News and Politics | December 18, 2008 | 1 comment

Man admits Rachel Nickell killing

Image
Katanajon
A Broadmoor patient has pleaded guilty to killing former model Rachel Nickell, who was stabbed 49 times in front of her young son 16 years ago.

The 23-year-old was attacked as she walked with her two-year-old son on Wimbledon Common in south-west London on 15 July 1992.

Robert Napper, 42, pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

An Old Bailey judge said Napper would now be held in Broadmoor indefinitely.

Mr Justice Griffiths Williams said: "You are on any view a very dangerous man.

"You still present a very high risk of sexual homicide which can only be managed in a high security hospital."

Paranoid schizophrenia

Victor Temple QC, prosecuting, said two psychiatrists agreed that at the time of the killing Napper suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and Asperger's syndrome.

He said after consultation with police, lawyers and the victim's family it had been decided that it was "proper and appropriate" to accept the plea.

The plea ends one of the most high-profile crimes dealt with by the Metropolitan Police.

In 1994, Colin Stagg, from Roehampton, south-west London, went on trial for the murder, but the case was thrown out after evidence from an undercover policewoman was ruled inadmissible.


Robert Napper

Killer who slipped through the net.
  1. groups:
    News and Politics
  2. tags:
    News and Politics Murder England Girl 5 more
  3.     
    |

1 comment // Man admits Rachel Nickell killing

more from News and Politics:

top videos