[dramatic music] NARRATOR: On the 5th
of November 2007, in the rural
village of Redmarley in Gloucestershire,
England, 55-year-old Kate Prout vanished. Her husband, Adrian, claimed
she'd walked out on him. At first, you know, people's
hearts went out to him. He'd been abandoned. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: He feels
that he can just carry on and he can just keep
diverting and just keep saying the right
things, and this will eventually go away. NARRATOR: Despite
no body being found, the friendly farmer was
convicted of Kate's murder. The entire community
was shocked. SIMON ATKINSON:
He goes to prison. He maintains his
innocence in the way that he has all the
way through this. The missing piece
of that jigsaw is we've still got a missing body. NARRATOR: The trail went cold. An army of supporters campaigned
to overturn this supposed miscarriage of justice,
until 2010 when Prout himself completed the puzzle. DEBBIE GARLICK: To be
perfectly honest, I just thought I was going to be sick. I sat opposite him in prison,
and he's just confessed that he's killed his wife. NARRATOR: After years of
pleading his innocence, the mask had finally slipped. Adrian Prout had revealed
himself as one of the world's most evil killers. [theme music] [somber music] NARRATOR: For four years
after his wife disappeared, farmer Adrian Prout claimed
that Kate was actually alive and well and in hiding. It was a lie, but it was one
so convincingly told it reeled in Prout's friends, family,
and the rural community in which the couple lived. DEBBIE GARLICK:
He said that that was her plan, that was
her plan, to disappear and to get him down for murder. So he said it was all a setup. Obviously, we believed
his lies and we were drawn into a web of
lies we never knew were lies. SIMON ATKINSON: People lie
to the police all the time. That's what they do. There is a difference here. He's created a narrative,
and he has to live and breathe that narrative. Then he has to build
on it and layer it. And every time he
has an interaction with another individual
or friends and family, that narrative has
to stand scrutiny. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Coercive
men, like Prout, they are incredibly accomplished. They have a way of
actually reeling you in, of convincing you that
everything that they're saying is true. NARRATOR: This seemingly
friendly and helpful local farmer was
difficult to connect to the image of the manipulative
killer he'd been proven to be. DON CARGILL: It's a
dichotomy in my mind because there is this gentle
being but now look at his hands and think you've just taken
another person's life. The outward appearance
doesn't come across as what's really going on internally. This is a calculating murderer. NARRATOR: This killer's
story begins in the village of Coaley, Gloucestershire. Adrian Michael Prout was born
on the 14th of June 1962. GEOFFREY WANSEL: He
was the second youngest of four siblings. His mother, Jeanette, died
shortly after the birth of her fourth child. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Prout
was two years old when his mother passed away. So this is something that
is lacking in his life. He doesn't have that
relationship with a mother that is going to be the
basis on which he forms relationships with other women. NARRATOR: Both Adrian's father
and grandfather were farmers. And he grew up helping
out on the family farms. His dream was to one day
have a farm of his own. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Prout grew
into a man who really did have quite a lot of ambition. He wanted to be successful. He wanted to be seen
to be successful. SIMON ATKINSON: He was a
hard-working individual. It was always around farming. He'd had connections locally. He'd worked for people. They were always very impressed
with the sort of things that he did. He was an engaging and
hardworking individual. He'd had quite a successful
pipe-laying business. NARRATOR: In 1999, after a
couple of failed relationships, 37-year-old Adrian Prout
met Kate Wakefield. Kate was a teacher
and, like Prout, came from a farming family. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Kate was
the sister of a friend of his. At this point in his
life, Prout was having a bit of a difficult
time, and Kate's brother offered to put him
up in a property whilst he got back on his feet. And I think this is
quite a significant thing because Prout had that
friendship with her brother. He comes pre-vetted,
essentially. GEOFFREY WANSEL: Kate
Wakefield is pretty nearly 10 years older than Adrian Prout. A wise woman, hard-working,
