Britain's Countryside Killers S01E03
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00:00In 2011, a young woman is last seen walking home from a nightclub in Swindon.
00:06She never returns.
00:08She's disappeared in the middle of the night.
00:10What could have happened to her? Where is she?
00:14About 400 to 500 members of the public turned up to help search the forest.
00:20Bluebells grow in the spring and there's lots of deer, owls, and there's quite a lot of rare wildlife.
00:25But it's a large expanse. It's around 18 square kilometres.
00:29It's quite easy to get lost.
00:31During the day, it's beautiful. It's tranquil. You can hear the sounds of nature.
00:37But at night time, when darkness comes, it's the last place you want to be. It's chilling.
00:43The investigation becomes much larger than police could have ever anticipated.
00:48It absolutely shook the community of Swindon.
00:51A lot of anger that someone could do this to someone that totally didn't deserve it.
00:56Which, at that point, you could literally have struck me down with lightning.
01:01That was not what I was expecting to happen.
01:03THE END
01:08Transcription by CastingWords
01:38Savanak Forest, located in Wiltshire, one of the safest counties in the UK, lies 15 miles south of Swindon, in the southwest of England.
01:50Savanak is a large forest situated just outside of Marlborough, just over the border in Oxfordshire.
01:58It extends over many, many acres, and whilst there are tracks and paths through it, large parts of it are effectively wilderness.
02:06And peaceful, law-abiding place.
02:10A very beautiful place. There are a multitude of different trees, parkland, people take their dogs for walks there, and it's a very popular place, particularly in the summer.
02:20It's really rare for crimes to occur of this nature anywhere, but in rural locations even more so.
02:28That all changes on the 19th of March 2011, when a local young woman is reported missing after failing to return home from a night out.
02:37These kind of incidents are very, very unusual, and clearly have significant community impact when they do happen.
02:45It was so unusual for her to go missing in these circumstances, for any girl of that age to go missing in these circumstances.
02:51A missing woman is identified as 22-year-old Sian M. O'Callaghan, an office worker who lives in Swindon.
03:00So Sian was a young woman in her 20s. She lived with her boyfriend.
03:05By all accounts, she was a young woman who had her life in front of her, and she had those aspirations and dreams that everyone has in their young 20s.
03:14Sian was a very popular girl. Lots of people knew Sian. She had lots of friends.
03:18Everybody who's spoken about Sian was just saying she was a lovely girl.
03:22Sian's boyfriend alerts the police after waking up to find that she never returned home from her walk back from the nightclub, just half a mile away.
03:31The first person to call the police was Kevin Reap, who was Sian's boyfriend, and he called police at about half past nine in the morning.
03:39So as far as he knew, she was meeting up with friends, and they were going to end up in a nightclub in Old Town in Swindon called Suju Nightclub.
03:48Saturday night in Swindon would be buzzing. There would be people out and about going out and enjoying themselves, going to pubs and clubs and restaurants, just like any Saturday night in any town.
04:00Just before 3 a.m. that night, Sian decides to break away from her group of friends and decides she wants to go home.
04:08And she leaves the nightclub just before 3 a.m.
04:13Sian only lived 800 metres away from Swindon town centre. She hadn't far to go. She left on her own, but she wouldn't have been feeling any kind of danger.
04:25She had a pleasant evening. She was going home to the house she shared with her boyfriend, Kevin.
04:32He'd had intermittent contact with her throughout the evening, but when she didn't turn up by about half past three, quarter to four in the morning,
04:41he sent her a message on her phone, asking where she was. Clearly, this message was never answered.
04:49He starts to worry because she isn't responding to his messages, to his attempts to contact her.
04:56And he sends a message to her at 3.24 a.m. with one word, worried.
05:03And this was highly out of character. There was no precursor events. There was no arguments. There was no discussion about her leaving.
05:11It was an unprecedented event within that family, and there was immediate concern.
05:16So her disappearance was treated as a high-risk missing person case.
05:20Boyfriend Kevin is now incredibly alarmed. He gathers together people, friends, anyone he can get a hold of,
05:29and they start looking around the surrounding area, and they're incredibly concerned.
05:35We get many people who go missing, missing people. There's thousands that go missing every single year.
05:41And whilst everyone is treated very importantly, you know those ones which just put the flag up straight away.
05:48We go, this is a real concern.
05:50At the time, the senior investigating officer, Steve Fulcher, was my boss.
