All language subtitles for The.Abduction.of.Lesley.Whittle.2023.1080p.HDTV.H264-DARKFLiX

I can imagine...

...that she nearly passed out
with fear.

Her mind would have been run riot.

But you can see everything,
smell everything, hear everything.

Your body is triggered
into a state of threat.

He fails repeatedly, and turns all
of that resentment externally.

He acquired the nickname
the Black Panther.

He was a killer dressed in black,

balaclava, sawn off shotgun.

Wherever he struck,

it made headlines.

Lesley was a very
ordinary young girl.

Interested in just having
a good time, really.

How evil, how ruthless,

how terribly wicked this man is.

Any member of the public
who has any thoughts at all

about having a go with this man,
my advice to them is don't.

If we could just know something,

if somebody would just contact us,

we don't care how.

I don't think I've ever
heard of anything quite so horrific.

What actually followed is
the stuff of nightmares.

In the early hours of the morning
of the 14th January, 1975,

Dorothy Whittle returns home
after an evening out.

Makes herself a hot drink,
takes a sleeping pill-

which she always does -

goes upstairs and looks in at her
daughter, Lesley, in bed.

She's fast asleep, her clothes
that she's worn during the day

thrown on the floor,
which is also usual.

And Dorothy then crosses
the corridor

into her own bedroom
and falls fast asleep...

...absolutely convinced nothing
untoward was going on.

Dorothy got up the next morning
to make breakfast for Lesley,

made a bowl of cornflakes,
took it upstairs

went into Lesley's bedroom,
but she was nowhere to be seen.

Dorothy goes downstairs,

looks around, searches around,
can't see Lesley.

She's just beginning to become
alarmed about this.

And so tries to phone her son, Ron.

The phones are dead.

At that point,
she really does start to worry.

She jumps into her own car

and races up to the other
end of the village to see Ronald.

Ron and his wife come back
and do a search of the house.

They find, down in the sitting room,
in front of the fire

the box of Turkish delight.

And inside this box are four
reels of Dymo tape.

This Dymo tape would indicate
that Lesley had been kidnapped.

And that a ransom of £50,000
is being demanded.

Lesley was very ordinary young girl.

We were both the same -

we were 17-year-old girls
about to embark on our lives.

That photograph of that smiling,
cheerful face.

Our hair was exactly the same.

We all wore the polo necks,

the flared jeans, the Biba make-up,
the patchouli oil.

She had been away
to boarding school,

so not too many people knew too
much about her, even in Highley,

which was quite surprising,
because it's the kind of place

where if you sneeze,
they know about it down the road.

She hadn't enjoyed boarding school
very much, so decided,

like a lot of youngsters,

to transfer to the local
Wulfrun College

and do her A-levels there.

It's the most exciting
time of a young woman's life,

particularly then.
We'd just come out of the '60s,

and young women at 17 were being
told, "This is your time.

"You can be who you want to be."
Nothing was impossible.

It was quite a long ransom demand.

The instruction was terrifying.

"No police, no tricks, or death."

There is no messing around at all.

You do what he says otherwise you
suffer.

What could they do?

Ron thought carefully about it
and decided to involve the police.

Bob Booth was Detective
Chief Superintendent in West Murcia

Police at the time.

He had an impressive reputation.

He was known as somebody
who gets his man.

I'm sure most officers
would agree with me

that in any investigation, you must
not get emotionally involved.

He was a really determined,
hugely successful policeman.

He has 7O solved murders behind him
and he's been awarded the MBE.

But this was different.

It wasn't a murder case, it was
simply a girl had disappeared.

Bob Booth's immediate reaction is,

well, there's something odd
about this.

This is a tiny
village in the middle of Shropshire.

The message was on Dymo tape,
which was very unusual.

There's a demand for £50,000.

There were muddy footprints
through the house.

There was no sign of a struggle.

What is this all about?

At first, the police thought that it
was some kind of a student prank,

that it was a spoof.

But Bob Booth got it wrong.

I can't imagine what that night must
have been like for Lesley Whittle.

Suddenly, in bursts this man.

Imagine the fear, the terror.

Lesley's first
thought would have been

that he was going to
sexually assault her.

That was a thing every 17-year-old
girl was warned about.

You know, there's very
dangerous men out there.

And I would have thought that she
would have expected that rape

would follow.

What actually followed
is the stuff of nightmares.

He was a very precise person,
very strange.

He was very secretive, sinister.

Didn't fit in at all.

But he seemed to be a man
on a mission.

He was just a...

You know? This walk.
"A to B, got to get there."

When you look at photographs
from the family album,

it's a very normal family group.

But, of course,
underneath that is Donald,

who is definitely not normal.

I very rarely saw his wife.

I think my mother tried to
communicate,

but he just didn't want anybody
talking to his family.

She basically wasn't allowed out,

she didn't have any friends at all.

She didn't go out to work,

and so she was a prisoner
in her own home.

Kathryn, Neil son's daughter,
was a similar age to Lesley.

But their experience must have
been vastly different.

Life in the street for Kathryn was
pretty well non-existent.

I remember her by her back gate

and my pals were there,

and I hadn't seen her before.

I said, "Hello!"

You know, and she smiled.

Ancl the next thing is,

Donald Neil son came out,

grabbed his daughter
and dragged her into the house.

"It was a house of gloom.

"I can't remember one enjoyable
day in my life there.

"It was like a barracks with him
barking out his orders.

"When he went out on those
mysterious trips of his

"in the last years, I was glad to
get rid of him for an hour or two."

This was a bizarre case
for Bob Booth.

There's nothing
special about Highley.

There were these tapes with a ransom
demand.

The £50,000...

Altogether,
this is an unlikely scenario.

But Bob Booth sits down
with Dorothy,

who is of course in a terrible
state, understandably.

Dorothy tells him,
"I know my daughter,

"she'd never put
anything like this on us.

"This is for real."

