Triple nominated at the True Crime Awards and nominated Best British True-Crime Podcast at the British Podcast Awards, also hailed as 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.
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 London's West End.
EPISODE TWO HUNDRED AND NINETY-NINE:
This is Part Two of Five of Schizophrenic: The Real/Fake Peter Bryan. Peter Bryan is regarded as one of Britain's most infamous serial-killers and cannibals with almost every article and documentary about him slavering over the grisly details of his murders, and especially his cannibalism. But how much of this story is the truth, an exaggeration or a lie? Who created these myths, why do we still believe them, and what evidence is there of cannibalism? Told in full for the very first time, this is Schizophrenic: The Real/Fake Peter Bryan.
SOURCES: a selection sourced from the news archives:
This series is primarily based off the Inquest papers into the care and treatment of Peter Bryan (September 2009).
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Thursday 18th of March 1993 at 6:55pm, outside of ‘Omcar’ at 149 King’s Road in Chelsea, Peter waits; his forehead sweats, his heart pounds, the bleach burns on his face sting, and his right ankle tingles. Inside his brown leather jacket is stashed a claw hammer, only this isn’t about death, it’s about love. For 10 years, Peter had loved Nisha, and for the last six (by his count), she had loved him back. It began as teasing, jokes and giggles, but being so close, he said they found a love which she had hid from her parents. It had progressed beyond kissing to rubbing and touching, always initiated by her, but every time they got close, her mother pulled her away and he feared that her father would send her to India. Since he had been sacked, Nisha was never left alone in the shop, but as Michael was out, Rita headed upstairs to make dinner and Bobby fetched the pavement sign in, Peter saw his chance to talk to her. Told in full for the very first time, this is Schizophrenic: The Real/Fake Peter Bryan - Part 2. (Shop bell) When he entered the shop, Nisha was on the phone, blanking him, “it was time to find out where I stood with her” he later stated, and although he waited – still feeling ‘buzzed’ from the wine, the weed, smashing a car and some windows - he hadn’t the patience and slammed the receiver down. 23 and still a virgin, Peter’s sexual frustration fizzed, as every time she teased him, going hot and cold, turning him on and blowing him off, she’d rub her breasts against him and as just quickly turn to stone. But this encounter would be different. Right then, with her parents out, “she started kissing me” Peter said, but it was as she started touching him, that she grabbed him and demanded “make me… rape me”. Peter was shocked, horrified, “I knew the relationship had to end, or move on”, he thought, so with the half-kilo claw hammer balled-up in his tight fist, “my hand went up and that was that. I hit her three or four times” hard across the head. “She didn’t shout or say anything, she just stood there and took it… I had the strong impression Nisha wanted me to kill her… she didn’t tell me to stop… because she didn’t give a damn and wanted to get out”. And as she hit the floor, he hit her twice more, and he walked away, “I had no idea what to do”. (Shop bell). Peter recalled this in interviews with noted psychiatrists across the decades… and yet, not a single word of it was true, except in his head, as witnesses and survivors told a very different story. Born on the 1st of February 1973 in Hampstead, north London, Nisha Menhidra Sheth was Michael & Rita’s only daughter. To her friends, neighbours and even strangers, she was “quiet, clever”, “a lovely girl”, “intelligent and charming”, “her cheery manner brought smiles to weary workers on the street”. She was loyal to the shop, loving to her family, and having obtained 3 A Levels at college and secured a place at South Bank University to study a degree in Social Science, she made her parents very proud. She didn’t have a boyfriend, but then she didn’t want a boyfriend, as her future held a bright career, and although (over the last ten years) she’d been a friend and colleague to Peter, it was nothing more. No-one knows why he killed her, except Peter, but was his reason a delusion or reality? This was the truth. (Shop bell) Peter deliberately waited until Nisha was alone. Storming into the shop, he smashed Bobby twice across the head with the claw hammer, rendering the 12 year old boy senseless as he crashed to the floor, and seeing the seething attacker wielding a bloody hammer, the shop’s customers fled. Nisha screamed, terrified, as grabbing her roughly, Peter threw her down, and with barely a grunt, he rained down six hard