05:57I spoke to him, and he asked me to come in to Gapel Cross Police Station the following morning.
06:02He went through the circumstances of Sian going missing, and the initial fast-track actions that were being pursued to help identify where she was.
06:13At that point, we are thinking, how can we try and locate Sian?
06:20What could have happened? Has she fallen over? Is she hurt in any way?
06:23Or is it something a little bit more serious and that someone has taken her and she's come to some harm?
06:58The girl that asked the home to make sure that the person hadn't actually come home, and was just in a different place than expected.
07:03They would then make initial inquiries with friends and relatives to see if anybody knew where she might be.
07:10And then make inquiries with hospitals to see if she'd potentially been injured and ended up in hospital.
07:15when these proved fruitless they then called in a cid where i was working
07:22we were made aware of all the details around her going missing and as much detail as they
07:28were aware of that at that point about where her knight had led her once we'd had a briefing we
07:33were then given allocated different jobs to do and my job was to go and search the route that
07:38she would have taken from the nightclub back to her home address that she shared with her boyfriend
07:43partly my purpose for retracing the steps was a to make sure she hadn't fallen somewhere and was
07:49injured but b also to scope for cctv and one of the cctv cameras i located was at a pub called the
07:56goddard arms which was not far down the road but on the opposite side of the road to where
08:01the nightclub was that sean had last been seen
08:04this became the the last known sighting of sean what we could see from the that cctv image is
08:17that when she went out of screen in the building opposite there was flashing amber lights which
08:24we could hypothesize were from a car pulling up putting the hazard warning lights on
08:29the car is stationary the car is not moving so that would indicate that the driver of the car
08:36had some reason to stay there and to stop was he conversing with someone was it sean was he
08:43talking to her was he offering her a lift the car then drives off and there is no other sign of sean
08:53the police make inquiries house to house door door inquiries in the area they can't put her past that
09:02particular spot they speak to many people and that is the last known setting so the police theory at
09:10that time is that sean got into that car the investigation into shano callaghan's disappearance
09:18has escalated to a suspected kidnapping police are focused on identifying the car seen in cctv footage
09:25as the initial hours are crucial to finding her alive
09:40wiltshire police are investigating the disappearance of 22 year old shano callaghan who vanished after a night
09:46out in swindon in the early hours of march 19 2011. sean was last seen on cctv possibly getting into a car
09:54and detectives suspect she may have been kidnapped their focus is to identify the vehicle and its owner
10:01it became our preferred hypothesis and steve's preferred hypothesis that it was that car that picked
10:07sean up and we were left with a grainy black and white image of a car so we'd looked at that image and
10:14various people gave various people gave different thoughts on what car it might be people thought
10:18it was a mondeo an audi a volvo various other makes the police also found further cctv footage down the
10:26road this time from a color camera that was able to show that the car in question was green and that it
10:34had a yellow square on the side of the door which made police suspect that this was a taxi or a cab
10:41we were unsure what car it was but we used some specialty services to try to identify what the
10:46car was and it came back within a very short space of time that it was believed to be a green toyota
10:53events estate at that point we were thinking well let's put this put this out to the media detective
11:00superintendent steve falcher used the press to put out press releases asking for anybody with any
11:06information about sean friends and relatives of sean were putting up posters and they were posting on
11:12social media so it was getting the news out as far and wide as possible so as many people knew that
11:18sean was missing and were able to help look for her coach loads of people came out stopped what they were
11:24doing to go out and look for this missing woman who people deeply cared about there was grave concern
11:31that something could have happened in that small area particularly to a young female alone at night
11:38if you didn't know about this girl it was because you hadn't already been out of the house
11:42her name was everywhere her face was everywhere
11:48any girl of that age that goes missing and could have potentially come to some harm would be a very
11:55important case regionally i think just the nature of the fact that it was so unusual to happen it
12:02became national news and the media latched onto it because she was an attractive girl who had gone
12:08missing and her picture was everywhere and there was real concern in the community as well sean's boyfriend
12:15kevin made an emotional appeal at a press conference for sean to come home and for anyone who had any
12:22information as to your whereabouts to please please come forward this was a young man who loved sean
12:28very much and that comes across uh in that appeal and he is desperately worried desperately concerned
12:36he wants his girlfriend to come home and he is devastated at the fact that she is missing
12:43police see that sean's phone had been active near savernake forest shortly after she went missing
