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00:00Scotland Yard, home of the world's most famous detective force.
00:11Scotland Yard has a long history.
00:14It specialises in the training of its detectives and the way it investigates crime.
00:21The name Scotland Yard still conjures up the images of detectives wearing trilby hats and trench coats.
00:28Tenacity.
00:29There's a lot of pride in make detectives. We don't like to be beaten.
00:33Bravery.
00:34We knew we were facing very, very dangerous criminals.
00:39And sheer persistence.
00:41My job was on the line if this went wrong.
00:45All keep Scotland Yard at the cutting edge of crime detection.
00:49Buried in the cellar was simply viscera and bits of flesh.
00:53But you can earn a lot from things like that.
00:55These are the crime-busting secrets of Scotland Yard.
01:07Scotland Yard.
01:09The London Police HQ whose name is synonymous with all that's best in the detection of crime.
01:14This seemingly anonymous office block hides a century and more of dark and infamous secrets.
01:26Today, at the heart of this sprawling metropolis,
01:29it's home to one of the oldest detective forces in the world.
01:32The Metropolitan Police Service, known to Londoners as the Met.
01:42Now we shed new light on the earliest days of modern policing,
01:46through the felony-packed archives of Scotland Yard.
01:50We follow crime historians as they retrace the steps of the earliest detectives.
01:57Find out how the Yard uses every crime-fighting technique in its repertoire
02:02to stop the biggest heist in history.
02:07And reopen classified files
02:09to reveal how the seeds of modern-day policing
02:12are sown by the world's most famous murder case.
02:15These are the secrets of Scotland Yard.
02:30London, with its daytime population of up to 15 million,
02:34could be a police force's nightmare.
02:38London, it's a crossroads of crime.
02:40It's always going to be a key centre for criminal activity,
02:45for law-breaking, for politically motivated crimes.
02:49A million crimes, on average, take place in London every year.
02:53From their headquarters at New Scotland Yard,
02:5633,000 officers safeguard one of the largest cities in Europe.
03:01Patrolling nearly 10,000 miles of street...
03:03..more than 200 miles of waterway...
03:10..and 600 square miles of airspace.
03:1524 hours a day, seven days a week.
03:21There are lots of little niche units inside Scotland Yard.
03:25Pretty much all parts of the detective divisions of Scotland Yard
03:28have secrets.
03:34The history of Scotland Yard dates back almost 200 years.
03:38London, at the beginning of the 19th century,
03:43has become, very suddenly,
03:47the largest city that the world has ever known.
03:50The poor are flooding in from the countryside to look for work.
03:55And so there's a whole new class of urban poor
03:57and a parallel rise in backstreet crime.
04:00So you suddenly have this sense of,
04:04it's a dark and dangerous world out there.
04:07And that's the world that enabled the creation of the police.
04:14With crime rising in the early 19th century,
04:18government faces a growing clamour for something to be done.
04:20Finally, in 1829,
04:24the future Prime Minister Robert Peel passes the Metropolitan Police Act.
04:29And London's police force, the Met, is born.
04:35One letter still stored in the archive
04:37reveals Robert Peel's original vision for his police force.
04:41This is a remarkable document, actually,
04:46signed by Robert Peel,
04:49and this letter sets out the structure of it.
04:53Eight superintendents, 20 inspectors,
04:5788 sergeants, 895 constables.
05:01They are nicknamed Bobbies and Peelers after Robert Peel.
05:04And they wanted people who were reliable
05:08but were solid, working-class types.
05:12Not too posh,
05:13but people who understood the streets of London.
05:21Today, historian Judith Flanders
05:23is on the hunt for the regal origins of Scotland Yard.
05:29We're going down Whitehall now,
05:32the seat of governmental power.
05:35And as part of the display of governmental power,
05:38the Metropolitan Police headquarters
05:40was in this turning off Whitehall,
05:44which was called Scotland Yard.
05:46Centuries before,
05:47the kings of Scotland had had a palace on the land.
05:51And the reason that we today
05:54refer to the Metropolitan Police as Scotland Yard
05:57is simply it was the original address of headquarters.
06:02Scotland Yard was the name of the headquarters
06:04when the Metropolitan Police was formed.
06:08We've moved a couple of times,
06:09but we like to keep the name
06:10because everyone knows the headquarters of the Scotland Yard.
06:15The Yard's original address now houses
06:17just one remaining mounted police unit,
06:19a last reminder of the street's secret history.
06:23Here at Great Scotland Yard, we can have up to about 27 horses at any one time.
06:29This is illustrious. He's number 20 on our binder.
06:32He's a good lad. He's not long been with us here at Great Scotland Yard.
06:35The Met's mounted branch is charged with all aspects of crowd control,
06:41from football matches to modern day riots and demonstrations,
06:48similar challenges to the massive problems of civil unrest facing English politicians back in 1829.
06:54The government is running scared.
06:56This is just a few decades after bloody revolution had slaughtered the political elite of France.
