Private Investigator On Madeleine McCann And Jimmy Savile | Minutes With Podcast | @LADbible

so when I looked at Madeleine McCann I did exactly the same I I brought all the information together I read all the police files I spoke to all those key witnesses around there sadly evidence tells us um that she would have been dead within 72 hours yeah [Music] so Mark obviously we've met you before and we've done a piece with you before but for new watches or new listeners would you mind giving us a brief introduction to who you were so my name is Mark Williams Thomas I'm an invested reporter and a criminologist and my background really is in policing so I was a detective I then left the Police Service went into television and that's where people get to know me from in relation to my investigations I have a series on Netflix called the investigator and I'm probably best known for exposing Jimmy Savile I mean that was very concise but it was an incredible amount of life experience in there so I think what we'll do is go back to the start and maybe um you know you said you started off in the police so how did you get there I began in Guildford I worked on the beat as everybody used to do it's changed now but you used to have to go and put your time on the ground you know walk in the cobbled streets as it were so I did that for just over a year and then I thought you know it's probably time for another change and there was a job that came up actually a new new job it's now common for Police Service to have Community safety teams so these are teams that work with people in the community to try and keep them out of the criminal justice system really and we set up a vulnerable youth team and I was a vulnerable youth officer for the whole of the Guilford Borough and the purpose was was to try and keep children out of the criminal justice system so once you get into the criminal justice system it's a conveyor belt it's really difficult to get off it so what I looked at is a youth diversary policy to try and keep people away from crime in the first place so that you didn't end up going into that role constantly of seeing the same faces over and over again but what it did identify for me was the need for safeguarding children because the large majority of the children I was dealing with these all under 18s were coming from you know disrupted broken homes environments where they were not being safeguarded they were subject to child abuse and it kind of opened up that whole area and I became really fascinated in child abuse in the abuse of children and seeing what I could do from a policing point of view to try and reduce that and that's kind of where my path then started to go down the area of child protection I then started to get involved in a lot of major crime and then I moved into a major crime team from there became a detective and and finished up in the Police Service doing working on actually on a pedophile unit because what happened is I identified that there was a major problem with pedophilia across the whole of the country not being prosecuted not being investigated and it was kind of in a bit of a too difficult area for the for a long time offenders were being allowed to get away with their crime because it didn't fall into an area really it didn't fall into an area of interfamiliar abuse So within a family environment and it felt slightly into the too difficult area because CID officers didn't really want to deal with child abuse so you know the gangs the organized crime that was taking place you know the vicar the the the um school teacher you know the choir master who was actually abusing children on a large scale but no one was really doing the investigation to stop that so I went out and I started to arrest some pretty high profile people and got a bit of a name for myself within the force as being you know kind of like going after pedophiles and and I managed after a long campaign to get the assistant chief Constable of Surrey to finally agree to set up a pedophile unit and it did and I went and worked on that until I finally left the force after the police was it private detective is that what you moved into yeah in essence really I moved across to doing private detect work and then into television yes yes because first of all what I want to ask you about is as a private investigator yeah what would you say were the main differences between that and police work so I think it's quite simple really so obviously I was a police officer I've got access to computer systems I've got powers that I don't have as a private detective so I can arrest people I can uh you know I can use those powers to to gain evidence from people uh you know I've got um regulatory fat powers and surveillance with um some of the techniques that you use you know bugging listening devices all of that stuff at my disposal and I've got some of that in my disposal now but obviously it's slightly different you know if I wanted to gain access to someone's house to be able to put a listening device in someone's house then I can go through that process through a court order get that order get into someone's house as a police officer put the bug in there disappear and nobody knows I've been in the house you know the intelligence services do it all the time but obviously I haven't got that access as a police officer so my ability to get into someone's house and do some of those things is obviously reduced so powers and uh access to computers is the biggest thing but as a private detective I've still got access to techniques so I just have to be cleverer so I just have to be able to use the abilities to be able to gain access to people in a way that perhaps they aren't aware of sure in a more discreet way can you give us any example well I mean yeah we use um we might use decoys to be able to get to people you know Amazon Amazon deliveries are great in getting items into people's houses oh can you actually do that yeah why not you've once got to show that there is a you know there's a there's a serious case that you're investigating I mean you couldn't start doing those types of things if you're investigating a you're a theft or something like that but if you're investigating you know Murder an unsolved murder or somebody wanted for rape or something like that or firearm defenses then you know the the proportionality of what you're doing justifies the end so you know we lump cars and buy lumpy so we put trackers on cars you know so tracking on cars you know we did the very first track on a car that ITV ever did I remember I've got a friend who um who was a solicitor for for uh for MI5 and I was speaking to him and I said to him listen you know I'd love to put a tracker on the car but my my um lawyer ITV will not let me do it and he said well let me have a chat with him and let me he says you can do it it's obviously there's restrictions so you know we do it and uh anyway about an hour later I remember getting an email from uh this list again yes we can do it and uh but you've just got to be really careful that you do it in a certain way and within a matter of you know I remember that evening getting the tracker and heading off to our Target's address for that evening in the early hours of the morning about three o'clock in the morning to get up and put a tracker on there on the car and um and it was great because the first time we it had ever been used in television we put a tracker on this car and we were going back and