Nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST, 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Channel's Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
The Joiner's Arms in Woodside, as it looks today
Welcome to the Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast and audio guided walk of London's most infamous and often forgotten murder cases, all set within and beyond the West End.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FIVE & SIXTY-SIX:
On Monday 4th of November 1985, a three-week spree of rape and murder culminated, as at 9:50pm, a silvery-blue Montego sped north up Park Lane towards Marble Arch, zigzagging like a crazed loon across both lanes at a suicidal 80mph. Inside, two terrified women screamed, as John Steed, the M4 Rapist shot one of his hostages dead. But why did it end this way?
THE LOCATION:
The location is marked with a yellow symbol of a bin on teh eastern edge of Hyde Park by the words 'Marble Arch'. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other maps, click here. SOURCES
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: (PART ONE) Welcome to Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on Park Lane in Mayfair, W1; a short walk from the invisible men of Marble Arch, a few doors down from the last stand of doorman Tudor Simionov, opposite the brutal stabbings on Hyde Park’s lover’s walk, and two streets from the taxi driver murders - coming soon to Murder Mile. Set on the western edge of Mayfair, Park Lane is a street of extremes, where Sheikhs soundly sleep on satin sheets as 100 feet away a hobo dies on an icy bench of hypothermia, where a war hero begs for a few coins to survive having lost his legs, his livelihood and his sanity to protect a patch of land an oil baron would later “make a killing off”, and with one of the highest concentrations of prostitutes and predators in the city, it’s a place where sex is sold, life is cheap, and although money can buy silence… …silence can also be bought for nothing, as all it takes is fear. On Monday 4th of November 1985, a three-week spree of rape and murder culminated, as at 9:50pm, a silvery-blue MG Montego sped north up Park Lane towards Marble Arch, zigzagging and weaving like a crazed loon across both lanes at a suicidal 80mph. Inside, two terrified women screamed, their cries barely audible over the fiery engine, as they fought for their lives as a maniacal predator aimed a loaded shotgun at his terrified passenger, until suddenly… (a shotgun blasts and car tyres screech). A serial rapist was on the loose, out of control and nobody knew his identity, except for the one woman who he shared every detail of his crimes with. She could have ended his spree with a single word, and saved many women and girls from being kidnapped, raped and even murdered. So why didn’t she? My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 265: The Fearmonger – Part One. It’s no surprise given his upbringing that John Steed would become a serial sexual predator. Born in Croydon, South London on the 11th of May 1963, John Alan Gilbert was the son of Sheila & William, a working mum and a car mechanic. Raised in a two-storey terraced house on Stroud Road, the residential district of Woodside would become his world, as well as his sickness and his downfall. Often seen playing alone on Woodside Green, he went to school at Woodside Infants two streets from his house, his parents drank at a nearby pub called the Joiner’s Arms, and in an unlit alley off Anthony Road, his dad repaired cars in an isolated wooden garage that few people knew was even there. His life was a microcosm consisting of just a few streets in a small district hidden far from the city, and although those details may seem unimportant, the smallest detail of his little world would save a life. Conceived by accident, hence the timing of his parent’s wedding, John was said to be ‘a loner, distant and emotionless’ who even his mother said “would never allow me to cuddle him when he was a boy”. Described as scrawny, in his early years he felt worthless and was seen as ugly, weak and forgettable, but there may have been a reason for his coldness, his self-loathing and his attitude towards women. When he was aged just 5, it is said that - having heard her screams - he saw his dad raping his mum. Traumatised by the abuse he witnessed and experienced firsthand, he said this cataclysmic event led to his mother trying to kill herself three times, rejecting him (as maybe he was an unwelcome reminder of one of those rapes), and - with the family separating - his mother left for Norfolk leaving him to be raised by his grandparents just a short walk away in Addiscombe, only to end up in care aged just 13. His upbringing was a litany of self-loathing, abuse and abandonment. But surely having witnessed his mother’s rape, this should have driven him to become a protector of women, and not their attacker? In court, his dad gave a different spin on John’s childhood. Bill denied beating his son, said his marriage was tempestuous. “I’d slap her and she’d hit me”, he’d claim “she never tried to kill herself, we never went without as we’d both got jobs and an au-pair for the kids”. But the sex, he said, was an issue. Bill denied that he raped his wife, stating “that’s a terrible lie, Shiela liked noisy love making. She often screamed. I can understand why a young boy would think he saw a rape”. But the sex wasn’t his doing, he said, it was hers. “You name