All language subtitles for Episode 06 The Murder of Krystal Hart

She was defenceless.
She was unarmed.

She was on her own doorstep.

Krystal Hart
was in the beginning of her life,

everything to look forward to.

Until it was taken away
in the most inane,

pointless and brutal manner.

We saw him
with the gun in his hand.

We heard the shots.

And we saw him leave
with the gun in his hand.

It's just wrong place, wrong time.

It's just a question
of finding him.

It was, you know,
literally was a manhunt.

It was a crime

of almost
breath-taking callousness...

The man
who tried to kill her

will never be free to harm again...

The audio was
too graphic to be broadcasted...

..were killed when the inferno
swept through the building...

..targeted young women
unable to defend themselves.

Colin Sutton
was a detective chief inspector

and senior investigating officer
in the Metropolitan Police.

He led the investigations
into some of the most complex

and high-profile cases ever,

bringing dangerous criminals
to justice.

He showed his cowardice...

Then heard screaming as Hughes
pulls out the gun...

Another 146 victims.

In this series,

he will take you inside
those cases and show you

how he caught these criminals
using nothing

but pure detective work.

This is the Real Manhunter.

Now been found
guilty on all 29...

Five of those charges...

Victim 89...

The officer
in-charge described it

as a senseless tragedy.

The life sentence
may provide some closure

for his victims' families.

This case came to us
at Easter 2007, beginning of April.

It was Good Friday,

and we were on call
in the office at Putney

and we had a skeleton staff
because it was a bank holiday

and it was a fine,
glorious day in early April.

And unusually at 10:00 or so
in the morning, 10:30,

we get a phone call saying,

"We need you to deploy
to a shooting on Battersea,

"on south area."

At that time,

we were...we were still getting

the Levi Bellfield case
ready for court.

We were investigating it
to a degree,

as was the practitioner.

We had to take our new share
of investigations.

So, we were taking
some investigations

and indeed we were doing
our on-call weeks.

So, we were on call.

I was in the office.

We got a call that
a young girl had been shot.

I said, "Yeah, OK.
That's right.

"Any more information?"

They said, "The victim
was a 22-year-old woman

"called Krystal Hart."

I remember my first question
to them being,

"Do we know
if it's a gang-related case?"

And they said,

"No, we think it's definitely
not gang-related."

I kind of didn't have a whole team
there because you have like

a minimum strength
skeleton staff.

So, I took what officers
I had with me and one of them

was Jo Brunt,
who of course was there.

I'm a retired detective.

I used to work on the murder squad
for ten years.

Apparently, I wanted to join
the police as soon as I could talk.

I think it was 'Juliet Bravo',

the programme that made me
want to join the police,

but I always wanted
to join the police.

I started in 1987
and ended it in 2017,

having spent probably 28 years
as a detective.

Jo Brunt was somebody
that I relied upon

from the Levi Bellfield case.

And I was glad
that she was available

and there to come with me.

Belleville Road is in this safe,
nice part of London,

an up-and-coming area

with lots of young professionals
and families.

There were so many nannies
and au pairs pushing their charges

about the streets here
on Wandsworth Common

that the area is known
as "Nappy Valley."

It's possibly one of the last places
you'd think any murder

would take place in London.

We arrived at this crime scene
which had been cordoned off

before our arrival and we met
with a colleague of ours.

He basically explained
they believed at that stage

it was a neighbour dispute.

When we turn out
to a new inquiry,

it's always tinged with sadness,

because we know somebody
has lost their life.

But when we found out
the circumstances

surrounding Krystal's murder,
it was just apparent what a real,

absolute tragedy and senseless waste
of life this one was.

It was just, you know,

the sort of tragedy
that even experienced

murder squad detectives
like my team,

we were shocked by it.

The local DI was here.

He was an ex-murder squad detective
and he just explained

that they'd already found out
exactly what had happened.

Krystal Hart was born
and grew up in Battersea,

in Southwest London.

