All language subtitles for Episode 05 The Murder of Bridie Skehan

This was my very first day
on a murder team in the met police

and I got the call to say,

"Looks like there may be
a job in Paddington

"down near Marble Arch."

It was Colin Sutton's
first day in the office

and Colin said
"Dave, we've got a call,

"we're ready now."

It was as quick as that.

It was a funny
sort of situation that day

because we were quite literally
thrown in at the deep end.

We go to the scene,

of what we were told
was a missing lady,

hadn't been seen for a few days.

This particular case
was a very big job

in terms of involving
proper detective work.

And it gave me
an opportunity to see

most of the members of my team
in action for real.

It was really just what I needed

at the very start of my career
with my new team.

It was a crime
of almost breathtaking...

The man who tried to kill her
will never be free to harm again...

The life sentence
may provide some closure

for his victims' families.

..targeted young women
unable to defend themselves.

Colin Sutton
was a detective chief inspector

and senior investigating officer
at 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...

Then the screaming...

..another 146 victims.

In this series,
we 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...

- ..place charges...
- The oldest victim...

The officer in charge
described it as a senseless tragedy.

The life sentence
may provide some closure

for his victims' families.

When I joined the police,

I had no idea
what specialism I might want to do,

I just thought, you know,
I wanted to be a policeman.

I wanted to be in uniform

and run around chasing people
and driving after people,

and catching criminals
and helping people,

and all the other things you do.

What I did know or thought

I knew is that I didn't want
to be a detective.

And it all kind of changed
the very first time

I went into a room where there
was a murder squad in operation.

I just thought,
"That's actually a really good job,

"that is, I quite fancy doing that."

It was just a hopeless dream
at the time,

I never thought
it would actually happen,

and I was on
a different career path completely

which meant a quick promotion

to at least to inspector
and working in uniform,

and I did all that.

Then I got the chance
to go to be a detective.

On the first day I met Colin,

I immediately
realised that...

here was a man

that was very
warm and friendly,

and he was in a raincoat,

a smart suit and shiny leather shoes
which policemen always have,

and I was probably in scutches
which journalists always have.

He's jovial,
he's intelligent, he's a fair man,

and he doesn't let himself

be led by peer pressure,

he's somebody

who is his own individual character.

I've always just found him

to be fair and sensible
and straightforward.

He was a good boss.

Colin and I, and other reporters
built up a good relationship,

one of trust...

and I suppose understanding
for each other's different roles.

Colin Sutton joined the murder team
that I was on at Barnes

and it was the first time
I'd ever met Colin.

Colin is a nice guy,
he's very personable,

very down to earth

and he is, or was,

what I would call

a collaborative manager,

so at my level, at DC level,

it was refreshing to have a DCI
who would talk to you,

you know, about anything

and you could go to him
about anything

and there wouldn't be
any heirs or graces.

He was quite a character.

I first met Colin Sutton
when he was addressing the team,

he introduced himself

in what I would consider
to be a humble way.

He seemed relaxed.

We were a strong, capable group...

of detectives and police staff

and I think it enabled us

to hit the ground running.

On 3 January 2003,

that was my first day
with my new murder team

at Barnes in South West London
on the western part

of the homicide
and serious crime command.

And although I had been
senior investigating officer

on a few other cases

when I was serving
with other forces,

this was the first time I had a team

that was dedicated

to only doing serious crime
all the time

and I knew that in that respect,

most of my team
had more experience than I did.

So, you know,
it was something I approached

with a little bit of apprehension,

I wanted to make sure
that I did it well

and that I could prove to the team
that they could trust me

just the same as I was going
to have to watch them and see

that I could trust them.

I went in that day
and was sort of introducing myself

to the members
of the team and talking

and they were talking me through

a few of the sort of current
outstanding investigations.

And about 1:30 in the afternoon,

I got a phone call
from the main office

for the homicide group

and they said,
"Your team is now in the frame."

At that time,
Colin was so brand-new.

I mean, actually, I remember
Colin remarking.

I think that day,
he said, "I'm a lucky cop,

"everything I do, I get lucky."

When a job comes in,
usually a call will come in via,

certainly in that era,

would have come in usually
to one of the DIs or to Colin,

direct, saying, "There is a case,
there's a potential murder...

and wherever that case is,

we would send out
a kind of core team,

a core role team to the scene

which would involve
exhibits officers,

house to house inquiry team,
CCTV teams,

just to really start
the ball rolling to kind of gather

as much evidence as we possibly can
in particularly the first hour,

which is really important.