um and then you just wait for the phone to to Ping right so you put a glac8 on it fixes it to a certain location and the foam pings and and off we go and we follow this car so in a way that that's probably it's probably easier to put a tracker in a car in your current position than it was when you're in the police because I suppose as as to want to do it in the police although you've got the legal backing of it you have to go through a huge system of application and all that yeah yeah I mean I think the process in terms of getting things now is is other than the Police Service servically much quicker yes you can you know the ability to be able to get some of the devices is harder because you know I can't I can't tap someone's phone I can't get into someone's physically get into someone's house and and you know and put a listening device in there but there are sometimes other ways of doing it you know there may well be that somebody we can we know somebody within that house who is prepared to put a device somewhere or record something and you can put a listening device inside someone's house weak we the person would have to do it themselves so they'd have to be somebody who's physically within that house who's prepared to record something or do something but it's all about proportionality you know it's all about what is it we're trying to do what is it we're trying to achieve if somebody's on the run for for very serious offenses then yeah there is a justification for doing things that makes sense and correct me if I'm wrong but it sounds like what helps is when you were talking about the tracker on the car it sounds like what helped that become a possibility was a very in-depth knowledge of the law and which and how you can do things and how you can't do things do you ever feel exposed for that because then if someone if a policeman comes along catches you doing it and you say no it's okay to do that as long as it's and they don't have have that in-depth knowledge they might say doesn't sound right yeah I mean I we've we um I remember we did a surveillance on this person's address and the producer the producer said first of all he said I'm going to sit in the bin right as in a wheelie bit oh wow outside this address and he hadn't done any surveillance before and I said believe me you're not going to sit at the wheelie bin for very long I said it might be fine for a while but you can't move it's ridiculous I said lie in the back of the car I said we'll park the car further away and you can lie in the back of the car anyway he did but he then decided that he was going to move the car I think it was or he was moving around too much within this car and a neighbor saw him moving an awful lot and phoned up the place and then the next thing the police turned up and uh and then he phoned up and said all the police are here anyway we managed to to get the place and take them away from the Target's address talk to them elsewhere and say look we're done running an operation we're running this the Police Service are you know I have great relationships with the people service I get on very well with them and you know we have a good dialogue most of the time it's really interesting so you've moved from the police force where you uh you you sort of ended up doing a lot of work with children yeah and then you moved into the kind of private investigative world and the TV work started to come alongside that in a similar time where was it that the Jimmy Savile thing came in so I'd be doing I've done quite a lot of Television stuff so I've probably done quite a lot of ITV tonight programs uh you know I went over and and confronted a pedophile priest in Germany who sat in a internet cafe and told me about orders offending just the camera incredible really um but I think you know that broke down yeah we'd be following him for a little while and I went the the exec said to me you know he needs to be I said to him we need to be confronted he said what are you up for that I said yeah I've got so much just just that everything I used to do in a police service I just went and confronted they went for half an hour told me that all his offending behavior and was he prosecuted yeah he was Prosecuting convicted for for um he had a load of child abuse material as well as grooming a child right so I did that and then I did a lot of other crime stuff so I did did um quite a few tonights around crime stuff and then I was working um I think I was working on another tonight program or or I'd be doing some stuff actually those days I used to do quite a lot of BBC News night as well and then I was just going to I was just coming back from BBC News night having filmed a piece in Interpol I've gone over to Interpol to to deal with uh a child rescular child trafficking and I've just come back and the producer said to me have you ever heard anything about Jimmy Savile being a sex offender and I went no I said he's a weird bloke I said I wouldn't want him anywhere near kids but you know I've never heard anything what year was this so this is 2011. he was picking up audiences of you know 15 17 million a night you know he was phenomenal he was he was a cross there was only two television channels there was ITV and and BBC in those days you know BBC One BBC Two he was a Crosshair on a Saturday night BBC One he was he was it um yeah an absolute star really in terms of of Television worldwide known as well you know big big profile so the thought I guess some of the nervousness is the fact that you're not going after someone that's people are suspicious of already at that point in time you're going after someone that you you're going to be telling them you know that person you've enjoyed watching all of your life because he started so early late 60s yeah 60s all the way through and of course he'd become stable diet for many many families on a Saturday night watching Jim will fix it yeah you know top of the pops he'd become iconic in the way that he was and people kind of accepted him he became that you know that face of Saturday night television so I was taking on something which was pretty massive uh yeah 2011 so the producer said to me have you ever heard anything I went no not at all I said I it's weird and he said well he was arrested by a police service for child abuse offenses for sexual offenses and I went oh I'd never heard that he said well it was interesting enough it was either your old force or Sussex I said well I've not heard that but I'll make some inquiries and and I'll see I said what are you going to do with it he said well we can't do a program until he's dead no one will touch it and I said that's a shame and I said what have you got he said well and he became a con bit convoluted because basically he was a producer and his aunt was at a children's home where Jimmy Savile used to visit and so that's how he knew the story really and there was quite a lot I then looked online and I read quite a lot of stuff naming Jimmy Savile as a sex offender and a number of other celebrities so I we spoke a bit a little bit about it and I said look I'll make some requires I then managed to find out using contacts in mind that yes Savile had been interviewed at Stoke Mandeville by the police in relation to some allegations to sexual offense and this you could find this out on the internet right so this was secret yeah so I'd found it out and actually I found it out from somebody who was your very senior officer who told me it