She was part of quite
a large extended family,

and it was, in many ways,

a traditional London family
with people always

supporting each other,

family events
and they were very close.

And she had been working
as a secretary, in fact,

she worked in the office
of the then-deputy prime minister,

John Prescott, at one time.

Lived very close to her mother,

had a great relationship
with her family.

They were a typical
salt-of-the-earth type family,

very, very close,
told each other everything.

Lived in a nice flat in Battersea.

Just had no problems,

just was starting
a lovely life with her boyfriend.

Angie Brewer lived in
the flat downstairs from Krystal.

So, in the same building
but she had the ground floor

of the house.

Angie was considerably older
than Krystal,

probably 25 or 30 years older
and she'd had a life

where she's had episodes
of sort of addiction

and difficulties
with her mental health.

And I think it's fair to say that
she wasn't a model neighbour

and she would complain

about virtually anything

that didn't fit in
with how she wanted things to be.

Be it where the rubbish bags
were put or the noise,

or anything like that.

And she would complain
not only to the housing association

but also to the local police.

The local neighbourhood
police team there

knew Angie Brewer very well.

Neighbourhood police officers'
bread and butter

is neighbour disputes.
Anyone living in close proximity

with their neighbours
can have disagreements,

some of these escalate
and some of them,

there is no reasoning to them
because certain neighbours

will have a dispute with anyone
who lives next door to them.

There'd been a number
of calls to the house,

most of them really
when called by Angie Brewer,

they found to be kind of groundless.

But there had been conflict
between Angie and Krystal Hart.

That had been documented by police,
lawyers had got involved.

And so, the relationship
between the two ladies,

who lived in the flats
on their own, wasn't great.

Thomas Hughes is in many ways

a sad character.
He is another local.

His family had owned a house

just less than 0.5 mile
from where Krystal lived,

through three generations

since it was built,
in Victorian times.

And he lived there with his mother,

although he was in his 40s.

He lived there with his mother

who was very aged and very infirm.

I first knew of Thomas Hughes

when I very first joined the police

and at that time I was stationed
in Battersea.

And at that time Tommy Hughes
was one of our prolific subjects,

and somebody who would be
stopped by police

a lot for minor crimes,

sort of car crime
and general anti-social behaviour,

possibly burglaries,
robberies, that sort of crime.

I think I described him
as a wannabe gangster

and I think that's pretty accurate.

He dabbled in drugs,
mostly soft drugs, cannabis.

But he kind of sold some every now

and then and he liked people

to think that he was well connected
and that he was more important

in that kind of world
than he really was.

He'd been convicted
of putting a screwdriver

in a female friend's neck
in another attack.

And he was given
an 18-month sentence.

Now, to my mind, that indicates

someone who has a hatred
of women as well as being

a wannabe, a gangster type,

someone that wanted to show off.

Angie Brewer
and Thomas Hughes had a connection

in their kind of lifestyle.

Neither had a job.

They had a lot of time
on their hands.

Two people who'd drifted together
and had common interests,

laying about drinking
and they sort of got on.

But I think it was
a very uneven partnership

because I think Thomas Hughes
wanted it to be

a formal relationship,

where Angie Brewer just saw him
as a friend who came

and she smokes
and drank with sometimes.

He'd no doubt heard

chapter and verse
from Angie Brewer about

what an awful neighbour Krystal
was and he decided the way

to get into her good books,
to impress her,

was to deal with it.

I can only imagine
he became entwined because Angela

was escalating it to him
and probably exaggerating it to him,

"I can't stand this noise.

"Look what I'm having
to put up with.

"It's terrible here."

And I guess
it came as a surprise

to many that he actually
had a firearm.

It's probably even more surprising

that he went and used that gun.

And he used it
to shoot

and kill
Krystal Hart.

Angie Brewer had made
a decision I suppose

in this circumstance,
after this incident.

And her decision was that
she was going to assist the police

and tell the police whatever
she could about what went on.

And so, she was the first person
to give us a kind of

accurate account of the events
of that morning.

