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EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND NINETY-FOUR: On Friday 28th of February 1997 sometime after 7pm, at 6b Gosfield Street, a brutal and bloody attack on a lone sex-worker occurred in this first floor flat. Barely reported in the newspapers and ignored by television, the murder of ‘Robyn’ Browne is a case which was largely forgotten… yet the truth of what happened could be hidden among a scattering of facts, being drenched by a deluge of bigotry, racism and fear which helped derail the investigation.
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UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on Gosfield Street in Fitzrovia, W1; one street west of Georgia Antoniou and the ‘deadly soap’, opposite the ‘missing pieces’ of Juliette Merrill, two doors up from the Blackout Ripper’s killing of ‘the lady’ and a short walk from the love-sick arsonist - coming soon to Murder Mile. As a place we’ve been to many times before, Gosfield Street is a mix of five-storey Victorian mansion blocks and townhouses, split into flats and bedsits, being accessible by a communal door. Close to the bustling hum of Oxford Street, it’s oddly quiet, as only residents have any reason to be here, as with no shops and just a few offices, most of the business occurs in the secret world behind its closed doors. On Friday 28th of February 1997 sometime after 7pm, at 6b Gosfield Street, a brutal and bloody attack on a lone sex-worker occurred in this first floor flat. As had happened many times before on this street, being a prostitute, witnesses were few, details were sketchy, the Police were said to be less likely to solve it or even unwilling, and because of who the victim was, the Press lacked sympathy or decency. Barely reported in the newspapers and ignored by television, the murder of ‘Robyn’ Browne is a case which was largely forgotten… yet the truth of what happened could be hidden among a scattering of facts, being drenched by a deluge of bigotry, racism and fear which helped derail the investigation. My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 294: Sheer ‘Bloody’ Ignorance. (Writing, voice) “Well, I will tell them the whole story, the truth about 28th of February 1997”. In the few articles written about this case, the basic details of ‘Robyn’s background is so sparse, it’s as if the journalists couldn’t be bothered to research it, or didn’t feel that ‘Robyn’s life was worthy. In short, it often states that “Robyn Browne, aged 23 was a gay transgender prostitute”, and that’s it. In any other case, something positive would be said about the tragic passing of a victim, even a generic platitude such as “he was loved by all”, “she was a good wife and mother”, or “they were talented and had a bright future ahead of them”, but in ‘Robyn’s case, their past and struggle was entirely ignored. James Darwin Errol Browne was born on the 26th of July 1973 in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, a sleepy garden town between High Wycombe and Milton Keynes; notable for its prestigious grammar school, and its links to the English Civil War, the wealthy Rothschild family and author Roald Dahl. For some, it would have been an idyllic upbringing, being very English, very white, very affluent and middle-class. But only if you were of that ilk. ‘Robyn’ (being one of the gender neutral names she was comfortable with) was raised in the Aylesbury of the 1970s and 80s as a mixed race male who was open to his feminine side. Growing up will have come with endless challenges in an era where boys wore blue never pink, played rugby not netball, watched testosterone-fuelled action movies, yet if a boy dared to play with a Barbie, try his mother’s make-up on, or even (God forbid) discusses his feelings, mental health, gender or sexual orientation, the teachers would be alerted, a meeting would be called, and the boy would forever be bullied. In this kind of world, you could never be yourself, you had to be what ‘they’ wanted you to be. That meant being just like ‘them’, even if it made you deeply unhappy, and they had to beat it out of you. As a young boy who would have felt different, ‘Robyn’ needed the support of his family, and although her half-sister Louise was there for her, ‘Robyn’s parents refused to accept her for who she wanted to be, as they didn’t understand it and wouldn’t listen, as it was all about their happiness and not hers. It’s no surprise that – in her late teens or early twenties – ‘Robyn’ Browne moved to London, living in the more-welcoming neighbourhood of Fitzrovia, just across from Soho, the openly-gay capital of the West End; where she was safer but not always safe, where she was less persecuted, and although isolated from her parents, she found a new family who loved her for who she was and wanted to be. It’s a life many of us didn’t experience, couldn’t hope to understand, and some will never want to. Even in 2025, many of us (including myself, being a white heterosexual male by birth) are ignorant of gay and trans issues. When someone says ‘CIS’ or ‘non-binary’, we have to Google it to remind ourselves what it means, and I write this episode being cautiously desperate not to misgender ‘Robyn’ by calling her ‘he’, when she wanted to be a ‘she’. Many of us may think “does it really matter if you call someone who was born a man but wants to be a woman ‘he’?”