this was someone who was stalking CLA was fixated and obsessed with her and intrusive in her life and would not take no for an answer and she was terrified and at 228 when cla's looking at one of her colleagues she works on the a cosmetic counter and she's looking at the time and saying we're almost done he comes up behind her shoots her once in the back of the head three times in the face and then he turns the weapon on himself for as long as I can remember I've always been interested in people in watching people in studying behavior and I have a very analytical mind anyway the Hardy Boy books and ncy Drew books and then shows like Perry Mason Columbo um these types of shows and then Along Came the accused Jody Foster starred in it and then Silence of the Lambs and and that side just really fired me up I guess I got really angry about the Injustice particularly to women and girls and wanted to yeah I guess you know these were puzzles around behaviors why would someone do something like that and how do we identify them far earlier on I mean in my own family there was domestic violence and and various other things and I wanted to understand that more why would you do something like that to someone that you say that you love when I had the opportunity having spoken to a detective that works at New Scotland Yard and studies psychology I I was down at the University of bar and I needed one year out to take some kind of circum uh for that year before I finished my psychology degree and I just kept calling this detective and asking if there are any openings at New Scotland Yard and eventually they said they were setting up the sexual offenses section and that they would take me as what was then called the college-based sandwich student which is sort of the most junior level within the sexual offenses section and even being called a college-based sandwich student people thought I made sandwiches and that was my my role but it wasn't I was helping set up the sexual offenses section in the intelligence branch which was a response to really the Peter sucli case and the biford report where he was a serial killer who was missed many times and that unit the sexual offenses section was set up in order to identify the Peter sucli type offender far earlier on so it was a huge opportunity and a huge break for me because I was the first in the last out I learned and read as much as I possibly could and it led to me going back finishing my finals and then offering me a job to come back and run that unit and so when you're training and learning in those first few years of your role at New Scotland Yard what does it take to become an expert in this field well the unit that I was in the sexual offenses section really the template for it was over in the FBI the behavioral analysis you unit so if you've watched the movie Silence of the Lambs which is based on Yana Monroe Clarice Starling is based on the first female profile that was in what was called the BSU the Behavioral Science units so they laid the groundwork really Dr an Burgess she was the female that was behind the scenes that really didn't get any publicity a forensic psychiatric nurse who was helping them when they were going into interview serial killers she was helping them with the data of how do you organize it and how do you make that usable and practical and how do you spot the patterns and that was all an's work so the template was laid really by the FBI in in their Behavioral Science units and we adapted it and modified it in London and that's what the unit was we profiled ratee murder and abduction in order to prevent them in the future is this the first time in such a detailed way that UK law enforcement were looking at cases like this and really working to kind of build the pattern was this groundbreaking in that sense this absolutely was groundbreaking work I think when I was doing it I didn't have that sense of what I was doing you know for me it was just about asking questions in that I'd work five years of stranger rape murder and abduction cases the most horrific things that another human being can do to another seeing those patterns repeat and being curious about does it happen in a bigger um with a bigger pool of offenders and because I was so interested in that cohort of offenders I said I'm going to take the first three months of 2001 one and profile every domestic violence perpetrator that was reported to police and I'm going to do uh psychological autopsy as much as I could find of I'm reverse engineer it of the history join up everything I could find on all the databases about let's say John Kelly look at his whole history he raped his partner or ex partner in 2001 I'm going to look at everything he's done previously and I'm going to look at those patterns and what repeats and I didn't although I knew there was no manual to go to I didn't really appreciate this had never been done worldwide before using police data academics had written about domestic violence but no one had looked at this specific area of the domestic violence sexual offenders to see are they raping outside the home as well and I found that one in eight of them were wow and if you think about that one in eight of them are and they're already on the police data base that opens up things massively for the stranger rape murder and Abdu investigations because those men are already on our databases it's just that at that time the culture was it's just a domestic it's just a domestic it's not serious we go to these callouts there's nothing that we can do so we go we turn and burn and we leave well what I was saying is looking at the rapes there's a connection here we need to make the links these are the most dangerous cohort of offenders and I remember my detective Chief superintendent on my shoulder looking at my big computer screen in the intelligence cell and he was saying what's all that red Laura like some of those you know a lot of those rows on the Exile spreadsheet they're just blocked in red and I said oh they're the guys who would go on to kill if they haven't done already and he said what and that put the fear of God into him from training and upskilling officers in the