thoughtful, but is, I think the phrase would be
bowled over by Adrian Prout. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
They were married within the space of a year. And this is an incredibly
accelerated relationship. The pace of it is
incredibly fast. Initially, they were seen
as the perfect couple. They got on really well. I think friends and family
would describe them, personality-wise, that
they were quite different, so that old adage that
opposites attract. GEOFFREY WANSEL: In
2004, Prout and Kate buy a farm called Redhill Farm. It's near Redmarley
in Gloucestershire. She can afford it
because she's inherited a cottage, which she's sold. And she's contributing
to the house. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: This
is quite an extensive, quite an impressive property. And in this part of the
country, agriculture is quite a significant industry
and farmers have some status. They have a lot of land,
they have a lot of property, so, essentially, Kate was for
him the vehicle that allowed him to reach this ambition. And the things that she had
were very attractive for him. NARRATOR: At the age
of 41, Adrian Prout had achieved his lifelong
goal of owning his own farm. GEOFFREY WANSEL: He's going
to run pheasant shoots. And she's going to cater
for them at Redmarley. He's still got the
pipe-laying business. And as far as anyone can tell,
this is a perfectly happy, stable relationship. And so it remains. NARRATOR: The couple
ran successful pheasant shoots over the next two years. But in 2006, there were signs
that suggested their honeymoon period had come to an end. SIMON ATKINSON: There were some
public interactions and spats between the pair of them. There was starting
to be that glimmer of things that were not quite as
people were thought, initially. NARRATOR: On Boxing
Day 2006, things reached a head
during an argument over the family's dinner plans. GEOFFREY WANSEL: It starts in
the kitchen and goes outside. And it's the first time we see
real evidence of the violence that was beneath the
surface in this apparently stable marriage. Prout pushes Kate
against the Land Rover that they have with such force
that he actually dents the car. She's frightened. NARRATOR: The cracks
in the relationship became even more apparent two
months later in February 2007. GEOFFREY WANSEL:
Plates have been thrown right across the kitchen. There'd been a
full-blown confrontation. NARRATOR: Once again, the
argument continued outside. SIMON ATKINSON: He had
grabbed her by the neck and held her over an
empty swimming pool. The police had been called. I think he'd actually
been arrested. GEOFFREY WANSEL: She was
to say later he went mad. I really thought I'd had it. There was no controlling him. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: This
shows me that he's changing tactics at this point in time. I think up until this
point he's been using charm and manipulation to get
control and to get his own way, but that is no longer working. And with men like Prout,
when those techniques no longer work, they resort
to physical violence. NARRATOR: In November
2007, after months of living with a volatile
and violent husband, Kate went to see her solicitor
about divorcing Adrian Prout. GEOFFREY WANSEL:
The farm by now is valued at 1.3 million pounds. Adrian is intent
on hanging onto it, offers Kate 600,000
pounds to go. Kate consults a solicitor
and says, no, I want 800,000. NARRATOR: A settlement
of that size meant one thing, Red Hill
Farm would have to be sold. SIMON ATKINSON: We
know that that farm was always Adrian Prout's dream. To own a farm, to run it like
that, was always his dream. There was a moment then, the
dawn of realization, that he was going to lose the farm. He was going to lose everything. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: He feels
entitled to that farm. He feels that that farm is his. He's very much about ownership
and possession of things. And now he's got a barrier
in between the farm and him, and that barrier is Kate. NARRATOR: Adrian
Prout had no intention of giving up the farm. But before any settlement
could be finalized, there was a development. Kate went missing. SIMON ATKINSON: Hundreds
and hundreds of people daily get reported to
the police as missing, but it was the
circumstances really around Kate's disappearance
that was the concern. NARRATOR: It had taken
45-year-old Prout five days to report Kate's
disappearance to the police. And he didn't appear to
be a worried husband. SIMON ATKINSON: If
someone's lost a loved one, it's a powerful emotion,