It was a funny sort of situation
that day in some ways

because we were quite literally
thrown in at the deep end.

You know,
I didn't have time to sit down

and talk to each one of the officers

and find out
what they thought about things

and how they worked.

I just about moved my things
into the office...

and we were out on a job.

I suppose in some ways,

I didn't really know
how best to deal with it.

Do I just send somebody
to have a look and report back to me

or what would they be
expecting me to do?

I thought,
well, it can't really do any harm

if I'm there, can it?

Because if I'm there
making decisions on the scene,

then it's probably
the best way to do it,

so I grabbed a handful of officers

and said, "Come on,
let's go down and take a look."

We very quickly have to step

into a professional manner
and off we went...

in our various roles,
my brother was exhibits,

and I was part of a general team
who were combing the area for CCTV

and other bits and pieces
that we had to do.

First thing would have been
to identify any potential witnesses.

It was a 92-year-old lady

who had been missing
from her flat at Lanchester Court

for the best part of a week.

So, I came down here
with some of the members of my team,

we met the local police
and a local DI here

and he told us
this woman was Bridie Skehan.

She was a colourful character,
an interesting character,

she had quite a life.

During the Second World War,

she had worked
at the American embassy,

and after that,
she became an interior designer.

She had a love for big,
sort of ostentatious American cars.

She kind of led a life
with the party set

and the money set in London...

and was something of, I don't know,
a socialite, a sort of celebrity.

Bridie had been married
at some point of her life,

but it didn't work out,
she was divorced,

and she lived alone for many years.

And now, in her 90s, she lived here,

she had a flat, she rented out rooms
in it to lodgers,

one of the lodgers came back
from Christmas with his family

while we were in the premises
and he started talking to us

and he told us that Bridie
had last been seen by Molly

who was her neighbour,
who lived opposite.

She had been missing
for around about a week

and obviously with her age, 92,

you can understand
why the local police

and indeed her lodger and Molly,

her friend were fearful
for her safety.

We got talking to them

and they told us
there were two other lodgers,

a couple, a Filipino woman
and a Middle Eastern man

who weren't here,
but they should have been here,

they were meant to be staying
in the flat all over Christmas.

A pillar of the local
catholic community in that area,

a woman who was reasonably well off,
who had close friends.

There was no earthly reason
for her to go missing

at this time in these circumstances.

We went to the ground floor flat

and we made inquiries with the lady
who lived opposite,

a very good friend.

And she told us all about Bridie
and that she hadn't seen her,

gave us a bit of lifestyle, and...

we went into the flat.

There was a local
detective inspector

from Paddington Green,

and he was telling us
what Molly had told him

and what the sort of current state
of knowledge was.

Although there was the mystery
of her whereabouts at that time,

it would have been quite clear
to those detectives

from a very early stage
that all was not right

and there was a very good prospect
that harm had come to Bridie.

We had a uniformed cop
there with us,

a local cop who was kind of looking
at the missing person side.

So, we went into the kitchen...

and as we were talking...

we looked around
and clearly the place was tidy,

we didn't know at the time
that it had been tidied up,

but it was tidy.

On the floor, I remember seeing
what looked like blood staining,

just on the floor in the kitchen
near the back door.

Not enough the way
you're talking bright red blood,

but you could tell
there was something there,

but we couldn't get out
the back door,

the back door was locked.

While we were there,
one of the lodgers came back.

He'd been away with his family
for Christmas

and you know, he had sort of asked
what we were doing,

and we explained,

and he was
sort of scratching his head

and looking around with us.

And I saw his sort of gaze

was on some hooks in the kitchen
and it was clear

that there was something
that caught his eye,

so I said, "What's wrong?

What's the matter?"

We were having sort of a cursory
look around the flat

and there was nothing
obviously amiss,

no signs of any struggle or anything

that would have
sort of raised alarm bells,

but while we were there,
one of the lodgers came back.

And he told us that there was a key
to the shed for the flat

that ought to have been hanging
on a hook in the kitchen

and it was missing.

The key moment
in this case really fell

when the detectives
were standing in her kitchen

and their attention alighted
on a key hook,

a key hook missing a key,

a key which eventually unlocked

this murder investigation.