metropolitan police and other partner agencies we reduced domestic violence murders by 58% and what does that mean to you know in terms of lives well that meant 33 lives saved every year and that was sustained for 13 years what was it between all of those cases that made you think yeah they should be in the Red Zone The Genesis for it was when early on in my career when I worked at the sexual offenses section I was asked to be part of the second wave of the John Duffy and David Mah operation and these two men were stranger rapists and they killed women too in North London this was in the 80s John Duffy was arrested because not for the stranger rapes but because he raped his wife at knife point up on hamstad Heath and a switched on detective Sergeant wondered if he raped his wife could he be responsible for the stranger rapes and murders John Duffy had never given up the partner that he was raping and killing with until for 10 years he'd been in prison and he decided he wasn't going to sweat it out alone alone and he finally told the senior investigating officer who that partner was and he named his childhood best mate David mcah who was the much more sadistic much more violent of the two well he was married too and he had four children and his wife at the time told us a lot about what had what he'd been doing to her but she was so terrified of him she would not testify against him so those red came from a lot of Behavioral baselines of language Behavior the things weapons being used uh whether strangulation was being used at the same same time their histories many of them had a 100 plus intelligence logs about their offending behavior and no one was joining that up and ironically I'm still saying the same thing now with the increasing femicide rate and misogyny and still from my work tracking Violent Men still saying the same thing these patterns keep repeating we know who they are they're on our databases and we need to be much more proactive in looking at that history of what they've been doing and that we treat them like the terrorists that they are and we already do that with serious and organized crime and with terrorists it's just that this sort of terrorism has not been prioritized and I'm still trying to ensure that that happens so after doing all the work nationally the Met asked me would I be interested in setting up a homicide prevention unit when I was running that unit it was really Brave New World because what I wanted was not just detectives I wanted Intelligence Officers intelligence analysts and academics and researchers working in one intelligence cell at New Scotland Yard and that's what we did grew a whole new breed of analysts and Intelligence Officers and and detectives with the academic side behind them and across that time those number of years we were doing that work which was tough because it was 15 different portfolios cases were happening so Amal de Grange for example who was found in a fetal position on twickham Green in 2004 she was found in the evening and rushed to hospital and sadly she died and I was in America at the time and I received the phone call it's called a category a plus murder because the community would be fearful uh a young woman being attacked in that way and my boss called me up and said want to deploy you when you get back and your team to support the category a plus murder and it ended up being called operation yeis so I agreed to that and the one thing I said is whoever he is we need to find him because he will do this again just on the basis of of what we knew and historically we need to find other offenses that he has committed now I did work on that case for a period of time and we did find other offenses that he had committed marshia mcdonnald who was hit over the the back of of the head as well and numerous others one that I found whilst watching crime watch and I felt very sure from listening to what Kate shidi a surviving victim said that when he ran the car into her and then she's on the ground looking up this is an eworth seeing him in the rear view sorry in the wing mirror look down at her on the ground and then he put the car into reverse and drove back over her that told me about intent through her own quick thinking Behavior she called her mom and then she called 999 she saved her own life and their medical intervention saved her but she had horrific injuries and he intended to kill her that was a very important offense to link in that case we had a surviving victim I called up my boss as soon as I was watching it saying I want to watch I want to walk the crime scene I want the statement and turn on crime watch and watch what she's saying I believe there's a very real possibility this is the same offender and he agreed with me so within days I was walking the crime scene well looking at the crime scene because you do situational awareness you're looking at everything around to understand offender decision making and choices and I see a camera that's looking down at the area where she said she went to get off the bus she saw a car in the shadows and then as she goes to get off the bus the car comes out of the Shadows move comes round in front of the bus and Parks up well she said even on crime watch and in her statement I don't know why I sense danger I just did I didn't want to walk past that car she walks around the back of the bus but she draws level with it the car ignition turns the lights are on and he the driver comes at her at 90° takes her off her feet she's on the ground wondering what the hell happened and you know looking up trying to look where's her bag and sees him in the wing in the in the wing mirror looking down at her and then he puts the car in Reverse so these behaviors as she described them very articulate eloquent victim and I listened to her 999 call she said I'm dying I'm dying he ran over me he deliberately ran over me well the bar treated that as a hit and run or a drink drive and that's what she was on crime watch saying that this is a hit and run or drink Drive well that's not the script for a hit and run or drink Drive normally Drive the driver would Panic they would flee they don't put the car in reverse look down