blows to her head, smashing open her skull until her brain tissue was exposed. Staggering and bleeding profusely, being no match for this barrel-chested brute, having gained some consciousness, Bobby ran into the street and frantically rang the flat’s doorbell to alert his mother, as Nisha lay broken and smashed. Passersby stared in shock, passengers recoiled in horror, and although one man bravely chased her killer down Chelsea Manor Street, after a few roads, he lost sight of him. That was the reality of this brutal murder, it took less than 30 seconds, and Peter never said a word. Police and ambulances were on the scene in minutes, as Rita wailed and held her dying daughter tight. Miraculously, Bobby survived, as with two glancing blows, he only needed a few stitches. But as Peter’s intended target, Nisha got the full force of his fury. Transferred to Hammersmith Hospital, Michael, her father sat by her bedside pleading “please don’t leave me”, but that night, she died of her injuries. For several years, the family stayed on the King’s Road, saying “she loved it here, so we try to carry on as if she still is, but every corner reminds us of her”. In her bedroom were her dolls, her school reports, a signed photo of Cindy Crawford, and although painfully grieving, the family stayed strong for each other. But Michael said “time doesn’t heal, it stopped that day, the numbness blows you to pieces”. Detective Chief Superintendent Clive Ritchie described it “as a cowardly and horrific attack”, witnesses came forward, and police cars were on the look-out “for Peter Bryan who was armed and dangerous”. In his retelling to psychiatrists, he’d later claim “after this, my mind went blank”, yet he said a woman at a bus stop pleaded for him to kill her asking “what about me?”, that he dumped the bloody hammer by a door but not in the River Thames which he passed, and at 7:05pm as he crossed Battersea Bridge, he claimed – while high on skunk, drink and adrenaline – he went searching for a place to take his life. At about 7:15pm, having passed a six-storey block of flats (maybe Musgrave Court), in a storage room, he said he removed his bloodied clothes, put on an old boiler suit, threw away his rings, climbed over the railings of a third floor walkway, and – like his friend, known only as P1 – “I wanted to end it by throwing myself head first”, but having second thoughts, he slipped, and fell 35 feet onto concrete. Rushed to St Thomas’ Hospital with severe fractures to his legs and ankles, bilateral pins were inserted into his heels and he was placed in traction. A drug test revealed a weak positive for cannabis (proving he hadn’t smoked any in 2 to 3 days), and with the Police still searching for him, he kept muttering to the nurse a number, it was the phone number at Nisha’s shop, and later that day, he was arrested. Discharged on the 25th of March 1993, he was charged with Nisha’s murder and the wounding with intent of her brother, Bobby. In a Police interview he gave a “wholly delusional” account of his motive, and expressed no remorse for Nisha or her family. A psychiatrist stated “he displays a remarkable lack of concern and an eerie emotional detachment about the killing…”, being “cold and indifferent… he regarded the event as a matter of great regret, as he was now crippled and facing a bleak future”. Peter had taken her life, with his expression as lifeless as if he had taken her lunch money… …and yet, he wasn’t entirely broken or devoid of all emotion. Awaiting trial, he was held at Brixton Prison, a crumbling Victorian Category C jail, famed as cold, harsh and brutal. With a wealth of evidence against him, if convicted of wilful murder, he risked being sent down for a life sentence, which is a very long time for a young man who had never served a day inside. In his first weeks, he launched two unprovoked attacks on fellow inmates, one while in his wheelchair. He was violent, aggressive, uncontrollable, and was often segregated for the safety of other prisoners. Assessed by the prison doctor, and later psychiatric nurses from Homerton Hospital, his paranoia and anxiety “was a reaction to the prison itself”, but when removed “he was polite and cooperative… quiet and withdrawn ‟, he openly spoke of the murder, his love for Nisha, and the abuse within his family. In hour-long interviews with clinicians, he said of how the police watched him and strangers conspired against him. As a Christian who believed in ghosts, he said that “dead souls listen to my conversations” and hurt him if he doesn’t obey, as prior to the killing, his right ankle was tingling. Raised to Caribbean parents, he said he used voodoo to quell his demons. And having no prior convictions for violence, he said he didn’t know why he had murdered Nisha, but that a dark