In July 1993, seven-year-old Sean Williams was lured into a north London tower block, sexually assaulted, and strangled. His body was wrapped in bin liners and left in a lift.

The man responsible, Colin Hatch, had only been free for eleven weeks — released on parole after nearly choking another young boy to death. Psychiatrists had warned he was a menace. His own lawyer predicted he could kill. Detailed written fantasies of abducting and murdering children were later found in his home. The system still let him walk free.

Host Alexander Lawson examines Hatch’s long history of assaults on young boys, the failures that allowed his release, the murder of Sean Williams, the Old Bailey trial, and Hatch’s own violent death in prison seventeen years later.

A chilling case of ignored warnings and systemic breakdown.

Listener discretion is strongly advised — this episode contains descriptions of child sexual abuse and murder.

In April 1989, four people were locked in a concrete vault beneath a Soho amusement arcade. Bound, doused in white spirit, and set alight. Two young security guards burned and suffocated to death. The survivors were left with life-changing injuries. The haul was just £9,000.

The man behind it was Victor Castigador — an illegal immigrant from the Philippines with a petty grudge against his boss. He became known as the Human Torch Killer. Nearly three decades later, still serving a whole-life sentence, he murdered again inside a high-security prison, using a rock from a fish tank.

Host Alexander Lawson examines the 1989 Soho arcade attack, the trial, the whole-life tariff, and Castigador’s final act of violence at HMP Long Lartin.

This is A True Crime Podcast.

In August 1988, a quiet South Yorkshire town was shattered by one of Britain’s most brutal killing sprees. Over just 56 hours, 21-year-old Anthony Arkwright murdered three people — and is suspected of a fourth — in acts of extreme violence that shocked even hardened detectives.

Wearing nothing but a devil mask, he stabbed, mutilated and staged his victims’ bodies in ways that echoed his obsession with Jack the Ripper. Host Alexander Lawson recounts the full story of the Wath-upon-Dearne murders, the chilling clues Arkwright left in plain sight, and the whole-life sentence that means he will never walk free.

A dark chapter in British true crime.

A 15-year-old girl comes home from school and finds her mother’s body hidden in the attic.

In this episode of A True Crime Podcast, host Alexander Lawson tells the chilling story of Victor Farrant – a convicted rapist released from prison in 1995 who, within weeks, launched a savage attack on one woman and then murdered his former girlfriend, Glenda Hoskins, by drowning her in her own bath.

Farrant fled the country and became one of Britain’s most wanted men before his eventual capture. At trial the judge declared him so dangerous that life should mean life – a rare whole-life order.

Nearly three decades later, as Farrant lay dying in prison, the question of whether he should ever walk free again returned to haunt the victims’ families.

This is the full account of the crimes, the manhunt, the sentence that was meant to last forever, and the final chapter that almost rewrote it.

It’s just after dawn on a freezing January morning in 1988. Thick fog blankets the quiet village of Hagley. A 14-year-old boy sets out on his paper round… and never comes home.

Two weeks later, a man in police custody calmly leads officers to a remote drainage culvert and tells them exactly where to find the body.

That man is Victor Miller — a Wolverhampton computer operator with a long history of preying on young boys. In this episode, Alexander Lawson examines the abduction and brutal murder of Stuart Gough, the trail of earlier attacks that police believe numbered nearly thirty, and the confession that finally stopped a dangerous predator.

A chilling true-crime account of how ordinary childhood routines became the hunting ground for a sadistic killer who asked to die in prison.

On the night of 23 October 1983, just hours after a joyful family wedding in the quiet Sheffield suburb of Dore, a man on the run slipped into the Laitner home through a patio door. By morning, solicitor Basil Laitner, his wife Avril, and their son Richard lay dead. Their 18-year-old daughter Nicola had been raped at knifepoint and left bound.

The killer helped himself to leftover champagne and cheese before vanishing. He called himself “the Fox.”

In this episode of A True Crime Podcast, host Alexander Lawson recounts the crimes of Arthur Hutchinson — a violent fugitive whose brutal attack triggered one of Britain’s biggest manhunts, a high-profile trial, and a whole-life sentence that still stands today.

In a council flat in Poplar, a man dismembered his victims in the bathtub, burned their remains in the fireplace, and charged around £2,000 a life. Six people vanished between 1974 and 1978 — including a ten-year-old boy. No bodies were ever found.

Host Alexander Lawson examines the confessions of John Childs, Britain’s most prolific hitman, the chilling details of his contract killings, and the later revelation that he was a pathological liar whose evidence freed the men he implicated.

A story of professional murder, domestic horror, and justice that remains incomplete.

He poured the wine, polished the silver, and bowed with perfect manners. They called him Roy Fontaine. Behind the polished smile was Archibald Thomson Hall — a lifelong conman who, in just six months, shot his lover, smothered a socialite, beat a former MP to death, murdered a housekeeper, and drowned his own brother.

Host Alexander Lawson unravels the chilling true story of the Monster Butler, the Glasgow thief who infiltrated Britain’s upper class… and left five bodies in his wake.

In the mid-1970s, three teenage girls were murdered on the streets of north-east Manchester. Their killer stabbed, strangled and mutilated them — then, when police closed in, deliberately filed his own teeth to destroy the forensic evidence and walk free.

Host Alexander Lawson examines the chilling crimes of Trevor Joseph Hardy, the serial killer known as the Beast of Manchester, whose reign of terror has largely faded from national memory. This is the story of three young lives cut short, a calculated act of self-mutilation, and one of Britain’s most disturbing forgotten killers.

In the dead of night, a man in black cut the phone lines, slipped into a quiet Shropshire home, and took 17-year-old Lesley Whittle from her bed. The only things left behind were a ransom note for £50,000 and a box of Turkish Delight.

That man was Donald Neilson — the prolific burglar turned armed robber who became known as the Black Panther. Before the kidnapping, he had already murdered three postmasters during a deadly crime spree across northern England and the Midlands.

Host Alexander Lawson traces Neilson’s path from hundreds of silent break-ins to the underground drainage shaft where Lesley was held, the massive manhunt that followed, and the chance encounter that finally brought Britain’s most wanted killer to justice.