Scotland Yard Confidential

In the late summer of 1848, two officers of the newly formed Metropolitan police force discovered the body of a missing man at 3, Miniver Place in Bermondsey, South London. Buried in quicklime underneath the floor of the kitchen, Patrick O'Connor was the victim of a brutally violent crime. The obvious culprits were Frederick Manning and his wife Marie but they had already fled the scene with a for...

On 26th April, 1999, BBC TV presenter, Jill Dando, was shot on the doorstep of her home in South West London. Killed outright by a single bullet to the head from a lone, unknown gunman. The hunt for her murderer and the motive behind her death proved to be one of the largest and most difficult enquiries ever conducted by Scotland Yard. So, who shot one of Britain's best loved presenters, and why?...

It's World War 2 and London is still reeling from the Blitz. Although the blackout gives some protection from German bombers, it also provides the perfect hunting ground for criminals. When a woman is found strangled in an air raid shelter, and soon after another woman is brutally butchered, police suspect a serial killer is at work. The press dub him the Blackout Ripper.  Chief Superintendent Fre...

It's 1967. Leonard 'Nipper' Read has been promoted to the Murder Squad at Scotland Yard. It's a timely appointment, since his old adversaries — the Kray twins — have each just killed a man. The murder of George Cornell by Ronnie Kray, and the murder of Jack 'The Hat' McVitie by Reggie Kray, will be the acts that lead to their downfall. Nipper will be the man to break through the wall of silence th...

In 1966, the East End of London was ruled by a vicious gang run by Ronnie and Reggie Kray. The notorious, identical twins had a vice-like grip fuelled by fear and intimidation. Police know that their violent crimes are escalating, and yet they can't get a single witness to testify against the twins. The man from Scotland Yard charged with bringing them down is Leonard 'Nipper' Read, and he's got h...

In December 1915 in Highgate, London, a new bride was found drowned in her bath the day after her wedding. At first, it appeared to be a tragic accident. But when two more similar deaths came to light, Inspector Arthur Neil of Scotland Yard had two mysteries to solve: What was the real identity of the man involved in all three murders, and how did he make it look like his wives' deaths were accide...

At around 10:30 PM on 31st October, 1908, 12-year-old Edwin Haskell, known as Teddy to his many friends, was discovered dead at his home in Salisbury. His throat had been cut while he was sleeping. Teddy lived with his widowed mother, Flora, and was disabled. One of his legs had been amputated when he was six because of tuberculosis in his hip. He was saving up for an artificial leg, and some of t...

In the early hours of December 20th 1988, police get a report of a young woman who went missing on the short walk from the train station in Raynes Park to her friend’s house. Police fear the worst, knowing that there have been a number of attacks in that part of South London recently. When a body is found in the dense undergrowth of some playing fields, just yards from the main road, their missing...

In October 1946, an unidentified woman's body was found hidden behind a hedge by the side of the A20 in Kent, the main road between London and Dover. Local police turned to Detective Chief Inspector Robert Fabian of Scotland Yard to lead the investigation. After two high-profile failures, Fabian desperately needed to crack this case. Calm, methodical and at times inspired, Fabian tenaciously follo...

In 1860, Mary Emsley, a well-known landlady of the East End of London, is found brutally murdered in her own home. Police openly admit they don't know where to start. Emsley was a miserly, merciless business woman — and universally disliked. When ex-police officer James Mullins places the blame on a local cobbler, it looks as though the crime has been solved. Inspector Tanner of Scotland Yard uses...

Hosted by John Hopkins, Short History Of is a transportive podcast, taking you back in time to witness history’s most remarkable events. Today, get the true story behind the legend that inspired the hit TV series. Between the 1890s and 1910s, the British city of Birmingham was in the grip of a gang: the Peaky Blinders. But were they really champions of the working class, driven by a code of loyalt...

In June 1946, Divisional Detective Reginald Spooner was called to the Pembridge Court Hotel in London's Notting Hill Gate, where an out-of-work artist named Margery Gardner was found brutally murdered. The hotel room was registered to Lieutenant-Colonel Neville Heath, but he was missing. Fearing his suspect might flee the country, Detective Spooner triggered a nationwide manhunt for a man who woul...

