"Not the Boy I Knew": ITN's 1983 Report on Dennis Nilsen's Victims, His Life and His Trial

Name: "Not the Boy I Knew": ITN's 1983 Report on Dennis Nilsen's Victims, His Life and His Trial
Uploaded: 2022-02-10T00:00:00Z
Duration: 10 min 17 s
Description: A ten-minute ITN report from 1983 on the Nilsen case, with Nilsen's mother, the partner of victim Billy Sutherland, survivor Carl Stottor and author John Lisners. Nilsen is not heard; the closing words are his writing, read by the narrator.

A ten-minute ITN report from 1983 on the Nilsen case, with Nilsen's mother, the partner of victim Billy Sutherland, survivor Carl Stottor and author John Lisners. Nilsen is not heard; the closing words are his writing, read by the narrator.

Subject: Dennis Andrew Nilsen
Recorded: about November 4, 1983
Runtime: 10:17

Content warning: Describes murder, the dismemberment and disposal of the victims' bodies, and an attempted strangling and drowning. No further graphic detail.

The Interview

This is not an interview with Dennis Nilsen, who is not heard. It is a ten-minute report by ITN, the British news service, made in 1983 and posted by ITN on its archive channel in 2022. The reporter is not identified. The report travels from Edinburgh's Waverley station, where young Scots boarded trains for London, to Nilsen's birthplace in Fraserburgh and his former homes in London. It includes interviews with a relative of a victim, the partner of victim Billy Sutherland, someone who knew victim Steve Sinclair, social worker Bob Blythe, Nilsen's mother, survivor Carl Stottor, and the journalist John Lisners.

Historical Context

Dennis Nilsen was born in Fraserburgh, Scotland, on November 23, 1945. He served in the Army Catering Corps from 1961 to 1972, then spent about a year in the Metropolitan Police before becoming a civil servant at a job center. He killed young men, many of them homeless or drifting, first at 195 Melrose Avenue in Cricklewood and later at 23D Cranley Gardens in Muswell Hill. Victims named in this report are Billy Sutherland, aged 26, killed in 1980, and Stephen Sinclair, aged 20, killed on January 26, 1983.

Circumstances

On February 8, 1983, a Dyno-Rod engineer was called to a blocked drain at Cranley Gardens; human remains were found, and Nilsen was arrested on February 9. He confessed to about 15 killings. At the Old Bailey, where his defense argued diminished responsibility, he was convicted on November 4, 1983, of six murders and two attempted murders and sentenced to life imprisonment. He died in custody in 2018.

What the Recording Covers

A relative warns parents in Scotland: "Never to go. It's such a cruel, horrible place." The narrator describes the victims as "drifters who'd strayed to London in the expectation of streets paved with gold." Billy Sutherland's partner recalls realizing that police "were walking all over his body" in the garden: "I mean, I loved the guy. I married him." Bob Blythe says London "is a very sad place." Nilsen's mother says she cannot understand it: "it's not my Dennis that's doing it. Not the boy I knew." The narrator traces his army career, his 11 months in the police and his job with the Manpower Services Commission, and the pubs where he met his victims. Carl Stottor describes waking to find Nilsen strangling him, then realizing "I was in the bath and he was trying to drown me." The narrator describes the discovery of remains and the effort to identify the dead, fewer than half of whom were identified. John Lisners sets out the Crown and defense cases and calls Nilsen "a voyeur of the underworld." His mother says, "he's always my son." The report ends with words Nilsen wrote later: "I decided to release them from the slings and arrows of their outrageous fortune."

What Makes the Recording Significant

It records, at the time of the trial, interviews with people on both sides of the case: Nilsen's own mother, the family of victims, and a man who survived.

Archival Importance

Contemporaneous ITN coverage posted by ITN itself.

Important Caveats

Nilsen is not heard; the closing quotation is his writing read by the narrator. The uploader's title, "Serial Killer Admits Murdering 15 Victims," does not describe this report; "at least 15" was the 1983 figure from his confession, and at least 12 victims are now established. The reporter, the broadcast date and the program are not identified. Nilsen's mother and the relatives are not named in the recording and should not be named on the page. Bob Blythe's spelling is not verified.