07:06In the mood for revolution themselves,
07:09the English public distrusts Robert Peel's new police force.
07:13They view its constables as government spies.
07:19So to quell the disquiet, Robert Peel forbids the Met to look into people's private affairs.
07:25Robert Peel had to agree that the police would only be there for the prevention of crime.
07:32That was their sole function.
07:35It sounds astonishing to modern ears,
07:38but it was actually illegal for the police to investigate wrongdoing.
07:42Although their presence might hope to deter villains,
07:45they can do nothing to find out who those villains are.
07:49It's a situation that will last for more than a decade after the formation of the Met.
07:58By 1840, the Met has been installed at Scotland Yard for 11 years.
08:06The new police officers dress in civilian-style clothing
08:10to reassure the public that they aren't military spies.
08:15They carry just a wooden truncheon and a rattle to raise the alarm for help.
08:23But throughout this time,
08:25the Met's first commissioner is secretly training a few of his best policemen
08:29to investigate crime, thereby breaking the law of the land.
08:36Richard Main, the commissioner of police, felt the only sensible thing to do
08:41was work behind the government's backs, and very quietly, he set up a proto-detective department.
08:49The secret, illegally operating detectives soon see action.
08:57That summer, in the wealthy district of Mayfair, an elderly aristocrat and former member of parliament
09:04is murdered.
09:04The pressure on the Met to solve the case is immense.
09:09Richard Main himself, the commissioner of police, was brought into the action right away,
09:14and he brought with him his secret proto-detectives.
09:20Supposedly, a burglar has broken through Lord Russell's front door,
09:24encountered the nobleman, and killed him before escaping.
09:27This is the quiet Mayfair street that Lord William lived on, and the front door was broken in.
09:37But when the secret detectives looked at this crime, they said,
09:43Why would you jimmy a door where there are houses directly across the road?
09:49It's terribly overlooked. There is a service street right there where no one could see you.
09:55Why wouldn't they use that?
09:58Next, the secret detectives continue to break the very law which had created their force,
10:03and search the house looking for a murder weapon.
10:08They find a knife which has been returned to the cutlery drawer,
10:12and deduce that the culprit works in the house.
10:16Scotland Yard's secret detectives figure out that Lord Russell's own valet is the murderer.
10:21So this was all terrific detection work.
10:30Despite this success, it isn't until 1842 that the detectives can come out of the shadows.
10:38That year, a madman tries to assassinate Britain's beloved Queen Victoria.
10:43The attack fails, but the Met's commissioner uses it to argue that this outrage could have been
10:50prevented if the police had investigative powers.
10:55Richard Mayn realized that this was the perfect opportunity to expand the powers of the police,
11:02which he had long wanted to do.
11:04Two months later, Scotland Yard's detective department finally opens for business.
11:10All that happened was what had been secret and technically illegal became open and legal.
11:18Now free to operate as they wish, Scotland Yard's first eight plainclothes detectives take to London Street.
11:32I think these early detectives absolutely sowed the seeds for the reputation of Met detectives.
11:39There's a lot of pride in Met detectives. We don't like to be beaten and it is a challenge outweating the criminal really.
11:49The success and investigative skills of the early detectives soon capture the public imagination.
11:55Famous writers described those first detectives with great kind of adulation.
12:00They imagined that they were of sort of preternatural intelligence.
12:06What we think of as Scotland Yard was the creation of crime writers.
12:10And that created in our minds the notion of the disinterested objective sleuth tracking down the evil criminal that Scotland Yard represents.
12:24By the 1860s, the cult of the Scotland Yard detective is established.
12:30These are the men who would inspire such fictional characters as Sherlock Holmes.
12:35Although the super sleuth is an independent investigator.
12:39A private detective never employed by the police.
12:43Scotland Yard has its very own Sherlock.
12:47A real-life counterpart of the fictional detective.
12:51Dick Tanner of the Yard.
12:52It's a horrific real-life murder in the London suburb of Hackney that catapults Inspector Tanner of the Yard to public attention.
13:06The case in 1864 is the first ever homicide on a train.
13:11To the crime-obsessed Victorian public, it becomes known as the railway murder.
13:19Tanner leads the investigation.
13:22In 1864, Dick Tanner's just 31.
13:25The commissioner, Richard Mayne, thinks that he is his most brilliant young officer.
13:29He's going to be running his own investigation.
13:32And this is a huge case.
13:33He knows that it will make or break him.
13:35Today, historical author Kate Colquhoun retraces the course of Dick Tanner's seminal investigation.
13:44By 1864, thanks to the Industrial Revolution, railways have transformed Britain.
13:56Soon, they will play a vital role in Tanner's detective work.
14:00Just where the road bridge is down there, there was actually a railway bridge.
14:04And you would have seen steam trains rattling across, rather like you see the traffic today.
14:09Railways enshrined speed as the principle of Victorian life.
14:15So no longer were goods gently coming up and down the canals.
14:19Now you've got trains transforming the notion of how fast people and goods can travel.
14:25Because, hitherto, you could only go as fast as a galloping horse.
