Sinister South

A one-legged man in Tooting spent years telling anyone who'd listen that someone had pushed him under a train. Nobody believed him. They should have.

This week Rach takes Hannah down the Northern line to meet the men Kieran Kelly preyed on: homeless, mostly Irish, mostly forgotten, killed in churchyards and derelict buildings and even a police cell across South London. Kelly confessed to as many as fifteen murders. He was convicted of just two. We tell the story from the victims' side, the people who usually get a single line if they're lucky, and ask why a man could kill for thirty years and barely raise an eyebrow.

Expect Clapham Common, Kennington, a wire noose in an Irish garden, and a founding story that turns out to be completely false.
Huge credit to the brilliant podcast The Nobody Zone (RTÉ Documentary on One and Third Ear), whose reporting underpins much of this episode. Go and listen, it's superb. Full sources in the show notes.

Content warning: murder, violence, poisoning, suicide, mental illness, addiction and animal abuse.

Sources include

https://www.rte.ie/eile/podcasts/2020/0217/1114553-the-nobody-zone/
https://www.rte.ie/culture/2023/1104/1414347-the-nobody-zone-and-the-confessions-of-an-irish-serial-killer/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kieran_Patrick_Kelly
https://www.abebooks.com/9781526722768/Secret-Serial-Killer-True-Story-1526722763/plp
https://www.irishpost.com/news/new-documentary-reveals-the-real-story-behind-londons-irish-serial-killer-107008
https://www.thejournal.ie/the-nobody-zone-podcast-rte-kieran-patrick-kelly-5051602-Mar2020/
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29275367
https://www.murderuk.com/kieran-kelly.html

Support the show

Thanks for tuning in! If you loved diving into the dark corners of South London with us, don't forget to hit that subscribe button to never miss an episode of "Sinister South."

Also, follow us on Instagram @SinisterSouthPodcast for sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes content, and more cheeky banter, or www.sinistersouthpod.co.uk. Remember, every crime tells a story... and South is the best side of the river... 

Produced and hosted by Hannah Williams & Rachel Baines
Mixed & edited by Purple Waves Sound (A.K.A Will)

On 16 December 2021, fire broke out at a family home in Sutton. Four little boys were inside on their own: two sets of twins, Kyson and Bryson, aged four, and Logan and Layton, aged three. Their Christmas presents were already wrapped and waiting under the tree.

This week we look at how the boys died and at the conviction of their mum, Deveca Rose, for manslaughter. We also cover the warnings that went unanswered in the months before the fire. Along the way, we explain what the law actually says about smoke alarms and about leaving children home alone, and the different routes to a manslaughter conviction. Then there’s the public review into these boys’ deaths, which we couldn’t find anywhere.

We also set the case alongside similar tragedies in Stafford, Manchester and Brighton, and ask why the system’s response to them has been so inconsistent.

Content warning: this episode discusses the deaths of young children in a house fire, child neglect and mental illness.

Support the show

Thanks for tuning in! If you loved diving into the dark corners of South London with us, don't forget to hit that subscribe button to never miss an episode of "Sinister South."

Also, follow us on Instagram @SinisterSouthPodcast for sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes content, and more cheeky banter, or www.sinistersouthpod.co.uk. Remember, every crime tells a story... and South is the best side of the river... 

Produced and hosted by Hannah Williams & Rachel Baines
Mixed & edited by Purple Waves Sound (A.K.A Will)

In August 1835, a Southwark landlord climbs into his stable loft and looks through a gap into the room he's rented out for thirteen months. His wife looks too, through the keyhole this time. Less than a minute, between the two of them.

That's all it took to end up with two men in the dock at the Old Bailey and, three months later, hanged outside Newgate Prison in front of a crowd. James Pratt and John Smith are the last two men ever executed in England for the crime the law called sodomy, and this week Rachel takes Hannah through exactly how a look through a keyhole became a death sentence, when so many other men convicted of the same "crime" that same year walked away with their lives.

It's a story about Southwark's long disreputable history, a police force that was barely six years old, a magistrate called Hensley Wedgwood (yes, that Wedgwood) who tried to save them and was ignored, and a pardon that didn't arrive for 182 years.

 Content warning for this one, it covers a historical state execution, homophobic persecution and some of the archaic language and legal terminology of the period.