In October 1942, Royal Marines find the badly decomposed body of a woman buried on Hankley Common in Surrey. The gruesome discovery kicks off an investigation by one of Scotland Yard's finest: DCI Edward Greeno. The first mystery is to identify the victim, and police soon discover that she was a nomadic, emotionally troubled young woman called Joan Pearl Wolfie — known locally as the Wigwam Girl,...

It's the Swinging Sixties, and in Bromley, Kent, a newly married woman is slaughtered after inviting an unexpected guest in for a cup of coffee. But with no murder weapon and no fingerprints, police struggle to find the culprit...until they see a familiar name on a Christmas card written to the victim... We join Margaret Pereira, the first woman on the Scientific staff at the Metropolitan Science...

In March 1973, a pair of British tourists are attacked while camping in the South of France. Jeremy Cartland is injured, but his father, John Cartland, is brutally hacked to death. It is not the first time French police have to work with the detectives at Scotland Yard, but the case highlights how differently the two forces investigate homicide. Scotland Yard are meticulous in their record-keeping...

In 1891, just three years after the serial killer known as Jack the Ripper carried out his horrific crimes in Whitechapel, another sadistic murderer began targeting sex-workers in a different area of London. The Lambeth Poisoner had killed four young women before Scotland Yard detectives began to suspect murder. This time they were determined that the prolific killer would not escape justice. The...

In the leafy suburb of Richmond, on 5th March 1879, a strange box washes up on the banks of the Thames near Barnes Railway Bridge. Inside, the dismembered remains of a woman kick off a case that will become known as the Barnes Mystery. At first unable to even identify the victim, Scotland Yard are at a loss — until a couple of concerned witnesses step up, and the whole gruesome case unravels. Lear...

In the 1980s, London was rocked by a wave of violent armed robberies. One of the most daring was the raid on the Brink’s Mat security warehouse in Hounslow. It was also the most lucrative by far, netting the thieves a cool £26 million in gold bullion, and leaving in its trail a wake of violence and death. An elite unit was tasked with bringing the gang to justice, Scotland Yard’s Flying Squad. Fro...

In February 2011, police on patrol in Blackheath, London, spot a burning car half-hidden up a quiet lane. When the fire is put out and they’re able to investigate, they discover the burned body of a young man in the boot. With no way to identify him from the charred remains, they set about tracing the vehicle registration and find it belongs to a young man called Gagandip Singh. Gagandip told his...

Investigating the murder of 3-year-old Saville Kent in Wiltshire in 1860, Inspector Whicher of Scotland Yard couldn’t help ruffling feathers. His theory about the killer’s identity brought him into conflict with the local police, but his hunt for a crucial piece of evidence ended in frustration. Although he believed he knew who the murderer was, the case remained unsolved when he retired from the...

When the body of 3-year-old Saville Kent was found with his throat cut at his home in Wiltshire, local magistrates appealed for a detective from London to solve the case. In 1860, Inspector Jonathan Whicher was Scotland Yard’s star detective, making him the natural choice for the job. But by the time he arrived on the scene, much of the evidence had either been removed or destroyed. And Wiltshire...

The Fingerprint Department at Scotland Yard was established in 1901, growing out of a system of detailing body measurements to validate evidence at crime scenes. Despite early enthusiasm for the ground-breaking technique and some good support from leading detectives, by 1905, the department had still only managed to secure one conviction using the technique — for a burglary that took place in 1902...

In 2010 the body of young MI6 agent Gareth Williams was found locked inside a holdall. Scotland Yard was called in to investigate, but from the beginning it was clear that MI6 wanted detectives to keep their distance. Some claim that Gareth somehow climbed into the bag and died by accident...but that doesn’t explain how it got locked from the outside. Was Gareth Williams’ death the result of a for...

Early in his career, the great Scotland Yard detective Robert Fabian pitched himself against a suave and daring cat-burglar. Robert Augustus Delaney was responsible for a one-man crime wave targeting London’s wealthiest homes in the 1920s. His exploits even gained the admiration of the police who were chasing him. But behind the glamorous exterior of the gentleman thief, lay the secrets of a dark...

Once, Anthony Hardy’s life seemed to be going along conventional lines. He married his university girlfriend, got a good job after graduating, and settled down to have a family. Then something went wrong. Just how wrong became clear in 2002 when a homeless man made a grisly discovery in a Camden bin. Police followed a trail of body parts to Hardy’s sinister lair, where they found the remains of hi...