Beyond Reasonable Doubt

Police marksman Tony Long was dubbed ‘the Met’s very own serial killer’ by a senior officer after shooting three men dead, including two security van robbers gunned down in seconds in a hail of bullets. In the second part of an interview with award-winning crime writer Stephen Wright, Long describes how he shot gangster Azelle Rodney dead in a car, wrongly believing Rodney was reaching for a Mac-10 submachine gun - and faced trial for alleged murder at the Old Bailey over the killing. Long also explains why he had little doubt he would be acquitted.

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For 25 years, police ‘top shot’ Tony Long served in Scotland Yard’s elite specialist firearms unit, becoming Britain’s most lethal police marksman (and at one point facing trial for murder over a split-second decision to shoot). In Part One of a no-holds-barred interview with Daily Mail crime writer Stephen Wright, Long gives an insider’s view of what led up to the moment two colleagues shot innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes seven times in the head in the wake of the July 2005 terror attacks (and why although the Met was fined over the catastrophic operation, the officers who gunned him down never faced any criminal charges).

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The night the Krays moved into my house (after shooting dead a rival gangster) After shooting dead a rival gangster in full view of drinkers in an East End pub, the Kray twins took over a young man's family home for two weeks as they hid from the law. Award-winning crime writer Stephen Wright talks to David Teale, whose new book, ‘Surviving the Krays’, tells the story of how he met the notorious gangsters aged 17, suffered a brutal sex attack by Ronnie, was then jailed for three years after being ‘fitted up’, and how his testimony helped to ensure the Kray twins were themselves locked up for murder in 1969 (but not before the brothers sowed the seeds of unimaginable tragedy in Teale’s own life).

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Twenty years ago, former Conservative Minister Neil Hamilton and his TV personality wife Christine were arrested over false rape allegations - with documentary maker Louis Theroux filming it all. Their accuser was a woman with a long history of false allegations but Scotland Yard took her seriously. Award-winning Daily Mail crime writer Stephen Wright, who covered the damaging fallout of their high-profile arrests in 2001, talks to the Hamiltons about a case which embarrassed Britain’s biggest police force - and whether detectives failed to learn lessons from it .

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John Thaw’s hard-drinking, rule-bending detective Jack Regan was a 70s TV icon - and amazingly, he was inspired by a real policeman. Acclaimed scriptwriter Ian Kennedy Martin gives Stephen Wright the inside story on The Sweeney, the legendary ITV series he created. The cop show pioneer also tells all about his other hits including Juliet Bravo, why filming car chases was easier in the 70s (the cars were all dirt cheap) - and how he had the original idea for iconic Michael Caine crime caper The Italian Job (but sold it to his script-writing brother Troy Kennedy Martin, who wrote the BBC’s long-running Z-Cars). Strap in for half an hour of TV crime drama nostalgia.

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To this day, no individual or organisation has been truly held to account over the disastrous errors of judgement that led to a 'witch hunt' against powerful figures including Lord Brittan, accused of being part of a gang of murdering paedophiles. Award-winning crime writer Stephen Wright talks to his widow Lady Brittan, who says, ‘There were monumental errors in this case, but no one said that they got it horribly, horribly wrong.’ Lady Brittan says she now believes that the Metropolitan Police prefers its own ambitions to a strong moral compass. 

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In an extraordinary press conference, former Conservative MP Harvey Proctor tackled the absurd allegations of VIP paedophile liar Carl Beech, saying, 'I am a homosexual - not a murderer or a paedophile.' The moment marked a turning point in the VIP child abuse 'witch hunt' against senior military figures and politicians including Lord Brittan, says his widow Lady Brittan, in an exclusive interview with award-winning crime-writer Stephen Wright. The spotlight began to turn onto the behaviour of the police themselves - and of supposed abuse victim Carl Beech, unmasked as being a paedophile himself. 

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Police showed up with a search warrant at the former home of distinguished ex-Home Secretary Leon Brittan, just weeks after his death from cancer - and officers took away diaries, computers and phones to investigate the baseless accusations of paedophile Carl Beech. His widow, Lady Brittan, tells award-winning Daily Mail crime writer Stephen Wright that the ‘extraordinary’ search warrant given to officers that day raises troubling questions for several senior police officers.

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Just days after Lord Brittan succumbed to terminal cancer, Tom Watson wrote a column repeating the vile lies of paedophile Carl Beech in a Sunday newspaper, claiming that Lord Brittan was part of a ring of VIP child abusers. It was, says his widow Lady Brittan, a ‘despicable act of cowardice’, published days after his death to avoid the threat of being sued. In conversation with award-winning crime writer Stephen Wright, Lady Brittan reveals how the false allegations turned into a terrifying ‘witch hunt’ where police arrived at her door with a search warrant.

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Painfully thin and wasted after weeks in an intensive care unit, former Home Secretary Lord Brittan had just weeks to live when Detective Superintendent Kenny McDonald said that his team had spoken to the victim of a supposed VIP child abuse ring - and that the outrageous lies of paedophile Carl Beech were ‘credible and true’. Award-winning crime writer Stephen Wright talks to his widow, Lady Brittan, on how Labour politician Tom Watson became a ‘crusader’ for delusional alleged child sex abuse victims - and the BBC amplified the lies of the false accusers.

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