at the person they've just hit and drive back over them so the intention was absolutely clear so when that camera as I said there's a camera there can we get the CCTV tapes oh yeah we have them the bar had them but they'd only watched three of the tapes not the six so operation yedith the in investigative team had now seized those tapes and when someone cleaned up the CCTV and looked at the those last three tapes they found that car as Kate described at that time and we had the vehicle registration index cleaned up and it was a car that was registered to Levi Belfield well that was a huge moment if Kate's case had been investigated in the May of the same year Amal was killed in the August if those CCTV tapes had been watched and cleaned up they would have had him and Amal would not have been attacked or killed there's your prevention do you feel that the people that commit these crimes especially repeat offenders that maybe have narcissistic or Psychopathic traits can they be rehabilitated or can that behavior change Psychopaths cannot be rehabilitated there is nothing currently that works to treat them or rehabilitate them now the psychiatrists and psychologists who work within the settings where there are psychopaths like Levi Belfield they would argue that we just haven't found what works so we shouldn't stop trying to find what works but how do we teach empathy how do we teach compassion because the thing with Psychopaths is that they will mimic back any emotion they will tell you whatever you want to hear they will tick those boxes they're chameleon esque so how do you know it's genuine and for the parole board the litmus test is are you prepared for him to live next door to you with your children children because if you are then that's one thing but if you're not then that tells you really about the level of risk and often when I get involved in those sorts of Assessments what they say is well we've put all these measures in place these 100 plus measures that we're going to force on some poor probation officer that's under resource right now with a million cases they're going to do all these and I say if if you have to do all of that clearly they're not safe the simple answer is to keep them in that's what prisons were created for to protect the public for the most dangerous type of perpetrator to be behind those four walls because they're not safe to be amongst us and too many people just don't understand psychopathy and the offenders the Psychopaths can be very Charming very plausible very manipulative very coercively controlling and yet there are parole boards probably happening now deciding to release someone because they've said all the right things they've ticked all the right boxes but that still doesn't make them safe because the mind is the problem so no they can't be currently present day they cannot be rehabilitated and they are not safe to be released when you're looking and you're watching and studying suspected perpetrators Behavior what are the red flags the things that you're picking up on I'm looking for lots of things when I study offender behavior and I look for pre- offense Behavior so what were some of the things going on if it's say a stranger attack in their lives pre what they were doing at the crime scene and with with stranger related Behavior post defense behavior is very important and an example it's an American case a little boy called Cory mitello was killed by his father and rather than taking him into hospital for help he didn't he kept him at home for a protracted period of time he then appears in the emergency room no urgency no help help I need someone over here and the little boy was motionless at that time and as soon as the um Medical Professional saw his face and that his eyes were rolled back he rushed him into a treatment room and as this little boy was being treated his father Christopher Gregor left the room well a most people parents would not leave their child particularly if it looks like they are dying they will want to be with that child and he left the ER room a number of times and then as Corey was crashing he didn't just leave the ER he left the hospital and he left the state and that sort of reaction it's called putting distance between you and the victim if you're innocent you wouldn't do that you would want to stay and that's my reflection of working thousands of cases of seeing Baseline of what's normal in these extraordinary situations and what's abnormal 4 days later he's on his phone he's driven to Tennessee and he's Googling um things about his medical condition Corey's medical condition but one of the things that he did Google was how long before an autopsy and murder will charges be brought then you have to question that I mean it took over a year for him to be arrested um a horrific case and there were many uh reports by his mother of child abuse because they were not together as a couple she had reported him more than a hundred times times for abusing Corey so even when you look back you see this whole history and that should have been um the alarm should have been raised and he shouldn't have had custody or been able to see that little boy and it resulted in him being killed um by his father and he's been found guilty now so in every case you're looking for things that uh might on the surface seem like a plausible explanation but the data never lies there are certain things like video evidence and and data that tell its own story about what's gone on and about guilt related Behavior if you don't mind I'd love to talk a little bit about your work with stalking and stalkers you describe stalking as murder in slow motion why do you use this phrase I describe stalking and coer of control the two together as murder and slow motion because you get a drip drip drip before the most serious event and often with the murders when you look back you see so many opport unities to intervene and prevent one of the cases that really changed my perception and changed my life was the murder of Clare Bell in Harvey Nichols in 2005 and she was shot dead on September the 13th I still remember it like it was yesterday and I was asked um would I review it as it