that's what you need to see. And if they're not
displaying that, then, immediately,
your suspicions are up. You're worried, and
you need to be looking into it a little bit more. NARRATOR: Prout freely admitted
that he was not concerned by his wife's disappearance. SIMON ATKINSON:
He was suggesting she'd gone off on her own. That it's something
that she wanted. He wasn't concerned. She'd done it before. GEOFFREY WANSEL: At
least some of the locals are convinced that Kate
had just had enough and left to start a new life. It made sense to them. This wasn't a happy couple. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Prout was
able to draw upon this victim status that he'd stepped into. My wife has left me,
she's going to take me to the cleaners, poor me. And he used this to his
advantage in this situation because he's going to be
saying things like, why would I be in contact with her? Why would I want to
know where she is? She's making my
life such a misery. SIMON ATKINSON: It
does sound feasible, but when you build into
that, that none of the family had heard from her at all. GEOFFREY WANSEL: She
doesn't go to a niece's 18th birthday party. She doesn't contact anyone. She's-- as far as anyone
can tell, she's disappeared into a puff of smoke. SIMON ATKINSON: She
might be wishing to split from her
partner, but you're still going to make social
contact, and you're still going to have an
interaction with your family. None of that was happening. NARRATOR: From the minute Adrian
Prout reported her missing, investigators had been working
through the possible reasons for Kate's disappearance. SIMON ATKINSON: Three things
likely to have happened. She's either had an
accident somewhere and she's fallen off a horse,
or whatever it might be and she's out in the
fields or wherever. She has gone of
her own volition, she doesn't want to be found,
and hasn't contacted anybody, and wants to be on her own. Or something more sinister,
she's been murdered. Simple as that. All of those things that are
part of people's daily lives that they never let go of,
all that was at the house. She'd gone with nothing apart
from in effect the clothes that she was wearing. That's your starting point. That doesn't stack up at all. That's not normal
behavior for people. NARRATOR: Early investigations
revealed only one trace of Kate after Prout purported
to have seen her. SIMON ATKINSON: The last
third-party contact, the contact she'd had
with anybody else, was to ring her bank on the
late afternoon of that Monday on that 5th of November. From that Monday
afternoon, she'd literally dropped off the radar. She wasn't seen from
or heard from again. NARRATOR: Believing
from the outset that it was unlikely that Kate
had, as Adrian Prout claimed, walked out on her
husband, investigators were left with two hypotheses. SIMON ATKINSON: Either they
want to go and kill themselves, it's suicide, or chances
are something more sinister in the circumstances. So the police are exploring what
exists in the background that would mean that someone wouldn't
want her to be around anymore. And the information very
quickly emerged that there was trouble in their marriage. That Kate was seeking
a divorce, and she'd been to see a divorce lawyer. And he's going to lose
the thing that he's worked all his life for. In the background, we know
that not only are things not well in that
marriage, but there is a known level of violence. And the police had
been called previously. NARRATOR: By the 27th
of November 2007, the finger of
suspicion was clearly pointing in one direction. Adrian Prout is arrested on
suspicion of Kate's murder. Prout maintained his story. And an initial search at
Redhill Farm proved fruitless. SIMON ATKINSON: He'd given his
version of events, they that found nothing, and as
a consequence of that, he leaves the police station. NARRATOR: Convinced that
there was a sinister truth behind Prout's claims of
being the jilted husband, investigators began an
intensive search of the farm. SIMON ATKINSON: There's
a very good chance, based on his ability to
work heavy machinery and his pipe-laying
business, that the body is probably on the site. Why would you need
to take it anywhere else if that's the case? You got 250 acres. You can't just
search the whole lot. So you have to be clever
and smart in the way that you approach it. You use tactics like
ground-penetrating radar, dogs that are used to finding
bodies and can smell that that's your location. That's where you start. NARRATOR: The search team
were hopeful of an early lead when one of the
dogs had a reaction inside the couple's home. SIMON ATKINSON: It got quite