12:48prompting a search by law enforcement and community members i think it it demonstrates how
12:56how important it was to the communities of swimming and wheelchair at the time and and the priority
13:00they placed on it that people gave up their time to go and search for for sean and we had some
13:06information regarding her phone which indicated that she could have been in savernak
13:11and we didn't ask we didn't appeal for the public to come and try and help us search
13:16but the public had picked up on that and they responded in their thousands they're literally
13:22coaches of people went out to savernak and it's logistically quite a challenge for us
13:26because we wanted to make sure that those searches were able to effectively contribute to the the
13:32searches that took place we didn't want people duplicating it but there's also a health and safety
13:36issue there as well because they were walking through forest you know it's not even land some of
13:41them didn't have the right equipment or footwear to be able to do that so it's tricky because
13:47you don't want to refuse people because they're trying to help you and they're trying to help find
13:50shard and that was what we were all trying to do but at the same time you you don't want anyone else
13:55to be hurt or harmed as a result of their good intent i think people probably put themselves in the
14:02shoes of her parents and their boyfriend and they thought if this was happening to our family
14:08then that's exactly what we would want others to do as search teams comb the forest detectives
14:15looking into the vehicle have made a breakthrough an officer who had been reviewing the camera footage
14:23the video footage from our traffic cars that were in the uh on patrol that night who came into the
14:29briefing room with steve fulcher and myself and a few others and said that they'd identified a taxi
14:35leaving the old town area with um uh at the right time and they had the number plate from the the
14:43traffic car when they checked that plate it came back as a dark green to a creventsis on a 57 plate
14:52which was obviously corroborating what we've been told by the uh by the other experts but it was a
14:57monumental breakthrough um this was then the tuesday lunchtime effectively so we're already some way into
15:03the inquiry but this gave us a very strong suspect and that registration plate showed
15:10that the car was registered to a man called christopher hallywell
15:17christopher hallywell was a 47 year old taxi driver who lived at ashbury avenue in swindon
15:23he was cohabiting with his partner and he had two daughters and a son he didn't stand out to the
15:30police as the type of person they were looking for initially the police immediately wanted to know
15:37about the movements of christopher hallywell they wanted to know what fair she took where he went in
15:41his taxi they wanted to know everything about him we look into was he working at the on the at
15:48the time where was his location his phones all that kind of thing but ultimately at that point we
15:55just had somebody in that area who was driving that car we didn't know if it was the same car we didn't
16:01know any more than that but it gave us suspicion that he became someone of interest to us at that point
16:08they spoke to his bosses they spoke to the people who ran the taxi rank and they told police that
16:13hallywell phoned into them at 1 30 a.m and said he was tired he was going home he was knocking off for
16:20the night basically and yet 90 minutes later his taxi is still seen traveling around the streets of
16:27swindon hallywell never went home so why what was he doing during those 90 minutes
16:35police decide to conduct surveillance on hallywell
16:40the police bearing in mind they're dealing with the missing person here
16:45they have to have hope that sean could still be alive and that if hallywell has kidnapped her that
16:51she is being kept somewhere but is still alive the police want to find sean they want to rescue sean they
16:58want to bring her back safely to her family they hope that by putting hallywell under surveillance and
17:04hallywell has no idea that the police are looking at him the police are hopeful that hallywell unknowingly
17:11leads them to where sean is unfortunately that doesn't happen hallywell
17:23goes about his normal routine he's working as a taxi driver he's spending time with his family he's
17:28taking fares and going along with his normal daily routine however there were things that he was
17:37observed doing whilst under surveillance that firmed up the police interest in him the police also
17:43observed him cleaning out the back of his taxi with a blue fluid and the police also observed him
17:49setting a fire to burn things in the middle of the night which police thought was unusual they found
17:57articles of cloth material and one of these was actually the seating from his vehicle so from the
18:04back seat of his car they were able to find that in one of the bins so it was just various articles
18:11that were being dumped around and about i believe that the ones in the fire were actually too badly
18:16burnt for them to be able to ascertain what they were there was an item a perfume bottle that he
18:22discarded into a skip and whilst taxi drivers would always clean their cars it was giving us suspicion
18:30this was more than just a routine clean after passengers that he was going at length to try and
18:36remove forensic evidence from the car i think the most worrying thing and the thing that struck in
18:42accord with all of us given that he was our prime suspect at that point was that he put up posters
18:48about sean in his car and by this time there was national interest but the local interest was immense in
