Real Crime: The Heiress & the Kidnapper Part 1

Former Detective Chief Superintendent Bob Booth recalls the hunt for multiple killer Donald Neilson, the so-called Black Panther, whose reign of terror culminated in the kidnap and murder of teenage heiress Lesley Whittle in 1975. Only after Neilson's arrest did it emerge that he had previously killed three sub-postmasters and a security guard, and carried out hundreds of armed robberies.

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Entertainment

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• real
• crime
• heiress
• kidnapper
• black
• panther
• itv
• documentary

[Carpetlay1]

Typical of The Old Bill Blunder after Blunder. It was The same in The Yorkshire Ripper case. Unless they're harassing innocent motorists, they are Fucking useless. And as for Bob Booth never in a million years did he solve 70 murders. It was his fault she was killed. A very stupid man

[Bellman467]

@Bodaniel7 Thanks again, looks like on the face of it he lost everything family wise,

[Bodaniel7]

@Bellman467 In 2000, Neilson made an application to the High Court Family Division to contact his daughter. I don't know why but his granddaughter was born in 1985 which would have made her 15 in that year so maybe it was connected to her. The High court action might suggest there had been no contact with his family for some considerable time.

[Bodaniel7]

@Bellman467 Irene Neilson gave an interview to the Sunday People in June 1982. She said she visited as regularly as she could but since his move to Parkhurst she had only manged one visit. She said it was difficult because they had to keep rebuilding their relationship and they were always conscious of the prison officer sitting nearby. Two years later in 1984, Neilson was reported as having no visitors, received no letters and was described as a man without life and certainly without hope.

[Bellman467]

Thanks for that Bodaniel, do you know if Neilson had regular visits the whole time he was in prison?

[Bodaniel7]

@Bellman467 he would not have been able to con a psychiatrist or the parole board. He never expressed or showed any remorse which is obviously the first step in getting ready for release.

[Bodaniel7]

@Bellman467 I'm sure they didn't like him but he kept to himself and rarely spoke to anyone. He regarded himself as a man apart. He was relentlessly self driven. In Full Sutton his nickname was the Pink Panther because he was so well behaved. He could never have been released, he remained Cat A all the time. He was always regarded as a danger to the public and the state. He was cold and remorseless and just as he could not master the art of being genial when he sold brushes door to door.. contd

[Bodaniel7]

@Bellman467 He said "there is an old saying that all the darkness in all the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle. That in the fulness of time this man may have some limited hope to entertain is something which may ensure his sanity and that candle I would ask you not to snuff out by saying life imprisonment should mean life imprisonment and nothing else."

[Bodaniel7]

@Bellman467 He applied to the High court to have his minimum term reverted to 30 years because that is what judge initially said when he was asked for a figure. He said he meant natural life but if he had to give a figure it would be 30 years. At the trial Gilbert Gray said in mitigation that Neilson knew he would have to go to prison for an inordinately long period of time and that there must await him a very long and very dark period of imprisonment... contd

[Bodaniel7]

@Bellman467 At Kidsgrove, the police felt that apart from the speculative nature of the sightings Neilson would not have trusted his wife or any other woman with his secrets.