I kind of looked at the local DI
and he looked at me

and we sort of shrugged
our shoulders

because we weren't aware
that this flat had a shed

which went with it

and the lawyer explained that
if you go back out into the street

and along the end of the block,
there was like an archway

and that took you
to sort of the service alley

round behind the block of flats,

and there
was sort of brick built outhouses,

they weren't very big

and some of the flats
had one allocated to them

and Bridie's flat did.

By this time,
the weather had become quite foul

and it was snowing
really, really heavily.

Given that the key was missing,
and we now knew there was another,

essentially, part of the premises
that hadn't been searched,

we thought we better go
around there and do it.

We went back out into the street,
walked around the building

and ended up here in the alley
behind Lanchester Court.

At the time, it was thick with snow
and we went to the shed

and of course it was locked,
and we didn't have the key.

On the floor, on the concrete step,
in and around...

I saw what I thought
was blood again,

you can't be sure,
obviously without testing it,

but there looked like
there was blood on the inside,

there wasn't literally
a blood trail,

but it looked like blood,
couldn't be sure,

but we decided we were gonna go in.

Dave Leach put his shoulder
against the door

and very quickly we were in.

And through some torchlight,
we could see a lot of clutter.

As is the case
with all potential crime scenes,

you try to limit
the number of people going in.

Colin stayed at the door,

and I went in,
I had a torch and as I went in...

I could see a large television box.

Over at the far wall
was this big cardboard box.

At the very bottom corner
of the television box,

there was what looked
like blood staining.

There was a quadrant
at the bottom corner

that was a sort
of a dark brown, red-y colour

and it looked as if something
had leaked onto it...

and it was very ominous.

So, Dave Leach put his suit on

and went in and very carefully,
with a scalpel,

just cut away
enough of this reddened area

so that we could see inside the box.

I had a torch in one hand,
and I was on my knees

and I just cut
the corner of the box out.

We shone a bright torch on,

and we saw this fine silvery hair
which was Bridie's head.

As you can imagine,
from that point in,

we knew it was a murder scene

and he needed
to get the team down here,

that meant local inquiries,
CCTV retrieval,

whatever route that Colin
was deciding to go at that stage.

He really had to just allow
the team to just do its job

because he'd newly arrived,

he would have had no concept
of people's capability,

who was strong in which department.

And for him,

and what he did particularly well
was to sit there

and allow the DIs and the DSs
to divide the roles

amongst the detectives
who were there at the time

and his role
really was to be strategic

and to concentrate
his resources on areas

he felt would be important.

We waited then,
went outside, spoke to Colin,

got the team on standby,

I've got them all racing down
to where we were.

When the crime scene coordinator
turned up,

we then carefully removed everything
from that particular box

and then we,
in an effort to preserve the tape,

we then cut around the box
with a scalpel

and lifted the box off...

and then we removed
some material from inside

and then
in a kind of foetal position,

dressed in a dressing gown
from memory, was the old lady,

who even from the first look
had clearly been beaten.

And then we removed the body,
and the body was taken away.

We would have managed that scene
very tightly and very quickly

and identified
prime suspects pretty quickly.

The last time Bridie was seen
was when she went with Molly,

her friend from the adjacent flat,

and they'd been to midnight mass
at Westminster Cathedral

and they'd walked back
from midnight mass together,

and that was the last time
Molly saw her.

She was reported missing in between
Christmas and New Year by Molly

and we had now got to 3 January,

so it was like getting on to 10 days
that since she was last seen.

One of the things
that Molly was able to tell us

was something about
what was going on

in the flat prior to Christmas.

Bridie supplemented her
pretty sort of low income

really by having lodgers
in her big flat with her.

Bridie lived in her flat
with a lodger who was a lawyer,

another lodger who was an accountant
and then she had two other lodgers

who were kind of a couple

and they'd been there
for a few months.

The woman was called Nimpha Ong

and the man in the couple
was called Ahmed Al Haddad.

The lady gave us a bit of a flavour
for who they were

and what age, etcetera, they were.

I believe she was about 49
from memory and he was 24.

It's an unusual age gap.

She was described
as the dominant force

in the relationship

and he would basically do
as he was told.

Just a young impressionable
kind of guy, Middle Eastern

and she was,
I believe, from the Philippines.

Once we knew the circumstances

of the tenancy and all that,

they became our prime suspects
right away.