Sources include

James Pratt and John Smith – Wikipedia

The Trial of James Pratt and John Smith, 1835 – Rictor Norton

The Last Men Executed for Sodomy in England, 1835 – Rictor Norton

1835: John Smith and James Pratt – Executed Today

Pratt and Smith: the last UK men hanged for sodomy – Frank Ryan, libcom.org

Dickens, Smith & Pratt – Charles Dickens Museum

Law and Oppression – Historic England LGBTQ Heritage Project

Pratt & Smith: last men hanged in England for gay sex – Peter Tatchell Foundation

Sketches by Boz, A Visit to Newgate – Wikisource

"The tragic story of the last two men in the UK executed for being gay" – PinkNews, 2017

Alan Turing law – Wikipedia

"This is what the Turing Law pardon means" – PinkNews, 2017

Support the show

Thanks for tuning in! If you loved diving into the dark corners of South London with us, don't forget to hit that subscribe button to never miss an episode of "Sinister South."

Also, follow us on Instagram @SinisterSouthPodcast for sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes content, and more cheeky banter, or www.sinistersouthpod.co.uk. Remember, every crime tells a story... and South is the best side of the river... 

Produced and hosted by Hannah Williams & Rachel Baines
Mixed & edited by Purple Waves Sound (A.K.A Will)

On 30 April 2001, 85-year-old Hilda Lockert was a few steps from her front door on the Angel Town estate in Brixton when two people pulled her to the ground and robbed her. They took her shopping, her keys and a purse with £15 in it. Hilda broke her knee in the fall, and after surgery she developed a blood clot. She died on 15 May 2001, her 86th birthday.

The case went cold for years, until a tiny trace of DNA on the handle of her shopping bag was re-examined in 2015. This week Han tells Rach how that evidence led to a conviction at the Old Bailey two decades later, why it was manslaughter rather than murder, and why one of the two attackers has never been identified.

We also look at Angell Town itself and Dora Boatemah, the resident who fought for years to rebuild it. Plus a side quest into DNA transfer, and whether your DNA can end up somewhere you've never been.

Content note: violent robbery and the death of an elderly woman. Nothing graphic.

Support the show

Thanks for tuning in! If you loved diving into the dark corners of South London with us, don't forget to hit that subscribe button to never miss an episode of "Sinister South."

Also, follow us on Instagram @SinisterSouthPodcast for sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes content, and more cheeky banter, or www.sinistersouthpod.co.uk. Remember, every crime tells a story... and South is the best side of the river... 

Produced and hosted by Hannah Williams & Rachel Baines
Mixed & edited by Purple Waves Sound (A.K.A Will)

Part 2 of our first ever two-parter. And before we get into it, Hannah returns from Kilkenny having mugged an old lady 100 feet up a cathedral tower, singing Limp Bizkit to herself in a full-body panic. Meanwhile Rach has learned that some young people apparently do not know who Beyonce or Jay-Z are. Truly a low moment for civilisation.

Then it's back to Eltham.

Picking up where Part 1 left off in 1997, Rach walks through the Macpherson Inquiry and the moment it declared the Metropolitan Police institutionally racist, the shocking admission from the detective who led the investigation that he didn't know he could arrest anyone on reasonable suspicion, the lost years when the suspects kept racking up convictions for everything except Stephen's murder, and the extraordinary cold case work by DCI Clive Driscoll that finally uncovered the forensic evidence needed to convict Gary Dobson and David Norris at the Old Bailey in January 2012.

We then get into the Ellison Review, which uncovered that undercover officers had been spying on the Lawrence family while they were grieving. The 2023 BBC investigation naming Matthew White as the sixth attacker Duwayne Brooks had always insisted was there. The 2025 public parole hearing where David Norris finally admitted his presence at the scene but refused to name the other attackers, and the Parole Board's decision in December to keep him behind bars.

And then, because you can't tell this story in 2026 without saying it, a look at how much has genuinely changed in 33 years. The rise of Reform UK, the Tommy Robinson rallies, the 32 percent vote share in the borough right next to where Stephen was murdered, and why the reckoning this story demanded has not finished yet.

If you haven't heard Part 1 yet, go back and start there. And do please visit the Stephen Lawrence Day Foundation to learn more about Stephen's legacy and the work being done in his name.

Support the show

Thanks for tuning in! If you loved diving into the dark corners of South London with us, don't forget to hit that subscribe button to never miss an episode of "Sinister South."

Also, follow us on Instagram @SinisterSouthPodcast for sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes content, and more cheeky banter, or www.sinistersouthpod.co.uk. Remember, every crime tells a story... and South is the best side of the river... 

Produced and hosted by Hannah Williams & Rachel Baines
Mixed & edited by Purple Waves Sound (A.K.A Will)

We're back after two weeks off (during which Rachel's head literally exploded, we killed a sacred crow, a barefoot Sasquatch has been moving dead foxes around New Eltham, and Hannah announced she's off to hairdressing college). But then Rach dives into part one of the biggest case South London has ever seen.