I was at home with my wife

and I had a phone call from my news
editor at the time,

who said that he'd had a tip-off.

I was working at the Shropshire Star

when I first heard about
the Lesley Whittle case,

and I was sent to go and sit outside
the house.

I couldn't really find too many
people who wanted to

talk about exactly what was
going on.

The police were not very
forthcoming.

There wasn't a lot to photograph,
really.

You are hoping and thinking that the
picture is going to be Lesley

being reunited with her family.

We were obviously trying to build up
a picture of both the family

and, of course, this young girl.

She had a boyfriend,
she was in love.

He gifted her something that he'd
made,

which she wore all the time.

Now, if I'd had a boyfriend at that
point, I would have never

taken this bracelet off,
and I think Lesley was the same.

I would have bathed in it, I would
have gone to bed in it, I would

have looked at it constantly as
a reminder that somebody loved me.

Not just parental love.

Lesley met
Richard at college in Wolverhampton.

He was quite a catch.

He was the star rugby player,

Rugby Player of the Year
at the college,

and he went on a year ahead
of her to Sheffield University.

Ancl her big ambition was to do well
enough in her A-levels

to go to Sheffield
and join him there.

Lesley at college
always appeared to be not well off.

But Lesley was due to inherit
a lot of money.

82,000.

Ancl that was a fair
bit of money in those clays.

George Whittle was a very
successful businessman.

He'd started off with a coal
delivery business

and then he'd
moved into renting out coaches.

He did most of the service buses,

pretty well all of the school runs,

probably running over 50 coaches.

The Whittle liveried buses
were something I'd see every clay,

several times a clay.

His first wife, Selina, was with him
when he was in the coal

business and they were working
all hours that God gave, I think.

George had separated from his wife,
Selina. But they'd never divorced.

And Dorothy then became George's
common-law wife.

When he died, there was
a bit of a dispute over his will,

because he left about £300,000,

which I guess is about
£2 million in today's money.

To his son, Ron, daughter, Lesley,

and to his new squeeze, Dorothy.

Selina was living on a pittance.

Literally a couple of quid a week.

She thought that was wrong
and she went to court.

The judge completely agreed with
her, I think he said,

"This is clearly insufficient,"

ordered her 1,500 a year
backdated to the death.

And she came out,
of course, she said,

"The first thing I'm going to do is
go for a decent holiday."

I don't think anybody
talked of Leslie as an heiress,

pa rticu la rly in High ley.

When you actually saw the pictures
of her and read that she went

to Wulfrun College in Wolverhampton,

it doesn't really add up, does it?

It's not my idea of,
you know, an heiress.

The tabloid description of Leslie
as an heiress sets up this false

narrative of bad things happening
to privileged young people who

live in ivory towers.

It allows us to sort of dehumanise
the people involved,

and I think that's what happened
with Lesley.

It was everybody's bad luck that
Donald actually read that

copy of the Daily Express
in May 1972.

Neil son had had a very,
very tough childhood.

Neil son had not been born
Donald Neil son.

He'd been born Donald Nappey,
and, of course,

to have a name like that
in school is not helpful.

Children can be very cruel,
particularly in school.

Ancl he was a bit of a loner.

He didn't have many friends.

Added to this, at the age of ten,
he lost his mother to an illness.

He loved his mother

and he really felt that.

When Nielsen's mother passed away,

not only did he have to deal
with the grief of that,

he was transitioned by his father
into a caring role,

taking on all of his mother's
responsibilities.

He was cooking, he was cleaning,
he was looking after his sibling.

His father was a very strict
disciplinarian and there

was a lot of beating if it was
considered

Donald had done something wrong.

All of that meant that he had
a blueprint of beliefs

going into adulthood that were
quite unhealthy.

He felt that he was not good enough,

others weren't to be trusted,

the world was an unsafe place,
and his motto became -

to control or be controlled.

The way he sort of pulled himself
together and rescued

himself from this desperate start

to his life was with National
Service.

He loved it from day one.

It gave him a purpose
and it gave him discipline.

And the only problem was that Donald
wasn't actually very good at it.

He failed his basic training,

which is most unusual,

and was back-squadded,
as it's known.

This didn't seem to put him
off the army at all,

and joined the King's Own
Yorkshire Light Infantry.

He travel led the world with
the army. He loved it.

He loved the order,
he loved playing with guns.

He just loved the military.

I think he was proud of himself.

In his battle dress,
beautifully creased,

pressed and what have you,
with a white carnation in his lapel.

He was very loath to actually
come out of it.

He felt he had found his home.

My father tried so many
get-rich schemes over the years.

Door-to-door brush salesman.
Car hire.

Window cleaning, and trying to go it
alone in his carpentry trade

but they all failed.

He always got beyond himself.

All his dreams were smashed.
It was never his fault.

He always blamed everyone else.

He must have felt a total failure
because at that time,

Bradford was a very successful city.

Probably the most successful city
in the West Riding of Yorkshire.

Ancl it was a city that was
built on immigration.

We were very cosmopolitan.

A lot of Irish people lived
round where we were,

Ukrainian people lived
round we were.

A lot of people from Asia were
moving in

to take up textile jobs.

But of course, racism was very,
very prevalent in the city.

I remember some of the horrific
notices in shops that

virtually banned certain groups
of people from coming in.

Ancl it was racism on a piece
of paper, saying,

you are not welcome here.

Donald very much resented immigrants
coming in who had found jobs

and we know that he'd struggled
to find a job at all.

He became a fan of Enoch Powell and
his infamous Rivers of Blood speech.

Donald fails repeatedly
as a provider

and that fuels his sense
of insecurity.

He turns all of that
resentment externally.

He's deeply resentful about
immigrants who seem to be succeeding

without putting the effort in, and
this affirms his sense of injustice.

A system that's not working for him.

He had bought himself
an Austin Champ which was

still in military colours.

Irene and Kathryn were made to dress
up in military fatigues.

He made me
join in his silly war games.

