Brilliant read
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I for one loved this book and it gives a very clear insight into what is needed to convict these scum that are in our and everyones society, I for one thank people like Paul Britton and am Glad he is there.
In reference to Stagg, yes it is regrettable that an innocent man went to jail but even a layperson can see the how he could be the killer. Britton gives advice to the court if the Judge or jury agrees than that is that. If I was on the Jury I would of convicted him but does that make Britton a fraud? No of course not.
In this line of work wrong assumptions are always the danger but look how much he did get right. These people need help and taking off the street and I would add Stagg to that. Look what he did in that Jamie Bulger case, As a society we need people like Britton more than he needs us especialy if you have children.
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Very good read but....
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This was certainly a very good read and certainly one you don't want to put down. It gives you a fascinating insight in to the beginnings of criminal profiling and in to some of the high profile cases of the last 20 odd years. It gives you a lot to think about and raises some real concerns about how easy it can be for suspects to fall through the net and for serial offenders to remain undetected. My only unease with the book is that I sometimes felt that the author stroked his own ego a little too much - realising the human frailties of the police force yet rarely acknowledging any of his own. That is of course just a personal opinion and did not significantly detract from what is an excellent and compelling, if not always enjoyable, read.
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Something you should know....
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While this book is a highly interesting look into the world of a criminal profiler, i think that before buying this book, people should know that since publication, Paul Britton's profile led to the conviction of a man who was indeed innocent of a crime, the wimbeldon common murder. What needs to be understood is that profiles alone do not lead to the convictions of criminal as is portrated in the media. it is marely a tool to aid police officers and detectives. They may sometimes be wrong profiles!!!!!
However, the book is interesting but do not fall for the misguided facts that the media give the public!!
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Contradictions...
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Reading this book, I noticed two things. The first is that Britton is willing to hog the credit for cases in which he had very little involvement. The second is that his versions of events tend to clash with those of others - even people that he professes to admire. For example he tries to show that he had an open mind in the Colin Stagg case by claiming that he didn't know anything about Stagg's interrogation at the time of his first arrest until after Stagg was released from that arrest. But Inspector Keith Pedder (whom Britton praises!) claims in his book (The Rachel Files) that Britton was advising the police DURING THAT INTERROGATION! Clearly they cannot both be right.
I suspect that the Pedder version is nearer to the truth and that Britton is trying to distance himself from the first Stagg interrogation because to say otherwise would blast his claim that he approached that case objectively into oblivion!
He also failed to pick up on the obvious similarities between the Rachel Nickel murder and the case of Samantha and Jasmine Bisset - a surprising mistake from this self-styled "expert"!
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An innocent man nearly ended up in gaol for life because of Britton!
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Paul Britton has fooled a lot of people. When it is just readers of books that isn't so bad - it's their money they're wasting after all. But when it's a Court of law and another man's liberty is on the line, that's different.
Paul Britton is the so-called "expert" who testified that Colin Stagg shared significant "narrow" characteristics with the murderer of Rachel Nickell even though there was not a shred of scientific evidence to give any basis for this claim. Whether Britton genuinely believed it or not I cannot say - what I can say is that he had no GROUNDS to believe it. But that didn't stop him saying it in Court under oath and it didn't stop him convincing a magistrate that it was within the bounds of plausibility (which it wasn't).
If it hadn't been for a judge with a firm commitment to law, this pseudo-scientific evidence might have been presented in an emotionally charged case and used to get an innocent man convicted of murder.
What is particularly disgusting about Britton is that he planned an undercover operation in which a policewoman befriended the vulnerable and lonely Colin Stagg and held out the promise of sexual favours in return for a confession. No confession ever came, yet Britton tried to convince a court that even this was proof of Stagg's cunning rather than innocence.
But more importantly, the undercover operation amounted to playing with Stagg's mind and could have caused him very serious psychological damage. Britton - as a psychologist of sorts - knew that there was a high risk of causing this serious psychological damage to Stagg, yet he was ready to go ahead with this dangerous operation in order to get incriminating evidence against Stagg - even though Britton claimed that he was open-minded as to whether or not that Stagg was actually guilty.
So first he plays with a vulnerable man's mental stability, then he brazenly misinterprets the evidence in sworn tesyimony and then he writes not one but TWO books designed to cash in on his celebrity status that he has acquired at the expense of another man's peace of mind. The worst part is that he has got away with it.
Who says Good always triumphs over evil?
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