force and voices were pulling him closer. But he did admit, after he had battered her to death, “I got an appetite, a thrill from the killing”. On the 24th of November, prior to his trial, assessed to consider his admission to Rampton Psychiatric Hospital, the Forensic Psychiatrist of Brixton Prison stated “I found his mental state hard to assess. Although I am confident he suffers from a psychotic illness, his symptoms are not well defined”. Certified as ‘fit to plead’, Peter Bryan was tried at the Old Bailey on the 25th of February 1994. Said to be “floridly psychotic at the time of the murder”, he pleaded ‘not guilty’ of wounding with intent and ‘not guilty’ of murder, but ‘guilty’ of manslaughter and wounding owing to diminished responsibility. Satisfying the criteria, on the 4th of March 1994, under sections 37 & 41 of the Mental Health Act 1983, he was sentenced to a ‘hospital order without limit of time’, meaning that “for as long as he is believed to be a threat to the public”, he shall remain locked-up at Rampton high-security psychiatric hospital. It was said, “he may never be released”. But was this diagnosis a mistake, was it a quirk of his sickness, or was he manipulating both so this first-time murderer could escape the prison time he feared? His history of mental decline suggested that his symptoms were real, and his killing was the work of a man who was not in control of his faculties, but three months before his trial, he sent Nisha’s father a letter which – they would state - showed he was not insane and should have been tried for murder. Dated 22nd of November 1993 and sent from Brixton Prison, in neat handwriting with no grammatical errors, corrections or spelling mistakes, he wrote: “Dear Michael. I am writing to say how very, very, very sorry I am. I would have liked to be a part of your family, but due to this situation, this does not look possible. Telling Nisha that I love her over and over again does not work. Really Michael, if there is a problem with the colour of me, you are selling yourself too cheap. So if you would be so kind to send my clothes to HMP Brixton, I would be very, very, very happy. In my mind, Nisha will always live and sooner or later I will meet her, and no one can tell me to keep away from your daughter. Good luck. Peter”, followed by a list of the bloody clothes he wore when he slaughtered Michael’s daughter. To this grieving family, “it was a psychological slap in the face, as if the killer was laughing at them”. On the 17th of December 1993, prior to his trial, Peter was admitted to Rampton, one of three high security hospitals in England, alongside Ashworth and Broadmoor, where he was later incarcerated. When Rampton is mentioned, the media relies on a painfully trite list of the most heinous criminals to grace its wards; like serial killer Beverley Allitt, kidnapper Ian Ball and rapist David Carrick, Charles Bronson, Stephen Griffiths and Ian Huntley, as well as which were paranoid schizophrenics, so this detail embeds in the reader’s mind the idea that all sufferers of psychosis are drooling psychopaths. Many of the most infamous schizophrenics were killers, just as the majority remain forgotten, but just as many have used their mental illness to improve our lives, such as; Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd, Vaslav Nijinsky the ballet dancer, actress Veronica Lake, artist Louis Wain, author Robert Walser, Professor Elyn Saks, and John Nash, Nobel Prize winning mathematician as featured in the film A Beautiful Mind. Throughout their lives, they had all suffered and struggled with delusions, hallucinations and paranoia, but whereas they channelled their mental disorder into a career or creativity, Peter’s outlet was drugs. Writer, Mark Vonnegut wrote “the voices weren’t much fun… part of it was my being uncomfortable about hearing them, no matter what they had to say, but the early ones were mostly bearers of bad news”. Judge Dr Daniel Schreber said “It was as if single nights had the duration of centuries”. John Nash said it isn’t always about suffering “I think mental illness can also be an escape”, and Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys said “of my 40 years of auditory hallucinations inside my head, all day, every day… the voices say something derogatory to me, but I have to be strong enough to say to them, ‘Hey, would you quit stalking me?’