All his make believe battles
near our home in Bradford.

We'd have tree branches as rifles

and threw mock grenades
made of Coke tins.

He was so obsessed with the army,

he reckoned civilian life had
let him down.

Yet he wouldn't hear of rejoining
the army or the Territorials.

I think
he was afraid of being shown up.

Failing in his businesses,

not knowing what was in the future
for him, felt very out of control.

So to make up for that,
he needed to be in power,

he needed to be in control,

feeling that masculinity
that he may have felt in the army.

He decided to apply what he learnt
in the army to meticulously

plan a whole series of crimes.

He is, in fact, ironically,
a very successful burglar.

He knew exactly what he was doing.

Reconnaissance.

Wear the right gear.

Case the house, the building, out.

Meticulously.

He was so detailed in what he did.

He was so smooth in his movements.

He had gone into bedrooms

where couples were sleeping
and never woke them!

They hadn't woken up!

Donald turning to crime,

glamorises
his rather ordinary story.

He's disillusioned, there's loss,
there's failure, and then

he finds adventure, excitement,
puts the world to rights.

It allows him to reinvent
himself as a hero in his own eyes.

About the summer of 1973,

the war games stopped. At first,
I thought he had realised I was

growing up and wanted to be out
at discos

and talking to school friends.

Now, I can see that he'd stopped

our games because he'd taken
a new, awful step.

A couple of years earlier,

Neil son had read a book

about the
kidnap of Muriel McKay

who was the wife of the Managing
Director of News Of The World.

It was a chaotic kidnap case.

Two brothers, the Hosein brothers,

thought they were kidnapping
Rupert Murdoch's wife.

But they got it wrong.

They kidnapped the wrong person.

It almost reached the stage
of a Carry On Kidnapping film

because they wanted the money
left on garage forecourts.

But the British public,
being as marvellous as they are,

spotting this and picking up the
bags and taking them to the

local police station.

They never found
the body of Muriel McKay who, sadly,

it was thought,
was fed to pigs on a farm.

The book was what put the idea
of the kidnap into Neil son's mind.

It became a Bible to him because it
taught him what had gone wrong.

Neil son would have read this
and thought, well,

it needs to be properly organised.

I've proved I can do it with these
local burglaries.

Never even been near getting caught.

So if I apply my talent to a kidnap,

there is no reason
why it shouldn't come off.

CAMERA CLICKS

There are so many unconscious
biases in the way that Donald sees

who deserves a good life
and who doesn't.

So when he sees the newspaper
report of the probate

dispute that the Whittles are
involved in,

through his filters,

they are a family undeserving

of the money
that they have received.

Ancl for him to go
and put that right,

becomes part of his warped
sense of justice.

Neil son thinks, well,
this family has got money to spare.

So I think the idea comes
into his head

that this might be the big payoff.

We have a saying in the police
that some people work

harder at being a criminal

than they would
if they did a day's work!

Ancl Neil son was one of those people
who worked very hard

at being a criminal.

Neil son spent the best
part of a year keeping a close

watch on the house. Monitoring all
the comings and goings

so that he could establish
any patterns.

He used to explain his all-night
trips by saying he'd gone to help a

mate who'd broken down or some
all-night job in his business.

I didn't care. It was such a relief
to have him out of the way.

MUSIC PLAYS

With some men, we might have
suspected he was having an affair

but I gathered from Mum
he wasn't very interested in women.

Neil son thought
he was cleverer than the police.

He was a meticulous planner.

His golden rule was never to have
a car or any vehicle, really,

which could be
stopped at a roadblock.

But for a kidnap, of course, you
can't put your victim on the bus.

He stole a blue van.
Perfect vehicle, actually.

His problem is now finding
where he's going to keep her.

He looked at keeping her on a narrow
boat in a disused tunnel.

He looked at lock-up garages

where he planned, at one stage,
to build a soundproof box.

Garages and sheds
appeared on his land overnight.

You'd look out and you'd see
another one.

He was in there, doing things.

The doors were always closed.

Neil son spent
a lot of time on manoeuvres,

if you like,
in various parts of the country.

One of them was Bathpool Park.

It's quite a vast area, really.

There's a railway line,
quite a busy railway line.

There are trains every few minutes
going very, very fast through there.

But it's a bit of a wilderness.

BIRDSONG

He came across this shaft

and thought, this could be a very
interesting place.

It was a drainage complex.

I think
it was 90-odd foot underground.

Absolute massive complex.

You go down one ladder.

Ancl then across a platform,

down another ladder,

and then the tunnel carried on.

You could just see it
going into the distance.

There was no lighting whatsoever.

It was miles away from anywhere.

It was deep enough

so nobody could hear any screams or
anything like that.

It was in a way, the perfect place

to hide...a kidnap victim.

He wanted to choose a night
when there was no moon,

right in the depths of winter,
when it would be a really,

really long night and there would
be a lot of darkness.

This was the big one.

This was going to make him £50,000 -
a fortune in those days.

This was going to set him
up for life.

He was all pumped up for it,
ready to go.

NEWS REPORT: Today, the government
has introduced what is being

called a three-day week.

The response
to continued industrial action by...

It's clear that both sides of the
engineering industry are being

hit very hard
indeed by three-day working.

Ordinary working people are not
being hoodwinked at this one.

They know that this
is a political move,

one instituted, instigated by Heath
in order to discredit the miners.

Britain got
locked into a three-day week,

drivers were asked to conserve fuel
and make as few

journeys as possible, and Neil son
then knew that there was a

chance that he would be conspicuous,
driving on roads and motorways

when the roads were almost deserted.

In Donald's mind,

everything had to be organised
down to the very last detail.

The plan, he called it, the plan,
the "Master Plan",

with a capital M and P.

TV REPORT: Price rise by the Arab
nations is expected to have a

serious effect on...

So instead of postponing it
perhaps a few weeks

or see how things turned out,
he postponed it a full year.