. Yes, it would be like me being called me ‘Miss’ as it impugns my masculinity, in the same way it would if a woman was called ‘Sir’. We don’t understand it because it doesn’t affect us daily, and when confronted by it, we see everyone else through our own morally righteous prism, we assume that we’re right and they’re wrong, that we’re good and they’re bad, but the truth is, we’re all different. I don’t have a soap box to stand on, except that everyone should have the right to live their life as they want to. And yet, by making such seemingly small mistakes as ‘he’ instead of ‘she’, we helped derail this investigation, and many others. Everything we know about this case, we learned second-hand from a newspaper. We expect it to be factually accurate and unbiased reporting, but even when the journalist tries not to, it creeps back in. The first paragraph of every article about ‘Robyn’ Browne’s murder begins like this… “A GAY transvestite was murdered”, with gay in capitals and transvestite (an archaic term) highlighted early so the reader thinks “that’s why they were killed, case closed”. And yet, a person’s orientation should never ‘outed’ except by themselves, as imagine how you would feel if your loved one was murdered and the Press wrote “heterosexual, but once wore his wife’s bra, allegedly for a joke”. How does that impact a reader’s understanding of a case, when the victim-blaming has already begun? Next, “he was taking female hormones and awaiting her gender reassignment operation”. Again, this often appears in the first paragraph or line, and although it seems an irrelevant piece of fluff as a tired hack races to cram as much guff into the story before the deadline, it has nothing to do with the case. But it does pin the blame for the murder on ‘Robyn’. Many articles state “she used aliases like Darren, Jenna, Gina & Robyn”, with ‘aliases’ being more associated with criminality and felons fleeing from the law, yet they don’t refer to them by what they are; a stage name or persona to entertain her client. Again, normally in the first paragraph, it states that “she was HIV positive”; which wasn’t a motive for her murder, which had no bearing on the case, which again shouldn’t be ‘outed’ and although stating “she did not offer full sex because of her HIV-positive status”, this should have been seen as a plus given the fear around HIV in the 1990s, but it was lumped in with other titbits which demonised her further; like “she used amphetamines”, and “was known to entertain two or three clients at a time”. And again, according to the Press, it was her ‘risky behaviour’ that led to her death, it was ‘her lifestyle’ (as if it was a choice) which made her a victim, and “the cops calling on gays and transvestites to solve the killing of a cross-dressing prostitute” meant the community was blamed as if this was a conspiracy. By the end of the paragraph, the average reader would have little if no sympathy for ‘Robyn’, they’d believe her death was her fault, and it was all because they assumed they were reading fact, not bias… …yet, this isn’t just an anti-gay or anti-trans snub based around ignorance, as the murders of many sex workers are reduced to blaming and shaming, regardless of their gender, colour or sexual orientation. Articles state “she advertised for clients in phone kiosks and newspapers”, as if she was literally asking for trouble. “She worked from a housing association flat”, a line which riled up many tabloid readers to grumble “yeah, and my taxes paid for that”. And “Police still do now know if it was committed by a bungling burglar or a disgruntled client”, putting the blame on her for a ‘bad service’, or by “advertising in the Sunday Sport and Loot” (two very masculine newspapers) and ”dressing in women’s underwear, make-up and a shoulder-length black wig”, that either this was a transphobic attack, her punter lashed out having been deceived by her into thinking he was going to sex with a ‘woman by birth’, or that she was honest about her gender, but that the killer struck having confronted his own repressed sexuality. The same ‘blame game’ occurs with every sex worker, and since the days of Jack the Ripper or earlier, not a single detail of their lives is treated with any decency or respect, as all that the reader thinks is relevant is their name, age, injuries, and what their wounds tell us about the psychology of the killer. ‘Robyn’ kept her client’s names in a black Filofax “with some well-known… and a famous entertainer… who to avoid embarrassing them”, they weren’t called to give evidence. In death, the intimate details of ‘Robyn’s life was sprawled across the papers, yet, although her celebrity clients who – by seeing her for sex - committed a criminal act, they were treated with the respect she deserved, but was denied. It was unfair and cruel, but that bias also exacerbated the investigation’s failure. (Writing, voice) “Well, I will tell them the whole story, the truth about 28th of February 1997. It’s a lot more straightforward than it looks…”. That day was a typical day for ‘Robyn’ Browne, as being the last day of the month but also payday for many, she was expecting a client at 7pm and possibly some others. She had lived in a small council flat at 6b Gosfield Street for a while, being a safe space for those at risk of homelessness, and although few of her neighbours knew her or what she did, Natasha Brentwood, a friend who was staying did. To give ‘Robyn’ space, at 6:30pm, Natasha headed out to meet an ex-boyfriend for dinner, wishing her a goodnight as ‘Robyn’ donned her make-up and a shoulder length black wig as she got into character. Her mood was good, she had no fears, and her client had pre-booked via her classified advert in Loot. At 7pm, the doorbell rang, ‘Robyn’ checked who it was via the intercom, happy she buzzed him in, and as he ascended the communal staircase, two boys who lived with their mother on the ground floor saw a man enter ‘Robyn’s flat – described as white with blond hair, clean-shaven and dressed in black. Neighbours often saw men, usually ‘city gents’ arriving at ‘Robyn’s flat at all hours, so it didn’t seem odd, and with the sound of sex easy to confuse with the thumps and groans of violence, although the boys heard “raised voices” and “stamping” coming from the floor above, it didn’t seem strange. At 8pm, as ‘Robyn’s clients rarely took longer than an hour, Natasha returned to 6 Gosfield Street; she knocked on the door but got no reply, she buzzed but no-one picked up, and having no key herself, she climbed up the wrought iron railings and snuck in through a slightly open window on the first floor. PC Susan Gill was the first officer on the scene and stated “Natasha was distressed and crying. She had lots of blood on her hands, face and clothes”, having tried in vain to see if ‘Robyn’ was breathing and cradled her in her arms when realised her friend was dead, having been violently attacked on her bed. “I could see a lot of blood in the room, as well as large pools of blood on the bedclothing”, and with obvious spatter marks up the walls and some reaching the ceiling, Coroner Dr Paul Knapman stated “there was evidence of a struggle… it’s obvious (s)he had put up a fight judging by the stab wounds”. From the kitchen, two single-edged six inch knives were missing. Stabbed and slashed 34 times in what was described as a “frenzied attack”, the blade was plunged with force and ferocity 9 times in her neck and chest, with one penetrating her breast bone, one piercing her heart, and one severing the carotid artery of her neck, with some of the wounds to her back as she lay face-down, half naked and helpless. Her killing had all the hallmarks of a client attacking a sex-worker… …but even though there was no money missing, a robbery had taken place. The flat was in disarray, there was a struggle but no signs of forced entry. The flat had been ransacked, a drawer had been removed from a bedroom chest, and from ‘Robyn’s black Filofax where she kept the details of her celebrity clients, from the address book, her killer had ripped out pages ‘A’ to ‘N’. Nobody saw or heard him leave, but clearly in a state of panic, he left behind a carrier bag containing a copy of The Sun newspaper and classified listing magazine Loot, which ‘Robyn’ advertised herself in. And with his hands and arms drenched in blood, he had left a bloody palm print on the bedroom door. The investigation was headed up by Detective Superintendent Brian Morris who described the killing as “vicious and brutal… a very tragic case”, and unconsciously blamed and misgendered the victim, stating “in a fringe group, he put himself in a vulnerable position”, a quote many journalists led with. The bloody knives were found in the sink and in a drawer under the hob, a set of clothes were found in a holdall, and although genetic samples