and I think the moment he told me he then thought what have I just said because he told me that and then I tried to speak to her about four or five days later and he wouldn't right okay so and he realized what have I just said I've opened up these can of worms anyway I so I went back to the uh producer and said look he has been arrested sorry he has been interviewed in relation to these allegations um but no further actions coming from it and he said okay that's a shame and what are you feeling at the moment because you've been looking online you've spoken to this yeah I mean are you like oh do you think something no there's clearly more to it right it was clearly more to it uh and I said to him what are you gonna do with it he said well we've got to you know we've got somebody that's going to present it and we're just kind of working it up and see where we go but you know we can't do anything at the moment and then fast forward a couple of months not very long and he dies Savile dies and I remember thinking to myself gosh that's your moment he's now because you can't you can't be sued by the Dead so I thought there's a moment and I remember he phoned me up he said we're going to do it uh he said you know would you give us an interview in relation to that because of your background in terms of dealing with very high profile offenders in the police service and I dealt with a number of high-profile offenders in the police service and um when you were in the police yeah when I was in the police during the Police Service I you know uh I worked on a number of very high profile cases and so I said to him yeah yeah no problem at all and and then he went to the editor of newsnite and the editor of new tonight totally missed the ball here because he said well there is no story because Surrey please don't seem to have failed in their investigation they dealt with it appropriately and I remember saying Tim but that's not the story the story is that Jimmy savile's a sex offender yeah it's not the secondary whether or not the police failed in their investigation so I he said well that's it we're we're shutting it down we're not doing anything I remember saying to him well there's something here I don't know what it is yet and there's something here and I said but are you would you be happy for me to take it on you know journalistic realize you don't want to tread on someone else's toes if he feels that he's going to continue doing he said well it's dead for me I can't do anything with it this is a producer saying yeah yeah it's definitely I can't he said I'll help you all I can he said obviously I have to be careful because of my role but I said I'll help you all I can so I said well let me run with it let me see what I can find and I remember and all they had at that moment in time was they had a complainant at the Children's Home not allegations against Savile but they get allegations against another offender but talking about how Savile would go to that place okay and obviously they had the details of the other offenses that took place that they'd been interviewed for so I started to think there's more to this I remember going to itvl I remember saying to the lawyer there is something in this there is definitely something in this but we need to run with it anyway the lawyer was incredibly nervous the exec said well Mark listen why don't you and Leslie who's my producer why don't the two of you work on it and see where you go I remember we started to to work on it and I there's a couple of things I have decisions I made I said one is we'll keep everything on paper off computer so so we weren't putting anything on YouTube I didn't want this story to leak I didn't want this story to be looked at by the people we had to keep it really tight I think that the Cecilia bosses Within ITV started to slightly hear about what was going on and they were definitely nervousness massive nervousness and I remember one occasion when somebody from the um one of the teams turned around and said well you need to go and get a consent form signed before you do the interview the day before and you have to tell them exactly what it's all about and then see if they're happy to do it and I said what are you talking about I said I'll do it in the same way as I would do any other consent I'm not going to give them the day before we've talked about it all and just just to just for people listening that aren't aware of how all the TV stuff works and all that so when already it sounds like when you're discussing this particular project it feels as though that you're meeting resistance maybe not huge amounts of wrists but you're nervous about people hearing about it you're getting nervousness from lawyers would that is that equivalent to other shows you've done where you've gone and I suppose the priests in Germany is always at resistance around exposing a pedophile because if you get it wrong it's so dangerous or did you feel it because it was Savile specifically there was an extra layer of resistance there yeah I think as in the initial stages it was the same resist same nervousness I wouldn't say resistance the same nervousness existed within the Senior Management because of course it's reputation and you know ITV examples of PLC it's not that you know it's not funded by you and I like the BBC is and so so there's a nervousness for shareholders rightfully so you don't want to get something like that wrong no and so there was it was about the same as doing any risky program I do I do a lot of risky programs and but then that nervousness did increase and the nervousness increased because I think there was a reality of quite what we were doing and then when we started to find victims you know we found five victims we found six victims I remember going back to the bosses and saying we found them and they said well keep looking and I remember saying at one stage how many do you want yeah you know because one of the very clear things I do in all my programs is that if I'm going to interview somebody then that that will appear in the program right you know I I work particularly if they're a victim if they're a contributor it's a very different matter you're an expert or whatever it is but if they're a victim and they're giving me their victim account you know one's gonna be really careful how we treat people so I would use that in the program and so we'd reached a point where the evidence was really really really strong and I remember going back to the bosses and they said it is good but I think you need to do we probably need somebody just to run it past and see what their view is so I said well okay let's use two people so I use the Barrister who I knew QC and he said look the evidence is pretty compelling there and then I used Esther Ransom oh and Esther I I know Esther very well and I phoned Esther up and I said listen Esther slightly strange this but I've investigating Jimmy Savile so obviously said look this is all in confidence I'm investigating Jimmy Savile I've got three videos I'd like you to watch of complainants giving their accounts and I don't want to I don't want to preempt it I don't want to show you anything before I just want to come around your house show you these three videos film it all and I want your response and of course she knew Savile you know she was part of the BBC for anyone that might not be aware Esther Ranson is a quite famous British TV personality oh yes I mean Esther Ransom set up childline