Angie Brewer, the neighbour,
had-had witnessed the murder,

and she'd said her "boyfriend"
had committed the murder.

So, immediately we knew that
we had an outstanding suspect.

I became aware of the case
shortly after it had happened,

when the team I was working on
were allocated the investigation.

So, it would have been probably
the day after she'd been murdered.

One of my colleagues
was gonna witness liaison

with Angie Brewer and sometimes

I went along with her because Angie
was such a handful to deal with.

She was a neighbour of Krystal Hart
at the time and played

a large role
in what was to very sadly unfold.

She told us
that she had a boyfriend,

or a friend who is a man,
called Thomas Hughes,

who lived less than 0.5 mile away

and that he used to come round

and brings things to her.
And she kind of said herself

that she...he wasn't her boyfriend,

but she thought he had quite
a soft spot for her

and probably would liked
to have been her boyfriend.

Earlier that morning,
being Good Friday, he'd been around,

and he'd knocked on her door
at about 9:00

or just after
and brought her an Easter egg.

And when he went,
he had seen a man called David,

who was Krystal Hart's
boyfriend, partner,

although he didn't live there
but he was there.

And there had been some words
exchanged

between Hughes and David.

David had left to go to work
that morning, had...

as I recall,
slammed the gate, allegedly.

Hughes had turned up
with an Easter egg

and they'd words outside,
just outside the house.

David had taken down
the registration number of Mr Hughes

and maybe that had
sent him over the edge.

She said Thomas Hughes
had gone away,

and then come back again
about 0.5 hour later.

And she'd heard him
bang on the door that led upstairs

to Krystal's flat.

And because he was making such
a noise banging on the door,

she kind of came to her door,

but she said that
she didn't open it.

She was just listening
to what was going on.

She heard Krystal
come down the stairs

and open the front door

and there were just a few words
and the next thing

she heard was gunshots.

She heard a couple of gunshots
and she opened her front door

and looked out
and she saw Thomas Hughes

walking away
with a revolver in his hand,

going to his Volkswagen Golf car
and driving away.

When he was banging
on Krystal's door that morning,

Angela came to her door
and opened it a crack.

And she actually witnessed...
the murder.

She basically said
she was as shocked as anyone else

when he turned up
with a gun and shot her.

As soon as we got there,

we were pretty much aware
that it was over nonsense.

And then we went off
to meet Krystal's family to try

and get some background.

Krystal's family,
her mother and aunt,

lived nearby and we went around
to see them

at their flat nearby and her mother

was obviously completely distraught
about things,

but the family were able
to give us an awful lot

of the background,

an awful lot of the background
about what had been

going on with Angie Brewer.

And it kind of added
a dimension to the whole case.

We attended the address,
which was very close

to where the incident happened.

I attended with Colin
and a family liaison officer.

They'd already had an inkling

because it was such
a close-knit area.

I think when we actually confirmed
that it was Krystal

and that she had died,

absolute devastation.

How do you come to terms with that?

Just the sense of loss and the sense
of permanency to it, and...

no-one could really speak.

So, it was during that meeting,

that initial meeting
with Krystal's family

that we were given the bombshell
that we didn't know

up until that point that Krystal
had been pregnant,

that she was in fact
three months pregnant.

So, Thomas Hughes had killed
not only her but her unborn child.

And then to find out
that she had a baby,

or was expecting a baby
as well, just...

it was just difficult
to comprehend that morning.

That morning was a very,

very sad morning
for a lot of people.

We'd heard about
the existence of the CCTV

that was going to give us
a good idea of what went on.

Both families had put CCTV
on the front of their properties

to show the disputes that were
or were not taking place.

Krystal had put CCTV
on her front garden to show

that they weren't slamming
the gates,

there wasn't a lot of noise,

because it had sound and vision,
just to prove their point,

because it wasn't gonna go away.

And we went from there back
to our offices at Putney

and that was where
I first viewed the CCTV.

And it became...
It was so clear, you know...

Sort of those
unusual investigations

where we know exactly what happened
and we know exactly who did it.