14:29This newfound speed has enabled businessmen to move out to suburbs like Hackney.
14:34July the 9th, 1864.
14:39Wealthy businessman Thomas Briggs leaves the financial district of the city of London
14:43and heads home to Hackney.
14:47Kate Colquhoun follows in his footsteps.
14:51Thomas Briggs has walked back through the city to Fenchurch Street Station.
14:55He walks to the front of the furthest forward of the first-class carriages
14:59and sits with his back towards the engine so that he doesn't get any of the soot coming in through the window.
15:04The first-class carriage is about to become a death trap.
15:10The first-class compartments were box-like, with one door on either side,
15:14which were locked between the stations.
15:16While the train's in motion, big, steamy, rattly steam train,
15:20there's probably no way that you could even call for help and be heard.
15:24But somewhere along the line, Thomas Briggs goes missing.
15:28The first-class carriage offers Dick Tanner a set of grisly clues.
15:32There were bloody handprints on the walls, on the offside door handle.
15:38There were blood splatters up the window and they also found blood on the outside of the compartment,
15:43where it looked as if Thomas Briggs' head had actually hit part of the wheel as he fell out of the train.
15:48But the whereabouts of Mr Briggs' body remains a mystery, until it is found on the railroad later that night.
15:56So they brought the body here to a pub called the Mitford Castle, it's now renamed.
16:02But he never regained consciousness and he died within 24 hours, at which point this was a case for Scotland Yard.
16:09As young Inspector Tanner arrives on the scene, further clues are emerging.
16:17First he finds that Mr Briggs' top hat and gold watch are missing.
16:23Knowing the murderer may try to sell the missing items,
16:26Tanner advertises a £200 reward for information.
16:29It encourages a jeweller to come forward.
16:36He reports that a young foreigner had brought Briggs' gold chain into his shop.
16:44Then a cab driver tells of a young German man who had left hurriedly for America,
16:49in suspicious circumstances.
16:51His name is Franz Muller.
16:57At Scotland Yard, Tanner now has a prime suspect.
17:00But his task is far from over.
17:03Franz Muller has already left for America.
17:07Tanner's really thinking on his feet at this point.
17:10Because Muller's poor, he's taken a slow boat.
17:12But Tanner can harness technology, if you like, to catch his suspect.
17:16He can jump on an express train to Liverpool.
17:19From there he can buy a ticket on a fast-going steamship across the ocean.
17:24He can outpace Muller and hope to be in New York in time to arrest him there.
17:30Tanner's determination pays off.
17:32He arrives in America almost three weeks before his suspect.
17:37And when Muller finally disembarks, Mr Briggs' gold watch
17:40and a suspiciously similar hat are found in his luggage.
17:43Today at Scotland Yard, one antiquated notebook holds details of the case.
17:51The book I've got here is the arrest book for Detective Inspector Richard Tanner.
17:58Franz Muller apprehended at New York on the 24th of August, 1864.
18:03On the 27th, the prisoner was examined before Judge Newton at New York
18:13when he was handed over to my custody on a warrant granted by the President of the United States.
18:22Muller is shipped back for trial in London.
18:24His public hanging on November the 14th, 1864 attracts 50,000 spectators.
18:35Detective Dick Tanner may have inspired the fictional sleuth Sherlock Holmes.
18:41But every superhero needs his nemesis.
18:43And if Tanner is Sherlock, then the Yard is soon to face his archenemy, a real-life Moriarty.
18:55In the 1870s, the detective branch at Scotland Yard comes up against an unparalleled master criminal.
19:03Chief Inspector John Shaw was to spend more than two decades trying to track him down.
19:08The American villain, Adam Worth, boasts an infamous record of crime.
19:16Gambling rackets in France, diamond robberies in South Africa,
19:21larceny in North America.
19:24Inspector Shaw has assembled a thick portfolio on Worth.
19:28Most of the detectives at Scotland Yard thought he was the cleverest and most ingenious criminal of all time.
19:35Inspector Shaw referred to him as the Napoleon of crime, partly because he was a great general of a great crime network,
19:42but also because he was small. He was five foot four.
19:45The diminutive American arrives in London in 1874.
19:51He sets himself up as an English gentleman on the main thoroughfare of fashionable Mayfair.
19:55Today, investigative author John Farnden retraces the steps of one of Scotland Yard's most ingenious foes.
20:06Adam Worth's flat was right here. It was 198 Piccadilly.
20:10Worth's Piccadilly pad soon becomes an international clearinghouse of crime.
20:14All kinds of really disreputable times were coming in. They were some of the nastiest criminals in Europe.
20:22They were really the big wheels in European organised crime.
20:26Inspector Shaw has informants in Adam Worth's camp, so he knows what's happening.
20:34But solid evidence is missing.
20:37Shaw's only hope is to catch his criminal opponent red-handed.
20:40Scotland Yard tailed him all the time in the hope of catching him out, but they never did.
20:48By now, Adam Worth believes himself to be above the law.