18:54sean and trying to find her so posters had been produced and circulated widely and he'd actually
19:00put those up in his taxi and that was something that was troubling all of us so the senior investigating
19:08officer detective superintendent superintendent steve falcher was working on the hypotheses that
19:13sean was alive and being kept somewhere this was what's known as a crime in action so it was very fast
19:20moving they were following mr fulcher and they were very much relying on members of the public to assist
19:29them in their investigation whilst following mr halliwell they were alerted to the fact that he had gone
19:35into a supermarket in one of these out of town shopping places just on the edge of swindon they observe
19:43halliwell getting out of his vehicle and going into a chemist and particularly alarming for the police
19:51they observe him leave with a huge quantity of pills a quantity of pills that police describe as
19:58something you would do if you were planning on ending your life steve falcher's concern at that point
20:04was that he may be about to attempt suicide which isn't unheard of in circumstances such as that
20:10and clearly we didn't want that to happen that wouldn't help us to find sean and it would
20:15definitely not help her family or her friends gain justice so the decision was taken to arrest him at
20:21that point and to carry out what's known in policing world as an urgent interview urgent interview is
20:29where time is running out and the life of the missing person is under threat and the safety of that
20:38person and the chance of recovering that person alive is the main priority so rather than take the
20:43individual to a police station to talk them through their miranda rights and have them consult with a
20:50solicitor they conduct an urgent interview right there at the scene of arrest when questioned will
20:59christopher halliwell admit what happened that night and the whereabouts of shano callahan
21:15wiltshire police are investigating the disappearance of 22 year old shano callahan who went missing in the
21:21early hours of march 19 2011 after a night out in swindon using cctv investigators discover that sean
21:30most likely got into a taxi owned by a man named christopher halliwell the senior investigating officer
21:37steve falcher has halliwell arrested two officers were sitting in a vehicle when mr halliwell was arrested he
21:46was put into the back of this vehicle and straight away these officers asked him a number of questions
21:52where is sean how did she get there you know all all the sort of questions trying to ascertain where
21:58sean was he wasn't initially forthcoming he simply didn't comment on his involvement at that point he
22:04he just said he wanted to go to the police station so steve intervened at that point because that would
22:09have routinely been what would have happened the the urgent interview had effectively been exhausted
22:15there'd always been a suspicion from some of the the the telephone data we've been able to acquire
22:20that he could have been out to barbary castle at one point fulter commands search teams to focus
22:26on the areas surrounding barbary castle barbary castle was a beauty spot on the outskirts of swindon
22:34and steve had initiated some searches were taking place so on that morning the thursday morning there
22:40were search teams in and around barbary castle he made the decision to meet halliwell and question him
22:52himself at that location so he instructed the detectives to take him there and he would urgent
22:58interview him there his reasoning for that course of action was he believed that if halliwell was being
23:07taken close to where sean's body was and speaking to him as the sao that he might realize the game's up
23:18here and he may cooperate better future's unorthodox approach raises some concerns within the police force
23:27i support steve on what he did it was a very brave decision and you need courageous sios in that
23:33scenario and my role at that point i actually drove steve out there along with his pa who'd been making
23:39notes of everything that had been happening over the the preceding days and as i drove him out there
23:46i said to steve are you really sure you want to do this because it was such an unusual thing
23:51and he looked me in the eyes really and he'd spoken to sean's family he'd met sean's family
23:57and he said i've promised sean's family i'm going to get her back and this is the only way
24:05mr halliwell gets out the car and goes off with detective superintendent fulcher
24:09and mr fulcher asks him where's sean initially he won't talk to mr fulcher he won't answer any
24:17questions he keeps saying he wants his solicitor but eventually just as mr fulcher thinks he's going
24:23to have to give up and take him back to the police station mr halliwell says have you got a car i'll take
24:29you to her after a few minutes steve halliwell and his pa got into a marked car and and started to
24:39head off from barbary castle and i followed them and at that point i thought that we were probably
24:45going back to cable cross police station i thought we'd probably exhausted the that further interview
24:50that steve had with halliwell but then what happened is we drove straight past the the police station and
24:56out towards the oxfordshire border and that was the moment that halliwell was taking steve to uffington
25:05uffington is also a beautiful rural location in that part of wilshire but at night time
25:15extremely dark you wouldn't like to be walking about it at night you could easily get lost or
25:21something could happen it's just that kind of eerie kind of place at night
25:24and it is literally in the middle of nowhere it's a very secluded area lots of greenfields