excited, as these things do, around a sofa in the house. When the full forensic
team went in and looked there was no evidence
there whatsoever. The searches around
the rest of the house and the land that sat around it
went on for nigh on five weeks. There was no physical
evidence of a disturbance, a fight, a murder, a homicide,
or indeed the moving of a body. There was nothing there. NARRATOR: Detectives
were confident that Prout was a killer,
but with no sign of Kate, they were facing a so-called
no body murder case, which is notoriously hard to prove. SIMON ATKINSON:
With a body comes a huge wealth of
forensic evidence to help you unpick how
they've died and who potentially has killed them. Here you've got no body, so
you really are up against it. NARRATOR: By Christmas, Kate had
been missing for eight weeks, but life for Adrian
Prout appeared to continue unaffected. Debbie Garlick encountered
him in a local pub. DEBBIE GARLICK: I
was with my friend, and Adrian walked in
with somebody we know. If he's in the pub by
himself, we wouldn't have had a conversation with him. But because he was with people
that we knew really, really well, and sometimes
people would come back to my house for drinks if the
pub closed and everything else, so that's what we did. As we walked out, the
landlord just said be careful, to me and my friend. And it was like, oh, OK. As soon as we got
back, he said, do you know-- do you know who I am? And then he told us the story. NARRATOR: Later that night,
Debbie did some research on the man she'd just met. DEBBIE GARLICK: We just
googled everything then. He was under
suspicion of murder. When our friend said there's
no way that you would have done anything like that, no way. Everyone just thought
she'd disappeared. NARRATOR: The police disagreed. And on the 4th of
January 2008, they publicly announced their
belief that Kate was dead. Two weeks later,
Adrian Prout was arrested for the second time. SIMON ATKINSON: They're
hoping that he's going to confess to doing
what they think he's done. NARRATOR: There
was no confession. Adrian Prout maintained that
Kate had left of her own accord with the intention
of stitching him up. SIMON ATKINSON: There
is no firm evidence, it is all
circumstantial, so he'd have to go out on police bail. You can't just hold
someone or charge someone without evidence. That's when a
challenging, difficult, and protracted police
investigation takes place. And there is no
easy answer to that. NARRATOR: Investigators began
focusing on proof of life. SIMON ATKINSON:
It's a common phrase within policing and legal terms. Ultimately, it's about
establishing that somebody lives their life in a
certain way interacting with banks, financial
institutions, friends, and family, et cetera. And at a moment in
time, it all stops. There's no more interaction. Now that's unusual. And the only reasonable
conclusion that you can reach is that person is
no longer alive. NARRATOR: The police
began the process of proving not only that
Kate Prout was dead, but that she'd been murdered. In May, Debbie Garlick
had another chance meeting with Prout in the pub. DEBBIE GARLICK: By
the next morning, he had put a note
through my letterbox with his telephone number on. And it said, if you
want, give me a call. We went out the following
day and took a picnic. And then he said
that he wouldn't have a relationship
with anybody because it wasn't the right time. NARRATOR: But two days later,
Debbie heard from him again. DEBBIE GARLICK: He phoned me. And from the Wednesday
onwards, we just started our relationship
full on from there. NARRATOR: It had been six months
since his wife disappeared, but Prout had a seemingly
plausible explanation for her prolonged absence. DEBBIE GARLICK: She
had gone off before. And gone on holiday with one of
his sisters or sister-in-law, and hadn't told him then
where she was going. So he just thought that
they were hiding her away. He didn't want it to
be part of his life. It wasn't a big
thing about where she was, if you get what I mean. NARRATOR: As part of the
ongoing investigation into Kate's disappearance,
detectives had discovered she kept a diary. This told a very
different story to the one that Adrian Prout was spinning. SIMON ATKINSON: She explains
on, over a number of entries over a period of
weeks and months, what's been happening in her
life, the tension with Adrian. The fact that she's
worried and concerned. GEOFFREY WANSEL: There
are constant references to her being frightened
of Adrian Prout. References to the fact
that he lost it with me. If you like, it's
