Stalker’s disturbing demand for Colin Stagg after wrongful arrest for Rachel Nickell’s murder

While The Witness focuses on the murder of Rachel Nickell and its impact on her loved ones, André and Alex Hanscombe, a throwback interview reveals that Colin Stagg was still dealing with terrifying harassment more than a decade after he was wrongly accused of the crime.

Based on the book Letting Go by Rachel’s son Alex, The Witness was released alongside documentary The Murder of Rachel Nickell on Netflix.

Both detail the shocking murder of Rachel, 23, who was brutally attacked in broad daylight walking across Wimbledon Common with her then-two-year-old son. 

While the incident took place on July 15, 1992, the real perpetrator, Robert Napper, wasn’t convicted of the crime until 2008. The Netflix series and the documentary focus on the impact this had on André and Alex, as well as the errors made by the Met Police during the investigation. 

Years prior, a man named Colin Stagg was subjected to a controversial undercover “honeytrap” operation in which an officer posed as a woman and attempted to persuade him to confess to violent fantasies. 

Despite no forensic evidence linking him to the crime, the mission continued, with the undercover police officer – using the pseudonym Lizzie James – trying to elicit a confession. 

When she told him she enjoyed hurting people, he replied, “Please explain, as I live a quiet life. If I have disappointed you, please don’t dump me. Nothing like this has happened to me before.”

She then said, “If only you had done the Wimbledon Common murder, if only you had killed her, it would be all right,” to which Stagg replied, “I’m terribly sorry, but I haven’t.”

Despite the lack of any evidence, Stagg was arrested and charged with Rachel’s murder. 

It wasn’t until the trial in 1994 when he was acquitted, with the judge ruling the evidence as inadmissible and saying the police were guilty of a “blatant attempt to incriminate a suspect”.

Stagg eventually received £706,000 in compensation, but as he later revealed, the damage had nothing to do with money. 

Colin Stagg had a stalker years after being acquitted

In a 2004 interview with This Morning, Stagg revealed that being cleared had not put an end to the abuse he received. 

“I still have a stalker today,” he said. “She bombards me with letters and she appears on my door. She scrawled in lipstick obscenities across my door because I refuse to have sex with her.”

While this was years ago, as recently as 2021, Stagg revealed that the case still has an impact on his life due to the suspicion that surrounded him – even after Robert Napper was found to be the murderer. 

Speaking to Good Morning Britain, he explained, “The newspapers, they printed so many articles about me which just wasn’t true. And when Robert Napper was finally arrested, there was hardly anything in the newspapers about it at all.”

As is revealed in one study, Colin Stagg was the subject of unrelenting media hostility.” On the day his acquittal was announced, one headline by The Sun said, “No Girl is Safe,” writing that he “was now laughing at the law amid fears he would kill again”. 

The Mirror wrote, “Now I’ll make a Killing”, referring to the damages Stagg would likely demand, while the Express asked, “Where is the justice?”

The study goes on, “Mr Stagg had to endure a campaign where he was described in newspapers as a ‘sick weirdo’, a ‘pervert’ and a ‘kinky sex offender’ and false claims that the Nickell family were going to sue him.”

He was ‘vilified’ by the press

In 2004, when new evidence linking Napper to the crime was uncovered, Stagg appeared on Good Morning Britain, where the interview noted that even after being acquitted, he was “vilified throughout the land.”

“That was all down to the tabloid newspapers more than anything. For some strange reason they had it in for me,” he said. 

“They thought I got off on a technicality and up to that point my name had been blackened anyway by so many false stories about me in the newspapers of which I’m still fighting today.”

When asked to clarify which stories, he said, “Well, calling me a sex offender. I have not committed any sexual offence at all. I have letters from the police themselves admitting that I’m an innocent man.”

Although Stagg has moved on with his life, The Witness viewers are remembering the media campaign against him at the time. 

“I remember reading the usual tabloids at the time and they really crucified that guy, the papers really made that guy’s life hell,” wrote one on Reddit.

Another who watched the documentary instead said, “I watched that last night and was horrified at how the Met handled things.

“I liked how they’d interviewed Colin Stagg too and would probably watch a whole episode on how his life was affected by the false accusation.”

A third added, “Imagine being unemployed, vilified and hated by the public for 10+ years! I sympathise with him. I think he should write a book about it.”

In the 2021 interview, Stagg expressed forgiveness and understanding towards the police despite what he was put through, noting how they were under “pressure” to find the killer. 

Now, he’s moved on with his life, saying, “I don’t see myself as a victim anyway. I never look backwards because backwards is negative, forwards is positive, and that’s how I live my life basically.”

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Featured image credit: Netflix