You may not be aware of who Ken Dodd is — a surreal stand-up family-friendly Liverpudlian comedian and ventriloquist, Dodd began his career in the 1950s but really had his hay day in the 60s, 70s, and early 80s. His is a distinctive looking man — his prominent features, a head of fluffy wild hair and protruding teeth, were often accompanied by a red, white and blue feather duster, a prop that Dodd called his tickle stick.

An allotment is usually a place of tranquillity and community. Somewhere to watch your hard work grow. During 2017, at an allotment in London, something happened to change that sense of peace.

Raised in Swindon, Sallyann, or Sally as her mother would call her, had a happy childhood. Much like any other youngster at the time, Sallyann would ride her bike around the estate, enjoying walks in the park and family picnics. She was especially close to her mother. She was a happy child, but in her adolescence, she grew rebellious.

He had already spent much of his teenage years in and out of facilities for youth offenders. Edinburgh-born Alastair Thompson, at only eighteen years old, was about to commit a heinous crime that would see him put behind bars for over a decade and a half. 

On March 19, 2002, Linda Razzell vanished on her way to work. After a lengthly investigation, police set their sets on Linda’s estranged husband Glyn. His whereabout on the morning she went missing could not be accountant for and a considerable amount of Linda’s blood was found in a car he had borrowed. Glyn Razzell was charged and the case went to trial, but he protested his innocence — insisting that the blood found in the car had been planted (Part 2 of 2).

At 8:40 am on the morning of Tuesday, March 19, 2002, Linda Razzell got into her red Ford Escort along with her partner Greg Worrall and three of her four children. She was running late, which was not uncommon (Part 1 of 2).

A nineteen-year-old Oxford student suddenly goes missing in 1991. Can the police weave their way through the lies to get to the truth?

On March 24, 2011, Christopher Halliwell was arrested in connection with the suspected kidnapping of Sian O’Callaghan. Halliwell subsequently admitted to the murder, leading police to not only Sian’s body but the remains of another victim.

After DNA testing police identified the woman to be Swindon native, Rebecca Godden-Edwards. During October 2012, Halliwell was sentenced to a minimum of 25 years for Sian’s murder, but a judge ruled that evidence gathered during the day of Halliwell's arrest was inadmissible. He couldn’t be charged for the killing of Rebecca Godden-Edwards — despite him leading police to her remains. But Why? (Part 2 of 2).

Detective Superintendent Stephen Fulcher has been with the police force for 25 years. Following a missing persons appeal in 2011 — that quickly unravelled into a double murder inquiry — he couldn’t have imagined that his actions, to find the truth, would not only bring about the end of his career but almost cost him his life (Part 1 of 2).

The New Forest is a beautiful and peaceful part of rural Hampshire. Purple heather covers grassland, horses roam freely, deer wander through the woodland. In 1986 the tranquillity was disturbed by one of the most heinous crimes in British history. 

Witches, warlocks, grave robbing and vampire hunters may seem like the subjects reserved for fantasy and horror films, but this case actually happened in 1970s Britain. 

Following the murder of Michael Gregsten and the rape and attempted murder of Valerie Storie, a call was made to James Hanratty to turn himself in. Scotland Yard had dropped Peter Alphon as a suspect, and after questioning Charles ‘Dixie’ France — police learned that Hanratty had referred to the upstairs back seat of a London Bus, as being a good place to dispose of unwanted goods. This was the exact place the murder weapon had been found (Part 2 of 2). 

The sun was barely starting to go down on the Summer evening in 1961 when Michael Gregsten and Valerie Storie pulled off the road into the cornfield at Dorney Reach, Buckinghamshire. They frequently went parking there — or “trysting” as was often said at the time. 

Sometimes others had the same idea, but on this particular Tuesday evening it was just them and the faint sound of cars passing along the road behind. They sat in the grey Morris Minor for half an hour, smoking and chatting without the faintest idea that anyone else was there. It was the tapping on the drivers side window that startled them (Part 1 of 2).

Through their line of soft toys, Dena and Lee hoped their self-created character ‘Sean the Leprechaun’, on which their toys were based, would earn them a fortune and be developed into a hit animation film for children. Following a holiday in Florida, Dena convinced her husband that, they would be earning £50 million through a deal she had struck with the Walt Disney company.

Over the course of three days at Winchester Crown court the jury decided if the evidence the prosecution presented was sufficient enough to prove that Matthew Hamlen stabbed, robbed and bludgeoned to death 77-year-old Georgina Edmonds on the wet and grey afternoon of January 11, 2008. 

Hamlen had been in custody for the past 12 months since he was charged with murder, but always denied his involvement (Part 2 of 2).

Kiln Lane is a narrow road flanked by woodland, crossing the River Itchen, and winding south-east from the village of Otterbourne to the quiet hamlet of Brambridge in the south-east of England. Although isolated, measuring roughly a mile, the road is used a commuter route so a considerable amount of traffic passes through it during peak travel times. 

Shortly before 6pm, on Friday, January 11, 2008, police were alerted to an address on the thoroughfare, close to the river bank (Part 1 of 2).

At the end of May 1998, nearly two months after Sylvia Fleming went missing, building developer Patrick Haughey was woken early one morning by the telephone. Police needed access to a four-bedroom detached house he was developing on Circular Road in County Tyrone.

Ruth and Dean Neave lived on Redmile Walk in the Welland Estate of Peterborough. Social services were highly involved with the family. The children were placed on the at-risk register, and Ruth was vocal with authorities about not being able to cope — she even threatened that she might hurt her children.

In the 1980s, cases of consumer terrorism had reached a peak. You may have heard about the Tylenol murders in America. Seven people lost their lives when they consumed tablets from bottles purchased in chemists and supermarkets. They had no way of knowing the pills they swallowed were randomly laced with potassium cyanide. A few years later, the United Kingdom had its own scare when lethal contaminants were hidden in everyday products.

After a shooting on a small holding that left one man dead and two injured, Albert Dryden was arrested and taken into custody (Part 2 of 2).