'I'm not bitter, I'm angry'

The Dying Art of Court Reporting

Polly Rippon, a former court reporter with the Sheffield Star who now teaches journalism at Sheffield University, joins me to discuss the art of court reporting and why it is so important. We talk about why trials are covered differently than they were in the past, why it can be dangerous for untrained people to cover cases, and some of the social issues which have only been unearthed by court reporting. This, by the way, is the Sheffield case I mention during the first part of our talk. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1190207.stm

What is Murderabilia?

In this episode I am joined by Loukas Ntanos, a criminologist from Birmingham City University and an expert on murderabilia - which is the collection of items related to homicide cases. Yes, believe it or not, there are people out there who collect and trade in ghastly souvenirs of serial killers such as Frederick Deeming (pictured) and infamous crimes. It's a fascinating subject which Loukas has been researching.

The murder of Robert "Fox" Powell with special guest Adam Lloyd from UK True Crime podcast

In Episode 13 of the Totalcrime podcast my special guest is Adam Lloyd, the host of the UK True Crime podcast, which has been going for almost 10 years. We talk mainly about the murder of Robert "Fox" Powell in June 2020 and the amazing criminal career of Nana Oppong (pictured), a drug dealer who beat three separate murder raps before finally being convicted of killing Fox. I was in court for Oppong's trial and his sentencing.

The Fall of the Kinahans

Daniel Kinahan - the alleged head of the Kinahan drugs cartel - was arrested in Dubai on 17 April. But why has it taken nearly a decade to arrest a man who had been hiding in plain sight in Dubai for a decade and had put his head above the parapet in 2020 to facilitate a world title fight between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua? In this episode I go into detail about Kinahan's activities - starting with his being mentioned at a race-fixing trial I covered in 2007 - and the infamous feud with Gerry "The Monk" Hutch and bring the story right up to date.

'The police were lying all the time'

I speak to Sir Ivan Lawrence KC, who as a barrister in the 1960s and 70s specialised in proving that police officers were liars. He represented numerous gangsters, including the Kray brothers – twins Ronnie and Reggie, and also their less famous sibling Charlie. Among his other clients were “Mad” Frankie Fraser, Joey Pyle, serial killer Dennis Nilsen, and Babes in the Wood murderer Russell Bishop - who was acquitted at his first trial in 1987 when Sir Ivan defended him, but was convicted and jailed for life 30 years later. Just sit back and listen to some of his fascinating stories.