20:53In May 1876, what was then the most expensive painting ever sold goes on display in Piccadilly.
21:02When Adam Worth sees Gainsborough's portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire,
21:07he knows what his next target will be.
21:10The Duchess of Devonshire hangs in one of London's most fashionable galleries.
21:17On May 27th, 1876, the police are called to the Agnew Gallery.
21:23The Duchess of Devonshire has vanished into thin air.
21:28All they found in the upstairs was just the frame and the painting cut away in a very,
21:33very neat business-like way.
21:35And it was a while before they spotted that the window was open just a little way.
21:40They assumed it could only be a very small man.
21:44Inspector Shaw's informants identify Adam Worth as the thief.
21:49Shaw just can't prove it.
21:50And he never suspects the true whereabouts of the masterpiece.
21:55Adam Worth fell in love with the painting, kept the painting under his mattress,
21:59and he slept with the painting for 20 years.
22:03Adam Worth eventually relinquished the Duchess.
22:12Still remaining incognito, he trades her for a reward rumoured to be in excess of half a million dollars in today's money.
22:18By this time, Worth has formed a bizarre friendship with American detective William Pinkerton.
22:26In Piccadilly, the fashionable Criterion Bar is a favoured haunt.
22:32Over time, Worth tells the American detective how he repeatedly fooled Inspector Shaw.
22:39Twenty years later, when Pinkerton in turn runs into Sherlock Holmes author Arthur Conan Doyle,
22:45he recounts Worth's tale.
22:49The story was to immortalise Adam Worth as the stuff of literary legend.
22:54Adam Worth inspired the character of Moriarty, who is Sherlock Holmes' arch enemy in the Conan Doyle novels.
23:02Moriarty is Adam Worth personified with his great intellect, his love of art, his refinement, his sense of control.
23:12Despite his failure to catch his own Moriarty, Chief Inspector Shaw goes on to become a superintendent
23:17with a distinguished career, unlike some other Scotland Yard detectives,
23:22who were finding themselves on the wrong side of the law.
23:24One of the glories of Scotland Yard is its criminal investigation department,
23:32the CID.
23:33It ranks alongside agencies such as the FBI in its crime-detecting prowess.
23:40which makes it ironic that the CID owes its existence to the corruption of the Met detectives themselves.
23:48In 1877, the trial of the detectives causes a sensation.
23:55The great turf fraud was described as Scotland Yard's blackest moment.
24:01The story begins with a classic sting. A French noblewoman is conned out of 30,000 pounds,
24:08which stacks up to more than two million dollars in today's money.
24:13The scam involves false bets on horse racing.
24:15The confidence tricksters are caught and convicted.
24:22Their trial at London's famous Bow Street Magistrates Court reveals a terrible truth.
24:29Detectives from Scotland Yard are also involved in the crime.
24:33Corruption has always existed at Scotland Yard, and you can trace that right back to the late 1800s,
24:41when three detectives at Scotland Yard were arrested for essentially taking bribes from two well-known fraudsters.
24:49They had been giving them the nod and the wink when investigations were getting close to them for a backhander.
24:57August 1877. Three high-ranking policemen are themselves in the dock of the court.
25:06They're convicted and jailed for two years.
25:09Those were the first Metropolitan Police officers who ever went to prison for such an offence.
25:16The Home Secretary immediately orders an in-depth investigation into the Met's detective department.
25:22A year later, it is abolished. A new criminal investigation department, the CID, takes its place.
25:32The new 800-strong CID is four times the size of the old detective department,
25:38and it has a vital new detection technique. It starts keeping criminal records.
25:42What I think Scotland Yard did so brilliantly was, and I do not mean this unkindly,
25:50I am hugely approving of it, was paperwork.
25:55Over the years, the CID's Criminal Records Office collects the details of thousands of crimes.
26:03And along with other Met departments, continues to recruit more men.
26:07By 1890, the organisation has been forced to relocate to a new purpose-built HQ.
26:18Fittingly, perhaps, the castle-like building is built from stone quarried by convicts.
26:25It will house Scotland Yard for the next 80 years.
26:28Just as the move is being planned, Scotland Yard finds itself facing its most chilling adversary to date.
26:39Detectives will use every trick in their book in the hunt for one of the world's first serial killers.
26:47Jack the Ripper.
26:48In 1888, Jack the Ripper is terrorising London.
26:58Scotland Yard never catches this depraved and audacious murderer.
27:03But in the race to hunt him down,
27:06the Met develops innovative techniques of crime detection still in use today.
27:13Jack the Ripper selects his women victims in one of London's most notorious slums,
27:17Whitechapel.
27:20Today, Ripper expert John Chambers retraces the murderer's steps.
27:26The police wouldn't go in here.
27:28It wasn't safe for them to go around because a lot of the criminals were armed with knives and
27:32billy clubs and axes, little hatchets, whereas the police only had a small truncheon to fight them off.
27:39In 1888, nearly one and a half thousand prostitutes walk the streets of Whitechapel.