the clearest evidence so far of the true
nature of the marriage between Adrian and Kate Prout. SIMON ATKINSON: All of
that is good evidence. As if it's almost
like Kate's voice, that's the importance of it. This is Kate talking
through her diary. NARRATOR: Despite the
mounting evidence suggesting Prout was weaving a web
of lies, in January 2009, he was told he was no longer a
suspect and released from bail. DEBBIE GARLICK: That
was the news that we obviously were hoping for. And that's when we all moved
up to the farm together. NARRATOR: The cloud of suspicion
appeared to have lifted. Debbie and her two children
moved into Redhill Farm with Prout. SIMON ATKINSON: They've reached
a stage where we've told him he's no longer a suspect. I suspect that was to try
and trigger some conversation with friends and family of him. He might not confess
it to the police, but he might confess
it to a good mate or he might confess
it to Debbie Garlick. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
I think Prout feels incredibly victorious
at this point in time. He feels like he's very
successfully pulled the wool over everybody's eyes. And this is a problem
that is just gone away. SIMON ATKINSON:
In the background, their investigation
is continuing. And they've gone to the
Crown Prosecution Service around charging. NARRATOR: A month after moving
in together, the couple's world was turned upside down. On the 10th of March, Debbie was
home alone with her children. DEBBIE GARLICK: We
were asleep in bed, and we just heard shouting. And so we all just
got up and wondered what the hell was going on. And we walked into all
these police in the house. They asked me not to
phone Adrian, but I did. NARRATOR: When
Prout returned home, he didn't seem concerned
by the unfolding events. DEBBIE GARLICK: I think he
said something like, here we go again, lads, or something. And then they charged him
with murder in front of us all and handcuffed him
and took him away. We thought they must have
found something then. They must have found
something for him to be charged with murder. NARRATOR: Debbie was left
assuming that Kate's body had been found, but she was wrong. SIMON ATKINSON: The
police had been really active in progressing
the inquiries And they've gone to the
Crown Prosecution Service, so they are going to be
explaining what they've got, the circumstantial evidence,
and they would be having to seek a decision to charge him. Once you've reached
that stage, there wouldn't be a need for
any continuation of bail or anything of that nature. He's coming in. NARRATOR: Adrian Prout
appeared later that day at Cheltenham Crown Court
charged with the murder of his wife Kate. After a month in
prison, he was released on bail awaiting trial. DEBBIE GARLICK: He was
saying, I can't believe I've been in prison,
and I can't believe that they thought I've done it. I'm innocent. So we were all, like,
fuming with the police thinking that they had
to put him in prison for a month for no reason. NARRATOR: Out on bail,
life returned to normality. And the couple celebrated
some happy news. Debbie and Prout were
engaged to be married. DEBBIE GARLICK: I think a
few people had made a comment thinking, um, maybe that was
a wrong decision that we made, especially for Adrian's
part because he's still got a wife, really. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: We see
this similar pattern happening again, the accelerated pace
of a relationship, the need for that early commitment. And this is something
that happens frequently with men like Prout. DEBBIE GARLICK: We had
the engagement party, and found out I was
pregnant with my daughter, which was a nice surprise. And then we found out the court
case was going to be January the 11th, the same
day that she was due. NARRATOR: Debbie
was induced a week early so that the
birth of their daughter wouldn't coincide
with the trial. DEBBIE GARLICK: He
loved having a baby. He fed her, changed her,
and got up in the night. He was a hands-on dad. And then she--
she was a week old when the court case started. NARRATOR: The evidence
presented to the jury over the course of three weeks
was entirely circumstantial. SIMON ATKINSON: There
is no forensic evidence. There is nothing to suggest,
more importantly physically, if you like, evidentially,
forensically, that Kate has been killed. That's why it took so long. That's why this proof of
life is the expression-- which is a bit of
a nuance really because you're proving
that someone's died rather than they're alive-- that's why it's so important. DEBBIE GARLICK: I didn't go