It was a four-bedroom flat,
the lawyer lived in one bedroom,

accountant in another,
and in theory,

Ong and Al Haddad
had a bedroom each,

but what was really happening
was that Ong and Al Haddad

were mostly always sharing a bed
or sharing a bedroom.

And this kind of upset Bridie
because of her morality

and she didn't want
sort of two unmarried people

living under her roof.

In fact, Bridie who owned the flat
had taken, because of this,

to sleeping on the sofa
in the living room.

And they'd had words about it

and ultimately,
Bridie had asked them

to leave the flat

and not to come back to it
after Christmas.

The old lady opposite
didn't speak fondly of them at all

and was quite openly saying

that she thinks
that they were the ones

that killed poor Bridie.

She told me there was about
45,000, 50,000 pounds

hidden in the flat.

They found money everywhere,
under the carpet,

in the settee, under the cushions,

they were finding
wads of money everywhere,

and in the hallway,

wrapped up in a towel
in the airing cupboard...

was a little safe with, from memory,
about 50,000 pounds in cash.

Everybody had disappeared
from the flat, there was nobody,

none of the lodgers were there.

They'd gone back home
sort of for Christmas

and likewise,
Al Haddad and Ong were not there.

From that point,

resources would have gone
into finding the people

who were our prime suspects

and in particular that job
did develop into a manhunt.

In the early hours of the morning,
Colin had given some instructions

that they'd made some inquiries
and they'd found a brother

who lived not far away off
the Edgware road.

Several cars arrived
and we were gonna go

and make some inquiries
with the brother to see

what he knew
about his brother and where he was

or where he could potentially be.

Trying to find the missing lodgers
Nimpha Ong and Ahmed Al Haddad,

we came here to these flats

because that's where
Al Haddad's brother

was meant to live
and we thought that he might

or they might have gone
and fled to stay with him.

We came and knocked on the door
and got no reply

and by this time
it was 1:30 in the morning,

the team had been working all day,

and I thought the best thing
we could probably do was go home

and regroup in the morning.

And we're just by the police car
here organising that

and a man came around
the corner down there.

And one of the officers,
,

who sort of said "That bloke there
looks a bit like Al Haddad."

It was a bit of stretch really,
a bit of a pun,

you know, of all the people
walking around in Central London,

he went over to him and went,
"Are you Ahmed Al Haddad,"

and the man said,
"No, I'm not, I'm his brother,

"but he is just behind me."

And there was our suspect
walking around the corner

and it was quite remarkable
because in an effort,

he said later, to disguise himself,
he had dyed his hair,

but instead of going blonde,
it had gone sort of orange,

so you had this man
with sort of dark skin,

an Arab looking man
with orange hair!

During the second interview,

he explained that when they went
on the run from London,

they went out to Surrey,
Englefield Green in Surrey

and his partner, Nimpha Ong

had said that he stands out
in Surrey as an Asian man,

therefore he should
change his appearance,

so she dyed his hair,
at which point the solicitor said...

"Yeah, and that really worked,
didn't it?"

He just stood out like a sore thumb
more than anything else,

it would have done nothing.

That morning when I talked
to my team for the very first time,

I said to them

that I wasn't necessarily sure

that I was any good at being an SIO,

but I did seem to be lucky

in the past.

And I think I demonstrated
that to them straight away

on the first day
because I went to talk to this man

and there was Al Haddad,

he came into view
and it was quite bizarre.

My officers spoke to Al Haddad
and he was pretty open

right from the start.

To the guys
when I had him in the car,

he made admissions.

Unsolicited admissions,

rather than an interview,

they would have asked him
a few questions

like, "Where have you been,
what have you done,"

you know, basic stuff.

But what he didn't do,

he didn't make any direct confession
of being involved directly himself.

He was there, he was part of,
but he blamed Nimpha Ong.

He was never going to be
"No comment"

or tell lies
or try and lie his way out of it.

He was quite open
and said, "Yeah, we killed her

"and it was
all my girlfriends idea,"

and he said that
"My girlfriend and I fled to a house

"of a friend of hers in Surrey,

"in a place
called Englefield Green."

He was promptly
put into one of our cars

and we rather than go home,

there was a convoy
through the snow out

into to Surrey to Englefield Green

and we went to this
sort of modern estate

and there was
a small terraced house there,

where she had a friend who spent
a lot of time working abroad,

he let her sort of house sit
while he was away.

