Sinister South

In this episode, we tell the story of Destiny Lauren, a woman whose death in Kentish Town in November 2009 was entirely preventable. After a brief catch-up that takes in missed episodes, pre-Christmas chaos, questionable food choices and the kind of rambling only we can manage, the conversation shifts to a far more serious place. Destiny was 29 years old. She was a daughter, a sister, and a woman...

Three deaths. One family. One quiet corner of South Croydon that suddenly found itself at the centre of a mystery that felt more like a Victorian thriller than the suburbs in the 1920s. In this episode we dive into the strange chain of events that hit the Sidney and Duff families after three relatives died with the same unexplained symptoms, months apart. Doctors brushed it off, neighbours whisper...

This week we’re in Streatham, looking at one of the most significant and most debated cases in recent South London history: the shooting of 24 year old Chris Kaba. An unarmed man, a single police shot, and a city that still hasn’t shaken off the impact. We walk through who Chris was, the world he was moving through, the police intelligence that shaped that night, and the split second decision that...

This week we’re diving into one of South London’s darkest and most infamous stories. The rise and fall of the Richardson Gang. A firm built on scrap metal, long-firm frauds, fruit machines, corrupt officers, brutal punishments and a level of violence that made even seasoned detectives say the Richardsons were far worse than the Krays. We take you all the way from wartime Camberwell and the brother...

A plausible-looking PhD student at University College London, living the student life — until the mask slipped. Zhenhao Zou invited women to his flat under the guise of study or drinks, used drugs to incapacitate them, then filmed the assaults. In this episode, we trace how the investigation unfolded — dating apps, his flat in London, hidden cameras, SD cards full of footage. We dig into how trust...

This week, we kick things off with talk of fireworks, chaotic bonfire night crowds, and Hannah dropping some insanely awesome news (the kind that actually makes us both a bit emotional). But after that burst of brightness, we take a sharp turn — back to South London in the summer of 1986. When a neighbour forced open the door to a flat on St Alphonsus Road, she walked straight into a scene of horr...

The Halloween Compendium Four Halloween nights. Four South London stories. None with a happy ending. This episode brings together the cases of Scotty Kouebitra, Rocky Djelal, Ben Gardner, and Richard Price, four men whose lives ended in acts of violence that should never have happened. From Croydon to Southwark, pubs to parks, we look at how ordinary nights — fireworks, parties, and quick pints —...

We start this one with a bit of chaos, as usual, a catch-up about gigs, half term, the price of fireworks and the ongoing trauma of David Walliams audiobooks (because honestly, why is he everywhere?). But once we’ve had our rant, we’re heading back to South London for a story that’s as shocking as it is tragic. In December 1969, Wimbledon was the picture of quiet suburbia, Christmas lights, family...

After a chaotic catch-up involving friendship break-ups, ignored WhatsApp messages, and the glamour of eating Super Noodles in the bath, we take a sharp turn into the gas-lit streets of Victorian Lambeth. This week, we’re heading back to 1891 to meet Thomas Neill Cream – a doctor with a taste for power, poison, and blackmail. Known to history as The Lambeth Poisoner , Cream left a trail of women d...

On Boxing Day 1988, a 57-year-old woman returned home to her Bermondsey flat after spending Christmas with family. Inside, someone was waiting. Over the next 18 months, four elderly women across Southwark and Rotherhithe would be brutally attacked in their own homes by the same man — Michael John Roberts. The press called him the Praying Rapist and the Beast of Bermondsey , a violent predator who...

In this week's episode, we cover the devastating case of three-year-old Daniel Evbuomwan, who was murdered in a house in Downham by his own uncle, Ben Igbinedion. It's a case that shocked the local community, not only because of Daniel's young age but because of the disturbing circumstances behind his death.  We talk through who Daniel was, what happened in the lead up to that terri...

In the summer of 1998, 30-year-old mother and DJ Avril “Miss Irie” Johnson was brutally murdered in her own home in Tulse Hill. Armed men forced their way in, tied up her family, and executed Avril in front of her husband and two young daughters. Her death became part of a wider spree of violence that shook London and helped shape the launch of Operation Trident.  In this episode, we walk through...

We're back in Victorian South London with a case so grim it became known as the Barnes mystery. In March 1879, widow Julia Martha Thomas hired a new servant, Kate Webster - a decision that would prove fatal. Within weeks Julia was dead, dismembered in her own kitchen copper, and Kate was strutting around Richmond in her employer's clothes, even trying to sell off the furniture.  In this...