to court for the first three weeks, but I went every
day for the fourth week because Adrian was convinced
he would be found not guilty. So he wanted us to walk out
the court together to move on with the rest of our lives. NARRATOR: Unusually,
in this case, there were only 11
members of the jury. And they retired to
consider their verdict. DEBBIE GARLICK: And
then we were to go in mind that it was
nine people together and two people weren't. And I can remember him saying
to me, oh, I can't believe two people think that I've done it. So he's thinking now that nine
people think he's innocent and two people
think he's guilty. SIMON ATKINSON: The jury
were clear, ultimately, that Kate was alive on
the 5th of November, and within five days later, she
certainly-- she wasn't alive. Adrian could only
have been the person that killed her, ultimately. So he had all of
the motivation there to show that she wasn't
around because she wasn't going to get that money. That's what's
presented to the jury. That's what they
thought, well, actually, there's only one conclusion
we can reasonably make here. DEBBIE GARLICK: The verdict
came that he was guilty. I just burst into tears. And, of course, he goes
straight to prison then, but we went home without him
that day, which is really hard. And our baby was four weeks old. NARRATOR: Having never believed
that he would be found guilty, Prout's family had to
face a harsh reality. DEBBIE GARLICK: I went
down to the post office to get every single
paper that I could get. All the papers were,
Killer Adrian Prout, Adrian Prout's Killed His Wife. Nobody-- and even the chap
who owned the shop at the time came out and he put his
arms around me and went, it's so wrong what's
happened to him. He said, you don't
worry, you'll get him out because that's what
everyone was like. It wasn't just me,
it was everybody. NARRATOR: On the 8th
of February 2010, Prout was sentenced to a
minimum of 18 years in prison, but the convicted murderer
maintained his innocence. SIMON ATKINSON: And
ultimately what you've got is you've got a guy
that was charged with murder, been convicted,
and he's gone to prison. The missing piece of that
jigsaw is we've still got a missing body somewhere. We still think that Kate
is out there somewhere. And we-- and we want to
find her, ultimately. So that will always remain open. But you're going to need
some information before you can do anything else. DEBBIE GARLICK: I
did have doubts then. I went to see him. I asked him to swear
on our daughter's life that if he has not killed Kate. And he swore on her life and
said he hasn't killed her. And then I got upset
then because I thought that was bad of
me to have doubts that he might have
done something. He might have killed her, so I
felt really bad in myself then. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
Prout knows exactly what buttons to push with Debbie. He knows exactly
the kind of things to say to make her feel bad
for even raising the question. So I think that shows how
manipulative he really is. NARRATOR: Believing an
innocent man had been jailed, Prout supporters were
determined to prove that Kate Prout was alive. DEBBIE GARLICK: The
only thing we could do is to prove he was innocent,
that the crime had not been committed. Then, obviously, we
started searching for Kate. We put out a reward that if
anyone had any information on the whereabouts of Kate
Prout then, obviously, they would claim the reward. And that's when it all
started to begin the campaign to get him out of prison. NARRATOR: Debbie's campaign
caught the attention of veteran reporter Tom Hendry. Here was a woman who still
believed, even though he was in jail, that he was innocent. And she launched a huge
crusade to try and find Kate. And as a result, I realized
there was potential for a really great story. NARRATOR: Tom became
Debbie's media advisor and assisted with the
appeal for information on Kate's true whereabouts. TOM HENDRY: We had a
number of sightings. One was in Cork in
Southern Ireland. DEBBIE GARLICK:
Somebody got in touch. They said it looked like
Kate, and she was a tutor and Kate was a teacher. We actually thought
we'd got her. TOM HENDRY: We went
over to Ireland, the news agency
sent a photographer. I didn't go personally. And Debbie was
joking, you know, as to if-- if Kate had
turned up, there would have been a film made
and who would have played her. DEBBIE GARLICK: Every
single member of Adrian's family and my family came up. And we waited for the telephone
call to say that it was Kate, but the telephone call