On the night of 22 April 1993, 18-year-old Stephen Lawrence was waiting at a bus stop in Eltham with his best friend Duwayne Brooks when he was surrounded and stabbed to death by a group of white youths in an unprovoked, racially motivated attack. Within 24 hours, the police had names. Within days, they had detailed tip-offs from at least half a dozen sources, all pointing to the same handful of young men. It would take two weeks for anyone to be arrested, three years for a private prosecution to collapse in the Old Bailey, and nearly two decades for a single conviction.

Part one covers Stephen's life and his family, the night of the attack, the botched investigation, the rise of the BNP in Welling and Eltham in the early 1990s, the five prime suspects and the world they came from, the covert surveillance tapes that captured their true nature, the collapse of the private prosecution, and the inquest verdict that finally named the killing for what it was.

This is our first ever two-parter. Part two lands next Wednesday, covering the Macpherson Inquiry, the forensic breakthrough, the 2012 convictions, the sixth attacker revealed 30 years later, and where every key figure is now.

Sources in the show notes. And a reminder to visit the Stephen Lawrence Day Foundation to learn more about Stephen's legacy.

Support the show

Thanks for tuning in! If you loved diving into the dark corners of South London with us, don't forget to hit that subscribe button to never miss an episode of "Sinister South."

Also, follow us on Instagram @SinisterSouthPodcast for sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes content, and more cheeky banter, or www.sinistersouthpod.co.uk. Remember, every crime tells a story... and South is the best side of the river... 

Produced and hosted by Hannah Williams & Rachel Baines
Mixed & edited by Purple Waves Sound (A.K.A Will)

In November 2013, gardeners clearing a garden in Warlingham, Surrey, found a body at the bottom of an old well. It had been there for two and a half years. The man was Damian Chlywka, a Polish national who had come to the UK to work and had been reported missing from Thornton Heath in April 2011. Ten men were arrested over the course of the investigation. None were ever charged. In 2015, an inquest recorded a verdict of unlawful killing, without ever establishing how Damian died. This week, Rach tells the story of a man who built a quiet life across south London and Surrey, and of an investigation that ran into dead end after dead end, two suspects who died before they could be questioned, a third who was never reachable, and a case that remains unsolved to this day.

Trigger warning: this episode discusses violent assault, human remains, and the exploitation risks faced by migrant workers.

Sources include

https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/local-news/detectives-renew-appeal-information-warlingham-6670839
https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/warlingham-well-murder-suspect-released-6997364
https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/cause-death-man-found-well-9309639
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/damian-chlywka-surrey-warlingham-suspicion-murder-well-526385
https://www.heart.co.uk/sussex/news/local/warlingham-body-down-well/
https://www.eastlondonlines.co.uk/2013/12/body-found-in-well-identified-as-croydon-resident/
https://www.itv.com/news/london/update/2013-11-30/family-of-well-murder-victim-distraught/
https://tvn24.pl/swiat/makabryczne-odkrycie-pod-londynem-w-studni-znaleziono-cialo-winni-polacy-ra372367-3449891
https://www.murdermap.co.uk/unsolved-murders/unsolved-homicides-2013/
https://crimeimmemorial.com/2023/08/04/damian-chlywka/
https://thecrimetalk.com/uk-true-crime/damian-chlywka/
http://www.unsolved-murders.co.uk/murder-content.php?key=2406&termRef=Damian+Chlywka
https://www.facebook.com/StreetCrimeUK1/posts/hidden-in-a-well-the-unlawful-killing-of-damian-chlywka-and-a-death-still-withou/1208111654793635/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-24979959
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-24998049
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-24977887
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-24966496
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-24971242
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-25165251
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/body-of-man-found-in-warlingham-well-had-been-there-for-two-years-8948414.html
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/19/body-found-well-warlingham-two-years-tied-up
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/warlingham-body-well-identified-damian-2867157

Support the show

Thanks for tuning in! If you loved diving into the dark corners of South London with us, don't forget to hit that subscribe button to never miss an episode of "Sinister South."

Also, follow us on Instagram @SinisterSouthPodcast for sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes content, and more cheeky banter, or www.sinistersouthpod.co.uk. Remember, every crime tells a story... and South is the best side of the river... 

Produced and hosted by Hannah Williams & Rachel Baines
Mixed & edited by Purple Waves Sound (A.K.A Will)

Today #Trevors, we head to Dulwich, an affluent part of south London where the crime also tends to have a bit of a "posh" edge to it! Hannah walks us through the story of the takeaway Rembrandt, a small painting by an old master that has been stolen more times than any other! 