so childline is the telephone number in in the UK where children you know people come phone up about being abused she has done an incredible amount of work for safeguarding children you know she's a she's a you're a leader right up the front leading in relation to safeguarding of children for many many decades now and so real Authority in terms of that and yeah a lovely lady I get on with it very very well and I said to Alice I'm going to show you these and I remember turning up by her house she was quite Fierce you know it's very different as a presenter of a program you get a very different response sometimes than if you're a producer or researcher and she can be quite Fierce and I remember she was quite fierced to my producer well I'll change it to a very famous British person quite famous um and I remember sitting down and I said right let's I'm just going to play this and I played it and you could the as she was watching this you could you could feel kind of like the yeah I suppose anger coming through but also she was in the moment and she cried and she cried and they were genuine tears absolutely genuine tears and she said you know what I believe them absolutely believe them you know we gave them a platform and we allowed him to abuse and it was kind of like a moment of thought that's it that's the moment that's the the definitive moment that you know I live in this world and I've investigated him for a year but when you get somebody outside who looks at this who's got some knowledge and looks at it and goes do you know what I believe that were you categorically certain that he was a prolific as sexier yeah I mean me in the months prior to that no doubt about it you know Dad's but he got away with it for a very long time and being able to use his power to get away with it oh you had no doubt about it and there was you know as it was going on more and more people I was finding more and more information from people more and more victims were coming forward yeah no doubt about it at all and and the yeah the eve of so that the program went out midweek and I remember on the Sunday uh the mail the mail on Sunday we'd given an exclusive to mail on Sunday and um and they bottled it and they put it on page six or seven uh I remember them saying to me you know is that enough information really we've got any more you can give us and I remember that's it and then this the um Sunday Mirror and the Sunday people who were who I'd got a very good relationship with I gave them some other stuff and they ran it on the front page and it ran consecutively for 41 days on the front pages of the newspapers did the Jimmy Savile story that's how big it was it was phenomenal here and more and more information coming out all the time yeah 41 consecutive days his story sat on the front pages and and that's how big it was I mean you know he got mentioned in the house Commons you know I got specifically mentioned by Tim Layton the um children's Minister there you know about the work that we've done it's collected you know numerous amounts of awards and But ultimately you know that was only possible because of the braveness of the women who came forward you know had they not have given me their accounts and allowed me to use it on television we wouldn't have succeeded because I needed them to to be listened to I needed them to be believed yeah I crafted it yes and I took the the uh you know the weight and the force of it from them but ultimately they were the reason it happened and some people would say yeah but you never bought Justice well I wasn't down to me you know I'm not I'm not out this is this cape Crusader who wears a cape and fighting for people's Justice at all cost yes I go out there and I do my best but ultimately that's the system you know and the system was such that he evaded Justice before he died well also yeah you didn't know he was gonna die right so well he made the Justice before he died the authorities had the opportunity to get him if they did on the proper investigation and they failed they categorically failed you know on a seismic scale when they could have done because all the information that I had was available had they have done some investigations when they interviewed him uh in the early 2000s so I didn't do anything different I just was thorough in my investigation whereas they were utterly unthur in there and what year did it go out with the document your 2012 yeah because I remember I was working at the BBC when it went out and I watched it and I remember there was a what it felt like was there was a there was a little Tipping Point where it went out everyone was talking about it but for about three or four days there was all these accounts of there was arguments about whether it was true or lies and they were being broadcast they're in papers and people were saying he'd never do that and then it just felt like this damn cracking and suddenly it was just like an outpouring of more and more and more information just spraying out across you know just Decades of horrific abuse coming to light and I remember the a lot of the conversation was I was obviously younger it was just like a lot of the conversation me and my peers were having is like how the hell has this happened yeah well it could have been stopped you know the Police Service had plenty of opportunities over the decades to to stop it but they didn't and because nobody ever did a thorough investigational work that was a problem well because they were incompetent you know individual officers were incompetent they failed to properly investigate him I think they were I think they were overcome by power and an influenced you when you're a police officer you don't tend to probably meet many famous people and so it depends on you as a character as to how you cope with that and and I think that as a result of that that influences sometimes your decision making you know we've seen it we saw it with Savile we saw it with the Lost Prophet singer uh when the police got a bit in awe of him um so I think that's it yeah I I know lots of famous people you know I I've worked with an awful lot of them I work very close with Simon Cowell you know we work together on projects and um and so I've seen you know I've mixed with all the a-lists I know them and I think probably for me it was like do you know what he's just like anyone else you know but I don't think the police officers saw that and they certainly didn't see that when they were investigating it well that's one side of it is the police officers and that I feel like that's a very logical reasonable account of why these kind of things might have happened but the other side of it is the people who put him on TV yeah because one of the things that came out afterwards was people saying oh I'd heard stuff I'd heard stuff I'd heard stuff I'd heard stuff and even I think I remember Louis Theroux did like a kind of like um a piece after after he's passing and said there were always rumors about him and that's one of the other things I think people have been confused about is that if it was this weird Open Secret yeah how was he just on prime time TV for so long well there Dame Janet Smith came out she did a review for the uh BBC um and her review was pretty flawed really because ultimately got the right conclusion but the outcome of it was then flawed because she said you know there were senior managers within the BBC particularly the Radio setup who who had the information but