25:31and not much else so they head up to uffington whitehorse where whilst they're driving the car
25:38they drive along a road and mr halliwell says she's down there somewhere indicating down a slope
25:44i continued to follow them and we went out to the location where he had disposed of sean's body and
25:57when he got to that location that the the car slowed and steve got out and said he's not sure exactly
26:04where which to this day in my view was a lie but it's somewhere between this point and the next point i
26:11show you and halliwell then took them another couple hundred yards down the road but i think
26:15halliwell was just nervous of showing steve fulcher in the cold light of day what he'd done to sean
26:23they brought out the search teams to do a proper forensic sweep of the area to see if they could
26:30find sean and the search officers would have a lead search officer who would dictate exactly what
26:36formation they used and they would in a very studied manner they would work their way down
26:42the area that mr halliwell had pointed to until they found what they were looking for
26:48the investigation into sean's disappearance reaches a devastating end
26:54when i received a call that he'd taken us to sean's body you know utter despair that she's dead
27:01very pleased that we've managed to find her and at that point i start to put in motion
27:06forensic teams to go to the scene traffic teams to secure the area all the procedures that you'd
27:13normally undertake when a body is found he disposed of her from the road into a ditch which was some
27:18distance away from the raised road in undergrowth that it would have meant it would be a long time
27:27before she'd been she was found i believe that the the location was such that even the farmers didn't
27:33go into that particular location much so it would have been some time sean was found naked from the
27:41waist down and she had died as a result of a stab wound to her head it was a particularly brutal murder
27:50i hope that he didn't sexually abuse her the fact that she was naked from the waist down obviously
27:57raises that concern there was never any conclusive evidence to say that she was sexually assaulted
28:03he did whatever he did and i just hope that that he killed her quickly and and as far as possible
28:11painlessly from sean's perspective the fact that he took the steps he did afterwards are chilling you know
28:18the fact that he chose to put posters of sean being missing in his car driving around swindon trying
28:26to get other taxi fares is is goes a lot to say about who he is sadly i was the one that had to
28:39also tell them that sean had been found that is something you never get used to as police officers we
28:45deal with some some harsh things that we have to deal with and what we call passing death messages
28:52this is one of the things that we do do and no matter how many times you do it it never gets easier
28:58so passing that message was that's one of those jobs that will live with me doesn't come up in my
29:04mind very often but it it's there and it was it was hard they were devastated but you're there to support
29:10them and help them through it so it was a very difficult case but i remained with the family
29:15throughout the whole of the case ds vulture has the harrowing task of contacting the police station
29:28and informing them that they have found sean o'collahan's body
29:32they they then send in a team of forensic scientists to preserve the scene and they make
29:41arrangements for christopher halliwell to be returned to the police station in swindon where he can be
29:49read his rights meet with his solicitor and then undergo questioning they are still at the scene
29:56where sean o'collahan's body was found he and ds vulture in that short period of time together had
30:05built up somewhat of a rapport together ds vulture had successfully got inside halliwell's head and had
30:12gained some trust they are sharing a cigarette and halliwell leans into ds vulture and said
30:24mean you should have a chat and ds vulture not knowing what was coming said yes okay what do you
30:31want to talk about perhaps thinking halliwell was going to give more details about sean's case
30:40he instead says to ds vulture do you want another one and ds vulture inquires another what
30:48which halliwell replies another body steve then came over to me and said that he was going to take
30:57us to another and i had to clarify what what you mean another and he said to another body which at
31:03that point you could literally have struck me down with lightning that was not what i was expecting to
31:08happen christopher halliwell's admission forces investigators to confront the chilling possibility
31:14that they may be dealing with a serial killer you know to find one body is shocking to be told that
31:22there's a second i don't think many police officers would have that in their career and i told the
31:28senior officer straight away the deputy chief constable at the time and had to inform them that
31:32this was the case and straight away that led us to believe that you know this this was going to be
31:37bigger than we initially thought ds vulture found himself in such a precarious position because he had
31:48a number of choices to make and so little time to make them because this was a moment in time this
31:53is a moment in time between two people two individuals between a killer and the detective
31:59hunting him down and the killer has all the power because the killer has the knowledge the detective
32:07wants the knowledge he has to make the decision on what way to go because if he goes off path either