Relative Of A Victim: I just can't go over it.

Itn Interviewer: How has it affected the family?

Relative Of A Victim: [unclear: "It's affected everyone in them." / "It hated everyone at them." / "It affected everyone, you know." (second machine pass)]

Itn Interviewer: Would you have any kind of warning to the parents of youngsters, particularly here in Scotland, who were thinking in terms of going down to London?

Relative Of A Victim: Never to go. It's such a cruel, horrible place.

Itn Narrator: The London train pulls out from Edinburgh's Waverley station. Apart from businessmen and holidaymakers, it often carries teenagers, some of them stowaways, fleeing from the deprivation and hopelessness endemic in many of Scotland's sprawling housing estates. These were the victims of Dennis Nilsen: drifters who'd strayed to London in the expectation of streets paved with gold and beacon lights that would guide them to prosperity. People like Billy Sutherland, who was killed by Nilsen after a massive drinking session. Billy Sutherland lived on an estate in Edinburgh, where he was unable to get a job. Even the graffiti here seems to spring from a deep well of bitterness and frustration.

Billy Sutherland'S Partner: When [unclear: "they first brought it up" / "the first brought up"] on News at Ten, when we saw the [unclear: "ground" / "garden"], and I didn't really think about it much, because I didn't think Billy could be one of the victims. He knew how to handle himself, take care of himself. [Wording from a second machine pass; captions "handle, he's telling take care of himself".] And, and it wasn't until I learned that Billy was one of the victims, and it hit me, that all these policemen were walking all over his body, and all over the other victims' bodies that were buried in the garden. I mean, I loved the guy. I married him.

Itn Narrator: Another victim was Steve Sinclair. The product of a shattered childhood, he was slow at learning to speak and walk. His life was to become a constant carousel of institutions: mental hospital, special school, eventually borstal, and then prison.

Relative Or Acquaintance Of Steve Sinclair: He was wild, yeah, because when he went to dances, he used to fight with his mates coming home, you know. Always the fists up, always on the defensive, all the time.

Itn Narrator: Bob Blythe is a social worker who knew Steve Sinclair.

Bob Blythe: I suppose that Steve fell into the group of youngsters that had certain problems that he couldn't cope with, and felt that perhaps by coming to London he could have a new opportunity to resolve those difficulties.

Itn Interviewer: Why, then, was it a bad idea for him to come to London? I mean, what sort of problems did he face when he came?

Bob Blythe: Well, I think, like most of the youngsters that come to London, the first thing that they find is that London isn't what it appears to be on television, which are the bright lights of Piccadilly. [Music.] But really, London is a very sad place.

Itn Narrator: Nilsen's victims were largely drawn from that group of [unclear: "rootless" / "ruthless"] youngsters who now inhabit the shadowy world of London's West End: a world of night shelters and lodging units, a world of drug abuse and emotional problems, triggered by a deep feeling of frustration born out of the knowledge that they are the forgotten generation, a generation upon which Dennis Nilsen preyed.

Itn Narrator: Dennis Andrew Nilsen was born on the 23rd of November, 1945, in Fraserburgh, Scotland. He spent the early years of his life in this house. According to his mother, he was a quiet boy; little, if anything, marked him out from the ordinary. Nilsen went to school in Fraserburgh, but during his school days he never knew his father, who walked out on the family while Dennis was still very young. At the time of his arrest, Dennis Nilsen hadn't seen his mother for ten years.

Itn Interviewer: How do you think Dennis was able to become involved in this kind of problem, and then be able to live from day to day?

Nilsen'S Mother: No, that's the bit I don't understand. I just don't understand how this could go on, and nobody knowing anything. I mean, I don't know [unclear: "anything about these" / "anybody, he's"] ten years of his life, and I can't see what was happening to him. Something must have happened to him, because it's not my Dennis that's doing it. Not the boy I knew that's doing these things.