She thought that was the ideal place

to flee to after
they had killed Bridie.

They were both then arrested
at the Englefield Green address...

and separated and taken back
to the police station.

Two suspects are taken

to different police stations...

as is the normal process

in that situation, keep them apart.

Al Haddad was interviewed
over two days

at Richmond Police Station.

Myself and another DC
did the interviews.

First interview was fairly concise,
he did speak to some extent,

but it was very, very on edge,
it wasn't detailed...

there was obviously lies

and lots of gaps
in what had gone on.

Really from the very start,

both of them
just did that effectively,

which is quite common when you get
sort of two handed murders.

Each said it was the other's idea,
the others responsibility

and, no, they hadn't had anything
to do with it themselves,

but they'll tell you all about
what their other half did.

After the first interview,
he's obviously telling lies.

Whilst we're undergoing
certain processes we have to do,

i.e., fingerprints,
fingernail scrapings,

hair pulling,
all of this kind of thing.

And we're talking to him

while he's kind
of having a cigarette in the cage

out the back of the police station.

Now, there are procedures
around that process.

Strictly speaking,
are we interviewing him off tape?

Are we...

All of these kinds of things,

but it's really
about the police, us,

identifying someone

who should tell the truth
and encouraging that,

and that's what went on
in that little interim period.

And you can't put that over

because that is a behind the scenes

type effort

to get this man to tell the truth,
it's not arms up his back,

it's not shouting in his face,
it's none of that.

It is a "You need to tell the truth,

your brother is really destroyed
by what's gone on here,

you've got a good family,
what are you doing this for?

What's going on?"

And he cracked
and that's not very often.

From then on, it was about him
playing down his role in the murder

and pushing the main blame

if you like onto his partner,
Nimpha Ong.

When we started speaking
to both of them,

Al Haddad was reasonably open

and was telling us roughly
what had happened.

But he was saying all the while
that it was Nimpha Ong,

his older, more experienced,
more cunning girlfriend

who had duped him into following
along with her plans.

She was saying very little,
she was sort of no commenting

and being pretty non-committal
about anything that went on.

She was hard as nails,

point blank, face like steel,

unmovable, no remorse, nothing.

So, what we really had to do
was to take the bones

of what Al Haddad
had been telling us

and see if we could find evidence

that would corroborate
the story he gave us

because if that was the case
then we could corroborate it,

we could probably prove
that Nimpha Ong

was the driving force
behind this murder.

He told us that Ong had been working

for estate agents in the locality

and the whole idea of the murder
was not just that they were fed up

that Bridie had told them
they had to leave

and they had nowhere to live
but that Ong was convinced

that Bridie had the deeds
to the flat somewhere in the flat.

And she thought if they could
get their hands on them,

they could use them
to procure some sort of loan

or some sort of financial advantage

and disappear into the sunset
together with lots of money.

So, that kind of gave us the motive.

He told us some facts
about how it had happened.

And essentially he said that

they had kind of jumped onto Bridie

while she was in the house,
and this would have been Boxing Day,

and that they had...

asked her
for the deeds for the house,

she told them to go away
and to get out

and that Al Haddad
had taken her walking stick

and beaten her with it
and that was what had killed her.

And then they had the issue
of sort of disposing of the body,

and they borrowed
this large suitcase...

What that interview did
was that enabled us in the police

to identify a number of items

that were really vital
to the investigation

i.e., to contact the exhibits team
at the property

to obtain the walking stick,
the suitcase,

all for forensic examination.

So, I phoned Dave up saying,

"You need to get
all the walking sticks

"in the property and bag them up,
and the suitcase,"

and that is a forensic leap forward.

We retrieved the walking stick,
and now it was clear that

there was a bit of a scene
inside the flat

where even though
it had been tidied up,

you could kind of work out
where it had taken place.

But we couldn't find the suitcase.

Ahmed Al Haddad told us
that they'd come here,

he'd came with Nimpha Ong to friends
in Penfold Street to a flat

and that's where they borrowed
a large suitcase

in which they intended
to dispose of Bridie's body.

So, we came here
and spoke to those friends to see

if they could substantiate
the story.

And not only did they corroborate it
but they told us

that Al Haddad and Ong
had come here on Boxing Day,

they had a little bit of a party,

and as people do
with their friends at Christmas,

they'd been taking photographs.