it, she was into it”, Bill said, “she liked kinky sex games with a string of male and female lovers. I’m sure her perverted games poisoned my son’s mind… making him think he was superior to women and there to be used… but when her affairs started, that’s when we split”. Everybody has their own truths, lies and alibis, and with all of this happening behind closed doors, we will never know the facts, only the side of the story that some have told, and others choose to believe. But with nothing solid in his life… …all he had was fantasy. John Gilbert was born one year after the release of the first James Bond film – Dr No, and as a child of the 1970s, he was raised on a diet of action films; where gun-toting men of muscles bash in the brains of the bad guys without recourse, drive fast cars at high speed, wear flashy suits, beam pure white smiles, and then he’d charm his way into every lady’s bed, or more often, he’d just takes her by force. His heroes were James Bond, Dirty Harry, The A-Team, and later changing his name to John Steed, he said it after the hero from the British TV series Avengers, only it was really his mother’s maiden name. But even into his teens, as much as he wanted to be a mean muscle-bound hunk, he was just a weedy little Herbert who was shunned by the boys and rejected by the girls, and whose highlight was a pint in the Joiner’s Arms pub having fixed a car he could never hope to own in his dad’s crappy little garage. In 1976, aged 13, he was taken into care for three years being described by a local kid as a ‘nasty piece of work’. Booted out aged 16, as a true loner, he drifted from town-to-town committing petty thefts, burglaries and - desperate to live a fast and exciting life – he wore masks, brandished replica guns and was convicted of stealing expensive cars like Jaguar’s, BMW’s and Audi’s across most of the country. What he wanted, he took… and that included women. He said he had his “first sexual experience aged 11”, but giving no details, it’s uncertain whether this was abuse, consensual or assault. He was charged with indecent exposure, and it is suspected that – while he was living in Scotland – he raped several women. But having taken their details and threatened to come back, many may have remained silent. In 1980, aged 17, being released again from a Young Offender’s Institute, his girlfriend dumped him. Steed told a friend “I had a bird once that I loved. I was good to her”, so he would claim, but also added “I’m convinced they don’t want treating nice. The more horrible you are, the more they like it”. Later, he would blame her rejection as the moment he became a monster, that would also become a key feature of this case, where the women in his life would be blamed for the monster he already was. The next unfortunate woman who became his girlfriend would also be his last. Two years his junior, 18-year-old Sharon Bovill - who the tabloid press described as “blonde and leggy” - was a local girl from a good family. It was in 1983 that they first met, when her older sister Shirley was dating Steed and she fell for his charm and charisma. It may seem odd to describe a violent sexual predator like so, but everyone has two sides, and gifted with something which lured the ladies in, his grandparents said “he was a good boy”, his neighbour described him as “quiet and very pleasant”, and yet, the detectives who would soon hunt him said “he was intelligent, articulate but very dangerous”. Sharon should have been everything he wanted in a woman; attractive, loving and loyal. She worked hard as a driver for FCS Printers in South Norwood, and together they shared a small upstairs bedsit on Croydon Road in Penge, just two miles north of his family home and his dad’s garage in Woodside. She knew about his past; about the thefts, burglaries and carjackings having visited him in prison. She knew he had a dark side, she knew he was damaged goods, and she knew he was obsessed with sex. Sharon would be the one woman who could have ended it all. But why didn’t she? It was on a stint in prison that his life changed, and it could have changed him for the better. Inside, he read up on Buddhism, he began to meditate, and quitting alcohol, his body was his temple. Said to have found his inner peace, he developed mental tranquillity, spontaneity and a sense of fearlessness. In a blessing to his newfound religion, he adorned his arms, legs, back and chest with Buddhist icons, such as dragons, snakes, eagles, tigers and a panther, but as an arrogant man who was selfish to the core, he bastardised his faith to increase his ego, his self-belief and destroy any humanity or empathy. In 1982, the year that Sylvester Stallone played muscley war-veteran John Rambo, as a weedy 11 stone weakling, John Steed hit the prison gym, and started a workout regime which would dominate his life. Hitting the weights to build up muscle, he had the look of an action star (being six foot tall with blue eyes and a brooding smile), and with the dark hair and the square jaw of Rambo, in the gym’s mirror, every day he watched the small shy boy he once was, disappear, and would bulk up to a 16 stone hulk. Again, upon his release from prison, this could have been a new start for Steed by becoming a personal trainer, as three times a day every day he went to the Valhalla Gym in 49 Clifton Road, South Norwood. Only he didn’t care about others, he only cared about was himself; and believing he was “handsome” and “God’s gift to