then they did nothing with it but she doesn't criticize them in any way at all it's ridiculous so let's be very clear there were people out there senior managers within the BBC who could have stopped it who could have stopped this because they could have stopped him from being involved in these programs could have stopped the process um but they didn't do anything they ignored that process there are other people who had a lot of information but were powerless you know nurses victims of his who's going to listen to them no one was going to listen to him he was incredibly litigious he wrote litigious letters all the time in other words letters from solicitors criticism telling people you can't say anything so people were silenced he was very very powerful but there were people within management within the BBC and other setups who could have done something and and I hope those people you know have restless sleep about it all it probably back to normal now but you know they they need to be held accountable and this is the problem with the whole of the Savile you know when Netflix came to me and said you know would I be involved in a Netflix program um I said there's only one program I will make and that is holding those people to account I can tell you there are people out there and I and I did a several update which started to look at some of those people who should be held to account um but there is a program still to be made to hold Savile to account and there are people out there who will fall under that you know there are at least five or six people that uh that I could investigate a name who new information and failed to do anything because they were scared or they didn't care or what's your opinion on it I think it's very difficult to judge that whether they were scared I think they were probably scared of of putting their head above the parapet I think they were scared of their position I think they were probably uncertain about quite what to do and they were in awe of his power I mean one of the massive problem is is that Savile was earning money for the BBC and for other organizations you know Savile was this face so if you suddenly say do you know what we're going to get rid of that and of course what's the Fallout from that it's huge because people start asking questions so for some people it's much easier to do nothing even though that's the wrong thing to do then to do the right thing now I've never been like that you know if I make myself unpopular which I have done and do do by doing things if I've done it for the right reasons then I can sleep at night and I can hold my head up high well when you talk about making yourself unpopular am I right in thinking there was actually some sort of device yeah I've had I have death threats you know I've been threatened to be shot I've had child abuse material sent to me I've had an incendiary device sent to me uh you know I'm very careful you know I'm just about to start on a on a new project where I've been told that the people that we are going after will come after us why would you do that because because I care because I care to help you know I kind of and I don't say this in the spirit spiritualistic way is I've been put on this Earth I think to help people and I'm here making a difference in whatever way I can you know and mine is through journalism through investigations you know I've been incredibly successful and I continue to be and I'm passionate about what I do and I don't think anybody should be silenced if they have the right thing to say or if they've been let down and you know I've I'm here now you know 52 years old and I've survived threats and and I'll be here for a lot longer you know it's those people that I don't know about I probably should be more worried about you know um I've you know I've dealt with some pretty nasty people across my life and I'm still here so you know bring it on if you're going to do that then well let's see you what you've been doing and in a funny way your career sort of set you up for the Savile thing because it was policing then policing oh yeah I couldn't have done it without that we have the background children and then you've got the private investigation and that all kind of leads up to this but looking at it from the outside and when you're talking about these kind of uh you know going off into Cambodia and all that kind of thing you know some people might go I'm gonna donate 100 pounds to charity a month yeah what you're doing is ultimately putting yourself into potentially danger well potentially mortal danger when you're off in these foreign lands with people that you say are very dangerous people what is it is it a sense of Injustice and annoys you about it or what is it that makes you have that passion to put yourself into such a dangerous situation rather than go I'm going to go after another German priest yeah yeah I mean I think there's a number of things isn't it I mean I think I I couldn't I can't deny the fact that there's an adrenaline element to it also you know being a police officer you know being in that position where you're frontlining you're changing things and you're responding to things corsets and adrenaline and Buzz to that but that adrenaline buzz you know is it is a process out of why am I doing it in the first place you know why am I doing it I'm doing it because I want to help people you know I feel that I have the skills and the ability and the contacts to make a difference to people's lives you know I want to shine a light in the darkest of Corners I want to give a voice to those people who have been let down by the authorities I I'm I get incredibly angry with Injustice I get incredibly angry with incompetence um and particularly when I see something is wrong um I want to fix it yeah I'm a fixer you know it's um you know if whatever's going wrong in someone's life when they're close to me I want to fix it and you know and I'll come up with all those options how to do it you know I I that's what I am and I think when someone comes to me with that Injustice I think of it and go I can help you I can make a difference with Savile if I think for a lot of the British public that will have come out of nowhere because there'll be people that work in media and might have heard stuff there'll be people there's always jokes because you work with kids but there's jokes about anyone that works kids right but for a lot of people that would have come out of nowhere do you think that's a once in a generation thing or do you think that's something that came to light and behind the scenes there's other things going on that could come to light with enough investigation so I think we have to understand what Saba was about Savile had this platform created in best part by him but also by the environment that he was in and by those people that allowed him to have the platform that he had he was fairly I probably would get it he was Untouchable and as a result of that he was allowed to do what he wants now if you put that into today's society it's very different there wasn't a social media there wasn't the platform to expose him that there is today you know you couldn't get away with those things today because someone would write a blog someone would do a social media post someone would do something about it and talk up and Society is for is far less accepting of wrong as it was in those days you know do you think so oh yeah I mean you know the the whole me too movement