So he would have exactly the right
conditions in January 1975.

He got more moody
and unbearable at home.

It was as if he was taken over,
his mind and his body, by a monster.

His demands got worse.

He developed peculiar fads like his
fork never being cleaned properly.

We had to keep going out to wash it,
again and again.

And beans never cooked quite right.

And his tea too hot.

The implication of him postponing
the kidnap was that he needed money.

Ancl he needed it fast.

He tools himself up again.

His shotgun.
His sawn off shotgun.

The pistol which he
puts on a lanyard round his neck.

Ancl of course his hood, all the bits

and pieces that he needs
for a successful post office raid.

And then he's back out on the road.

By this time, Neil son had carried
out about 400 burglaries

without even getting near caught.

But this is really where things
start to go wrong.

Lovely little post office,

run by a man called Skepper,

a former Fleet Air Arm pilot
during the war.

Lovely family.

NEWS REPORT: Late last night,

a gunman shot and killed a popular
sub postmaster in the...

REPORT: Mrs Skepper said,
"It was horrifying.

"If it was someone you could have
seen the face of

"or someone you
could have spoken to reasonably,

"but just to see the hood was
really terrifying."

REPORT: The police surrounded
Harrogate with armed officers

but the killer
had already made his escape.

There was a massive manhunt
for this man.

But he never left any trace.

He didn't leave fingerprints
and in any case, there was

no record of his fingerprints.

There was
no way of picking up this man.

I don't know whether he felt any
remorse about his victims.

I remember we were watching
television one night

and there was a bit on the news

about the sub postmaster being
murdered. And My father said,

"If anyone points a gun at you,

"I hope you'll have more sense."

NEWS REPORT: Post Office has offered
a £5,000 reward for information

leading to the arrest
of Mr Skepper's killer.

NEWS REPORT: Derek Astin was
postmaster, shopkeeper,

and even librarian.

Here he lived, worked, and died.

The murderer began
by forcing this window

in a very professional manner.

He then reached in and opened the
lower window

so that he could slip through
and into the room.

Then leaving the windows
open as a means of escape,

he moved across to the telephone
where he cut the wire.

He came up the stairs to where
the family were sleeping -

the two children and Mr and Mrs
Astin in the main bedroom.

I turned round
and saw this smallish figure.

Dressed in black.

Ancl then I heard, of course,
this, you know, bang.

I knew that he'd been shot then.

I suppose the nickname
The Black Panther made him

feel really important.

At last,
he'd found some credibility.

He was rapidly becoming
a national figure.

For someone like Neil son,
short stature,

bullied as a child for his surname,

acquiring a sobriquet like
The Black Panther

allows him to see himself
the way he wants to be seen -

strong, stealthy,

heroic, predatory.

So suddenly, he's the man that he's
always wanted to be.

Looking back, I realise he used to
take a lot of interest

in The Black Panther news.

If I talked while there was
something on the telly about the

raids, he'd tell me to shut up.

NEWS REPORT: In charge
of the investigation,

the head of Lancashire CID
Joe Mounsey.

He's a veteran of the
Moors Murders,

the Sewell case,
and hundreds of others.

He has a record of success.

This man is obviously a thinker.

He's cold.

And I think one can say

that he's obviously ruthless.

And the worry is, of course,

that he may do it again.

He was the hooded gunman.

Left behind no trace.

Wherever he struck
made the headlines.

This was a terrifying,

terrifying man who would shoot
without compunction.

He was rapidly becoming Britain's
most wanted man.

My impression of this man is a man
who is quite cold.

Utterly ruthless if he meets
the slightest opposition at all.

A man who has no
compunction about taking human life.

Any member of the public who has any
thoughts at all about having

a go with this man,
my advice to him is don't.

I repeat, don't.

I was a Night Traffic Sergeant.

I was driving a narrow country lane.

In the passing area,
tight up to the fence,

I saw a blue Ford Escort van.

I still remember the number now -
NCH 622K.

I stopped.

Got out.

Looked into the front of the
vehicle and there was no occupants.

I opened the back doors.

Ancl inside, there was a pillow.

There was a...a duvet.

A sleeping bag-

This van contained all
the paraphernalia for a kidnap.

OWL HOOTS

What Graham Payne didn't know was
whilst he was examining

the Ford Escort van, Neil son was
hiding nearby with a gun

pointing at Graham Payne.

Of course, at the time,

I was totally unaware of this.

Had I have seen anybody or
thought there was anybody there,

I would have been over the fence,
shining me light,

which could have been,
in hindsight, disastrous.

Graham Payne probably, a very,

very lucky man
to come out of that.

He would probably have shot me.

The Langley Post Office raid
was a particularly brutal one.

NEWS REPORT: It is thought that the
Gray lands were stock-taking in the

early evening of 11 December.

Sydney put up a bit of a fight.

REPORT: His wife heard the shot
and when she rushed to investigate,

found her husband on the floor,
wounded in the stomach.

Peggy was badly, badly beaten up

with a butt of a gun.

REPORT: It wasn't until four hours
later that events at the Gray lands'

shop were discovered.
Two passing policemen

spotted that lights were still
on inside.

When they investigated,

they found Mr Gray land dead,

and his badly-beaten wife
barely clinging to life.

His planning was meticulous.

He has been determined

that the
outcome on each of his crimes

is that he evades capture.

He left no trace.
Nobody knew who he was.

There was no way of recognising him
from anything that he did.

Or anything that he left behind.

With January '75 approaching,

he steals a car for the operation.

It's a Morris 1300.

And starts equipping that with all
the gear that he'll need -

tape recorders, spare clothing.

His Dymo punch machine.

And tape to bind up his victim.

He took a great deal of thought

in what he would carry with him

to keep her fed.

To keep her safe.

To keep her tied up.

But I don't think in his mind
was the horror and terror

that there would be in the thoughts
of this girl down there.

Neil son drives to Highley.

Parks the car at the side
of the house.