And when we were able
to retrieve the recording

from that morning,

it confirmed almost exactly
what Angie Brewer had told us.

We saw the visit by Thomas Hughes,
bringing her the Easter egg.

We saw him leave.

We saw him come back.

We saw him
with the gun in his hands.

We heard the shots.

And we saw him leave
with the gun in his hand.

The CCTV
clearly showed Hughes arriving

at the house and going
to the front door.

He moves out of camera range,

but the microphone clearly
picked up what happened next.

The audio was too graphic
to be broadcast.

But Hughes says
to Angela Brewer, "Is he in?

"Is he in?

"Try that doorbell now.
Knock on the door."

Angela Brewer replied,
"I can't, I can't."

Hughes is then heard shouting
at Krystal,

"Come out, bitch, I've had enough."

Brewer is then heard screaming

as Hughes pulls out the gun.

Brewer says, "No.

"No. Oh, my god, no."

Then, there is a shot,

three seconds later,

a second shot and the CCTV shows

as Hughes calmly walks away,

leaving Krystal Hart dead
in her doorway.

He executed her
by shooting her twice

through the head.
She didn't...

Just senseless,
absolutely senseless...

and horrific.

His actions were so grossly

and obscenely disproportionate
to what the row was about,

in was an innocuous row
by all accounts.

Neighbour disputes,
where people fall out

with their next-door neighbour
or their downstairs neighbour

or something is very rarely settled
by shooting, you know?

You might have a fight or a bit
of damage or something like that

and police get called but for
it to escalate where it's solved

and resolved by somebody
shooting somebody is, you know,

I hadn't come across it before.

Krystal's murder
was a terrible crime

because she was a completely
innocent young woman.

She was pregnant.

And she opened the door to him
and he shot her twice

at point-blank range
and for no reason,

not that there ever could be
a reason for doing that.

He didn't take on her boyfriend.

Her boyfriend had left.

So, he went back to get Krystal,
who was seen as the easy target,

because he's a coward.

He needed to be arrested
and the sooner the better.

The most important thing
at this point,

for Colin and his colleagues,

would have been to track Hughes down
as quickly as possible,

because you've got a man here,
armed with a revolver.

He's just shot a young woman dead
for no apparent good reason.

Quite clearly he was...

would have been deemed a danger
to the public and indeed the police.

Basically, we had a man
with a gun on the loose,

a very dangerous man
because he's executed one woman

for no reason as far as
we were concerned,

and he had nothing to lose.

Once you're looking
at life imprisonment,

however many murders you complete,

you still can only get
life imprisonment.

We know exactly what happened.

And we know exactly who did it
and what his name is

and what his car registration is
and what his mobile phone number is.

Because Angie Brewer
was giving us all of this

because she had
little choice to, really.

It was just a question
of finding him.

It literally was a manhunt.

It was so much more serious
than-than any crime that

he's, that I know of,
that he'd committed before.

The mainstay of our efforts
to find him was always gonna be

his mobile phone
because we quickly got the authority

for his service provider
to give us live updates

of where that phone
was triangulating,

on which masts.

So, I was happy that
the intelligence people

were going to get up on his phone
and we could mount that part of

the operation very quickly.

We then had the home address
to search,

we go down to Stonell's Road
round the corner

and there's this collapsing house.

Obviously, we knew
his name immediately

and he decamped from the scene

and the first place
that you would look

would be the home address.

His home was nearby,
and we went straight round

there to see if we could see his car

outside of the address.

And then we had to go
and try and find Thomas Hughes...

Yeah, and find out where he was.

And he lived with his mum,
didn't he?

He lived with his mum,
but he lived like...

you could walk it virtually,
couldn't you?

It was so...it was so close.

So, of course, we-we knew
that he lived this close,

and lived with his mother.

And it's difficult, isn't it?

'Cause you and I were here,
and we know...

we know that he's adrift with a gun,

and you've just got to hope
that we were sort of driving out,

I think we were in the old
green Zafira, weren't we?

