In November 1995, Rose West was convicted of murdering 10 children, teenagers and young women. The public gallery at the trial was packed, onlookers cramped, shoulder to shoulder — there was barely any room to move, no more so than when Rose had offered evidence. One of those people who sat on the public benches was author Brian Masters…

John Frederick Perry had been through a messy divorce and now found himself living alone with his cat, Katie, in the village of Higher Kinnerton in North Wales. John had saved up some money and decided to treat himself to a three-week holiday to Manila in the Philippines. On his travels, he met a young woman who he went on to marry. From the outside, it appeared that everything was going well, but John began to get jealous of the male attention his much younger wife received… 

We’ve all had them. Those awkward first dates. You struggle to find something to talk about. So you go for the sure bet, and you mention the weather. But what would you do if you ended up meeting someone for a romantic night in, and you end up being arrested, and held in police custody for a crime you didn't commit?…

Upon his release in 1987, Michael Peterson had spent almost a decade and a half in prison. He had served the majority of his sentence in solitary confinement, but now the 35-year-old was a free man and had taken up bare-knuckle boxing under his new name, Charles Bronson…(Part 2 of 2).

There is only one prisoner who will go down in history as being Britain’s most notoriously violent inmate. This is not a label you get overnight, and despite a couple of short-lived moments of freedom, he has been in prison since 1974, with the majority of those years held in solitary confinement. He has spent time in the notorious “Hannibal Cage” at Wakefield prison due to his violent outbursts. The walls are made of reinforced concrete, and sheets of bulletproof glass allow the inmate to be observed 24 hours a day. The cage within a cage has a table and chair made entirely of cardboard, and meals are slid through a 1-foot gap in the cell door. There is no human contact, not from the guards, and certainly not from other inmates. He is alone except for the rare visit from a solicitor, and this meeting is conducted through a steel net. Prisoner BT1314 now spends his days in a cell 12 foot by 6 foot. While many stress he has never murdered anyone, that isn't for the lack of trying. Michael Peterson has been known under many names, but the most familiar of all… is Charles Bronson… (Part 1 of 2).

In 2004, Sydney Blackwell, a retired accountant, and his wife Jacqueline, an antiques dealer, lived in the village of Melling in Merseyside. It's an affluent area with green fields, old churches and quaint cottages. They shared their home with their 18-year-old son, Brian. As Sydney sat in his favourite chair, his son attacked him with a claw hammer and then proceeded to stab his mother over 15 times…

Stephen Port was arrested on October 15, 2015, for the murders of 4 men. They were all found in Barking in East London and had all died in strikingly similar circumstances. All had deadly levels of GHB in their system, and the police had initially believed this was either accidental or self-inflicted. The family and friends of the young men did not think that they would choose to take their own lives, and it was only due to the sheer force of will on their part; they managed to convince investigators to look beyond their initial findings. After new evidence had been uncovered, the police had their suspect in custody… (Part 2 of 2).

St Margaret’s Church is located in Barking, in East London. The church is surrounded by grassland and lies on the same grounds as an abbey, which has fallen into ruin. During the summer of 2014, the churchyard would be the location where two young men would be found, weeks apart. Both had died from an apparent overdose of GHB, otherwise known as liquid ecstasy. Both men, in their early 20s, were similar in stature and openly gay. The police attributed the first death to an accidental overdose and the second to suicide, with neither of them being deemed suspicious. According to police, the two young men had known each other. The second had taken his life as he couldn’t live with the knowledge that the first man had died from a drug overdose while the two men were having sex. One year later, a third man fitting the same description as the previous two was found dead, next to the churchyard. While the police still believed the three deaths to be a coincidence, it was the body of a fourth man found dead only 500 metres from the churchyard, in June 2014, that would lead investigators to the front door of Stephen Port… (Part 1 of 2).

Canterbury is a Cathedral city located in Kent in the South East of England. The city lies on the River Stour, and within the city walls, the Gothic Canterbury Cathedral dominates the skyline. On March 29, 2016, the emergency services received a phone call from 54-year-old Foster Christian. He claimed that he was assaulted at home by some of his housemates. Foster, who had a cut above his right eye, insisted he was acting in self-defence; however, two people had been stabbed to death, and two young men, aged 20 and 16, were severely injured… The incident was said to have started over a cup of tea…

The Humber Bridge nature reserve is in the East Riding of Yorkshire and is a scenic place where families spend the day. It's also the location of rumour and legend, like that of the headless man that stalks the woodland at night.  The legend has a grain of truth as a motorcyclist was beaten to death there in 1963, though wasn't decapitated as the rumour suggests. It isn't the only story about the park. The phantom of a vanishing cyclist is said to be regularly seen. It is said a cyclist had died by plunging over the edge of the quarry, and his ghost continues to replay the tragedy. Another urban legend is that the black mill, a windmill that stands in the park, was a safe place for witches in Victorian times, which made it a spot for practising Satanists in the 1980s… 

On May 11, 2012, in the early hours of the morning, a fire raged throughout a semi-detached house in Derby. The fire had spread so rapidly by the time firefighters arrived, the house was engulfed in flames. Six children died as a result. Those responsible for the fire were the children's parents and a family friend... (Part 2 of 2).

May 11, 2012. In the early hours of the morning, a fire raged throughout a semi-detached house in Derby. Thick smoke escaped through anywhere it could, billowing out onto the street, alerting neighbours who rushed to try and help those trapped inside. The fire had spread so rapidly by the time firefighters arrived, the house was engulfed in flames… (Part 1 of 2).

At 13, Graham Frederick Young’s knowledge of chemistry was that of a university student, and he needed subjects that he had unlimited access to. That’s when he turned his attention to experimenting on his family…