Walks around
to the front of the house.

And walks up the drive.

Neil son knew that there was an
integral garage with

a door to the house
through the garage,

and that was the point at which he
would be able to gain entry.

Lesley was alone in her room.

Ancl suddenly, in burst this man

with a mask, and a shotgun.

Imagine the fear, the terror.

Almost within the blink of an eye,
she's bundled into the car

in just a dressing gown
and slippers.

I've tried many times to think
how most that have been?

Where would you think
you were going?

How would it have been explained
to her that she had to

climb down to this tiny
little platform?

WATER TRICKLES

Ancl then, worse still,

a metal noose
be put around her neck?

BIRDSONG

I don't think I've ever
heard of anything quite so horrific.

What on Earth did she think was
going to happen to her next?

After putting Lesley down the
drainage shaft

and making sure that she had
got food, water,

and bedding, Donald Neil son drove
back to his house in Bradford.

This is very early in the morning.

Ancl he made himself very visible,
if you like, to his neighbours.

He was there in the backyard,
doing a bit of this and that.

The one thing that I think really
sticks in my mind

is the cold coward
that Neil son's is.

His daughter is two years younger

so how can he look at his daughter
over breakfast and know

that he's left a 17-year-old just
two years...two years older

in such appalling,
dangerous and terrifying conditions?

I think of the nights when he used
to go out with his knapsack

and say, "I'm off".

He always carried a knapsack

and I thought he had his
carpenter's tools with him.

Now I shudder to think what
he was really carrying.

Bob Booth looks at the ransom
demand in detail.

He's pretty certain that this is
a genuine demand,

that it's not a hoax, and he now
decides what his next move must be.

PHONE RINGS

Hello, Whittles.

Yes, Ron Whittle speaking.

Ronald was 28 years old.

The age gap was quite wide, 11 years
or so between Ronald and Lesley.

Ronald, with his dad gone,

became more of a father figure
to her.

The plan that the police came up
with was that Ron should

follow all the instructions on the
ransom demand

but that the police should be in the
background and have no

visible connection with Ron.

None at all.

The whole thing should be
shadowboxed all the way

to a successful end.

He went to the bank
and he collected £50,000.

But the police insisted that all
these notes were photographed,

or at least the sequences
were photographed,

and that took some time.

My news editor gave me
a phone call and said that there had

been a tip-off that there was a
covert police operation.

The instructions were to
go to the Swan Shopping Centre

in Kidderminster where there
were three phone boxes.

To be there between 6pm
and 1am in the morning.

To await a telephone call
to one of the boxes.

Ancl he should pick up the phone.
just give his name, nothing else.

Ancl he would then have
instructions on where

he should go to hand over the money.

REPORT: News is coming in
of a kidnapping

in the Shropshire village
of Highley.

It's understood a young
girl has been abducted

and police have found
a ransom demand.

At eight o'clock in the evening,
the BBC breaks the story

that there is a large police
operation in the shopping centre.

This, to the horror of Bob Booth,
in his mind, scuppers the whole

operation and by nine o'clock,

he calls the whole operation off.

PHONE RINGS

And then,
at one o'clock in the morning,

the phone goes
in one of those boxes.

PHONE RINGS

Because in fact,

Neil son wasn't aware that there had
been any kind of leak.

PHONE RINGS

The phone goes in the second box.

Nobody there to answer it.

PHONE RINGS

Ancl then, the third box.

A deserted shopping centre
with three phones ringing.

PHONE RINGS

One after the other. To no audience.

The fact of the police had
actually pulled out

WES an EHOTMOUS COCK-U').

PHONE RINGS

I would imagine animals instincts
kick in,

and the animal instinct is
to survive.

When he leaves,
there is nothing but darkness.

Your mind must then feel
I'm going to die here.

By myself.

My family are never going to know.

Those 12 hours must have
seemed like an eternity.

Ancl then she hears him back.

It's a note prepared on
a piece of Dymo tape.

This is a portion
of the actual note.

And the writing can clearly be seen
to indicate that £50,000

was required for the release
of the girl.

Would you say from experience that
this girl's life is in danger now?

She was taken or left her home
with only one garment,

and that was the dressing gown
that she had on.

So, presumably, force was used to
get her out of the house?

I think that's a fair
interpretation, don't you?

When the news broke
and it was out in the public domain,

this presented Bob Booth with
a massive problem.

Up to now,
it had all been undercover.

Suddenly, the media were everywhere.
What was he going to do?

Well, Ronald Whittle would
carry out the instructions

of the kidnapper entirely separate
from the police activity.

The most important thing
is that we want Lesley back.

They're in it together.

But they have to pretend that
they're working on different sides.

But their main aim is to say
to the kidnapper,

"It's still there.
Come and get it."

Mr Whittle, did you decide
straight away that you would pay up,

you would pay the ransom? Yes.

Why was that?

Well, because we want to see
Lesley safely home.

And you thought this was
the best way of doing it?

Well, we want to ensure her safety.

Ancl the thing is that
it's always possible, you know,

that without the money,
she may not get home safely.

On the 15th ofjanuary,

Gerald Smith, a security officer
at a freight liner depot,

is carrying out his duties
and he sees in the dusk

a murky figure looking like a tramp
wandering around the car park.

He went to ask him
what he was doing there,

didn't find the answer satisfactory

and turned to go back to his office
to report what he had seen.

The man shot him twice in the back.

Mr Smith wheeled around
to face his assailant,

who then pumped five more rounds
into his body.

The security guard
finally collapses.

The stranger comes up to him

and fires towards his head.

But there's a click,
because he'd run out of ammunition.

Ancl at that point,
the stranger runs off.

The motive for the shooting
is obscure.

What the gunman wanted at the depot
and why he acted with such ferocity

when challenged
is puzzling police...

The police are completely baffled,

so they carry out ballistic tests
on the shells.

And discovered that these cartridges
came from the same gun

that had shot up
all these sub-postmasters.