happened I was still at New Scotland Yard in the office when it happened and one of our officers had gone the the detective had got the call to Harvey Nichols and what I had been told and what was on the crime report was very different from what news at 10 said a News at 10 headline was two people have been shot dead in Harvey Nichols which makes you think of someone's gone into Harvey Nichols and and just shot two people dead but the two people shot dead was Michael pesh murdering Clare benell who work there and so understanding what went before that my commander had said can you do a quick desktop top review any issues for us Laura in my role as head of homicide prevention unit and when I start looking at the history of what we knew at New Scotland Yard and looking at the crime report I saw that she had report reported to us multiple times and when she had reported his behavior to us it wasn't taken seriously this was someone who was stalking CLA was fixated and obsessed with her and intrusive in her life and would not take no for an answer and she was terrified she tried to do everything you go to the police because you think that they're going to understand the behavior and do something about it but our officers didn't understand that it was stalking they had no training on stalking no training on fixation Obsession and what to do so when he was being interviewed by an officer who was just off probation he was saying things like I just want to let her know how much I love her come on you've been in love before I just want her to know I just want to get back with her come on officer it's not a big deal I just want to see her again and I'm just trying to make my case he was saying things like that and she the female officer was thinking sounds plausible but actually what they missed was how terrifying this was for CLA that she was leaving on the tube and he would just suddenly appear he would block her exit off the tube and on what the LA one of the last occasions he didn't just block her exit he stroked her cheek moved closer to her so that they were nose to nose and he said if you report me to the police I will kill you CLA then manages to get home she was living with a friend who also worked in Harvey Nichols and that friend said you must tell a head the head of security at Harvey Nichols and so she did the head of security at Harvey Nichols did a really good job started watching Michael pesh started the disciplinary process created a whole file on his behavior that would eventually lead to him being suspended and then fired but when he was fired and he was led out of Harvey Nichols and cuffs what they didn't understand was how angry he was and he wanted revenge on CLA so when he's bailed the first person he wants to go and see is CLA he gets a weapon cuz his exmilitary and he's a security guard that works in Harvey Nichols and then he goes in through a side door on September the 13th cuz he knows the security layout security have all been told he mustn't enter the building and at 2028 when CLA is looking at one of her colleagues she works on the a cosmetic counter and she's looking at the time and saying we're almost done he comes up behind her shoots her once in the back of the head three times in the face and then he turns the weapon on himself and the case just changed my understanding of stalking my understanding of risk um it made me understand we needed to do much more about stalking it led me to meet the mom Trisha Bernell and apologized to her for not doing everything that we could have done to protect her daughter and then we went on to change the stalking law together and I having changed the law went on to set up Paladin the national stalking advocacy service for high-risk victims of stalking do you find it difficult to switch off that sort of analytical part of your brain laer you mentioned that you kind of sit in cafes and look at people's behavior like are you able to switch off from it and how how do you do that it can be very hard to switch off and you know you're constantly processing you're brain's constantly working even when you're asleep so sometimes the answers come after you've slept I mean I always have a pen and and paper by my bed so that I can write those thoughts down and I don't lose them but yes it can be difficult to switch off and I I will say that you know with trauma it does catch up with you and you know it's it's very difficult to manage your own self-care but it's like the old adage if you don't put your oxygen mask on and look after you you can't look after anybody else and you have to do that first what drives you to continue doing the incredible work and changing the laws and working to prevent femicide well I love helping people and that's why I do what I do really what underlies all of it is helping people often at the worst times in their life and this is a a far bigger conversation about society and what we can do to help our loved ones and it's the thing that every family bed through homicide says to me whether it's Alice Ruggles is Mom and and dad CLA Bell's um Mom Trisha whether it's Carol farooqi um Georgia Gabriel Hooper whose mother was stalked and murdered John and Penny Koff whose daughter Jane was stalked and murdered that when I work with the families they've all said the same thing to me which was if only we'd met you before and if we had met you before we would have understood that she was at risk and we would have done more about that so it's always looking to you know to create create change for the better for the greater good to protect primarily for me it's been about women and children it didn't start off that way but that's that's where I've ended because or that's where I'm working now and have been for for many years because they are the ones that are victimized in this case there was pots and pans on the top of the cooker and you kind of think to yourself there's just hav't done there washing up yeah there's nothing wrong with that but then when you looked at the material in the in the frying pan it was like wow that's that's that's not that doesn't look like normal food you know and and anyway it turned out that yeah it was it was brain