27:44In the early hours of August the 7th, one of them is killed in an area called George Yard Buildings.
27:55It marks the start of the Ripper's reign of terror.
27:57When it came to the police doing an investigation, they didn't really have much to work on.
28:02They didn't have any kind of crime scene investigation.
28:04They didn't have fingerprints.
28:06They didn't have any kind of forensics.
28:09Within a month, the killer strikes again.
28:12There had already been one murder here in Whitechapel when on the 8th of September 1888, a body was
28:18discovered in the backyard of number 29 Hanbury Street, an old Georgian terrace. It used to be
28:23right here.
28:24Now, when the police got to the scene of crime, they discovered the mutilated remains of 47-year-old
28:29prostitute Annie Chapman. Many of the doctors believed at the time that it may have been the work
28:33of someone who was very skilled with a blade.
28:35The two Whitechapel victims have been mutilated in similar ways. It suggests they've been butchered
28:43by the same hand. But Scotland Yard finds no other links between them.
28:50Most murders in the 19th century were committed between people who had some kind of relationship
28:56with each other, as is, of course, the case today. In the case of the Ripper murders, it became
29:01reasonably obvious quite soon after the first killing that this had not been committed by a
29:07person known to the victim. To modern eyes, Jack the Ripper shows all the signs of a serial killer.
29:14But back then, Scotland Yard has no experience of such a heinous crime.
29:19In the context of the history of serial killing, the Ripper murders are absolutely the granddaddy of
29:24them all. Jack the Ripper absolutely embodies everything that we currently associate with the
29:30concept of a serial killer. The assistant commissioner asks police surgeon Dr. Thomas Bond to investigate
29:39any links between the killings. The hope is Dr. Bond's insights will narrow down the list of suspects.
29:49In terms of the policing techniques brought to bear on serial killing offences, absolutely the key
29:54thing is to link the crimes, because the choice of victims does give the police a great deal of
30:00information about the killer. What Dr. Bond comes up with is the world's first criminal profile.
30:06The profile that Thomas Bond developed included characteristics such as whether the offender
30:11was likely to be left or right-handed, what kind of occupation he was likely to follow, where he was
30:16likely to live in respect to the crime scenes, and whether the people who worked and lived alongside
30:21him might have any kind of suspicion of him. When yet another woman is found dead with similar
30:26mutilations, there is little room for doubt. Catherine Eddowes is the fourth victim of the same
30:33sadistic killer. Our killer had left Catherine in a complete state. When he cut her throat,
30:39he cuts it so deep he nearly cuts her head off. He then tore through three layers of her clothing and
30:44then ripped her open. He slit into her eyelids, just there and there, and then cut these two upside down
30:49V's on her cheeks, just there and there. As well as criminal profiling, the Ripper investigators have
30:57another new weapon up their sleeves. They document the crime scenes in intricate detail, records that
31:06survive to this day. Primary source material from the Ripper murders is particularly striking. They took
31:13particular care to get the body, the situation, the injuries well documented. The drawing of Eddowes' body
31:22was made in situ at Mitre Square. This is the crime scene drawing and it shows the body as it was found,
31:29with the legs spread open, the clothes opened up, you see the lacerations to the face and to the eyelids.
31:38We have here a plan of the Mitre Square area. The body of Catherine Eddowes is clearly shown.
31:48And in 1888, the police have another new tool to record the Ripper's victims, photographic images.
31:56Photographs were taken of Eddowes' body in the mortuary and that's interesting because we also have
32:02anatomical drawings of the injuries in the mortuary too. So the drawings show the gaping wound in the abdomen.
32:11The photographs show the body after the abdomen was sewn up.
32:17As news of the murder spreads, detectives are inundated with letters.
32:23The signature on one gives the killer his infamous name.
32:27Another provides the criminal profilers with an alarming insight.
32:34The From Hell letter was accompanied by a piece of human kidney.
32:39It was purportedly sent by the murderer after he had eaten the other portion of the kidney.
32:46That's interesting in itself because it's suggestive of cannibalism,
32:50which you do see in some serial murders in recent years.
32:54By now, Scotland Yard's commissioner is desperately seeking new ways to catch the killer.
33:03Commissioner Warren orders detectives to investigate the use of bloodhounds.
33:08He believes their sense of smell can be harnessed to track down the killer.
33:14Shortly after the bloodhound experiments, the killer strikes again.
33:20For Scotland Yard, it is the last opportunity to catch Jack the Ripper.
33:25It is also the first time that detectives deliberately preserve the scene of a crime.
33:31Well, this was once upon a time Dorset Street, the worst street in all of London.
33:34It's where the last victim of the Whitechapel murders was discovered at 10.45 in the morning.
33:41The police had barricaded the entrance so no onlookers could go in and tamper with the crime scene.
33:46That was one of the first times they really tried to do it and actually had some sort of success.
33:51The victim is 25-year-old prostitute Mary Kelly.
33:55She is the only Ripper victim to be killed indoors.