The Black Panther
was still in operation.

A young teenage girl,
out of the blue, placed underground,

cold, dark, sensory deprivation,

she's going to have gone through
different types of emotions,

waves of emotion -
denial, anger, fight.

Your body is triggered into
a state of threat.

Looking back at all the people
that she loves and cares about,

thinking that maybe she'll never
get back to that life.

In that circumstance, every time
Neil son came down to see her,

that would have been the lifeline.

That was her only way out.

When he comes back,
he asks her to record this message.

I think, for the first time,
she will have had hope -

he's come back,
he's not abandoned her.

She must have thought,
"I can do this. I can survive this."

So this, to me,
is what is so horrific -

these moments of isolation and then
the moments of hope she must've had.

PHONE RINGS

Two clays after the kidnapping,

the phone rang at the Whittles'
coach yard.

Len Rudd, who was the
transport manager, picked it up

and he heard Lesley's voice.

The latest instruction, delivered
on tape down the telephone,

was a key moment.

This was a chance to rescue Lesley.

But on no account was there
to be any sense

that the police were involved.

They had to keep
right in the background.

So £50,000 is in Ron's car,
along with a policeman,

hidden under rugs in the back.

Late on January 16, he drove the
80 miles from Highley in Shropshire

to Kidsgrove in Staffordshire.

And inside this phone box, he found
another set of instructions.

I couldn't find the message
at first.

There was a blackboard on which
the telephone equipment is mounted.

Ancl it was supposed to be
behind there.

Well, I ran my hand all the way
around there twice,

so then I checked the board
a third time.

Ancl I must've just had my hand up
that little bit further

behind the board and I just felt
something brush my fingers

and found this message.

They too were punched on a piece
of black plastic tape,

and they told him to go to a beauty
spot known locally as Bathpool,

just about a mile
outside of Kidsgrove.

The directions told him
to go to a low wall

and then start flashing his lights,
at which apparently

he will start having some indication
as to where to go.

I was to drive past the wall and
then look for the flashing torch.

Well, I know now that the wall
referred to

was the wall of the railway bridge,

where the road goes over
the railway.

In fact, because there's
a slight left-hand sweep there,

I didn't even see that wall.
I went straight past it.

Ancl then you come to the dam. And
I assumed that that was the wall,

so I was probably a quarter of a
mile beyond where I should've been.

It must have been between 3.30
and four o'clock

before I actually got up to
Bath pool Park.

By now, he's really late,
you can imagine pretty stressed,

desperate to hand over the money,
get his sister back.

He's flashing the lights
and shouting, 'Here's the money!

"Here's the ransom money!
Come and get it!"

It's almost impossible to imagine...

...that they were so near
and yet so far.

He drives up in this sports car,
with its roar...

ENGINE ROARS PAST

Did Lesley hear that?

I don't think she will have done.

Being by herself,
her mind would have run riot.

Your senses become heightened,
so you can see everything,

smell everything, hear everything.

His sister is waiting, thinking,
"just pay the ransom.

"I need to be free.
I can't go with this any more."

It's all a terrible mix-up
and an awful tragedy.

Nobody does turn up, and eventually
the operation is aborted.

Well, yes...

For Bob Booth,
the problems are ramping up.

There's been another failed
ransom drop. What does he do next?

He pulls in Scotland Yard and says,

"I want you to covertly go through
Bath pool Park

"and pick up any other
possible clues."

But they return to
Bob Booth, saying,

"As far as we're concerned,
there's nothing there, guv."

We want the kidnappers
to get in touch with me,

and I will do whatever is reasonable
to get Lesley back.

That is the important thing
as far as we're concerned.

The police were now
looking for information.

They wanted help from newspapers,
from television.

They wanted to trace people who had
seen things that they could link,

stitch all this together with.

And, of course,
they were still looking for Lesley.

They sift it, to start with.

Anything of significance
is taken out of there.

If this silence of
the kidnappers continues,

will you start to fear the worst?

I suppose I must.

If we could just know something,

if somebody would just contact us
anyhow, we don't care how,

you know, we will just do anything.

If there's anyway she can
contact me, I would like her to.

Neil son is sitting at home in
Bradford, keeping a careful eye on

all the newscasts and the newspapers
writing about the kidnapping.

But he realises that the police
are not really getting anywhere

in their search.

What sort of a man is it,
do you think, you're looking for?

He's a fellow that is so cunning...

He got more moody
and unbearable at home.

It was as if he was taken over,
his mind and his body, by a monster.

But he seems to be having
his share of luck?

Oh, he's the devil's advocate.

He'd just sit on the settee
for hour after hour, just brooding,

his eyes staring into space as
though he was a million miles away.

Suddenly, he would snap out
a question,

something to do with
his own thoughts.

Most time,
I hadn't a clue what to say,

and he'd bellow,
"You stupid, thick bastard!"

And he'd lapse back into silence.

As time goes on, Neil son becomes
more and more socially isolated.

He withdraws increasingly
from the outside world.

His only safe place is solitude.
That's his happy place.

PHONE RINGS

Eight clays after
the shooting of Gerald Smith,

a local said that there was a
Morris 1300 that he was pretty sure

wasn't owned by anyone else
in the area,

and it had been sitting in the same
parking position for an entire week.

The police then look at the car,
and they find...

...an extraordinary
amount of equipment.

A spare mattress, sleeping bags -

everything's in duplicate,
they notice.

They find a tape recorder,
Dymo tape.

It was exactly the same Dymo tape.

It had messages on it which
clearly related to a ransom drop.

The cassette was
the most interesting,

because when they played the tape,
it was a girl's voice.

It was Lesley's voice.

Ancl they knew then that the man
who had shot the freight liner guard

was definitely the man
who had kidnapped Lesley Whittle.

Lesley Whittle had been abducted
by the Black Panther.

SIREN BLARES

Four there, three straight up and
two to the houses here on the right.

We've got a description of the man.