And you just sort of hoped
that it's sort of the car

that a couple might drive,
or something like that,

and nobody is gonna really know
that it's a police vehicle.

It was here in Stonell's Road
that Thomas Hughes lived.

It's a beautiful road.

His house was derelict.
It had sort of subsidence.

It just stood out.

His mother, a very,
very elderly mother,

was living there
with him in total disrepair.

When we arrived,

our building surveyor said
no-one can go upstairs.

We had to have scaffolding round
the outside

before we could go in and search it.

The mother was living in
absolute abject poverty

on her own.
He'd pop in when he wanted.

We were genuinely
frightened it was gonna fall down

while we were searching it.

And they conducted the search,

we found his mother
in absolute squalor,

and we took her away
eventually to go somewhere

where she could be cared for
because he clearly

didn't care for her.

And when the search was completed,

the only thing found of any note
was that hidden behind

some loose bricks
at the back of the house

was a cloth that had been used

to wrap or to wipe a gun
and a few rounds of ammunition

which may or may not have fitted
the gun that he had.

The suspect, Tommy Hughes,

disappeared and went on the run

and there was various work
done undercover

to find out where he was.

The kind of forensic work
at the scene and the ordinary stuff

was all taking place.

But the focus very much,
and the priority very much,

was to find this man.

It wasn't gonna be difficult
to prove he'd committed the murder,

because we had pictures
and sound of him doing it.

But...it was just finding him
and finding him,

protecting the public from a gunman

who had just killed somebody
and was still armed.

The team did some work
around locating his mobile phone,

and that showed us
where he was going,

but any notification we had
of his whereabouts was five minutes

behind where he actually was.

So, it wasn't possible
to catch up with him that way.

It's a funny sort of business,

chasing somebody
who you know has got a gun

and who's killed somebody,
and you haven't got a gun.

Yeah, but you don't really think
about that, do you?

You don't, because...

Until you come
face-to-face with it.

Yeah.

I mean, you know
that 99.9% of the time,

things like that
we'll be safe and we'll be OK.

And I guess we just all sort of
trusted to that, didn't we?

We all trusted that,
and it will be alright.

He moved about a great deal
the rest of that day

into the early hours
of Saturday morning.

And it was a difficult thing
for us to do

because you have to try
and keep sufficient people

there to respond
to try to cut him off

and to lay eyes on him
and arrest him.

You've got the difficulty
that there's still a scene going on,

there's a family to be
dealt with and consoled

and the things
that we needed to do there.

So, half the team
were having to do things

which weren't directed towards
finding Thomas Hughes.

And all the time,
you've got the fact

that he's murdered somebody
with a gun,

and you don't have that gun
and we hadn't recovered that gun.

The pressure was huge,

because he had shot
and executed a unarmed woman

for what we could see as no reason.

So, what was to stop him
shooting anyone else?

So, intense pressure
because you're trying

to save other people,

you don't know
what state of mind he's in.

He's a dangerous man.

We couldn't be armed,

and we couldn't have
armed officers with us

during this search for him.

Something like looking for a man
who has committed a murder

with a gun of itself, on its own,
isn't sufficient justification.

So, it will be difficult to know
how we would get armed assistance.

It was really one of those cases
where we had to kind of suck it

and see and we had to try
to find where he was and locate him,

and then make a decision
about how we approached him

to try and take him into custody.

Until you actually know
where he is,

there's not enough armed response
to deal with where he could be.

So, we've got to try and find him
as well as they were trying

to find him.

Myself and Jo Brunt
and the other members of the team

who were hurtling around
South London,

trying to find this man
who'd killed with a gun,

were armed with a stick
and some CS spray. That was all.

While we were looking
at Thomas Hughes's phone

to try and use it to locate him
and he was on the run,

what we did see was that
he was using it

to send text messages
to Angie Brewer.

Of course, we don't know what
the content of those messages were,

but it was clear that
he was still communicating with her.

She kind of really
washed her hands of this

and says she has nothing
to do with it.