Itn Narrator: At the age of 15, Nilsen decided to join the army. He signed up in Aberdeen, transferred to Aldershot, and after a three-year training period with the Army Catering Corps, including a course in butchery, Dennis Nilsen spent the best part of a decade traveling the world. He went to West Germany with the City of London Regiment. He transferred to the King's Own Scottish Borderers, cooking for the men who guarded the Al Mansoura prison in Aden. After that, Nilsen was off to the Gulf. He volunteered for the Trucial Oman Scouts, an Arab regiment led by British officers. Then he was on the move again, this time with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, to Cyprus. He stayed with the Argylls when they moved on to Ballater, near Balmoral in Scotland, where Nilsen cooked for the Queen's Guard here at the Victoria Barracks. He was rated a good soldier, and even won the General Service Medal, but after serving in Northern Ireland, he decided to leave the army.

Itn Narrator: Dennis Nilsen then joined the Metropolitan Police Force, but his new career lasted for just 11 months. After a short spell as a security guard, he became a civil servant, working for the Manpower Services Commission in several job centers around London. He lived at 195 Melrose Avenue, in a ground-floor flat with access to the land behind. He later moved to this house in Cranley Gardens. A lonely man who spent many solitary hours gazing at Karl Marx's grave, and who bored his workmates with interminable chatter, Dennis Nilsen craved company. He found it in the pubs of North London: the Black Cap, by Camden Town tube station; the Golden Lion, in the heart of Soho; the Salisbury, in the West End. It was in these pubs that Nilsen met his victims. Carl Stottor met Nilsen at the Black Cap, where he agreed to go back to Nilsen's flat.

Carl Stottor: I fell asleep, and I woke up, and he was strangling me, and I passed out. Um, after sort of thinking, actually, I thought that I'd got caught up in the sleeping bag, which he had warned me about, and I thought he was helping me out, but he wasn't. And anyway, I passed out from that. And I remember vaguely hearing water running, and being carried, and I felt very cold, and I realized I was in the bath and he was trying to drown me.

Itn Narrator: Dennis Nilsen spared Carl Stottor, but at least 15 people weren't so lucky. They paid the ultimate price for Dennis Nilsen's hospitality. He killed them, he chopped up their bodies, and he then burned, boiled or buried the pieces. But Nilsen's reign of carnage was coming to an end. In February of this year, a Dyno-Rod man discovered some human remains in a manhole near Nilsen's last home in North London. Nilsen was arrested, and a search of Melrose Avenue and Cranley Gardens revealed more than a thousand pieces of flesh and bone. A special unit was set up at Hornsey Police Station to try and identify the dead people. Scotland Yard's Missing Persons Bureau, B14, was called in to help. In the end, fewer than half of Dennis Nilsen's victims were identified. Even Nilsen himself doesn't know who the others were.

Itn Narrator: The question the jurors had to ask themselves at Dennis Nilsen's trial was this: could Nilsen possibly be responsible for his own actions? John Lisners has been studying the man for the past nine months. He's written a book on the Nilsen affair, which is being serialized in the News of the World.

John Lisners: The Crown said that he was in command of the situation, that he knew what he was doing all the time. The defense said that he did not know what he was doing when he committed the acts of murder.

Itn Interviewer: But what sort of a man do you think Dennis Nilsen is?

John Lisners: I think Nilsen was a man who stalked victims by night, in a patch he knew very well, areas that he'd been to as a policeman, as a night guard. He loved the sordid, seamy life. He used to observe it. He's a voyeur of the underworld, if you like. And I think over the years he grew so much a part of it that he wanted something more. His office life, I think, was very boring. He was a very strong union man. But he wanted an excitement which he never found in the civil service.

Itn Narrator: Dennis Nilsen was incarcerated in his own personality. His mother says that when he was finally arrested, he walked out of one prison into another. But does she still think of Dennis as her son?

Nilsen'S Mother: Yes, he's always my son. And that's why I want him to know that we're all concerned about him. And I just hope he'll get some help to cope with the situation he's in.

Itn Narrator: Life took Dennis Nilsen from a childhood in the spacious countryside of northeast Scotland to the dark, dingy streets of London's West End, where he found so many unfortunate youngsters. As Nilsen wrote later: "I decided to release them from the slings and arrows of their outrageous fortune." [No further speech in either source from about 10:08 to the end of the video at 10:17.] ---