So, before we left,

they gave us a roll of film
and said on there,

there should be photos
of our two suspects

there on Boxing Day.

When we had that film developed,
it was quite ominous

because one of the shots

showed Al Haddad and Ong
with this large suitcase,

a suitcase in which they tried
to get rid of Bridie's body

and in which we found
Bridie's blood.

They then phoned for a minicab...

Ong phoned and she specified

that they needed an estate car
because they had a lot of luggage,

so they were going to move the body
in the suitcase somewhere...

but Al Haddad said he didn't know
where the intended destination was.

To try to kind of throw people off
the scent I suppose,

instead of ordering for the minicab
to come to Lanchester Court,

she asked for it
to come to Connaught Square,

round the corner and the idea

was that they would take
the suitcase around there

and wait for the minicab.

But there was a problem...

as you came out
into the communal hall

from Bridie's flat,

there was a flight of steps
that went upwards to the front door

and then you had to go down
to the street.

They put her in the suitcase
and they call a cab,

but they couldn't carry the suitcase
if you imagine even a lady who is 93

and is quite frail is a dead weight

and it's a serious bit of weight
in a suitcase.

And as they were trying to get it up
this flight of carpeted steps,

Nimpha Ong realised that
there were fluids,

blood leaking out
of the corner of the suitcase.

And so they had to stop
and re-assess their plans

because quite logically
it wasn't gonna be a good idea

to take a suitcase leaking blood
into a minicab

and trying to escape with it.

So, they took the suitcase
back into the flat

and Ong thought
about the shed outside

and thought that might be a place
they could hide her.

And she sent Al Haddad round
with the key and he came back

and said, "Yes, there is a box."

They couldn't carry it,
so then plan B,

"We'll have to put her in a box,
put her in the outhouse."

I think the hope

there was that they would make
their getaway.

So, what they did was they took
the suitcase with Bridie in it

around to the back...

and transferred her into the TV box
that we'd found her in.

And then they went to clean up

and they did their best to clean up
the steps with the carpet on,

cleaned up Bridie's flat
and indeed cleaned up the suitcase

that they'd brought
from their friends.

So, we had a really good sort
if chain of evidence for this,

we've got the suitcase,

it's got Bridie's blood in it
and in between times,

we know
that Ong and Al Haddad had it

because we've got
photographic evidence of them

standing there with the suitcase.

So,
everything that we were being told

was standing up
and was being corroborated,

so it was starting to be
a good case.

Ahmed Al Haddad
and Nimpha Ong stood trial

for the murder of Bridie Skehan here
at the Inner London Crown Court.

The trial lasted
for a couple of weeks

and throughout it,
they blamed each other really.

Each said that it was

the other one's idea to kill Bridie

and that they could make
some money out of it.

Well, during the trial,
one of the things

that came out was this change
during the interview

because it's not very often
that that happens

and there was a defensive play,
if you like,

a defensive council play on the fact

that how did Mr Al Haddad gone

from giving one story on one day

to a different story the second day,

but it was very well put
by our council,

Brian Altman QC
who explained that away

as saying
"This is officers seeking the truth"

which is in effect, what we do,
and that's exactly what happened.

As the evidence went on,

it was pretty clear that
the major part in the partnership

was taken by Nimpha Ong,

she was some 20 years older than him

and she pulled all the strings
and I think the court realised that,

although they were both found guilty
of murder eventually,

the length of sentence
recommendations given by the judge

really reflected that Ong, at 49,

was the bad influence
on the young man, Al Haddad.

The trial went very well
from the prosecution point of view,

everyone was gonna get found guilty.

The prosecuting council
really took them apart to be fair,

Al Haddad in particular
was still pleading

that he was just another young lad
that fell under her spell,

she just was hard as nails

and I think that was reflected
in the sentencing in the end.

After the pair
were convicted of murder,

the judge in sentencing them

remarked that
this was a brutal murder

of a vulnerable victim
for some sort of financial gain.

And his recommendations
reflected the parts

that each had played in the murder.

Ong received a recommendation
to serve for at least 17 years,

whereas Al Haddad
who was very much led on by her,

the recommendation for him
was only 10.

He's a murderer...

encouraged by Nimpha Ong, no doubt,

and that the whole process
was engineered by Nimpha Ong

for financial gain, but...

it doesn't excuse what he did.

Ong was clearly the main driver
within the scenario.