Using technology,

we were able to follow
his movements

via his mobile phone.

However, because he was in his car,

the movements
were only being made available

after a certain time period.

They were constantly
catching up with him.

So, he'd go from one place,

his phone would ping
at another place

and the police would arrive
a few minutes later,

and no sign of him.

So, with regards to the manhunt,

when you've got a man
on the loose with a gun,

obviously our priority
is to find him and protect life.

There's no knowing what he could do.
He was obviously driving around.

And we were following it,

several members
of the team in different cars,

were following it as well
as we could and it was...

took us around
Wandsworth, Battersea.

Down out on the A3 towards
sort of Malden Rushett,

and then across to Morden,

back down the A3 to
Epsom and Ewell and Hook.

And then he seemed to be
stationary there for a bit

and then it was on the move again,
we were told.

It was heading down...

round the M25 and then down
the M23 towards Gatwick.

We've got a wanted man.

So, if you've got
a dangerous, wanted man,

you put out what's called
an "all ports alert"

so, you let all the agencies know
that we're looking

for this wanted man.

And obviously Gatwick
would have been aware.

And when he was going
towards Gatwick,

we would have made them very aware
to look for Thomas Hughes.

He didn't go into Gatwick.
He was just circulating the area,

maybe looking for
a flight, who knows?

But he came away from there.

We, literally just
turning off the slip road

from the M23 to go into the airport.

We have another message to say,

"No, it's back up towards
Chessington again."

And we're back to there.

And eventually
it was round the Hook arena,

between Chessington and Hook,

that the signal stabilised
and stayed overnight.

So, we then had a number
of different vehicles of ours...

you know, these are people
who had been working now

for 16-17 hours nonstop on this,
myself included.

We're all very tired,
but the adrenaline takes over

and you just wanna catch this man.

Most of us would like to go
and get some sleep at some time

because we know we're gonna be
busy tomorrow as well.

But the imperative to find this man
and find the gun means,

you know,
it's all hands to the pumps.

We all spread out and drove up
and down all the streets

that we could find looking
for this car,

but it could have been in a garage.
It could...

There's always places
that you can hide a car.

For people who don't know the area,
the locals were informed.

So, overnight, street searches
were taking place up and down,

all around Hook.

And it's a big area
you have to cover

and it's very highly populated.

We didn't find it
and during the night,

the mobile phone powered off.

So, either he turned it off
or it had run out of battery.

But that means
that was its last place.

It could have moved on at any time.

I think at this point
you've got to put yourselves

in the mind of the actual
murder squad detectives,

who were not armed
but they were involved in trying

to track him down.

They knew full well
what he'd done to Krystal.

They knew that he was not only armed
but he was dangerous.

We were driving around thinking,
"Oh, is he here?"

hoping against hope that you'd see
the car before he saw you,

because however much you'd like

to think that you don't stand out,

police officers in suits in a car
do stand out and everyone can say,

"Oh, they're police officers,"

and he would be
no different to that.

And so,
you're hoping

that you see him
before he sees you

because he's got a gun
and you haven't.

And it got probably
to about 5am and we were satisfied

we'd driven up and down
every single street, car park,

piece of land where that VW Golf
could have been parked

and we couldn't find it.
And so, at that point,

we had to call it a day
and go in and it was literally

a couple of hours' sleep
and back the next morning

to-to carry on.

We were looking everywhere,
obviously, for Thomas

and his gun and this pond came
into the inquiry

just because it was so close
to the scene

and it's somewhere
that he could have thrown the gun.

I think it's the third time,

only third time ever that I used
our divers and it's the first time

they never found anything.

It's a difficult thing
to search in there.

It's very dirty,
although it's shallow.

Who knows, mud at the bottom,

Thomas Hughes's gun
could still be there.

We never recovered it.

The information we had
that Thomas Hughes had a boat

on the River Thames,
moored somewhere near Richmond,

kind of a little bit odd
in some ways because,

you know,
there were some boats there

that are pretty expensive
and the mooring is pretty expensive.