were taken and the palm and fingerprints were legible, the DNA was hard to isolate having come from a sex-worker’s bedroom. The Police’s fingerprint database was still – bafflingly – searched by hand in 1997, and with it assumed that the killer must be a client or an associate, their search focussed on the remaining names in ‘Robyn’s Filofax, the bulk being local. Witnesses proved difficult, not only because sex-work is a clandestine and illegal affair conducted by two strangers in exchange for untraceable cash, but with the Press being so biased against ‘Robyn’, very little sympathy was garnered, officers were said to be “prejudiced, relying on stereotypes or lacking any knowledge” of trans or gay issues, and having got the basic details like her name, age and gender wrong, having ruled out every suspect, after several weeks, the murder investigation stalled. Westminster Coroner’s Court ruled it an ‘unlawful killing’, and although open, the case gathered dust. (Writing, voice) “Well, I will tell them the whole story, the truth about 28th of February 1997. It’s a lot more straightforward than it looks and if the evidence is really bad against me then the truth will have to come out which might send me down for a long time”. It was a dead-end, but for the detectives, it wasn’t dead, it was waiting for the technology to catch up. In 2007, a decade later, not only were there significant advances in DNA profiling, but the entire UK Police Force were linked together by NAFIS (National Automated Fingerprint Identification System). Unlike news reporting, a fingerprint can’t lie. It proved a positive match to 40-year-old James Hopkins, a Glasgow-born roofer who matched the boy’s description “white with blond hair and clean-shaven”. Arrested in 1988 for stealing a car and theft in 1993, by 1997 having separated from his wife and being a crack addict, he was desperate for money, sleeping rough, or crashing at the Queen Hotel in Brixton. After the murder, he fled back to Leeds, started a new life with his girlfriend (Donna Abbott) and their son (Jack) as they lived an ordinary life on a council estate in New Farnley, unaware of his crime. Until Wednesday 27th of June 2007, when the Met’ Police kicked down his door at 40 Bawn Drive. In a prepared statement, he told the Police “to my knowledge, I do not know the person or the address referred to. I met a lot of people and went a lot of different addresses due to my lifestyle in 1997. I have never stabbed or was involved in stabbing anyone. I have nothing further to say at this time”. Hopkins refused to answer any questions, but the evidence spoke volumes, as two eye-witnesses had seen him enter the flat, his DNA was found at the scene, his fingerprints were on copies of The Sun and Loot left in the living room, and his palmprint was on the bedroom door, caked in ‘Robyn’s blood. Hopkins refuted “I did not kill anybody called James Browne”, which was true, as James Darwin Errol Browne hadn’t existed in years, but that didn’t stop him from blaming someone who also didn’t exist. He claimed the killer was a Jamaican crack-dealer called ‘Appee’, a violent Yardee who paid him £500 “if I’d do him a favour. He said there’s a girl who had some phone numbers he needed, a book that she wouldn’t return”, being a Filofax full of her celebrity clients who Appee could blackmail for money. “She wouldn’t let him in the flat so I’d go and get him access”. Hopkins said he booked in for 7pm, “thinking she was a woman, but when the door opened, it was a black man in a bathrobe. I asked to use the bathroom and I heard her moving to the bedroom” and while she was distracted, Hopkins said he buzzed ‘Appee’ in via the intercom. Yet, the boy’s only saw a white man enter, not a black man. Spinning a story to make himself the hero, Hopkins said “Appee was struggling with her on the bed. I tried to pull him away. There was a lot of blood coming from her abdomen. Appee made for her again. I grabbed him, this time Appee turned round and headbutted me. I staggered back, Appee returned and stabbed Browne up near the neck. I was in a state of shock. I couldn’t believe what happened”. It was so unbelievable, that somehow, Appee left no fingerprints or DNA, and Police never found him. In court, prosecutor Nicholas Hilliard QC stated that Appee was entirely made up, “the truth is you went to that flat on your own, didn’t you?”, “No”, “You went into the bedroom and Browne said ‘make yourself comfortable’”, which he did, putting down a plastic carrier bag containing The Sun and Loot. “You took out a knife and stabbed that man to death”, which Hopkins denied, stating “where did that knife come from? I never carried a knife in my life”, and yet, we know he took it from the kitchen. Again, Hopkins