Al Haddad was accomplice,

but there must be
a point within that

that he was a willing accomplice

and he still went along,

however you might want to try
and excuse his actions

if anybody did, he still went along

with Ong's plan
to get rid of Bridie,

get rid of her body
and to try and steal

the deeds to her flat.

The sentencing
was a real concern to us,

Al Haddad 10 years
and Nimpha Ong 17 years.

We all felt that was far too low,

given what they had done
to an elderly lady,

a truly awful crime.

And I think that on reflection,

that's probably the worst part

was the sentencing
of the whole case.

It's an appalling,
financially motivated crime

and I think in this era,

where sentences are much harsher
where there is a financial motive,

their tariff would have been double
actually what they were back then.

She was just a lady

who didn't deserve
to end her long life in that way.

She had let Nimpha Ong
into her home,

you know, as a lodger,
to provide her somewhere to live,

and because Ong and Al Haddad
wouldn't live their lives

under her roof in the way
that she wanted,

she'd asked them to leave,

but there wasn't any dramatic
arguing about it.

She just said, "Look, that's not
what I like going on under my roof,

"so we are gonna have
to let you go as it were,"

and as a result of that...

Ong formed this murderous plan,

this idea to threaten

and offer violence to this old lady
to get some documents

that to be honest

she couldn't have done
very much with anyway.

It was a plan
that was always gonna fail

in terms of providing
a financial gain

for her and Al Haddad

and yet Bridie lost her life for it

and she lost her life
in her own home...

battered to death
with her own walking stick

and then, you know,
suffered the indignity

of being chucked
in a cardboard box to rot really.

I suppose it was almost
like a desecration of her body

after killing her
to treat her in such a manner.

At that kind of age
having had a blameless life,

loved by her friends...

by the people
in her Catholic community,

to end up like that,
it was obscene.

Poor woman, poor woman,

just the thought of that happening
to somebody who is 93 is just awful.

Sadly for her,
she picked two lodgers

which resulted in her demise,

which is a tragic end to somebody

who lived a real life,

I think, a real good life in London.

And I think the people concerned
in her murder were truly awful.

It was a very good job in terms

of involving
proper detective work...

in this era,
it's very easy for us all

to assume that criminal detection

is something
which is purely forensic based

using DNA techniques, fingerprints.

Perhaps there are less opportunities

for detectives to apply their trade

perhaps in the way

that they were used
to before forensic advances,

but this particular case
was a good example of detectives

thinking on their feet
when the opportunity arose

to move in on the case
and in this instance,

it was in terms
of finding the whereabouts,

sadly, of Bridie's body.

While like in this case,
we were lucky

because there were circumstances

that got us over
sort of humps and problems

in the evidence of the case
that meant we could prove it.

And I guess that was kind
of the sort of thing that I meant

when I said to the team

that I don't know
if I'm any good at being an SIO,

but I'm certainly very lucky at it.

Colin always says
he's a lucky detective

and perhaps he is.

To be fair to him,
I think you make your own luck.

And I kind of recognised that
in him, but lo and behold,

that particular day,
on his first day...

we get the call, and we go out.

When they saw
that key hook with no key on it,

that wasn't anything to do
with luck,

that was to do with moving in on,
solving the case,

breaking the case, finding her body.

And from that point onwards,
once they knew it was murder,

they had her body.

Going backwards,
looking at the suspects,

immediately moving in
on the right suspects

and literally shaking the case
like a ragdoll

to bring
about the conclusion of justice.

Fundamentally, in the police,

we are ordinary people
doing an extraordinary job.

When he came to the team,
we were all strong and capable

and he didn't want
to mess anything up

and he kept to that mantra,

and it's to his credit
that he operates the way he does.

We call come to work

because we want to put
really horrible people in prison,

that's our job,
and he was exactly the same.

Looking back, 10 years on almost
or 15 years on from that moment,

I wonder if that luck
didn't kind of grow

and work
in a slightly different way,

and as well as being quite lucky

in terms of being able
to find bits of evidence

and make cases, the sort of case,

the number of cases
and the sort of high profile cases

that sort of fell
into my lap somehow...

gave me the opportunity
to do some work

that most people even in the world
of senior investigating officers

don't get the chance to do.

And to look at,
you know, very high profile...

public, important cases,
and important cases

where arresting
the suspect actually meant

that you saved other people
from becoming his victims,

and that's kind of almost
the most important work you can do.