And we kind of think that was out
of Thomas Hughes's league somewhat.

But when we got there to find it,

it was just really
a...a kind of a small dinghy

with an outboard motor
and a canvas cover on the top.

The boat in Richmond
was symptomatic of his house.

It was just a ramshackle,
probably not even river worthy.

There's no way anyone
could have slept there,

because that was somewhere
where we thought he might have gone.

Just a dump of a boat
that was worth nothing.

And so, it was kind of
lunchtime the following day

when I came to the conclusion
that it was time to go public

with his name
and with his car details,

and let's try and enlist the help

of millions of Londoners
to look for this car and this man.

We're a very useful tool

for the police
to apprehend offenders,

and particularly when
an offender has gone on the run

and is missing, and the police
are looking to find that person.

In this instance,
you had a very dangerous

and armed individual,

strongly suspected to have murdered

a young woman,

for what would have been
the most innocuous of reasons,

the most pathetic of reasons.

So, the police went public,
identified him,

put his face out, all and sundry.

There's certain things
that have to be...

certain boxes that have to be ticked
if you're gonna go to the media

with a name with a live manhunt,

and the most important thing
is to save life.

The police knew
who...they clearly knew

who they were looking for.

They could have used
their own resources to try

and find this person
but the balance that they would use

is one of public safety
versus investigative integrity.

And in this instance,

public safety
was the most important factor.

And the second thing is,
have you got the right man?

Because if you went live
with the wrong person,

who knows what could happen?

We were 100% certain
we had the right man.

We had it on CCTV.

We also were 100% certain

we had a very dangerous man
on the loose.

In this case,
I thought it was justified

because there was still a real risk
that Thomas Hughes was in possession

of a gun and ammunition

and so, could present a danger
to members of the public.

So, there wasn't going to be
a question of identification,

evidence, an ID parade
or anything like that,

and so it was safe to put his name

and picture and picture
of his car out to the media.

Unfortunately,
you get answers from everywhere.

You've got sightings in Scotland.
You've got sightings in Ireland.

You've got...

So, although we need
the public's help,

we need several people to say,
"He's in Battersea,"

or we need several people,

because you've got sightings
all over the country

and it can sometimes
be more of a hindrance.

We appeared
on the lunchtime local news

in London and within 0.5 hour
of that going out,

we had a phone call from somebody,

not a million miles away
from the scene

but still in Battersea, who said,

"That black Golf
has been outside my side fence

"around the corner of my house,

"and it's been there
for the last couple of days."

So, it looks like what Hughes
had actually done,

was dump the car there
and then used the train,

there was a nearby rail station,
and all of this travel about that...

where we'd been looking for
the black Golf the night before,

he'd been on public transport.

So, we were never gonna
find him that way.

Within a matter of hours
of his details being released,

it was Hughes himself
who gave himself up and walked

into Battersea Police Station.

It was a very good example
of police using the media

to protect the public.

Out of the blue,

the incident room
received a phone call

to say that Hughes had turned up
at Battersea Police Station,

said that people were looking
for him and obviously

the police officers at Battersea
were aware that he could be armed,

so they'd left him
in the front counter,

on the public side,

phoned us and said,
"Your man is here, sitting,

"waiting for the police to arrive."

Walked in and said,

"I understand the police want
to speak to me."

So, I thought, "That's very good."
So, "OK, is he in custody?"

And they said,
"Well, not exactly, no.

"What has happened is
he came in and said that

"he was Thomas Hughes
and we looked him up

"and realised that he's armed
and could be dangerous.

"So, what we've done is,

"we've asked him
to sit in the front office

"and wait for an armed
response vehicle to come.

"He doesn't know that obviously
and we're waiting for them

"to come so they can arrest him."

This man giving himself up
for a murder and rather than

taking him into custody,
they've said,

"Can you take a seat in
the waiting room please, sir?"

and then called for
their armed colleagues to come

and arrest him.

