They were paroled with new identities eight years later, but in 2010 one of the killers Jon Venables, by now in his late twenties, was recalled to prison for breaching his licence conditions after being found possessing child pornography. The murder of Sally Anne Bowman; in September 2005, 18-year-old Croydon model Sally Anne Bowman is found dead outside her home; she had been stabbed and raped. Mark Dixie, who was caught nearly a year later through a DNA match after he was arrested for an unrelated crime, was found guilty of the murder in February 2008 and jailed for life with a recommended minimum term of 34 years. After his trial, it was revealed that Dixie had previous convictions for sexual offences against women, and his name has since been linked with other unsolved sexual offences. The Murder of Rachel Nickell; in July 1992, 23-year-old Rachel Nickell is stabbed to death on Wimbledon Common in front of her two-year-old son. Colin Stagg is charged with her murder a year later, but is later acquitted, after it is revealed that an undercover policewoman had been employed by the Metropolitan Police to win Stagg's trust in an attempt to get him to confess to the murder. The crime was finally solved in December 2008 when Robert Napper admitted the manslaughter of Rachel Nickell at the Old Bailey and sentenced to be detained indefinitely in a mental hospital. He had already been in custody for 15 years for stabbing to death a young mother and suffocating her young daughter in South London in November 1993; 16 months after killing Rachel Nickell.
Series 4 (2013) Source:
The Murder of Stephen Lawrence; in 1993, 18-year-old South London student Stephen Lawrence is stabbed to death after being attacked by a gang of youths. Two local teenagers, Neil Acourt and Luke Knight, are accused of the murder, but the charges are later dropped, with the police and CPS citing a lack of evidence. A third suspect, Gary Dobson, is also arrested but not charged. However, a change in the law a decade later enables a suspect to be re-tried for a crime they have been cleared of, in the event of new evidence coming to light. In November 2011, Gary Dobson and David Norris, by now in their late thirties, go on trial for the murder of Stephen Lawrence, and are found guilty of murder in January 2012. They are sentenced to life imprisonment. Witnessed stated that there were at least five people involved in the murder, but nobody else has yet been charged. Raoul Moat; freed prisoner Raoul Moat goes on a shooting spree in North East England almost as soon as he is freed from a prison sentence for assault. He begins his spree at the home of his former girlfriend Samantha Stobart, causing her serious injuries and killing her new boyfriend Christopher Brown. He later shoots PC David Rathband, blinding him, and is later surrounded by the police. Moat is still armed, and police spend several hours negotiating with him before he shoots himself dead. His two accomplices, initially believed to be hostages, are later jailed for life after being found guilty of murder and two counts of attempted murder. Garry Newlove; a 47-year-old father-of-three dies in August 2007 after being attacked by a gang of teenagers outside his home in Warrington, Cheshire, the culmination of a long-running campaign of anti-social behaviour in the locality. Nine teenagers are quickly arrested; five of them are charged with murder. Three are convicted of the murder five months later and receive life sentences with recommended minimum terms of between 12 and 17 years. In the months and years that follow, his widow is actively involved in campaigning against the type of youth gang crime (often drink or drug fuelled) which has resulted in serious crimes like the death of her husband, and is later elevated to the House of Lords, as well as being appointed Victim's Commissioner by the Conservative government. The Yorkshire Ripper; between 1975 and 1980, 13 women are killed and seven others injured in attacks across the county of West Yorkshire (and two victims in Manchester). After the first few attacks, police are convinced that they are dealing with the crimes of one man, a mystery individual who is labelled by the media as the "Yorkshire Ripper". Their hunt comes to an end on 2 January 1981 when 34-year-old Bradford lorry driver Peter Sutcliffe is arrested in Sheffield for driving with false number plates and confesses to the crimes. He is jailed for life later that year. Christopher Foster; in August 2008, the charred bodies of businessman Christopher Foster, his wife Jill and their teenage daughter Kirstie are found after a fire at their £1.2million Shropshire mansion. It is later established that Mr Foster had shot his wife and daughter dead, as well as their dogs and horses, before setting fire to their home and dying in the inferno. Further investigations that Christopher Foster was more than £4 million in debt and may have committed the murder-suicide to save his family from experiencing poverty that would have resulted from his bankruptcy and loss of their home.