women”, living on a diet of 3lbs of bananas and 8 pints of milk a day to increase his mass, his thighs became so grossly overdeveloped, his walk had an odd gait, like a constipated gorilla. His body became so ridiculously engorged, the men in the gym nicknamed him ‘the incredible hulk’. But being big wasn’t enough, he wanted to be bigger. Whether this was used as an alibi by his family to defend him, we shall never know, but both his granddad and dad agreed “he was a nice boy before all this… he took double the amount of steroids, they took over his mind and he was out of control”. Steroids made him larger and stronger, but they also increased his irritability, anxiety and aggression; they would cause mood swings, mania and paranoia, and as a particularly brutal side-effect for a man for whom his masculinity was key to his persona – it increased his libido, but often made him impotent. Everything he abused to get what he wanted, from his body to his religion, but seeing any woman as a sex object, many at the gym said “something wasn’t right about him. We felt uneasy around him”. Women feared him, and for good reason. Together, he lived a seemingly quiet and contented life with Sharon in their Croydon Road bedsit. His girlfriend was aware of his crimes, and at night, as they sat watching an action movie, he told her about his fantasy – of raping women. He liked to dominate them, he liked to humiliate them, he liked to make them beg for their lives, he often knocked them out, and he revelled in overpowering them. It was never stated whether he abused, assaulted or raped Sharon, if he treated her as he said his dad did to his mum, but across the months they lived together, as a lone woman who lived in a bedsit and shared a bed with a serial rapist, soon she would know every detail of every rape he would commit. Sharon would be the one woman who could have ended his spree. But why didn’t she? Was she afraid, or was she besotted? It was Sunday 13th October 1985, when 23-year-old John Steed went to Wimbledon with one intention. In his eyes, he had everything he needed to lure in a girl; he had the looks, the charm, the muscles, the chat, the sharp suit, and having dabbed on a splash of Brut, all he needed was a flashy sports car. Whatever he wanted, he took… and that included a white Audi GT Coupe he stole at knife point under the ruse of a test drive, and back at his dad’s isolated garage, he popped on a set of false licence plates. Three days later, dressed like he was on a date, Steed crawled the stolen car along North End in the busy shopping district of Croydon - the window down, the music on and fixing his hair in the mirror – when he spied a small girl standing alone at a bus stop. In court, she would be known only as Miss A. “Hey, how you doing?”, he purred, perving over the 20-year-old girl who being very petite looked a lot younger. His ploy was simple; slather on the charm, give her attention, tell her she was pretty and ask her out for a drink, and having been chatted up by a handsome hunk in a stylish car, she agreed. Later, he picked her up from her home in Banstead, her hopes high that this hunk was her ‘Mr Right’. Only they never made it to a bar, as having driven her 3 miles west to a dark isolated spot at Epsom racecourse, grabbing her hair and holding a screwdriver to her throat, in the back seat, he raped her. Like many rapists, it wasn’t the sex which excited him, but the fear he elicited from his petrified victim, as relishing her tears and her trembling, he ‘soliloquised’ about whether he should let her live or die. That was his thrill, a big man making a small girl plead for her life, as the longer he dragged out her pain and terror, the more she shook, sobbed and (maybe even) wet herself, the more it excited him. ‘Miss A’ would live, but only because as the dead feel no fear and he wanted her to feel his fear even when he wasn’t there. So, hours after the attack, he phoned her. Days later, he sat in that same Audi GT outside her house and watched her, and being so terrified, it would take her weeks to tell anyone. Only three people knew about the rape: ‘Miss A’, John Steed, and his girlfriend, Sharon. That night, he told her every sordid detail of his brutal rape on a defenceless girl. At his trial, Sharon confided in a friend “people can’t believe I still feel something for someone who’s done what John has. Well, that’s the way it is. I can’t help it. If you love someone, you don’t stop loving them because they’ve done something horrible. I love him and I hate him. I love the John I knew, the ordinary man who was my boyfriend for years. But I hate the part of him that committed the crimes”. But still she stayed by him… …and her silence would lead another young girl to be traumatised. On Saturday 19th, a 19-year-old girl known in court as ‘Miss B’ was walking along the A24 Epsom Road passed Greville Primary School, when a white Audi GT Coupe pulled up. Steed’s ploy was the same; a smile, a chat and a compliment, but this time his demeanour was different. Lacking his Buddhist calm and sweating profusely, with his urges unsated from that last attack just three days before, beside the road, he pushed her over a wall, grabbed her hair, put a screwdriver to her neck, and he raped her. The rape was over quickly, but the terror was torturously slow, as with Steed having ‘soliloquised’ over whether to let this trembling girl live, he took her library ticket as a souvenir, he made her write