… ‘leave me alone’… I have to say this type of thing all day long. It’s like a fight”. But how could Peter fight the (supposed) demons inside his mind, if he was high on illicit drugs? His first six months inside were difficult, but not unusual. On the 25th of January, one of his first reports stated “he presents some issues but his behaviour is appropriate”. It said, he got excited seeing blood while watching Alien 3, he stated “I should be in America, kids of 8 go around with Uzi’s”, and when recalling his own crime, “he appeared dissociated and vague”. He had suicidal thoughts, he bragged about wanting to be a serial killer, he made home-made hooch in his room, and he threatened to kill staff twice. At Rampton, this was all normal for a new patient, whose diagnosis was still being assessed. With every interaction and incident reported; on 7th of July 1995, he allegedly exposed himself in the showers ‘while erect’ to a female cleaner, he denied this, and it was deemed ‘an accident’. On the 1st of August, he burned a different cleaner with a cigarette, but later apologised. On 20th of September, he mocked Nisha’s death, stating “the Paki’ had it coming”. And on the 18th of February 1996, he said to a nurse, that if he got out, he had some “unfinished business” which would lead to his re-arrest. Again, outside of Rampton, that would be concerning. But inside, it was noted and evaluated. On the 17th of May 1994, for the first time in his life, Peter was prescribed an antipsychotic medication, 10mg of zuclopenthixol “and he improved markedly over the next two or three months”. Stopped in August, “suicidality and sexually disinhibited behaviour returned”, so it was restarted and he settled. Away from life’s stressor (like his family) and with no access to drugs (like ‘skunk’), “the staff thought he had made considerable progress regarding his behaviour, attitude, maturity, anger and insight". He slept soundly, he ate his meals, he took his medication and he seemed willing to get well. He had his ups and downs but who doesn’t, and every day, he was one step closer to being a better person. Several years in, being described as "a model patient"; he bettered himself by attending an upholstery workshop and requested anger management courses and sex education. He regularly went to the gym as he still required therapy for his fractured ankles. By April 1999, his Responsible Medical Officer (the RMO) wrote to the Home Office and Peter was granted six day passes to go shopping in the local town and (escorted by a guard and a nurse) they “passed without incident”. And when interviewed on the 17th of March 2001 by a psychiatrist at the request of his solicitor in preparation for a tribunal, Peter stated “I am remorseful. I have destroyed Nisha’s life” and although he still believed she had rejected his love, he said “it was not justifiable, I was ill at that time. Most definitely the ‘skunk’ was part of it”. That year, Peter’s diagnosis of schizophrenia was re-assessed, with it reported that at the time of the murder “he was suffering a paranoid psychosis… exacerbated by stress, (but) the fact that he did not display any symptoms of schizophrenia other than paranoia was an important factor”. A later report states “Mr Bryan is a cheerful and relaxed young man who has co-operated fully with the psychological assessment… he has spoken openly and honestly about his background, his offence and situation. It is likely that he has a predisposition for mental illness exacerbated by stress”, as seen in his brothers. At his mental health tribunal in January 2001, it was said “Mr Bryan posed no significant management problem. However, it is questionable as to what extent he is being managed by his medication”. Two months later, a tribunal ruled “he can be conditionally discharged provided that he takes anti-psychotic medication”, with the plan to transfer him from high-security Rampton to a medium security unit on a six month trial, which if he passed, he’d be moved to a low-security hostel in the community. If he had been convicted of murder, he would have spent 23 hours a day for at least 20 years in prison. But given a ‘hospital order without limit of time’ from which – it was said - he may ‘never be released’… …in just over eight years, he was close to being free. Months prior, the inquest papers state that a man known only as Social Worker 4 gave a stark warning in an ongoing assessment – “Peter is very resourceful. He is cooperative but in a superficial way and mostly complies because he believes that this is the best way to achieve conditional discharge.” (Clock ticking) His six month trial began on the 12th of July 2001 when Peter was escorted by staff to the John Howard Centre, part of Homerton Hospital, a medium secure psychiatric unit in East London. Assessed, in the first weeks, his mood was typical of new patients being a little down and withdrawn. He was verbally (but not physical) hostile to staff, which was blamed on his upbringing “having no real coping strategies and a lack of structure in his life”. He made some inappropriate comments to female staff but wasn’t aggressively sexual, he admitted his attraction to Indian girls, he