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He saw her at a bus stop and thought, ‘she’ll do’. That was how Wakefield shoe fetish murderer Christopher Farrow chose his victim, Wendy Speakes. He followed her home, where he tied her up, raped her and stabbed her 11 times. Farrow evaded justice for six years. He was caught thanks to advances in forensic science. Detective Jacques Morrell witnessed the introduction of the National Automated Fingerprints Identification System (Nafis) which provided the breakthrough. He explains how technology is closing the net on killers who thought they’d got away with murder.

The Six O’clock Knock is a Psycho Killer production.

Transcript
*Warning: explicit sexual content unsuitable for under-18s*

[Music] This podcast contains descriptions of death and violence that some listeners may find upsetting. Hello and welcome to episode four of the Six O’clock Knock I’m Simon Ford and as ever I’m joined by former major crime detective Jacques Morrell and today we are looking at foot fetishes and fingerprints yep that's right you heard it here first foot fetishes and fingerprints now in my copy of the chambers student dictionary from the 1970s which dates me a little bit a fetish is defined only by it being an object that is regarded with irrational reverence a spiritual charm in fact it derives from the Portuguese word for magic did you know that I had no idea hmm well done the chamber student dictionary of course we now associate the word with sexuality and fetish is defined as an abnormal sexual desire linked to a particular object so the early definition related to a talisman then I guess the key words from what you've just said there are irrational and abnormal I know this is speaking from a police angle yeah that's pretty much the size of it now we'll be looking at one particular case in detail and then we're going to refer to a couple of other cases that have a foot or a shoe fetish angle to them now I don't advise anybody to go on the internet looking for this stuff because it can make for a very peculiar browsing history even in the interests of research to start with our main case is a dreadful murder from 1994 but it wasn't solved for six years when a breakthrough came from a fingerprint at the scene and in fact I must declare an interest I was a reporter at the time in West Yorkshire and I covered this case so before we look at it in detail Jacques did you have any interesting cases solved due to fingerprints yourself I remember one in particular from about 1990 and I remember it because I actually got a call from the fingerprint expert he was actually excited about it and he wanted to tell me in person I know it sounds a little bit odd but it was unusual in itself it's worth reminding really I suppose and for the listeners benefit that an automated fingerprint system was not introduced until I think the late 1990s wow late is that a computerized one yeah because that's something it's a mainstay of every detective television program isn't every who done it is the fingerprint so yeah not until the late 1990s hmm yeah the automated system wasn't till then prior I mean prior to that fingerprints were dealt with manually and in a very methodical process there was a series of documents going backwards and forwards in the internal mail first you'd receive a form from the bureau about fingerprints known as marks that related to your case you would then eliminate any people who may innocently have left their fingerprint and then you would consider any potential suspects you would submit to form asking the fingerprint officer to compare the mark with the fingerprints and it was only rare look thinking back that officers would actually visit the fingerprint bureau now I was working on a series of crimes that involved was the issuing of stolen checks it was all very organized and we were under pressure to stop it I was working in a small inner city CID office when the phone rang and it was this fingerprint officer called Bill now he'd run me to tell me that he'd identified fingerprints on some of the stolen checks he invited me over and I remember it now I was fascinated by what he said he'd been processing one of the stolen checks and he recognized a thumbprint on it he had recognized the thumbprint incredibly he knew he'd seen it before and recently and he said there was a distinctive pattern in it now bear in mind that bill and his team spent all day looking at fingerprints not only did he remember he'd seen the mark before he knew it was from a person who'd recently been detained for the first time that is astonishing amazing yeah I mean I should add that each mark is graded as to its evidential value and the best grading is we used to use the term GEFC good enough for court and that means that the fingerprint could convict a person who left it at the scene so I take it that the call from bill in the fingerprint bureau was a good enough for court yes it was uh the call from bill was a very lucky breakthrough it was a series of stolen check frauds and it was part of a racket that was causing us a real headache we were being run ragged by a spate of crimes it involved thefts of handbags and then wholesale fraud where the checks were issued to the maximum possible value oh interesting so what's going on then, Jacques right there was a stretch of road that ran along the side of a small housing estate and in the morning rush hour the traffic ground to a halt that was the time for the local youths to strike and they preyed on women in cars who more importantly were also alone now before these women realized what had happened the passenger door of their car was open and their handbag which had been on the passenger seat was now in the hands of a youth running back into the estate wow right so like a snake lying in weight under a rock and then striking out at its prey and disappearing again I’m over dramatizing that it must have been really traumatic for the victims by the time the radio one jingle had finished on the poor woman's car stereo this youth was back into the estate the whole operation was that quick because by the time these women had got to their place of work and called the police this is obviously pre mobile phones someone was touring the supermarkets in the area writing out checks like they were going out of fashion oh right okay so this would be the equivalent nowadays of taking somebody's card and just making a whole bunch of contactless transactions yes exactly um they were buying all the essentials as you can imagine cigarettes alcohol it was a well-organized operation and yeah we were getting run ragged and we were struggling to stop it now what was unusual in bill's fingerprint discovery was that the suspect he had identified was a man now bear in mind all these checks they all belong to women so they're looking for what a guy wearing a wig or something um makes you wonder really doesn't it um okay what was happening then the suspect was a young man who had recently been arrested and cautioned for a relatively minor offence I think it was a domestic related issue and he was coming from a completely different part of town as well his involvement just didn't fit in with the usual activity that was going off oh right so this uh chat got the dreaded Six O’clock Knock did he did and as soon as we had him in it was clear that he was a little bit out of his depth he also did the right thing he told the truth now he revealed how these crimes were being organized and more importantly by who now this young man's girlfriend had moved into the area where the racket was being organized and she'd been pressured and bullied into getting involved with this cheque fraud the chequebook that she had been given and told to use had one of those unisex names and I think thinking back I think it was Leslie or something like that oh okay or Vivian or something so that the spelling might vary between the genders but actually for somebody in a shot who's just taking a check they're not going to check that closely ah check that closely apologies correct now this young man had done the honourable thing and he got his girlfriend out of the dilemma and he went to commit the frauds himself so we were now ready to give the ringleaders the Six O’clock Knock and it had all started with that brilliant piece of work by our fingerprint expert bill otherwise we would have been struggling that is fascinating and bill recognized this by eye his life was fingerprints yeah incredible nowadays of course police forces can search a computer database to see if fingerprints match those of a known criminal they don't need bill maybe that's the code name they give the computer wouldn't it be great if they did oh no it's called the national automated fingerprints identification system or NAFIS for short and it's able to compare millions of prints from all over the UK and find a match within minutes as you explain Jacques NAFIS was gradually introduced to UK forces between 1997 and 2001 prior to that forces were only able to search their own paper records which related to criminals from their own local area that's exactly right the only other way we would have been able to identify this young man would have been if someone had told us what he'd been up to it's as simple as that then we would have asked the fingerprint bureau to do the comparison otherwise without that it was a needle in a haystack and I guess with the stolen check case there were hundreds of them and producing lots and lots of fingerprints yes you can imagine the work involved the bank would receive them through the clearing system they would retain them as a batch send them to their own fraud department and then they would be sent on to the police the police would then assess

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