down her details, and having promised to kill her if she went to the police, he made a date to meet her again and being too terrified to say no or to speak of what he’d done, she met him, and again he raped her. That night, Steed told his girlfriend everything about his latest attack. Only now, Sharon wasn’t to call him John, as he insisted that she call him “God”. He was the boss, he was in control, and fearing that the same thing could happen to her, police said “she had been so terrified of him that she kept silent”. There are many reasons why someone in an abusive relationship doesn’t or can’t leave; commitment, children or coercion; a lack of money, family or options; intimidation, shame or low self-esteem; they may believe (no matter how misguided) that their abuser actually loves them, that the violence doled out is somehow warranted, or that each attack has become normalised, but the biggest reason is fear. Fear kept her silent, as that’s what he fed off - making girls fear him. On Saturday 2nd of November 1985, two weeks later, Steed drove the white Audi GT to Wales. Said to be “jittery and twitchy”, on-route he had purchased a set of handcuffs, as with his addiction unsated having left two girls traumatised, he didn’t just want to rape a woman, he wanted to own her for good. That day, he pulled up at Cloygin Mill at Pontantwn in south-west Wales. This wasn’t a target though, but a visit, being the home of his mother Shiela, stepfather Ken and his stepsiblings Michael & Penny. For this family, it was an ordinary day in this remote Welsh idyll; they went for a walk, they had lunch, in the afternoon Ken taught him how to shoot a 12-bore 5-shot pump action shotgun (that he legally owned being a farmer) and having shot up some cans, a tree and an old water tank, they watched TV. The afternoon’s entertainment was typical mid 1980s television on LWT; with Blockbusters hosted by Bob Holness, Game for a Laugh with Jeremy Beadle, 3-2-1 with Ted Rogers, followed by action-drama Dempsey & Makepeace topping off the night before the news, but first, at 5:35pm was The A Team. With just four channels on the box, they didn’t need to look elsewhere for fun, as while tucking into a plate of fish n chips, mushy peas and a stack of buttered white bread, they giggled at Murdoch’s crazy antics, BA not “getting on no damn airplane”, Face looking perplexed at a Cylon, Hannibal loving it “when a plan comes together”, and although the family were all gripped by its family friendly action… …Steed was engrossed, but his smile had dropped, and his eyes were fixed on the screen. The episode was season 3, episode 6, titled ‘Double Heat’, in which a young girl named Jenny Olson is kidnapped. Her fictional abductor was a handsome, dark-haired, muscley hunk with tree trunk-like thighs, just like Steed, and she would be held hostage for ransom. In real life, Steed was inspired not just to kidnap a girl and rape her, what he wanted was to own her as his terrified little plaything in a prison of his own. Given the timings, it’s unlikely he watched the whole episode, as having stolen the shotgun from the boot of his stepfather’s van, he shortened the barrel, popped it in a small bag, and abruptly left. He never said why he was leaving, just that he had to go, and with that, by 6:15pm, he was gone. The third woman he attacked would be known in court only as ‘Mrs C’, a 39-year-old widowed mother of three and social worker from Hertfordshire, who bravely told of her trauma under the name ‘Sarah’. “It had been a gloriously romantic day in Bath”, Sarah recalled, “Harry & I were wonderfully happy. It was the first time we had met since I discovered I was pregnant. We had known each other for a long time and over the years since my husband died, our friendship had turned to love. We lived in different counties, and sometimes arranged to spend time in places we wanted to visit”, just like that day. After a last drink together, in separate cars they drove to the M4 motorway, in a layby they kissed, said goodbye, and “with no other traffic on the road, I tootled along at about 50”. It was the best her little yellow Citroen 2CV could do, as with just a 9bhp, its top speed was 68mph and 0-60 in 90 seconds. But with the road being icy, Sarah was in no rush to get home… at least not yet. It was roughly 8:45pm, when on this unlit and isolated stretch between Dauntsey and Royal Wooton Bassett just outside of Swindon, “I’d been driving for 15 minutes, when I was aware of a white Audi behind me”. It overtook, the driver looked across, he slowed down and being forced to overtake him… …(tyres squeal) “I heard a loud crash on the rear off-side and realised he had hit me”. At the distance marker 140.4, “I pulled over to the hard shoulder, and went to find my bag and my insurance details”. But something wasn’t right, she knew it, but by then, it was too late. “He yanked open the passenger door, jumped in, pulled a big knife and said ‘don’t do anything silly’”. But Sarah was already gone. Fleeing for her life down the empty motorway with no-one hearing her screams, after 100 yards “he grabbed me around the neck, dragged me back to his car and shoved me into the passenger seat”. As a mother who wanted to see her children again, Sarah was unwilling to give up her fight, and although he pulled his 6-inch Commando knife on her, the blade slashed her fingers as she grappling with it. She fought as best she could, but with Steed being twice her size, it was a fight