made racists remarks like “you know us darkies can’t read”, and he accused some doctors of using ‘white magic’ on him. He was doing better, but he would never ‘miraculously’ be well, skipping through the hospital gates singing “I’m cured, I’m cured”, as if he was a schizophrenic, he would always be a schizophrenic. Every day, he would have hallucinations, delusions and persecutions - just like Brian Wilson and John Nash – but it was all about how well he managed those symptoms, so he could try to live as normal-a-life as possible in society, without endangering himself or others. And right then, he wasn’t out of control. (Clock ticking) Five months. Said to be a “model patient”, to acclimatise him to the real world, he went on escorted trips to Victoria Park, later to the National Portrait Gallery where he enjoyed discussing art, to watch the Harry Potter film which he liked, and to a local pub where he played pool and had a pint of beer, and according to his occupational therapist, “he was stable with no signs of psychosis”. (Clock ticking) Four months. A progress report stated “Mr Bryan’s mental state has remained stable, free of psychotic symptoms and he is compliant with his medication. He is polite, appropriate and has not been a management problem on the ward… Mr Bryan was always appropriately dressed, punctual for meetings and apologetic when late for reasons beyond his control. He made intense eye contact, related warmly and established an easy rapport… there were no overt signs of a psychotic or mood disorder… and he asked for clarification about his community support once discharged from hospital”. (Clock ticking) Three months. Given his constant stability, Social Worker 4 would (in the months prior and ahead) write three times to the Home Secretary asking for Peter to be released, stating “there was no change in his mental state”, “he posed no further threat” and “he does not present a grave and immediate danger to the safety of other persons”, even though he still had “delusions about the killing of Nisha… continue to push boundaries and was thought to be some risk towards Asian women”. (Clock ticking) Two months. In the aftermath, when after his release, Peter committed a suspected sex attack on a girl, two more brutal unprovoked murders and a barbaric act of cannibalism, many have accused the mental health system of protecting their own and finding a scapegoat. The first was an unnamed psychiatrist who had never assessed a patient convicted of murder, but the main fall guy was Social Worker 4. Leaking his name to the press, Roland Sillcott was young, inexperienced and “had been a social worker for only five months and had no mental health training, let alone with offenders”. He took the blame, but he hadn’t the power to release a convicted murderer into the community, that took a team of psychiatrists, nurses, lawyers, judges and politicians, who all got to remain anonymous. Roland wouldn’t face any disciplinary action, yet neither did those who put him in that position. (Clock ticking) One month. In January 2002, an anonymous three-member mental health tribunal (consisting of a social worker, a psychiatrist and a High Court judge) met in secret and agreed – against Home Office advice – to release Peter Bryan to a hostel where he could come and go as he pleased. Described as “one of the most compliant (patients) I have ever come across”, having completed his six month trial “without incident” and “making good progress”, on the 12th of February 2002, 32-year-old Peter Bryan was released from the John Howard Centre, from further psychiatric care at Rampton, and his “hospital order without limitation of time” for the murder of Nisha Sheth, just 9 years before. Nisha’s mother would state “it is terrible. He shouldn’t be out. He shouldn’t even be alive”, and yet, having served just 8 years, 11 months and 6 days, he was now being escorted to a low-security hostel, just miles from his home, where he would continue to be monitored and assessed, but he’d have his own room, clothes and key, as well as a job, friends and a sex life, while Nisha’s family still grieved. Peter Bryan was declared “no longer a danger to the public”, and yet, with his ‘unfinished business’, it took a further catalogue of blunders to turn this one-time murderer into a cannibal and a serial killer. Part three of Schizophrenic: The Real/Fake Peter Bryan continues next week. 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.
0 Comments
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. 
Archives
June 2025
Subscribe to the Murder Mile true-crime podcast
Categories
All
Note: This blog contains only licence-free images or photos shot by myself in compliance with UK & EU copyright laws. If any image breaches these laws, blame Google Images.
|