32:12way the whole moment could be over one moment could be ruined and the information that he really needs
32:17could be lost lost forever he decides to break away from the ps protocols the ps protocols are the
32:24police and criminal evidence act of 1985 he decides to break away from that and decides to
32:32to go along with halliwell and question him without arresting him without arresting him for this new
32:39confession doesn't read him his rights doesn't get him a solicitor he decides to take that risk
32:46for moral reasons because he knows i have the chance here to uncover the body of a human being
32:53that's also missing it is a decision that jeopardizes fulcher's career
33:00fulcher has the position of if he takes halliwell back procedure dictates pace regulations that you have
33:10to take the individual back formally charge them offer them a lawyer read them their rights and a process
33:18has to go through for a police investigation to start however he has created this unique bond with
33:25this violent killer and he's aware that this bond is fragile he's aware that this stream of information
33:32which has previously not appeared from halliwell or indeed at any other point in the case might only exist
33:39in that moment it might only exist there and then in this forlorn place that they're standing where this
33:46poor young life had been snuffed down and he's in a position where he he stood there with halliwell
33:53looking at this killer knowing that this information wasn't available 10 minutes ago and it might never
33:59be available again detective superintendent fulcher thought i'm going to go with this so they got back
34:07into a vehicle and mr halliwell directed him out to a field again in the middle of nowhere in gloucestershire
34:15and he said there's a body in that field and following an excavation by police they located
34:23the remains of another female called becky godden edwards in a shocking twist christopher halliwell leads
34:31detective superintendent steve fulcher to a second body however as halliwell has not been read his
34:37miranda rights the case has become significantly more complicated
34:42in the early hours of march 19th 2011 22 year old shano callahan disappears after a night out in
35:03swindon cctv shows her getting into a taxi driven by christopher halliwell who is later arrested detective
35:10steve fulcher brings halliwell to a search site near barbary castle where halliwell eventually reveals
35:16where he buried sean but just as they're about to return to the station he leads fulcher to the body
35:22of another young woman the body that was recovered in east leach was that of becky godden edwards a young
35:32woman in her early 20s who disappeared on the 27th of december 2002 after being seen getting into a taxi
35:41outside a nightclub in swindon becky had a loving family around her she was very well loved very well
35:48like popular young woman but unfortunately she had fallen on some hard times around the time of her
35:53disappearance i still believe we would never have found charlotte we would never have found becky
35:59if it weren't for the intervention of steve in the the urgent interview halliwell confesses what
36:04happened the night he abducted becky to investigators at the scene halliwell explained in very simple
36:14concise language that he'd taken becky from swindon that he'd driven her out to where we were
36:23that he'd killed her that he'd indicated that he'd strangled her he indicated that he'd left her behind
36:31the wall and we were stood in the field with a wall as the boundary and he then explained that he'd come
36:38back the following day and that's when he buried her and he indicated steve and i the point where he
36:44buried her and what stands in me which i'll never forget is it was his eyes so he had blue eyes and
36:54they were piercing and steely and he was very matter-of-fact in what he told us
37:02there's been a lot of speculation about whether christopher halliwell has killed more people and i
37:10know steve falcher believes he has i know of some of the inquiries that have gone on since then and
37:16to date nothing has been found to show that he has killed anybody else you have a lot of lone female
37:23passengers during that time and i suspect if if you know if you're subsequently one of those and you knew
37:29that he was later convicted of double murders you'd be very concerned there was a brief discussion
37:36about whether or not there was anyone else that he needed to take us to and the the words that he
37:42used were something very similar to not today which stays with me as well but at that point steve i think
37:49felt that we we had to sort of draw under a line under what was happening so steve and halliwell went
37:57back in the police car and they went off and to cable cross police station the trial is delayed due
38:05to detective fulcher's actions during the investigation so mr halliwell would have been taken the following
38:13day he would have been remanded in custody and he would have been taken the following day to the
38:16magistrates court where again would he would have been remanded in custody for further investigations and
38:22for the trial for preparation for the trial during the course of the investigation one of the avenues
38:28they had to go down was a thing called a voir dire this was when they went to court to hear the facts of
38:36the case and the facts of the case were around where mr halliwell was not given access to a solicitor
38:43and where he was not cautioned when he should have been so this had to be heard in front of a judge
38:48now this hearing took five five days and during that they were given all the evidence mr fulcher was
38:55given his opportunity to put forward why he didn't comply with the requirements of an arrested person