only he could win. “He hit my face six or seven times with his clenched fist – like a boxer at a punchbag - and I crumpled like a puppet. I can still remember the blows on the forehead, cheeks, temples, nose, my bottom lip burst, and the blood spurted out”, and as she lay there, “I was dazed, quite literally seeing stars and in pain”. With the handcuffs purchased for this purpose, “he twisted my arms behind my back, squeezed them on tightly, forced me onto the floor and made me curl up”, out of sight and silent. His hostage now his to do with as he pleased, as unseen, he drove her into the darkness and to a fate worse than death. The concluding part of The Fearmonger continues next week. UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: (PART TWO) A cold winter wind howled across the unlit stretch of the M4 motorway outside of Swindon, as a patrol car pulled up behind a yellow Citroen 2CV. With the keys still in the ignition, its hazard lights on, but no driver inside, having been neatly parked with the handbrake up, police surmised that with a dent to the rear off-side following a minor collision, the owner had been driven to the nearest phone-box. Its details were logged, the owner hadn’t been reported missing, and nothing raised their suspicions. In truth though, ‘Sarah’ was alive, but in fear for her life. (car speeding) Curled-up in the cramped footwell of the passenger’s seat, 39-year-old ‘Sarah’ - a widowed mother of three who was three months pregnant – lay silently and still, as her powerfully-built abductor sped her from where she was safe to somewhere unknown, as the stolen Audi GT roared into the night. Having been threatened with a knife, handcuffed with her hands behind her back, her legs having gone numb, and his huge fists having made of mess of her face and rendered her dazed, she knew she didn’t stand a chance if she ran – and even though she didn’t know where she was - if she did, she’d be dead. As far as she knew, she was still on the M4 and heading east, but unable to see her watch or to judge the distance, all she knew was that she’d been kidnapped by a very violent man, and she was terrified. ‘Sarah’ was chosen by him simply because she was driving alone on an isolated road with no-one nearby to protect her from a serial rapist and a soon-to-be murderer. And yet, there was one woman who knew every detail of his crimes and could have ended his sadistic spree of terror in a single word… …only she didn’t. During the trial, when word leaked to the press about what she knew, the Sunday People branded her “shameless Sharon” stating that her decision to sell her story to (I should point out) ‘a rival newspaper’ was little more than “cashing in” and calling him “a repulsive rapist” and her as his “frightful floozie”. In the Liverpool Echo, it read “there is not the slightest sign that she is troubled by her conscience. She says she still loves him and that she wants to marry him. Her picture and story have appeared across the pages of a Sunday newspaper, and as she poses like a glamour girl, the blonde Sharon tells how she willingly submitted to Steed’s perverted practices. Far from facing any prosecution, she is now almost certainly cashing in on his infamy and her complicity. What a sick society we have become!”. But regardless of what the press published, and the public were willing to believe, as a witness for the prosecution, the police’s opinion of Sharon was very different, saying “she was no different from his victims. She was in stark terror of him. She knew she could spill the beans, but it was too dangerous”. Whether she was liked or loathed, his victims all knew that John Steed was a man to be feared. ‘Sarah’ was scared, as anyone in her position would be, having no idea who he was, but he had already proven that he meant to do her harm. In a moment of terror such as that, we all might have cried, pleaded or wanted to die, but ‘Sarah’ was different, very different. As an experienced social worker trained in psychiatry, she’d been in many dangerous situations with violent men, and knowing never to give into his fear or to antagonise him, her training kicked in and she remained calm and focussed. “My face was bleeding badly”, ‘Sarah’ said, and being in an almost-new Audi, “I pointed out that it was marking his seats”. It wasn’t his car, but in his eyes, he owned it, and not wanting to bloody the trim, “he allowed me to lie face-down with the seat reclined low, below window level. This was a start”. She did nothing to make him think she was going to run or scream, as any false move would be futile, could end in a knife to the back, and she would be dead. Inside, as they sped further from safety, amid the silence, ‘Sarah’ tried to forget her fear and to remember every detail, just in case she made it through this alive: the car, the colour, the seats, his voice, his tattoos, his build and his odd walk. “Then I started to talk to him”, it was a bold move to break to silence, “I told him I was old enough to be his mother, and I had three children. I wanted him to respond”, and then he began to talk. He spoke about his muscles, looks and success with girls - mostly it was bragging – but he also spoke of his time in prison, his religion, his life, and how he took calculated risks and had full control of his emotions. As they drove, ‘Sarah’ made sure she memorised as much as possible about what he said, but also, now lying flat on the passenger seat, although limited “I lifted