So today's episode is more Oceans Eleven, than Seven but no less interesting! Think heists, capers and a dodgy man in the backroom of a Barclays bank!

Plus the usual nonsense including unidentified bangs in the night and the start of a war over "Aunty Hannah". 

Support the show

Thanks for tuning in! If you loved diving into the dark corners of South London with us, don't forget to hit that subscribe button to never miss an episode of "Sinister South."

Also, follow us on Instagram @SinisterSouthPodcast for sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes content, and more cheeky banter, or www.sinistersouthpod.co.uk. Remember, every crime tells a story... and South is the best side of the river... 

Produced and hosted by Hannah Williams & Rachel Baines
Mixed & edited by Purple Waves Sound (A.K.A Will)

"Today, we're going back to the year 1012." / "Oh, for f***'s sake. Here we go." 😂

In April 1012, the Archbishop of Canterbury was killed at a Viking camp in Greenwich, pelted with bones and finished off with the back of an axe. He had been held captive for seven months. He could have gone free at any point. He refused every time.

This week we go back a thousand years to tell the story of Alfege, a man who spent his life trying to disappear and kept getting promoted instead, and who became the one person in two decades of national crisis to refuse to let his own people pay for his freedom.

Content warning: this episode contains descriptions of violent death, captivity and mob violence.

Support the show

Thanks for tuning in! If you loved diving into the dark corners of South London with us, don't forget to hit that subscribe button to never miss an episode of "Sinister South."

Also, follow us on Instagram @SinisterSouthPodcast for sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes content, and more cheeky banter, or www.sinistersouthpod.co.uk. Remember, every crime tells a story... and South is the best side of the river... 

Produced and hosted by Hannah Williams & Rachel Baines
Mixed & edited by Purple Waves Sound (A.K.A Will)

In August 2024, 72-year-old solicitor Christopher Brown was killed in the Catford house he'd inherited from his parents and later put into joint names with Habiba Naveed, a younger woman he lived with. His cat, Snow, was killed too. The tabloids seized on Naveed's delusions — that she was Princess Diana's secret daughter, that she was Jesus sent to destroy evil — and Christopher nearly vanished from his own story.

This episode puts him back at its centre: the quiet, patient family lawyer who spent his whole career at one Holloway Road firm and more than fifty years at Lewisham Chess Club, remembered as a genuinely kind and "too trusting" man. We trace the joint ownership of the house, Naveed's documented history of paranoid schizophrenia, repeated hospital admissions and relapse, and the final days when her family raised the alarm and the warning signs never quite connected. We work carefully through diminished responsibility, fitness to plead, and why the judge imposed an indefinite hospital order under Sections 37/41 rather than a prison sentence — and we're honest throughout about what the public record can and can't tell us.

Content warning: serious mental illness, a fatal assault, and the killing of an animal.

Sources include but are not limited to: 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gdg4nlr91o

https://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/24531951.woman-accused-murdering-catford-landlord-stabbing-cat/

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/cat-stabbed-murder-catford-landlord-london-pensioner-old-bailey-b1177417.html

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy0nwzw1x3go

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/woman-said-she-jesus-sent-160813917.html

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/20/woman-accused-of-murdering-landlord-and-stabbing-cat/

https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Naveed-sentence.pdf

https://news.met.police.uk/news/woman-jailed-for-manslaughter-after-death-of-landlord-499579

https://www.legalfutures.co.uk/latest-news/solicitors-tenant-jailed-after-being-convicted-of-his-murder

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn02gyw7542o

https://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/24888171.lewisham-woman-admits-killing-christopher-brown/

https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/who-habiba-naveed-woman-who-claims-princess-dianas-daughter-accused-attacking-landlord-1739412

https://uknip.co.uk/news/uk/uk-news/woman-detained-indefinitely-after-killing-landlord-and-pet-cat-in-south-london/

https://www.landlordzone.co.uk/news/tenant-remanded-in-custody-following-landlord-death

Support the show

Thanks for tuning in! If you loved diving into the dark corners of South London with us, don't forget to hit that subscribe button to never miss an episode of "Sinister South."

Also, follow us on Instagram @SinisterSouthPodcast for sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes content, and more cheeky banter, or www.sinistersouthpod.co.uk. Remember, every crime tells a story... and South is the best side of the river... 

Produced and hosted by Hannah Williams & Rachel Baines
Mixed & edited by Purple Waves Sound (A.K.A Will)