39:01the judge however in this case ruled for mr halliwell and said that anything from the point of his initial
39:09urgent interview anything after that was not allowed as evidence within the case so this included
39:20pointing out where sean was and it included pointing out where becky gordon edward was
39:26thankfully they had a fair amount of other evidence forensic evidence in relation to the murder of sean
39:34and they were able to build a case around her murder however around becky gordon edwards there was
39:42only the word of mr halliwell who had taken them to the field where she was located
39:49so they had to disallow that from the hearings that went to the first trial at court yes they had their daughter
39:55to return to return to them but it also meant that the person who had admitted admitted to killing
40:02her by taking officers to the field where she was buried that evidence was not allowed and there was
40:08no trial in relation to her
40:13christopher halliwell appears in court on the 31st of may 2012 for the murder of sean o callahan and pleads
40:21not guilty i think i think is is well known it took many years for this case to come to court for a
40:29number of reasons but the trial from memory is 2016. i gave evidence immediately after steve fulcher
40:37and that was quite challenging really for as is his right halliwell had sacked his defense team and
40:45and represented himself at his trial and when steve fortress finished giving his evidence halliwell had
40:55made some really unsavory comments towards steve basically gloated in the fact that he felt he'd
41:02ruined steve's career which is a bizarre and random thing for anyone to take pleasure in but that was
41:09what halliwell did but those comments statements caused a bit of a ripple through the court certainly
41:16through the public gallery he represented himself in court which made the spectacle even more unbearable
41:26for the families of sean and becky and the performance of watching him wriggle around details
41:35denial failure to answer any questions this was a man who didn't feel any level of shame of what he'd done
41:42or but what he was accused of his demeanor in court was what you would expect from a hardened criminal
41:50from an utterly depraved evil man he was smirking at family members he was looking quite relaxed like
41:59he hadn't a care in the world like he was totally free from worry he didn't really care his defense
42:08was that she attacked him and it was self-defense that was a man just trying to grasp onto anything
42:13that he could think of in those moments when he knew he was going to be convicted and face a full life
42:17tariff 19th october 2012 christopher halliwell pleads guilty to her murder he is sentenced to life
42:26imprisonment with a minimum of 25 years it's indescribable unless you've been through it yourself
42:33you can't ever really relate to it we could all imagine what it would be like to lose a loved one
42:39but not many people will have lost a loved one in these circumstances and that will be very very
42:46difficult for anyone to come to terms with and you have to admire the families of sean and becky for
42:54the the way they have handled coming to terms with what halliwell did to them
43:02as halliwell is being transported from the prison to the court there are people on the streets the
43:09humanity are right and they are angry they are throwing things at the prison van they are
43:14banging their fists off the prison van side there is a level of anger and a pouring of rage of what this
43:22man has done it is reminiscent of similar actions from the public when you're dealing with particularly
43:29infamous criminals who have carried out some truly horrific crimes so that demonstrates the level of
43:36infamy that halliwell was beginning to attain and the anger that the public had for him in swindon
43:44killers very often don't look or appear outwardly evil they look entirely like normal people moving
43:51amongst all of us and when people are confronted with the horror of this individual the man that
43:57was driving a taxi that was potentially capable of of taking any number of individuals in the course of
44:05their job driving around the town people's feelings emotions about the case reached boiling point
44:12there'd been murals around swindon of of sean's lightness she was called swindon's angel there was
44:19vigils there was candles everywhere commemorations in churches her name and her memory were constantly
44:28on local news radio national news police did an amazing job they very quickly ascertained the vehicle
44:39that was being used and this was great police work to have the forethought to look through the anpr cameras
44:47on traffic vehicles and then detective superintendent fulcher locating him arresting him before he was
44:55able to do anything with the tablets which potentially he had bought to harm himself you know the the police
45:00work was was fabulous there are questions around the way mr halliwell was dealt with when he was apprehended
45:09but ultimately two women were returned to their families because of the actions that he took that day
45:17i think it's well documented and and well publicized that other sios would have dealt with this case
45:24differently i'd go as far as saying that i don't know any other sio who would have taken the steps
45:31that steve did when he went out to barbary castle but perhaps that's a reflection on us rather than steve
45:38because what i would say as well is that if one of my daughters went missing i'd want steve to investigate
45:43it because i'd have the confidence that he would find her and that's what happened in this case
45:57so
46:04so
46:06so
46:16Transcription by CastingWords