it's been brilliant because actually you know and people would say off the back of Savile and some of the other people arrested yeah but it was only touching it was wrong it was wrong back in the 60s it was wrong back in the 50s and it's wrong today because people got away with it doesn't make it right societies and our perceptions have changed we've become much more educated around what is right and what is wrong what is acceptable for us to have happen to our own bodies so I think there is a massive change and actually misogyny is a huge thing as well you know misogyny existed within the police service and still does to a small degree now but to a massive degree I mean I I did a big investigation for a program recently on the Yorkshire Ripper yeah this is a man who killed 13 women in Yorkshire in the 1980s attempted to murder seven others that he was convicted of and the misogyny that stopped him from being caught much earlier was horrific you know the if you were a prostitute in the 1980s and 90s you have no value you weren't considered to have the same value as other people and Society still does that to a degree now you know everyone has a value on their head some people are worth more than others that's the reality it's shocking but that's the reality it's less so now but it certainly was a huge problem in the 80s and 90s so Savile to exist today I don't believe could get away with it there are other people who have offended in the 80s and 90s on a large scale not to a scale of several I don't think but to a large scale who are still at large there are people offending today who are still at large on both the child abuse point of view and also other major criminal offenses so yes I I think there is definitely offenders out there who have got very serious offenses behind them on a large scale do I think that they're on the scale of Savile no and because offending is about two key aspects access on opportunity access to your victim and the opportunity to offend and if you look at Savile Savile had access to his victims on a huge daily creative television programs that gave him access to Children he did all this work gaming Maxes to children and the opportunity he was given the opportunity to be alone with children to have that opportunity to offend so as a as an offender you've got to have access and opportunity to offend to whoever your victim is going to be and Savile had that in abundance there are offenders out there who are still to be brought to justice but I don't believe there are any of them on the scale of Savile okay yes um I mean I'm not sure what my sponsors are because I want to say well that's good but it's definitely not good if you're saying that there are still offenders out there on a large scale in fact yeah I mean majority of child offenders child abusers will have abused in excess of 100 children like by the time they're caught the offenders offenders offend um with a with a pretty insatiable appetite at times you know some of these people will offend a huge huge amount before they end up being caught you know the first time you get caught shoplifting will not be the first time you've shoplifted so if you use analogy across the board and it's exactly the same you know the first time you get caught unless you're very unlucky you know won't be the first time you've committed that offense and offenders are the same and what we know about child sex offenders is they are yeah they're offending behavior is something that it's repetitiveness and it is a is a creature of habit um and we know that child offenders work on a cycle of offending so rather like a drug you know the first time you commit your sexual offense you get a height as a result of that right for an offender but it's very hard then to get that height again but you enter this cycle of offending which is exactly the same as drugs your first hit and you keep going and you go you know and it takes something to stop you on that cycle of offending so that you don't continue to offend now sometimes those barriers that are in the place to stop you do stop you the likelihood of getting caught I'm going to lose my family I'm going to lose my job I might go to jail you know my reputations can be damaged but there are people who use cognitive distortion to get over those barriers and by cognitive distortion I mean they're able to justify in their head that actually they won't suffer that I won't get caught the police are rubbish they won't catch me oh it's okay for now sex offenders because there's so many of them and actually you know people turn a blind eye to that it's okay I can still work because they'll still employ me because I don't work with children so this justification in your head the whole time this cognitive distortion that everyone uses every day set off to work in the morning and you might use cognitive distortion I drove 40 miles an hour in a 30 mile an hour speed limit I didn't drive 50. it was only 40. that's cognitive distortion people use it all the time to justify why they're doing something which is wrong um but in the same way as there are you know thousands of child sex offenders out there there are also thousands of killers out there I did a huge piece of work recently in uh England Wales and Scotland and there are near nearly 3 000 unsolved murders oh my God since 1960s unsold murders and that is a shocking number do you think to self okay so if there's three thousand unsold Motors and that's purely classified unsolved so there'll still be people who are missing that have not been classified as unsolved murders so if there are 3 000 unsolved murders there are offenders out there three thousand murderers well you or a number of serial killers my God that's even worse you know I often you know refer to things you know you just imagine you go to the shop and the person holding the door actually could be a killer um we walk past them all the time and the problem is of course is offenders don't wear something different to anybody else you know they then walk along with a with a you know a a bag a loot bag on their back or they don't walk along with tattooed across their forehead saying I'm a pedophile they live amongst us from one high profile case this other one you mentioned earlier another high profile case involving a child which is Madeleine McCann yeah we've seen that's a documentary you're currently working on no so finished it it went out on channel five a couple of months ago and it's just about to land on uh Paramount plus so actually next week I remember plus well next week uh three-parter and it was for the very first time so when I got approached to make it I've made lots of Madeleine McCann investigations I was on the ground when Madeleine disappeared within 72 hours were you I didn't know that yeah so I flew out to Pride I lose and I was on the ground within 72 hours covering for Sky News and covered it you know for about 10 days morning evening doing you know live talks outside and and it became part of my life you know a huge part of my life actually um it kind of took over its times because it was such a massive story a massive I mean worldwide you know I mean in my time in covering television I've probably covered the biggest crime stories so obviously Jimmy Savile I covered uh Madeleine McCann I got the world exclusive interview with Oscar Pistorius murders uh in cases where people have admitted murder to me some huge huge cases out there and I think you know Madeleine