We know what he looks like,
how tall he is.

We need to eliminate every male
living in this area

who is over the age of 16.

It's exactly a month to the night
that Lesley was abducted.

Do you honestly think that she
can be alive after all this time?

Yes, I do. And I'll hold that
till the contrary's proved.

And every stop will be pulled out
to get this girl back alive,

every stop.

At this point,
the investigation seems to go quiet.

Ancl the anxiety is raising,
of course,

all the time for the welfare
of Lesley.

By that time, of course,

we also know that the kidnapper
has also killed before.

We know he is the Black Panther.

We've now got a serial killer.

Is this man now regarded as public
enemy number one in this country?

Oh, without a doubt,
without a doubt.

Once they'd linked the car
to the Black Panther,

who'd been shooting up
all the post offices

and was the kidnapper of
Lesley Whittle,

they got some advance in the case

because they got a semblance of what
the Black Panther looked like...

...because Gerald Smith had seen him
and so had Peggy Gray land.

And from those,
they produced a Photofit.

That photo impression has been seen
by Mrs Gray land and Mr Smith,

and that's the sort of impression
I'm trying to get over

to the public, this hard man, this
villainous face, this wicked face.

NEWS THEME MUSIC PLAYS

The money is here, so if he'll get
in touch... And I will go alone.

I've been alone already, because
the places that I've been to,

I am sure the police
haven't been following me.

And they have this charade.

But it's the most bizarre and,
when you look at it,

badly acted pretence.

Use whatever communication you feel
you can do best

by getting hold of that money
and releasing that girl.

It's meticulously planned
by a police officer

who by now is really
starting to panic.

Bear this in mind -
we should be after you.

You don't have that
and get away snot-free.

There's no amnesty on this.

SIRENS BLARE

DOGS BARK

In March, they started
a full-scale search of the park.

Ancl I went over there to photograph
one or two bits and pieces

that they found.

Ancl the publicity of that
brought a number of people

in the Kidsgrove area
to bring things to the police

which were of interest.

Two schoolboys at Kidsgrove
have found a tape with the message,

"Drop suitcase in hole
in the wasteland

"at Kidsgrove, Staff o rds hire."

DOGS BARK

Along with several other press
people, I went to Bathpool Park

because we'd been told that
a search had been mounted.

Ancl we went to get pictures.

DOG BARKS

Detectives have found a roll of
white sticking plaster

hidden in a culvert near the main
Manchester to Euston railway line.

There was a torch
with some Dymo tape on it,

binoculars and a leather jacket.

It's during this search that
they stumble on the manhole covers

to the drainage shaft.

As the clay wore on, it became
obvious that this drainage system

was of interest and we were going to
have to have a look down there.

I mean, the drains were a network
of ladders and tunnels,

to be used by engineers
and maintenance people.

Nobody really knew about them.

I mean, we were looking down
the hole,

but all you could see was
sort of eight to ten foot down,

where there was a landing and
another set of ladders going down.

Ancl it had got to be looked at.

The main shaft was perfectly dry.

You go down one ladder

and then across a platform,
down another ladder,

and there was just
a couple of inches,

three inches of water
in the bottom of that.

Ancl then you work your way along
and it drops down,

almost like a water chute, down to
the bottom of the main shaft.

There is a short ladder down to
a narrow ramp about two feet wide.

They find a blue dressing gown
hung up above the ramp

and a wire...

...attached at one end to the
stepladder that has become snagged.

When the officer kneels down
on the platform

and shines a lantern
down underneath,

he finds that the wire is attached
to a human body.

Ancl that's where Lesley was hanging.

It's just horrendous. Words fail me,
to be quite honest.

It's... It's...

I'd seen the body,
and it's the body of a young woman.

She was just a girl at school,
or at college.

Yeah, she shouldn't have been...

She shouldn't have been
treated like that by anybody.

How evil, how ruthless,

how terribly wicked this man is
that we've hunted for seven weeks.

God above,
I never dreamt in my wildest dreams

he'd do such a thing to a girl.

It's... It's... It's terrible.

REPORTER: A white police tent
amongst the trees 50 yards behind me

marks the manhole cover
to the culvert.

Some 60 feet beneath it
lies the body of a young girl.

The police say simply that
it's another murder inquiry,

but from what
they've seen of the body,

they're quite convinced that
it's Lesley Whittle.

We had a phone call from the
news desk that a body had been found.

There were a line of forensic vans
and vehicles.

Lesley's body was brought out
in a coffin, and...

...my thoughts very much were
of sadness that...

...they'd failed to find
this young girl alive.

She was tethered with a wire,

which was fashioned to the bottom
stanchion of a ladder at one end,

the other end around her neck,

and she went over the edge of
the platform

at the bottom of the ladder,
into the drain, suspended,

mummifying in the current
of cold air.

We shall never know for certain,
but I feel, rightly or wrongly,

that the way in which
this was revealed in the press

in the early clays could quite easily
have meant a quicker death

than might have been for Lesley.

I hope that the press will now
act more responsibly and use their

considerable power to make damn sure
that this man comes to justice.

It's too late for Lesley,

but I hope that he's caught before
he does anything to anybody else.

BOB BOOTH: Make no mistake about it,

every officer in the whole of
the country

is determined to have this man
if it's the last thing we do.

Neil son thought he'd got away with
it, sitting at home in Bradford,

spending a lot of time
watching television news reports

and listening to radio reports
and hoovering up any information

he could about
the Lesley Whittle murder.

Ancl time and again,
as investigations continue,

it's being rammed home
to the police

that this man had not only
professional knowledge of...

When the news does come
on the television,

the whole family is told
to keep quiet and listen intently.

They've begun to piece together
the possible escape route...

If I talked all there was something
on the telly about the raids,

he'd tell me to shut up.

I understand now why he got
so intolerable at home.

No-one could live normally
with the horrors

that he had on his conscience.