my head up to try and spot landmarks” along this 118-mile journey, seeing only brief flashes of lights, houses, bridges, statues and signposts. After two hours, which seemed like ten, getting off the M4 and entering the city, the car slowed to a crawl being snarled by traffic lights, construction work and a police van. “I thought of trying to escape”, ‘Sarah’ recalled, but from the back seat “he pulled a sawn-off shotgun, laid it on his knees and told me ‘I’ll kill you, if you try and get out, and anyone else who gets in my way’. But in the end, I bottled out”. With the car driving slower and its turns ever tighter, ‘Sarah’ knew their final destination was near, “all I could do was try to notice landmarks just in case I ever made it out alive”, and as they stopped at a junction with the car indicating left, “the last thing I noticed was the Joiner’s Arms pub and its sign with gold lettering. It was about 10:30pm and it was still open… we turned a few corners and drove into a very quiet, dark garage, where he switched off the engine and bundled me into the boot”. It was dark and cramped, and with two pubs on either side of the garage celebrating bonfire night, amid a cacophony of drunken revellers having fun, over their own, no-one heard her bangs or screams. “I thought of my three sons waiting for me at home. They had already lost their father, and I was damned if they were going to be made orphans by this man”. She knew she couldn’t fight him off… …but somehow, she would need to win. At his trial, Sharon Bovill, Steed’s girlfriend told a friend “everyone is saying I must have known what was going on, but I didn’t”, as her culpability in his crimes was swept aside as the prosecution needed her as a witness against him. She knew what details he told her, but being there, every day of the trial, she came face to face with the women he had raped, whose bodies he had violated, whose minds he had traumatised, and whose lives she could have saved with just a word, one of whom was ‘Sarah’. “I had had vision of him killing me”, ‘Sarah’ recalled, “I knew I could not beat him physically, but I knew he could not beat my mind”. She was locked in the Audi’s boot for roughly 20 minutes, when she heard the garage door open, he unlocked the boot and (with her legs cramped) he led her to the backseat. “I knew what was coming next”, ‘Sarah’ said, “I knew in my heart it was a sex attack”, as he sat beside her, his imposing bulk blocking the door, and the isolated garage locked from within. “I tried to delay it by talking”, only he wasn’t listening, “he kept saying ‘take your trousers off’. I told him I couldn’t with my handcuffs on”, but he didn’t care, he liked her that way. “I told him I was pregnant”, ‘Sarah’ said, hoping to illicit some sympathy from him, “he said he always wanted to rape a pregnant woman”. I’d like to tell you she fought him off, that she broke free and that he didn’t rape her… …but I can’t. That rape could have broken ‘Sarah’, it could have seen the breaking of her body and the unravelling of her mind, as everything she had lived for was destroyed. But she was different, very different, and setting aside the trauma of being kidnapped, beaten, handcuffed, raped, and possibly – having seen his face – that the next step of this serial sexual predator was to kill her, she remained calm. “The act itself was over very quickly”, ‘Sarah’ said, “I remember thinking for him the rape was the least important part of the attack. What he really enjoyed was having another human under his control”. For a while, they sat silently on the backseat. “After the rape, he went quiet, playing with the shotgun. I knew this was the most dangerous time of all. I knew he wanted me to grovel, to plead, to scream and to panic, so that he would have to shoot me… and I told him that would have to be his decision”. She wasn’t angry, she didn’t curse him, she just brought this fantasist back down to reality. “My fight for survival started there. I noticed he had beads of sweat on his cheeks. He was nervous. He had a weak spot. There was some humanity underneath his cold calculation. The only way was to talk to him – the way I did as a psychiatrist trying to help people just like him. I was his prisoner, but I was still a professional… and without my training, I am convinced I would not be alive today”. The night was long, longer than any night she had lived before, and as he sat there with a perturbed look on his face, quaffing banana after banana, he handed her a carton on milk to drink, and began to talk. “He started to pour his heart out”, about the abuse, being in care and his mum’s rape. “He said he wanted to rape me again, but he couldn’t manage it”, possibly being down to steroids, his emotions or maybe sympathy, “I don’t know how I got through the whole night, but I did, talking all the time”. This had never happened to Steed before, as he was always the one who was in control, and having raped his victim, he’d ‘soliloquise’ about whether to let them live or die, as they trembled and wept. But this time he didn’t. The fireworks had long since ceased, the pub’s revellers were fast asleep, and as the milkman’s cart drove into Anthony Road, ‘Sarah’ and Steed had been sat there for almost five hours, just chatting. At about 4:15am, Steed got into the driver’s seat with ‘Sarah’ sat upright in the passenger’s seat, “and at dawn, he drove me to Victoria Station”. Parking up, he unlocked her handcuffs, gave her back her handbag, and