McCann sits right up the top of that in terms of profile in terms of coverage and I finally said okay let's make a program about it but let's do it in a different way and and we know over the last couple of years there was a suspect named by the Germans at Christian B and I said let's go and investigate what they have on him and and I started to investigate it and then we went on the road for six weeks uh Germany Portugal and we did a years-long investigation and we got access to Christian B through his lawyer talked to him in prison uh very close to getting an interview with him prison but the prison authorities refused us to do that and he we basically uncovered an alibi for him oh wow to show that actually the German authorities are wrong and it's now become a slight battle between the German prosecutor and me where the German prosecutor has been quite critical of me and I've been critical of him he's absolutely responsible for murdering Madeleine McCann well no I don't think he is for a start but ultimately that's not your call that's the Court's call to to make that um but the sad reality is is as long as we go looking or as long as the com the country is focused on looking for Christian bees evidence and of which they've been investigating him now for nearly four years and they haven't got enough evidence to prosecute him that tells you at all um the real killer is out there this show is sponsored by betterhelp on this podcast we meet lots of people who are very life experiences but the through line that we always get from almost all of them is that talking helps often people think therapy is about big things offer people with huge problems but in my experience personally therapy has been about small things just as much as big things if you're suffering and you've got problems talking to licensed therapists and counselors is a way to get tools that will help you deal with them in your daily life as the world's largest therapy service better help has matched three million people with professionally licensed and vetted therapists available 100 online plus it's affordable just fill out a brief questionnaire to match with a therapist if things aren't clicking you can easily switch to a new therapist anytime it couldn't be simpler no waiting rooms no traffic no endless searching for the right therapist learn more and save 10 of your first month at betterhelp.com minutes with that's betterhelp help.com minutes with so it's interesting you say the real killer is out there yeah so I've listened to a lot of podcasts on modeling McCann like and as somebody who doesn't have the experience that you do and is just kind of listening to different people but present different types of evidence I'll listen to one and go oh well clearly that's what happened I listened to the second and go oh God clearly that's what happened yeah and then maybe the third will actually just disprove the first two yeah as someone who's been investigating it since the beginning have you had a changing opinion or have you had an opinion that has stayed fairly solid throughout no so the thing is with opinions is it's important not to give an opinion until you've got all the evidence to support that opinion um and of course it's really important to listen to all the evidence so one of the things that I do with any investigation is I take on board all the evidence that comes in and before I determine the outcome of what I believe I've heard everything I did a program about Diana Princess Diana so it's it's just got out um worldwide Princess Diana The Untold the ultimate truth and actually what I did is I I didn't know whether Princess Diana was murdered by the authorities by The Establishment the the royal family the intelligence services or was it a tragic accident and I set off on this path to find out and ultimately established through evidence very clearly you know it's a very thorough investigation it was a tragic accident and so when I looked to Madeleine McCann I did exactly the same I I brought all the information together I read all the police files I spoke to all those key Witnesses around there and um you know I had a contact via not directly but uh by one person removed with the family and so I was able to put all this information together and and my conclusion is is that on that night of Madeleine's disappearance she woke up looking for mum and dad and she'd been told the following the morning that if she were to wake up the parents were only in the tapas bar which was just across the courtyard because what we do know is Sean Emily's the um uh Francisco had woken up on the previous nights a number of times and and I suspect as a result of that Madeleine thought well where is mum and dad because they'd been out on those previous nights as well and so I believe she woke up she left the apartment we know the apartment was insecure so the back patio door was open uh and the reason it was open it was to allow some flow of air it was very hot and there was no air conditioning in those apartments and so I believe she got up and she went wandering and looking for her parents and in order to come out of that apartment you have to go onto the main road where there's a footpath to travel down the footpath to then go back into the apartment to go to where the tapas bar is and and I believe that nobody went into the apartment Madeline left that apartment that night everything supports that there's no evidence that suggests somebody has gone into that apartment uh and there is evidence when you look at cases and and I did yeah I did a lot of research around child abductions and actually so much so that went over to um Texas and spoke with the FBI and at a conference around child abductions uh looking at our cases looking the case they have and we've got two very prominent cases in the UK Jeanette Tate who went missing in the 1970s she was cycling up at the top of the hill down the top of the hill she was a matter of minutes away from her friends and by the time they got to the bottom of a hill her bike was on the floor and she'd vanished yeah matter of of minutes you know 90 seconds to do uh to two three minutes and then we've got um Sarah Payne who went uh Missing uh she vanished she was walking off with a pet walking out with her parents they're walking across the field she went through this hole in the fence and as she went through this hole in the fence parents were just behind and as they come through that she's vanished unfortunately uh Sarah's brother sees a white van just drive away and that was the uh Roy Whiting who was the kidnapper who took it and what that tells you is that on both of those occasions we don't know who abducted uh Jeanette Tate although we think it's black who's now dead but in relation to Roy Whiting who did abduct Sarah pay what we know is it was utterly um unplanned spontaneous did not know he was going to abduct a child but it wasn't Sarah it was totally opportunistic and what we know about child abductions where there are stranger abductions they are opportunistic if you abduct a child you know who that child is which is the majority of the child abductions then of course that's planned and you know who the child is but when it's opportunistic when it's not somebody known to the um the child that is not planned in terms of who the victim is so I believe that she walked out on the road and in a matter of of seconds was abducted by a predator outside now that supports all the evidence