portrayed himself as the victim, claiming “a fight started… Browne pulled a knife, cut my arm… we ended on the floor, Robyn on top, and somehow the knife cut Robyn in the chest. When I left, she was still alive”. Hopkins denied he was guilty of murder, “I’m guilty of making a lot of mistakes in my life… guilty of not ringing the emergency services… I have never been a violent man in my life”. Yet, with 34 stabs and slashes, of which 9 were wounds to the neck and chest as ‘Robyn’ lay face-down and half naked on the bed, Hopkins claimed it was all an accident, yet the coroner called it ‘frenzied’. Judge Martin Stephens stated "I am satisfied you went there to steal. You repeatedly plunged the knife into her and disposed of her with cruel brutality". But why? If ‘Appee’ didn’t exist, but Hopkins had set out to steal ‘Robyn’s Filofax (perhaps for blackmail), why was her death so frenzied, and how did he know about her famous clients, did he know her or did he read about it in the coverage of the murder? James Hopkins was held on remand at Wormwood Scrubs Prison. Inside, he sent two letters, one to his girlfriend (Donna) and one to his son (Jack), which – like all letters sent by prisoners – was screened by prison staff, and in this case, was used as evidence against him. To Jack, he wrote “Sorry you got involved in this mess. My past has come back to haunt me. Did I do it? Well let’s just say I know a lot about it and how it happened. Whether people believe me depends on a few things”, but he never said what they were. To Donna, he wrote “Sorry for all the shit this has caused you… if I see you or someone who knows me, well, I will tell them the whole story, the truth about 28th of February 1997. It’s a lot more straightforward than it looks and if the evidence is really bad against me then the truth will have to come out, which might send me down for a long time”. To Donna, he initially claimed “I haven’t done it… a criminal known as Pineapple Head or ‘Appy’ did”, which we know was a lie, and on a prison visit on the 6th of July 2007, when she asked “did you do it?”, he told her “yes”, but in a later letter he asked her to change her story, stating "they have no proof I told you anything… this letter is the only thing I'm going to have trouble explaining. Make sure no silly c**t sees it, because this letter will send me down for a very long time”. But by then, it was too late. In a three-week trial at the Old Bailey, James Hopkins pleaded ‘not guilty’ to murder, and although the familiar ‘trans panic’ defence would have been mooted – “a legal strategy where the defendant claims their violence was a reaction to the discovery of the victim's transgender identity” – it wasn’t used. Found guilty by a unanimous jury on Monday the 19th of January 2009, Hopkins was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 17 years. Judge Stephens summed up “You went there to steal property and remove pages from a Filofax which probably contained confidential information”, but everything else “was a web of lies that you tried to create”. Yet, the prosecutor, Nicholas Hilliard queried if this ‘list of celebrity clients’ was actually “a red herring, something fuelled by what the defendant saw in a newspaper, that someone well known used the services of the victim?” That could be true, but is it? Let’s consider this theory. James Hopkins, a heterosexual male who was miles from his home and separated from his wife, saw an advert for a sex-worker in a copy of Loot. He made an appointment, he rang the bell, and (with no knife to commit a robbery), he entered her flat. Hopkins claimed he arrived “thinking she was a woman, but when the door opened, it was a black man in a dress, a bathrobe”, yet he still went in. He made himself comfortable, he didn’t flee, and with ‘Robyn’, a transgender male leading him to the bedroom, half naked, a struggle was heard and the sound of raised voices as Hopkins hunted for the black Filofax. If he was after a list of famous clients to blackmail, why didn’t he steal pages ‘A’ to ‘Z’? Because the section of the address book, ‘A’ to ‘N’, covers his first name and his last – James Hopkins. He was removing his name from ‘Robyn’s Filofax, not because he planned to murder her _ as surely a murderer would carry a weapon - but because as a first-time client with a transgender sex-worker, ‘Robyn’ wasn’t attacked because of something she had done or said, but because Hopkins was unable to accept his own repressed sexuality, and rejected a ‘trans panic’ defence, because it was the truth? 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.
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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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