having taken her child benefit’s books with her name and address inside, she threatened “if you don’t tell the police, you will be safe. But I have got your book, and I know where to find you”. And as the car drove away, her nine-hour ordeal of terror was over. “I couldn’t believe I wasn’t dead”, ‘Sarah’ said. But dead was how she looked, as she limped into the Victoria police station. The divisional doctor who examined her said “she was subjected to an almost fatal violent assault. In my 30 years’ experience, I have rarely seen such an attack where the victim has survived”, and yet, she had. ‘Sarah’ had not only survived physically but mentally, as although bloodied, swollen and shaking, she was a sharp as a pin. Hailed by the police as “cool, calm and courageous”, given everything she had been through, seasoned detectives were “astounded at her astonishing ability to recall even the most minute details… despite suffering numerous injuries to her face and barely being able to open her mouth from severe bruising”. She gave a detailed description of the car and her attacker, as well as his look, his size, his tattoos, his job, his girlfriend, his religion, his family, his upbringing, his unusual gait owing to his over-developed thighs, and his diet consisting only of bananas and milk, as well as a full psychiatric profile. She also logged her journey from when she was kidnapped to where she was raped, telling the Police of the last thing she saw before she was locked in a garage – the colourful sign of the Joiner’s Arms pub. There were just five Joiner’s Arms pubs in London; Hackney, Denmark Hill, Camberwell, Lewisham and Woodside, and although in shock, she willing went with the police to find it. Turning onto Woodside Green on the corner of Anthony Road, the Police knew this was the right place, as without saying a word - having seen the gold lettering on the pub’s sign - ‘Sarah’ broke down and began to shake. Her fight was over, the garage was found, and the hunt for her attacker had begun. Forensics swarmed over the abandoned garage, which was owned by William Gilbert, a mechanic who had an alibi for the night itself. Inside, the white Audi GT Coupe was gone, and although it was too oily to find a fingerprint, a half-drunk carton of full-fat milk confirmed that ‘Sarah’ had been there. But with the garage being so well hidden, the Police knew that her attacker must have been a local man. But who was he? Like most newspapers, the Evening Standard lambasted Sharon and her unwillingness to stop Steed’s crimes, stating “she knew what she was doing and kept her mouth shut until a newspaper paid her to open it. The police say she can’t be charged as she wasn’t properly cautioned. One phone call after his first confession could have saved the devastation of several lives, and although a passive party to his crimes, she was quick to sell her story to a Sunday newspaper”. But was it for love, fear, or money? With the details of ‘Sarah’s abduction shared across the Police’s network, having identified two rapes with glaring similarities – being 20-year-old ‘Miss A’ in Croydon and 19-year-old ‘Miss B’ in Banstead – a joint-operation was established over four counties - Surrey, Wiltshire, South Wales and the Met – which they codenamed Operation Joiner, headed up by Detective Chief inspector Lex Bell, known as ‘Dinger’. All three women gave similar descriptions - 6 foot tall, 16 stone, stocky build, brown hair, blue eyes, pale skin and heavily tattooed – but that aside, his odd gait owing to his over-developed thighs and his strange diet of milk and bananas led the police to believe it could only be one man. And with his photofit released, several people walked into Croydon police station and stated “that’s John Steed”. But where was he, as he wasn’t in his bedsit, and neither was Sharon. Having bragged about ‘Sarah’s rape, finally seeing sense (or perhaps spotting a moment to flee as with him being hunted, Steed was on the run) Sharon went to live with her parents. “His confession”, a friend said “caused her so much turmoil she didn’t know whether to kill herself”. But with his heinous crimes splashed across every paper, it didn’t take long for those who knew him to piece together his unique description, and “a white Audi GT Coupe with a cracked rear window and a bloodstained seat”. Reading about the man, the car and the timings, putting it all together, his mother Shiela was already running for the phone to give up his name, when armed police swooped and surrounded their farm. Every house he had lived at, every gym he was known to haunt, and every possible hide-out the Police watched, but this man who had rarely lived beyond a few streets of his childhood home was missing. Having ditched the Audi and stolen a silvery-blue MG Montego in West Dulwich, for several days, the car’s backseat had been his home. He knew he needed to lay-low as his infamous face was in every newspaper, but with his sexual urges and his need to be feared by women bubbling up inside of him… …John Steed was now out of control. On the night of Monday 4th of November 1985, just one day after ‘Sarah’s rape, in his customary blunt arrogance, Steed bragged “I went up to Soho and then to Park lane and picked up a couple of dimbos”. Outside of the Grosvenor House Hotel, he crawled the car up to the curb and started chatting to two sex-workers - Jaqueline Murray, aged 23 & Judy Burnham aged 28 – and having agreed a price of £30 each, they both got