When I heard that
he was...he'd been arrested

for the murder of Krystal Hart,

it was quite shocking
to see how his criminal life

had progressed into-into that.

Everything turned out OK.

He played the game
and he waited there

in the front office
and the armed response vehicle

turned up, and he was arrested
and delivered to us.

I would say that
a very dangerous man at that point

was taken off the streets.

Although we took his clothes
and submitted them for analysis,

that didn't give us any evidence.
But we didn't need it.

We had this film which,
you know,

was all the evidence
we really needed.

And so, he was interviewed
and like most people

being under investigation
for serious offences,

he was advised
not to give any comment

to any of the questions
we put to him.

So, everything was put to him,
he'd just monotone-ly repeated,

"No comment."

It was interesting
because he didn't actually come up

with any defence or any idea
of what he might have done

and why it wasn't him
and why we had the wrong man.

So, it wasn't really until
we came to trial at the Old Bailey

that we first found out what
Thomas Hughes's defence might be.

He basically denied
being involved in any way,

shape or form.

He admitted he had attended
Angela's address

that morning
to give her an Easter egg.

He had left and someone,
looking like him, dressed like him,

had later attended
and had murdered Krystal.

Hughes bizarrely tried
to claim it wasn't him.

It didn't take the jury
very long to see through it.

He had nothing to lose.
He was looking at life imprisonment.

"I presumably just thought
I'd give this a run,

"or I'll keep saying it's not me
and I might have a jury member

"or few jury members who believe me.

"So, I'm gonna keep going with that
and hopefully get off."

Obviously, he didn't,
thank goodness for everyone else.

He was convicted,
and when sentencing him,

the judge said that
this was amounted to,

for all intents and purposes,

a ruthless execution
and a truly evil act.

And he said that Hughes
would have to serve at least

30 years of his life sentence
before he could even apply

for parole, which makes him
something like 70 years old

before he's even got a chance
of being out of prison.

He's not gonna be a danger
by the time he comes out.

He's gonna be an old man
and his life basically is over.

Sentencing Hughes
to life imprisonment

with a minimum term of 30 years,

the judge said the murder
was a ruthless execution

and a truly evil act.

And the fact that Hughes
had done it for his girlfriend

was, he said,
evidence of his warped mentality.

It shows you that
even at that point,

when he must have realised,

woken up and seen
what he'd actually done,

it was almost
as if he couldn't face up

to what he'd done.
There was nothing brave

or worthy of kudos
about what he did.

There was no need
whatsoever for Thomas Hughes

to involve himself
in this argument.

It wasn't his argument.

And he took away two lives,
not only Krystal,

but her un...unborn child.

It's quite interesting,

just another curious thing,
is that Hughes's case

came to court not very long,

just a matter of a week
or two after Levi Bellfield

was sentenced
to three whole-life terms

in my other case.

I understand he spent some time
in Belmarsh Prison where he met...

my nemesis,
Levi Bellfield and apparently

they became some type of friends,
which doesn't surprise me at all.

Same type of people stick together.

Got nothing good
to say about either of them.

Strangely enough they formed
a bit of a friendship,

so much so that Bellfield
was heard talking on the phone

from prison to his brother
about "his mate Tom"

and how terrible it was that
he got 30 years for this crime.

In fact, Bellfield
had referred to the Hughes case

and Colin, Jo,

Clive and the other members
of his team being involved

in that,
in the most disparaging of terms.

Well, if Levi Bellfield
is writing something awful

about you in this context,

I can only assume that
you are doing something correct.

Certainly, from what
I've heard from his conversations

with Levi Bellfield in prison,

I get the impression
that Thomas Hughes feels

that he was hard done by
and that his sentence

was too severe.

My view of it
is he was extremely lucky just

to get away with 30 years.

He had no remorse,

because he didn't admit
he'd done it.

So, no, totally unfazed by it all.

He was a insignificant,
rather weedy,

scruffy individual

that had just taken
someone's life for no reason.

So, it's hard, really,

to think of him
as anything other than that.