33:58And these images of her horrendously mutilated body on a bed are the first known crime scene photographs.
34:08Crime scene photographs are very important because they give you a great record of the crime scene as you find it.
34:12Things that may not seem important at the time may suddenly become important.
34:15It may show part of a pattern.
34:17So every little detail you can record adds to the pictures that go with the puzzle.
34:22The Ripper murders have never been solved.
34:25Yet they represent a watershed moment in the history of Scotland Yard.
34:30The search for the Ripper created investigative techniques which are still in use today.
34:39As Scotland Yard heads into the 20th century,
34:42the newfangled science of forensics is about to take center stage.
34:46In 1910, a famous murder case is solved by Scotland Yard.
34:54Thanks to two world-changing inventions of the Victorian age.
34:59An American living in North London, Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen,
35:03is suspected of murdering his wife Cora.
35:07This is a picture of Cora Crippen.
35:11Unusual woman, she was a music hall artiste.
35:14Well, on the night of the 31st of January, they held a dinner party for a couple of their friends,
35:20and the friends left at about one o'clock in the morning.
35:23And that was the last anybody ever saw of Mrs Crippen.
35:30Crippen explains the disappearance by claiming she'd returned home to America.
35:34But living with Dr Crippen was Ethel Leneuve, who had been his secretary.
35:42So, tongues started to wag.
35:46Scotland Yard dispatches a detective to investigate.
35:50He finds nothing suspicious until he reaches the basement.
35:53When he finally went back into the cellar and looked a little more closely,
35:58he began to realize that the bricks seemed to have been taken up in one place.
36:02At that point, he prized up the bricks,
36:06and pretty soon he began to realize that there was human flesh buried in the cellar.
36:11The evidence could hardly be more damning.
36:15But Crippen denies the remains of those of his missing wife,
36:18claiming they must have been buried long before he lived in the house.
36:22The problem facing Scotland Yard when they found the remains in the cellar
36:25was, of course, trying to establish identity.
36:29The late 19th century is a time of rapid scientific progress.
36:33The discipline of forensics, the application of science to solving crime, is developing fast.
36:40In the year of Cora Crippen's disappearance,
36:43a young forensic pathologist is rising through the ranks at Scotland Yard.
36:48Sir Bernard Spilsbury was a very knowledgeable man, very professional.
36:51If he was used in a prosecution, it was never good news for the defense,
36:55because if Sir Bernard Spilsbury said that you committed the murder,
36:58chances are the jury would agree with him.
37:00The Met knew precisely who they could turn to
37:03when they were faced with a particularly difficult case of homicide.
37:09Among the technological advances by then available to pathologists is the microscope.
37:16Spilsbury would be among the first to use it to prove the fact of murder.
37:21The young scientist also uses the microscope to study the formation of scar tissue,
37:26skills which are to prove invaluable in the Crippen case.
37:32What was found buried in the cellar was simply viscera, internal organs, and bits of flesh.
37:38But you can learn a lot from things like that.
37:40Cora Crippen is known to have had a hysterectomy, which left a scar on her lower abdomen.
37:46The microscope reveals a similar scar on the remains in the cellar.
37:52This alleged scar on this piece of flesh was one of the strongest pieces of evidence
37:58to suggest that the corpse in the cellar was that of Cora Crippen.
38:03And this scar became an absolute battleground between the prosecution and the defense.
38:08The evidence proves compelling.
38:13Crippen is convicted of murder and hanged.
38:18Once again, Scotland Yard is breaking new ground.
38:21Science and forensic evidence coming together to prove Crippen's guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
38:29This same first decade of the 20th century sees the Met develop further crime detection techniques
38:35at Scotland Yard. A few years earlier, in 1905, the trial of the Stratton brothers has also
38:43been a first for the Metropolitan Police detectives. Since the turn of the century,
38:49the Yard had been working on the practical application of the greatest leap forward in
38:53criminal detection – fingerprinting. The fact that no two fingerprints are the same has long been known.
38:59But Scotland Yard figures out how best to exploit that fact to help solve crime.
39:06One of the things they were brilliant at was how to harness the technology through bureaucracy.
39:13So, although they were not pioneers of the actual notion of fingerprinting,
39:19they were pioneers of using fingerprints as a crime detection method.
39:25In 1905, a gang in Deptford, South East London would be caught out by the Met's new method.
39:34The Stratton brothers know that evidence of physical identification is, up until then,
39:39the only way the police will be likely to convict them.
39:44So, when they burgle a shop in Deptford High Street, they know exactly what to do.
39:48To make sure they weren't recognised, they cut masks out of stockings. They put masks over their faces.
39:54So, the Stratton brothers, they decided they were going to get rich quick. They decided they were
39:57going to break into a shop. The brothers raid the till, kill both the owners, and escape.
40:04Having removed their masks, they are seen leaving the shop. The police bring them to trial.
40:10But the Strattons have murdered the only eyewitnesses to the crime.
40:16They believe they have got away with it.