in. He didn’t ask for two girls, but with his car reeking of bruised bananas and old milk, and his face dripping in sweat on a cold night, something didn’t look right, but money was money. With Judy on the backseat and Jacqui upfront, Steed said very little as he circled Wellington Arch, and headed southbound on Park Lane. Usually, he’d have waited till he had got the girl in an isolated spot, but unable to control his lust, he grabbed a bag from the backseat, he pointed a 12-bore sawn-off shotgun at Jacqui’s head, “I told her to put on the handcuffs”, Steed said “and they freaked out”. Both women screamed, “I told them to shut up or I’d kill her”. But being imprisoned as he’d activated the car’s central locking, with Steed driving faster, zigzagging down Park Lane and forcing Jacqui’s head towards the dashboard demanding that she put on the handcuffs, Judy kicked out a back window and she screamed for help as the car sped at a suicidal 80mph, but there was nothing anyone could do. With the wheels squealing as the car approached Marble Arch, taking a sharp left, Steed later bragged “I told the one in front to shut up or I’d kill her. She didn’t, so I did”. From six inches away, a hot blast of shotgun pellets ripped into her chest, and as he skidded to a halt off Cumberland Gate, Judy jumped through the broken window, he dumped Jacqui’s bleeding body in the gutter, and like coward, he fled. Jacqui fought for the life, but losing blood rapidly, 90 minutes later, she died of her injuries. Steed was an armed and dangerous man who had to be stopped, and although he’d set fire to the car and had gone into hiding, looking and walking the way he did, how long could he really stay hidden? His apprehension was a mix of intelligence and chance. Wednesday 6th of November, two days later, police got a tip-off that Steed sometimes parked a car at Fairfield Halls car park in Croydon, one street from the police station where Operation Joiner was based, and hundreds of officers were hunting him. It seemed too silly to be true, but never one to ignore a hunch, DCI Lex Bell sent the only Constable he had free to check it out. PC Saeed, a rookie, searched all eleven floors of the car park, and on the 7th, he spotted a red Renault 25GTX which had been stolen by an armed man matching Steed’s description. Having called it in, armed officers lay in wait, and without a single shot being fired, Steed was arrested. In the boot was the shotgun used to kill Jacqui, strapped to his back was the 6-inch Commando knife, in the glovebox was the vital evidence they needed to link him to all three rapes - the library ticket, the benefit’s book and the names and addresses of each women, and two floors below, having already stolen a new Toyota and loaded it with milk and bananas, he was hours away from another attack. Remanded to Wandsworth Prison, while awaiting trial, he spent most his time in the gym sculping his muscles, and although his crimes were heinous, he was regularly visited by his girlfriend, Sharon (End) Starting on Thursday 6th of November 1986, 24-year-old John Allan Steed was tried at the Old Bailey before Justice Miskin. Pleading guilty to 18 charges including abduction and rape, in a quiet inaudible voice, the big man he pretended to be was replaced by the small sullen boy he once was, as he pleaded “not guilty” to Jacqui’s murder, but guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. Three psychiatrists for the defence and the prosecution examined him, and with varying degrees over what drove him to rape and kill – whether his upbringing, childhood trauma, delusions or the steroids - all agreed that he was suffering from a psychopathic disorder, possibly some form of schizophrenia, but with him not deemed sick enough to be given a hospital order, he was to be incarcerated in prison. On 10th November 1986, he was given four life sentences; three for rape, one for manslaughter, with 20 years for stealing a car, possessing a shotgun, and just 7 years for abduction. But with no minimum sentence set and to be served concurrently, with good behaviour, he could have been out in 9 years. As Steed was led to the cells, Sharon wept, later telling a friend “it would be easier if John had died. That would be something I could cope with and in time recover. But the memory will drag on forever”. In 1998, with his parole review imminent, appealing his sentence, the then-Home Secretary Jack Straw - who was insistent that Britain’s most violent offenders should never be released - gave Steed a ‘whole life tariff’. Knowing he would never be free and unable to cope in a terrifying world where he had no control, on Friday 20th of November 1998 at HMP Full Sutton, having told an orderly his duty was “to escape hell”, 35-year-old John Steed tied his bedsheets to the bars and was found hanging. With an inquest reporting his death as ‘suicide’, it can only be hoped that his victims found comfort in the fact that he’d taken his own life, and that with the fearmonger dead, other women would be safe. But could others have been saved if just a single word had been spoken? The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of.
1 Comment
Victoria Crosby
5/10/2024 23:04:31
Some incorrect information here which puts one of the girls in a bad light 🤔 Leave a Reply. |
AuthorMichael J Buchanan-Dunne is a crime writer, podcaster of Murder Mile UK True Crime and creator of true-crime TV series. 
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