As the months go by, Neil son feels
more and more confident,

with no knock on the door,

no telephone calls coming
from the police.

He was running out of money,
cos he'd invested a lot of time and

effort in planning the kidnap,
but he hadn't got the ransom money.

He needs money.
It's how he earns his living -

being a thief, a burglar,
a criminal.

He gets his sawn off shotgun,
he gets his pistol, the knives

and, of course, the black mask -
the essential black mask -

and he is tooled up to go out
on the road again.

BOB BOOTH: This man will be brought
to book.

It's not right that a man
as ruthless, as evil, as wicked,

as cunning, as calculating as this
should be roaming the country

to go and murder again.

From here on in, it was the hunt
for Britain's most wanted criminal.

The investigation was ongoing.

People were going out
clay after clay after clay.

Ancl I suppose at the back of
every policeman's mind is,

"Will it be someone totally
disconnected with the inquiry

"who will arrest this man?"

ATV NEWS THEME PLAYS

There's been intensive police
activity all day in Mansfield.

A man dropped a gun belt
in a scuffle...

I was in the studio when there was
a very significant development.

The police had caught a man
attempting to do another

post office robbery
in Mansfield Woodhouse.

Two young police constables
were in a patrol car,

and this short, wiry guy
dressed in dark clothing

and carrying a bag walked past them.

Something about him
that made them decide to stop him.

During the course of that
questioning, the man produced

a shotgun and told the two policemen
to drive him to Blidworth.

On the way, Constable White
managed to overpower the man.

In the course of the struggle
which followed,

the shotgun went off,
injuring both policemen.

It all happened very quickly,
but I got the gun off him

and I began to hit him in the face
with my right elbow,

still clutching the shotgun
in my right fist.

The police checked his fingerprints,

and they realised then that
they had caught the Black Panther.

LAUGHTER
Can you, Bob, just look this way?

At Kidsgrove this morning,

senior detectives made little effort
to hide their delight.

Marvellous day for the police force.

That's all I have to say.
I am absolutely delighted.

He's in his 30s,
married with a teenage daughter

and comes from the Bradford area.

I saw a picture of Neil son
fairly soon after his arrest.

And he'd had a pasting.
He really had been thumped.

We got the phone call,
went up to Bradford...

...to the house.

KNOCKING ON DOOR

It was sometime after midnight that
the knock on our front door came.

There were four or five policemen
and three policewomen.

Mum stood there in a dressing gown
as one of them said,

"Mrs Neil son, Don's in
very serious trouble."

That was how I learned my father's
terrible secret.

There were officers already there
when we got there.

We were led up to
what's like a loft room.

Ancl it was like walking into
our exhibit office.

There was the wire that she'd
been fastened with,

there were number plates, there were
masks, a sawn off shotgun.

The secret of my father's
locked attic was revealed that night

when the police burst through
its locked door.

I felt stunned, as I realised
he'd used it

as a headquarters for his raids.

He spent more and more time
locked away in there.

If you asked him what he was doing,
he'd say, "Mind your own business."

For Kathryn, side-by-side with the
shock, it suddenly all makes sense.

There are so many things about her
life with her father in that home

that were extreme and strange
and weird.

And in that moment,
it would've all clicked into place.

DOG BARKS, SHOUT I NG

HORN HONKS

Charged with the murder of
Lesley Whittle,

Donald Neil son today faced eight
further charges, three of murder,

three of attempted murder,
one of kidnapping

and one of demanding money
with menaces.

Asked if he had anything to say,
Neil son replied, "Not guilty, sir."

Neil son then made a special request

that a Leeds lawyer
should represent him.

Am I going in the right direction?
Anything to say, Mr Black?

Absolutely nothing at this stage.

The first thing that happened
when I walked into the room,

he'd been seated at a table.

He stood up, arms straight down,
by the seams of his trousers, "Sir!"

Very, very military.

Ancl then, of course,
I had to ask him,

"Well, you've asked me to represent
you on three very serious cases

"upon which you are charged.
Generally, what do you have to say?"

And he said, "Well, yes, I kidnapped
the girl, but I did not murder her.

"I had no intention of murdering
her. Ancl therefore, Mr Black,

"I want to plead not guilty
to all the charges."

REPORTER: There was a heavy
police guard to hold back the crowds

outside the court. Some of them
had waiting for five to six hours.

By the time the accused arrived...
VOICE FADES

I covered the Crown Court trial.

This was the first time
I'd seen Neil son.

Very dark hair, big shock of
dark hair, but quite a small man.

I was surprised how small he was.

Donald Neils0n's statement as to the
death of Lesley Whittle described

how he went underground into the
drainage system at Bathpool Park.

He said, "I entered the shaft.
The girl had her torch on.

"The girl moved to the right

"to allow me onto the platform
beside her.

"She went over the side
and suspended from the wire

"I had placed there earlier
to prevent her leaving the tunnel.

"I saw her face.
Her eyes seemed half-closed,

"and then they stopped moving.
I froze and I panicked."

The prosecution, of course,
pointed out that by placing her

in that position of danger,
he was therefore culpable.

That was the nub of their argument.

There was a loud gasp from
the packed public gallery

as the foreman of the jury announced
their verdict - guilty of murder.

That sentence was life imprisonment.

BELLS CHIME

The reaction in Shropshire
was of great sadness,

pa rticu la rly in High ley.

I think everybody felt it
as a massive loss.

I think it destroyed a lot of lives.

Obviously, the Whittle family's
life. The terrible way she died...

...you'd never get over that.

At the end, she was
a teenage girl kidnapped,

not knowing if she'll ever see
the light of clay again.

In those hours, she would have
relived her time with her boyfriend,

lovingly reflected on those memories
and wished for a way out.

I took it really personally.

We were both exactly the same age.

We both had dreams,
we both had ambitions,

so excited about her life and
what she was going to do with it.

And that, to me,
is the tragedy of the case...

...that it was just snuffed out
in the most terrible way.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media