40:21Unbeknown to the Strattons, Scotland Yard sends its newly formed fingerprint team down to the crime scene.
40:29They find a bloody thumbprint on the shop's cash box.
40:33Although the Stratton brothers totally denied the offence, their fingerprints were found in the cash box.
40:38They thought they were going to be safe and free because they hadn't confessed.
40:41The only evidence against them was this little thing called fingerprints, which they really didn't understand.
40:46But the jury understood. Once they were given a demonstration by a prosecution council, they found them guilty.
40:52The judge sentenced the Stratton brothers to death.
40:56The bloody thumbprint found by Scotland Yard is the first fingerprint evidence to convict a British murderer.
41:02A year later, Scotland Yard set up the fingerprint registry.
41:08And by 1934, almost 400,000 identifications have been made.
41:15And in 1963, it is fingerprinting that nails the gang behind Britain's most famous crime,
41:22the great train robbery.
41:23The gang holds up a mail train and makes off with a staggering amount of cash,
41:31more than half a billion dollars in today's money.
41:34The only people capable, really, of carrying out a crime like that were London-based underworld characters.
41:40You know, the hardcore of that gang were all very successful, professional criminals.
41:46They were all good London villains.
41:49So Scotland Yard, of course, you know, very quickly, within two or three days of the crime taking place,
41:55had essentially taken the whole thing over.
41:57To outwit their pursuers, the gang plan to lie low with their fortune in a nearby farm.
42:06As they wait for police attention to die down, they combat boredom by playing Monopoly with real money.
42:14But from eavesdropping on police radios, they realise there's a suspicion they're still hiding nearby.
42:20Running scared, they flee the farm earlier than planned.
42:24They did try to wear gloves all the time, and people even had the job of kind of sanitising the house afterwards.
42:33But they were not as forensically aware, if you like, as they perhaps should have been.
42:40When the fingerprint team move in, they find that one thing has been overlooked.
42:45The Monopoly board is covered in prints.
42:48It was fingerprints that solved the great train robbery.
42:51All the evidence against the suspects was the fact that their fingerprints were found at Leather Slate Farm.
42:58And it is this evidence that eventually convicts them.
43:05Throughout the 20th century, Scotland Yard exploits advancing technology.
43:09And arguably, the invention which brings the most radical change is the motor car.
43:181903, the first police car arrives at Scotland Yard.
43:24But it's the inception of the aptly named Flying Squad in 1919, which makes full use of its speed.
43:30The Flying Squad could get around London very quickly, respond to situations very quickly.
43:40The Flying Squad will work in such a way that they will be at the right place at the right time to catch robbers red-handed.
43:46By the 1920s, the Flying Squad's daredevil officers are screeching around London at speeds topping 40 miles per hour.
43:52A decade later, the arrival of state-of-the-art radio gives them communication on the go.
44:02And by the 1950s, the Flying Squad is the jewel in the crown of Scotland Yard, making 1,000 arrests a year.
44:10Meanwhile, the ranks of the Metropolitan Police have continued to swell.
44:13And by the 1960s, the 20,000 strong force is on the move again, to the premises it occupies to this day.
44:25New Scotland Yard.
44:27The first phase of the move has just been completed.
44:30This is the new information room, where for the first time, calls can be dealt with directly by operators in immediate contact with patrol cars.
44:37But the glamour doesn't last long. The esteemed Flying Squad detectives are about to fall from grace.
44:46The Flying Squad officers spent a lot of time in the London crime communities, you know, rubbing shoulders with criminals.
44:52In the 1970s, Scotland Yard officers are convicted and jailed on corruption charges involving bribery, prostitution and pornography.
45:01In fact, a lot of corruption was unmasked, and a number of Scotland Yard officers went to prison.
45:08But by the end of the 1990s, the Flying Squad is back on form.
45:16By then, they've perfected the use of another crucial crime-fighting tool, video surveillance.
45:22In February 2000, Flying Squad detectives hear rumours that a major armed robbery is about to take place in London.
45:35Scotland Yard knew who the members, really, of this outfit were.
45:38So, essentially, they were looking at a team of armed robbers, looking for an opportunity to arrest them red-handed.
45:45But with no clue as to the gang's target, head of the Flying Squad, John Shatford, puts them under intensive video surveillance.
45:57We knew we were facing very, very dangerous criminals.
46:02The gang has a distinguishing feature. It's known to use boats as getaway vehicles.
46:07So, when the Flying Squad films a speedboat arriving at the gang's HQ, Shatford starts searching for riverside targets.
46:18Then, a breakthrough.
46:20An undercover officer films a gang member visiting London's latest tourist attraction.
46:27The Millennium Dome Exhibition Centre.
46:31All of a sudden, I had this vision in my mind of the River Thames that ran around the dome.
46:37Now, bear in mind, we were looking for robbers that were using the river as an escape.
46:43From that moment, all my thinking, everything seemed to go into slow motion.
46:50The police soon realise that the dome itself isn't the target.
46:55Rather, the robbers are after a high-value prize which lies inside the building.