we know about looking at child abductions opportunistic Moment In Time matter of seconds and minutes before abducted and obviously not known to the offender and and I believe that that's what's happened and I sadly also evidence tells us through the FBI um child abduction manual which is very very detailed and very good because they've got 10 times as many child abductions as strange child abductions that we've had in the UK um that she would have been dead within 72 hours yeah yeah awful and do you think we'll ever know do you think we'll ever have concrete evidence for what happened sadly I think it's probably unlikely but I always use a caveat is that we have to remain positive that one day we will you know and I remain that with all my cases that I remain positive that one day ultimately that that offender will be brought to Justice and I have to believe that because otherwise there's no point in doing what I do um you know I will continue to fight for that Justice whether it be you know the the cases that we all know about um or you know other cases I've got a case in in Coventry The Disappearance of Nicola Payne and she vanished and she's never been seen since and I you know I'm working on a program and a podcast now to get Justice because I know who killed her wow wow that must be quite a lot to live with yeah and I think it's it's I have a lot of information I mean I have a lot of information comes to me uh because of the type of work I do so obviously I know about uh lots of operations that have been run I know about lots of offenders out there where there isn't quite enough evidence to prosecute I also know a lot of people's dark secrets you know during the course of um I investigated Max Clifford and Max Clifford used to um used to effectively blackmail some of his clients and uh and I've got some a number of very high profile people who he blackmailed um and and I know their stories about how he blackmailed them um you know the stories will never be told they'll they'll die with me but you know he he destroyed lots of people's lives and in a very horrific way so yeah I mean I I'm a keeper of a lot of Secrets the the thing that strikes me is so I've got a young daughter and the thing you just told me about Madeleine McCann is something else kind of stay with me for a little while it's awful I couldn't do what you do I couldn't be immersed in that world Non-Stop and just sort of see that darkness and and and doubly I couldn't do it where the cases might not be solved if there was a constant sense of closure that's something for things that like you said right at the beginning of the conversation they're just running on and on and potentially there will never be closure does it affect you yeah yeah I mean I I'd be if you ask me that question 10 years ago I'd probably say no I'd probably say no no you know I I get on with it no you know over the last three years I I have struggled with my mental health you know there's no doubt that these things have impacted on me you can't you can't see what I see and and not be affected by it you can't take on the responsibility of helping people who I come into people's lives at the most traumatic time of their life and by and large particularly the work I do now I'm their last hope everything else they've tried they've tried the police they've tried every other aspect and they've been let down they've been failed and I come along and and I and they see it as a glimmer of hope and I always try to keep that realistic balance there because I say to them look you know I I can't I can't tell you I'll solve this I can't tell you I will catch the offender I will tell you if I take this case on that I'll I'll get you new information you know there isn't a single case that I've worked on and I can say this confident you know I thought probably I thought about this yeah probably about two three years ago just before I my release my book hunting killers and I thought to myself do you know do I always make a difference and I've looked at every case and I can tell you categorically every case I've worked on I have found a new information I I went out to Kuala Lumpur to investigate the death of a young girl who ended up falling Nine Stories and uh dead on the floor and I went over there and I did an investigation and as a direct result of my investigation it was opened up as a homicide I was convinced that her death wasn't suicide which is what they put it down to and it was opened up as a homicide so every time I find new information uh and I suppose that's my Mantra really so I I'm always confident that when I take a case on and I keep chipping away at it and working at it in some of these cases it's healthy to put them down for a couple of months six months seven months and pick them up again and you sometimes see things differently plus also you know I I take on cases that I don't get paid for so I have to balance that around the work that I do get paid for um and it does affect you it affects you because I'm still a human being you know there are there's there's a couple of tracks music tracks which accompany a couple of really horrific child abuse videos that still sit in my head and I you know and those tracks you know and I hear them at certain times of the year because when there's a Christmas track you know always kind of stops me in my track when I hear it and there are the times when things come back to me you know I I've I've seen the most horrific injuries to people and and certain times something will happen and you'll see something and it will just bring back a memory um so yeah you know and I and I've worked really hard at that you know I've I've spoken to you know I've had some therapy around that uh to be able to deal with that and I think it it I live in a dark world I live in a pretty dark world and and I have to make sure that I don't that I come out of that you know so I I work really hard I train Fitness you know I'm gym regularly I look after myself I eat well um you know I've got a good family support around me and um you know and I and I think it's really hard you know I've got a great partner who's very supportive and I think that that whole process is really important because if you don't have that support around you then you you just live in a dark World all the time well look Mark it's been just as fascinating to have you back a second time as the first time and um I mean I'm just really grateful there are people like you out there who are dedicating your time to finding Justice for these people who've been treated terribly so great to meet you again and thanks so much for your time great to talk thank you yeah I've been very very quickly like I didn't expect it to happen that quick we literally had the evidence he was meant to turn up with his um with his campervan and second 13 year old girl to a campsite where he intended on what we started doing this what he said he was going to do

Channel: LADbible TV

Views: 513,208

Keywords: the lad bible, lad bible, lad, bible, videos, viral videos, viral, documentaries, exclusives, interviews, madeleine mccann, maddie mccann, kate mccann, gerry mccann, true crime, jimmy savile news, detective, investigator, child abuse, mystery, unsolved case, criminal case, private, secret, podcast, minutes with, jimmy savile, truth, investigation, police, court case, unsolved mysteries

Id: ieEe975OJdQ

Length: 57min 58sec (3478 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 16 2022