We're back! Season 3 is a go... what does season 3 do differently from season 2 you ask? Well... nothing really! HOWEVER... We're back with a big ol’ case – the brutal murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby in Woolwich in 2013. In this episode we cover the events of that shocking day, the life of Lee Rigby, and the aftermath that rippled far beyond South London. From the horrific attack in broad d...

We start this week chatting about Hannah’s all-consuming new farming obsession (no, not in real life – in a mobile game) and Rachel’s daughter delivering the line of the year to a would-be eight-year-old suitor.  But soon we turn to the devastating story of Lakanal House. In July 2009, a fire tore through the Camberwell tower block, claiming the lives of Catherine Hickman, Dayana Francisquini, her...

Camberwell, South London. A quiet flat just off the main road. Nothing about it stood out—least of all the man inside. But for over a decade, Frederick Diji was running a romance scam so insidious, one victim sent him money for 14 years. Using fake names, false promises, and a soft voice on the other end of the phone, Diji—and his accomplice Raquel Johnson—manipulated over 80 victims into handing...

A teenage boy. A knock at the door. And a mother who made a devastating choice. In this episode, we tell the story of 17-year-old Levi Ernest-Morrison — a kind, funny, and thoughtful boy from Sydenham with a love of motorbikes, dreams of building a home in St Lucia, and a future ahead of him. Until the evening of 10th April 2021, when he was hunted down in the street by a group of teenagers wieldi...

On a quiet summer night in Tooting, five litres of petrol were poured through a family's letterbox and lit. By morning sisters Nabiha and Maleha Masud were dying in hospital. The attack came without warning, leaving detectives and the girls grieving mother, desperate to understand why.  Join Hannah and Rachel as they unpick a case of shocking entitlement and the devastating consequences of un...

In this week’s episode of Sinister South, we revisit one of the most harrowing chapters in modern British policing – the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes. On 22nd July 2005, just two weeks after the 7/7 London bombings, Jean Charles, a 27-year-old Brazilian electrician, was followed, misidentified, and shot seven times in the head by armed police at Stockwell Tube station. They believed h...

In the winter of 1988, 22-year-old Lorraine Benson left a work Christmas party in Clapham Junction and never made it home. Her murder shocked South London – not just because of its brutality, but because it exposed the serious failings in how violent offenders were being managed. In this episode, we look at the pioneering role of DNA in solving Lorraine’s case, the disturbing history of her killer...

In February 2011, 21-year-old Gagandip Singh was found in the boot of his burning car on a residential road in Blackheath. At first, police thought it might’ve been a stolen vehicle, torched for the hell of it, but what they uncovered was a calculated, deeply personal murder. Gagandip was a rising star in the Sikh community, running his own TV channel and trying to carry on his father’s legacy aft...

In this episode, recorded amid cat flap dramas, church hall trauma, and a frankly terrifying inflatable dinosaur, we dive into one of the most disturbing and under-reported cases in South London’s history: the murder of Bulic Forsythe. In February 1993, Bulic a civil servant working in Lambeth Council’s social services department was found bludgeoned to death in his Brixton flat. The flat had been...

This week we bring you the devastating story of two women, Naomi Hunte and Fiona Holm, both murdered by the same man: Carl Cooper. Both had warned police. Both were ignored. And both were lost because no one acted when it mattered. We talk about stalking, missed red flags, a crowbar attack that led nowhere, and a family forced to do the investigating themselves. Plus, the absolute fury of watching...

After a slightly chaotic opening involving anxiety spirals, pocket-based trouser strategy, and a traumatic passport photo, things quickly turn grim as we cover the brutal 2020 murder of 25-year-old Riches Obie in Elephant & Castle. He had no criminal past. No enemies. Just a quiet life with his mum — until he was fatally stabbed in their flat. Was it a robbery gone wrong? Or the fallout of a s...

A man shot in his kitchen. A Ming vase in a JD Sports bag. An iPad dumped in the Thames. This one has it all: a failed assassination, a Geneva museum heist, and three South London men who left a digital trail as messy as their getaway. Paul Allen, once part of Britain’s biggest cash robbery, ends up paralysed. But it’s what the attackers left behind that seals their fate. Also this week: Hannah’s...