47:03This is the Millennium Star.
47:05This flawless diamond is thought to be worth a staggering three-quarters of a billion dollars.
47:14Back in 2000, it is part of an exhibition in the dome.
47:17We actually saw one of the gang go into the exhibition of the Millennium Diamond itself, and that absolutely convinced us that was their target.
47:29To catch the gang red-handed, Shatford sets up covert operations on the dome.
47:42Watching crowds entering the enormous structure requires the biggest secret surveillance operation in the Flying Squad's history.
47:48I knew my job was on the line if this went wrong.
47:56Every move we made, whenever we were looking at a place to be, what we have to bear in mind is that the criminals were doing what we were doing from another perspective.
48:05We had people at the top of cranes, we had people in the tower block across there looking down, all looking for that vital clue.
48:15Next, Scotland Yard surveillance tapes show the arrival of a bulldozer, known as a JCB.
48:27The gang are taking it to a hideout less than five miles from the dome.
48:36This is the industrial area of Plumstead.
48:40Now, tucked away just back here is an old coal yard where they brought the JCB.
48:47We were actually, I had offices up on this embankment here, which was very difficult to get to.
48:53And we could see them through these gates here, look, if you just back through here.
49:01You know, the trouble is with an area like this, is everyone seems to know everyone else.
49:06And to be blunt, many of them were involved in a little bit of skullduggery.
49:10So the last thing they want is the police around here.
49:17November the 7th, after months of surveillance and several full starts,
49:24the secret tapes show the JCB setting out towards the dome.
49:30We got a message, the JCB was on the move. We were game on.
49:37At the dome, Shatford's team is ready and waiting.
49:40We had police launchers on that side and along there and further down the river.
49:47They were all prepared to just move in and descend in a circular motion.
49:53And inside, flying squad detectives are hidden everywhere.
49:56At the time, I was working on one of the specialist firearms teams. And we were brought in by the
50:03flying squad to assist in planning a safe way of arresting the suspects during the commission of
50:10the offence. I had special engineers construct a false wall. Behind the false wall, we had firearms
50:17officers from Scotland Yard, and they were just waiting for the command there. There's 17 of us,
50:22I think, and we were smuggled in, in the early hours of the morning.
50:278.45am. The boat is moving up the Thames, and the JCB is approaching the dome.
50:35We had the JCB now driving up this road. We still didn't know what it was going to do.
50:42It drove down here. The road was slightly different then, but it pulled up alongside.
50:46And then, quite unexpectedly, it crashed through the outer fence down here.
50:56The JCB smashes through the wall of the dome itself.
51:02The JCB swiveled around outside where the diamond was, outside the vault.
51:07There were suddenly smoke bombs, smoke grenades thrown from the JCB.
51:14Some of the gang have entered the room containing the diamond exhibit.
51:19But luckily, it is housed in bomb-proof glass.
51:21The glass that displayed it, apparently, would withstand military-grade explosives. That's what we were told.
51:30They aim the nail gun right at the casing. They fire it. And with that, they follow in with a sledgehammer.
51:38And they move in and make a hole. And it's on that moment, and I'm just almost counting.
51:43Get your hand on it. Go on, get your hand on it.
51:48We were waiting for the words, attack, attack, attack. And when those words were given, we ran out onto the concourse.
51:56My particular role was to concentrate on the JCB and the driver. Thankfully, he surrendered.
52:05Out on the river, armed police swoop on the getaway boat.
52:10Stun grenades were thrown inside the vault.
52:12They were deafening, so the gang inside just must have thought the world was ending here.
52:18The armed police were surrounding them. And then we had them trapped.
52:24There was neat holes in front of each of the diamonds, ready for them just to lift them out.
52:31This was an amazing success. This was Scotland Yard actually defying the best criminal brains. And we beat them.
52:40It is a good reflection on what the Met's good at, in particular the Flying Squad. They will target the people who think they are above detection.
52:48Had they not been up against someone like the Flying Squad, they probably would have been successful.
52:51It is a good reflection on what the Met's good at.
52:54It is a good reflection on what the Met's good at.
52:56Scotland Yard has been at the forefront of crime fighting for nearly 200 years.
53:0121st century criminality is forcing the Met to up its game yet again.
53:05Scotland Yard's business is always in motion. It's always evolving and the pace of change has probably never been quicker.
53:14They just got such a depth of experience, the Yard. It makes them respected around the world.
53:20Scotland Yard continues to invent and perfect techniques to keep it one step ahead of the world's cleverest criminals.
53:27The history goes back a long time, but it keeps, if you like, reshaping to adapt to how life is now. And it's got to continue doing that.
53:40Scotland Yard today is a technically highly sophisticated organisation. It leads the world still in murder investigations.
53:49It leads the world in counter-terrorism. That's what Scotland Yard are very good at. They've been incredibly successful at stopping plots.
53:57Scotland Yard remains the vigilant protector of London's citizens, striking fear in the hearts of those who cross over to the wrong side of the law.
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