came through to say that it obviously wasn't Kate. So we were all
devastated about that. And then we had a
site in Scarborough. And that wasn't her either. We did articles of
news, we did articles in the paper for any
information, and the website to do with the
miscarriage of justice, they were looking
into that for us. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Prout
is going along with this, but the outcome that he wants
is to get out of prison. And he will be using
people to his advantage. He won't be feeling
bad about it. He doesn't see his family
and friends in the way that most people do. Other people exist in terms
of what they can do for him, so he was simply
surrounded by useful people at this point in time. NARRATOR: Desperate to
prove that there had been a miscarriage of
justice, Prout supporters were running out of options
until journalist Tom Hendry had an unconventional idea. TOM HENDRY: It had gone on for
so long I thought if this guy Prout took a lie detector
test, that would prove maybe once and for all if he was
telling the truth or not, and Debbie agreed. DEBBIE GARLICK: I was, like,
couldn't wait for the headline to be Adrian Prout is
innocent, he's just passed a lie detector test. NARRATOR: Debbie and Tom
visited Prout in Bristol Prison. DEBBIE GARLICK: We asked Adrian
if he'd do a lie detector test. And Adrian agreed straight away. TOM HENDRY: I didn't have
any suspicions about him. He was very calm,
very controlled, and, therefore, you know, I
didn't smell any kind of rat at all. NARRATOR: Don Cargill,
one of the UK's leading polygraph experts,
arranged to conduct the test on Adrian in prison. DON CARGILL: Bear in
mind, it was Adrian who was wanting the test. I thought he would have-- great, this is my day of,
you know, the truth will out, and I'll be proven
to be a non-killer and wrongly convicted. But the reality was, it
was a frozen reaction. He didn't really want to
do this, which really-- that did take me by surprise. I left him alone for about
20 minutes, went back, and he said, I suppose
I'd better do it. I suppose I'd better do
it for Debbie's sake. And I said, no, no, no, no, no,
no, do it for your own sake. NARRATOR: The questions put to
Adrian Prout during the test were very straightforward. TOM HENDRY: Did he kill
his wife, Kate Prout? Did he pay someone
else to do it? And did he know
where the body was? He said no to all
three questions. So when we did the test three
times, I looked at the results, and quite clearly he
had murdered his wife. And I did say to him, I'm sorry,
but I am looking at a murderer. And he just went-- well, are you saying
my test is wrong? And he said, no, your
test is not wrong. DEBBIE GARLICK: Don Cargill
phoned me up and just said, Debbie, you're-- you're
engaged to a murderer. And that was Don's words. [somber music] And it was just so emotional. I didn't want to believe it. And, of course,
my plans have all gone out the window now
because, obviously, the plan was he is going to pass. The plan was we're going to
go to the papers, Adrian Prout Passed, but everything stopped. There was no
further forward now. TOM HENDRY: Maybe
he was so arrogant, Prout, that he thought
he could beat this test. And clearly, he couldn't. DEBBIE GARLICK: My sister said
to me that if he had done it, you'd have gone to the papers,
you'd have believed it, so, really, you should believe
in it that he's failed. That he has done--
he is a murderer because you can't believe
one way and not the other. NARRATOR: When
Debbie visited Prout, he was adamant that the
polygraph had been rigged and professed his innocence. Here he brings back
that victim persona. Poor me, everybody's against me. Everybody's out to get me. DEBBIE GARLICK: For the
next couple of months, it was strained between us both. The phone calls were strained. I think he knew that feeling
that, however much he tried to deny it, it
changed all our minds. My thoughts now have
gone to Kate's family. So we're protesting
his innocence, and these poor people
now have lost Kate. And for the last
year, I've never thought about their feelings. And so my-- I wanted to find out
the truth for their sake and for Kate's sake. That was my plan now. My plan had changed. I just-- I just knew we'd
get to the bottom of it, but I didn't know when. NARRATOR: In November 2011,
three months after the failed polygraph test, Debbie visited
Adrian Prout determined to get an answer once and for all. DEBBIE GARLICK: I went
in there with my sister. And I did say that I
would stick by him, but then I didn't always think
I'd get the answer that I did. I said, um, if you have killed
