The Witness - Netflix

[summermidnightsun]

I’ve never heard of this case before. Netflix has a new drama based on the real life Rachel Nickell case, who was murdered on Wimbledon Common in 1992. Her 2 year old son witnessed the murder and it took 12 years to find and convict the murderer.

Horrendously sad.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y0y8w278zo

I remember when it was on the news although I was a young teenager then. So very sad and terrifying for women at the time. I haven't watched the drama and not sure if I will.

I remember it very well it was an extremely sad case
The police thought they had the murderer
Colin Stagg he was a bit of an oddball and used to walk his dog on wimbledom common
They set up a honey trap to get him to confess to killng her he didnt confess but they took it to trial eventually it was thrown out
And it later emerged it was Robert Napper who killed her.

It's not the first drama to have been made about this terrible murder, which I remember from when it occurred. It was so shocking and horrible a killing that I'm not sure I could be at peace with myself if I decided to watch this drama, or the new documentary that is also on Netflix.

All of the facts of the case and the investigation have already been fully covered in various formats. The only reason for returning to them now is to cash in on the true crime obsession.

Having said all that, it wouldn't surprise me very much if I did end up watching it. True crime is a low-effort chewing-gum kind of telly that i resort to it if can't find anything i truly want to watch.

It's goulish and horrible of me, and the programme makers, to exploit something so awful.

I know what you mean, but these dramas based on real life crime cases always seem to get high ratings. It’s number 1 on Netflix at the moment. Thats why the production companies keep making them.

I suppose it’s important to tell these stories and keep them in the public eye. I’ve never seen anything about this case before but I would have been a baby when it happened.

The Dad and Son were involved in making the drama and there’s an associated documentary on Netflix with the Dad and Son talking throughout. So it’s authorised by them.

I remember the case well. I was 12 at the time. Dd aged 23 (same age as RN was) and I watched the drama and documentary yesterday. We found it very sad but very interesting. It was interesting in the documentary that the son said he was able to forgive (to some extent) Robert Napper due to his abusive childhood and mental disorders and that gave him some peace moving forwards.

This was an interesting series about the Colin Stagg aspect but I don’t know where you can watch it now -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deceit_(2021_miniseries)

I remember that Summer so well; we lived not far from the common. There were a lot of men from the area taken in for questioning including a friend of the family who knew Rachel. It was all a bit close for comfort.

If you watch the documentary that was released at the same time as The Witness you won't fail to be moved by Andre Hanscombe and Alex. It's harrowing what they went through.

I have seen some of it but it was a hard watch
Andre was brilliant with Alex
Questioning him in a matter of fact way so he didnt get upset
I think it helped that for his age Alex was very articulate

I watched it as I was in my 20's when it happened and remember it like it was yesterday. What an absolutely amazing dad Andre is,he was only 25 when it happened and he protected their son in a way I think very few young men would. He's been an incredible father.

Binged it last night. I thought it was excellent. I lived near the Common at the time and remember it well.

I saw it too . I came away thinking there’s a debate to be had about reopening asylums . So many
unnecessary murders by people who should not be in the community . Let’s not forget Jasmine and Samantha being brutally murdered by the same man either despite RN being the highest profile victim.

I watched it and thought it kept its focus on the impact to the family, to Andre and Alex and how difficult it was to live a normal life with such a prolonged case.

I wonder if press look at these dramas and see how they are portrayed and think about how negatively they can affect people who are already traumatised and grieving.

We already have special hospitals for t people who have have severe and endurung mental illness and hsve also commited heinious crimes
Its a lot harder to be discharged from these hosputals because even if a person has served their sentence
If they are still deemed to be a risk to the public they remain detained indefinitly

Remember it really well. I was a similar age to Rachel.

The Police had the chance to catch Napper before he escalated to murder and Andre didn't shy away from his feelings towards this.
Napper also escalated his next Murder by killing poor little Jazmine alongside Samantha Bisset. 😔

Any documentary that features the brilliant Forensic scientist Angela Gallop gets a thumbs up from me.

I think the issue is getting people to meet the threshold for being detained / sectioned prior to this - eg VC, the man who murdered 3 people in Nottingham in 2023, everyone agreed he should never have been out wandering round the streets and yet he was. We are so afraid of offending people or wrongfully detaining them we aren’t doing it when we should - and I say that as the child of a schizophrenic who was sectioned many times in the 80s and 90s (witnessed my Mum trying to stab my Dad to death with a fork).

I’ve visited Broadmoor as a psychology student and it was such an interesting visit. We need more places like this, only a handful of services and prisons have the same resources and security levels.

Irs such a difficult one i used to be a mental health nurse but i have never worked in a forensic setting
But i wored in acute mentsl health on and off for years with people detsined msinly under section2/3 of the MHA
There will clearly be some people who are so unwell that they shouldnt out in thr community
But at the same time taking away somebodies liberty bescause they might pose a risk is huge
I dont know what the answer is.

Exactly.

Deceit was a much better drama. It was on Netflix but they took it off. I think you can still get it free on the C4 player and buy it on Amazon and probably Apple and Disney I think. Maybe Britbox.

It goes way deeper into the police undercover op and Colin Stagg story than this does and they used loads of verbatim transcripts for the Stagg and Lizzie scenes which are really interesting.

I watched The Witness and while I think it’s a valid point of view the story felt a bit thin. The scenes of father and son were quite repetitive throughout, same argument again and again and the police scenes felt very perfunctory. Deceit was a much more nuanced examination of the crime and investigation. Also Niamh Algar and Sion Daniel Young were both bafta nominated for it and just brilliant.

I watched the drama and documentary yesterday and agree with @TrueCrimeTime that it felt quite thin. It just seemed to move through the story and procedural beats without much reflection. I assume this was keep the Andre/Alex story centred, but as that story moves on it becomes less interesting. The more interesting story is the police culture that led to the entrapment of Colin Stagg and refusal to link the Bassett killings and Green Chain rapes. The drama was bizarrely unreflective about the Stagg honey trap and that it might have raised some very obvious ethical questions. There was some suggestion that once the lead officer has bought into the profiling and narrative - and because Stagg fit the profile, has been seen on the Common and was a bit of an oddball - they couldn’t countenance an alternative scenario. Some good and interesting actors like Kevin Eldon and Paul Chahidi given not very much to do.

Also, while Andre and Alex Hanscombe have every right to guard their privacy, both the drama and documentary were frustratingly opaque about what they were doing with their lives - jobs, other relationships etc. - which kind of added to the thinness.

I think that's the whole point, after a lifetime of trying to keep private they wouldn't suddenly reveal everything.

I did think it was quite sad that Andre H said in the documentary that he has never had another love / connection in the way that he loved Rachel.

They live abroad but have spoken about the case recently. I read an interview with them , but can’t remember where.

They are both in the documentary, and they exec produced the drama. Alex has a book out. This is their story. A huge number of family photos and home videos with Rachel are shared as is lots of video footage of very young Alex being questioned about his memories of his mother’s murder.

My only point was that they are rather guarded about their wider lives. They live in Spain. The drama suggests Andre worked as a tennis coach for a while. Alex was a bit of a troubled teen. That’s it. I suppose I am just a bit curious about how they have rebuilt their lives given the terrible events they lived through. Andre seems like an extraordinary person. But I absolutely have no right to know.

But revealing almost nothing makes the drama feel very light on story and incredibly repetitive. They just have the same argument with each other or the same reaction to the police and press repeatedly for the second two episodes. And as characters in a drama they just don’t really progress. I found it really disappointing as a drama.