Kate, I will stand by you, but you need to tell
me the truth so we can give Kate a proper funeral. And he just said she's had one. Well, I knew then
he'd killed her. [sighs] I just-- I don't think me and my
sister knew what to say. We just sat there
because, I think, we-- to be perfectly honest, I just
thought I was going to be sick. NARRATOR: Now the floodgates
had finally been opened, Prout did not hold back. DEBBIE GARLICK: He
said that they argued and she upped the
money that she wanted. And they started arguing,
and he strangled her. He went to the pub. And then got back and
buried her in the woods. He said he dug a hole by hand. And he had a shoot the next
day and carried on as normal. And the police never found
one bit of evidence of that. SIMON ATKINSON: One of the
detectives came in and said, we've just had Adrian's
girlfriend come to the police station and say that
Adrian has confessed that he's killed Kate Prout. There's the potential
that we've got that final piece of the jigsaw. So within 24 hours,
we've got police officers at the prison talking to him. And he may well have said,
no, I didn't say that. Made it all up, but he didn't. This morning, I'm going to
read you a prepared statement in relation to why we are here. The statement goes,
"Yesterday morning, we received some new and
significant information in relation to the
murder of Kate Prout." NARRATOR: Prout
agreed to show police where he'd buried his wife. REPORTER: From his prison cell,
handcuffed to a policeman, the convicted killer
and now confessed murderer, Adrian Prout,
returns to the farm where he committed his crime. SIMON ATKINSON: He
took us to a location on a hill, which was
quite an extensive piece of woodland, probably a bit
bigger than a football pitch. There was no "X marks
the spot," for sure. So where he'd initially
pointed out, we'd dug and unsuccessfully, so
we couldn't find Kate. And what we brought in then were
cadaver dogs, so sniffing dogs to see if we could find a body. And they did the usual dog
thing of sniffing places and that was unsuccessful. And then we used ground
penetrating radar as well, and that didn't help either. And day one, day two,
after that could only be described that
initial excitement really that actually we
might solve this and we could do this really
quickly now and move it on, that wasn't happening. NARRATOR: The media had
taken over the chocolate box village of Redmarley
and expectations were high. The pressure was massive. The pressure was huge waiting
for something to happen. Finally, on day four, the search
team made the grim discovery. At 1 o'clock this afternoon,
we have found human remains close to the location Adrian
Prout identified as the place he buried his wife. DEBBIE GARLICK: I just
cried for her family. And it must have been
horrendous for them. I thought they were
hiding her, so I thought they knew where she was. But for them, they knew that
she was dead because she would have been in contact with them. They had to live all that
time knowing that she's just been buried somewhere
and concealed and would they
ever get her back. At one stage, I don't think
they thought they would. NARRATOR: Kate's
family were finally able to lay her to
rest in January 2021, more than four years
after she'd been killed. SIMON ATKINSON: That
information came from Debbie at that moment in time. If it hadn't then, Adrian might
a have served his sentence, life moves on. It may never have come out NARRATOR: Adrian Prout
will be eligible to apply for parole in 2028. SIMON ATKINSON:
As an individual, I struggle with the concept
of being able to harm someone in the way that he has,
but not just to do that but to harm so many other people
around him as a consequence. That's not normal
human behavior. TOM HENDRY: Everybody
was fooled by him. The lie detector test proved
that I was among them. But he was a very
convincing liar. NARRATOR: Scars
remain for those who were burned by Prout's lies. DEBBIE GARLICK: He took
away the family that we all were going to have together. You don't expect things like
that to happen to your family. My daughter, I think that's the
hardest part because she will always have to be grown
up knowing that her dad's in prison and he's a murderer. NARRATOR: Prout was a
master manipulator whose selfishness knew no limits. He killed his wife just
to avoid having to give her what was rightfully hers. Then he played
the jilted husband and cruelly pulled others
into his web of lies. He never had a thought
for anyone but himself, making Adrian Prout one of
Britain's most evil killers. [theme music]
