University News Last updated 13 June 2016
Leading criminologist Professor David Wilson claims there are grounds for reopening the case of murdered paperboy Carl Bridgewater, after a Channel 4 documentary aired last night which saw new revelations come to light surrounding the unsolved child murder.
In the 90 minute one-off ‘Interview with a Murderer’, Professor Wilson conducts a series of revealing interviews with convicted murderer Bert Spencer, the man never charged with, yet widely suspected of killing 13-year-old Carl Bridgewater in 1978 – a crime he has always denied.
For the first time in almost 40 years, Spencer’s first wife, Janet Spencer, comes forward to speak to Professor Wilson and discloses new allegations about Bert’s behaviour on the day that Carl died.
Speaking publically for the first time, Janet claims that Spencer disposed of a shotgun he legally owned the day after Carl Bridgewater died. Janet also reveals that she found a green sweater hanging on the clothes line which Bert had uncharacteristically washed on the day Carl died and that she never saw the sweater again after that day.
Professor Wilson spent more than 20 hours in the company of Bert Spencer, after Spencer asked the criminologist to challenge him on his account in order to set the record straight.
“I thought he may have been trying to confess and wanted a stage”, said Professor Wilson, founding director of the Centre for Applied Criminology at Birmingham City University.
“During my interviews with Spencer it soon became very clear that there was very little that he said which could be relied upon, as he would downplay everything which counted against him, and deliberately obfuscate most detail so that it was difficult to see the wood from the trees.”
During the course of filming the programme, Professor Wilson is introduced to Spencer’s former secretary Barbara Riebold, who had originally provided Spencer with what he termed as a ‘cast iron’ alibi. Barbara admits in the programme that she cannot verify Spencer’s whereabouts for the entire day on which Carl Bridgewater was shot at point-blank range.
The new allegations and testimonies, including one from Spencer’s own daughter, are put to him in the documentary for a response in which he rejects them all.
“I will never ever be the scapegoat for the murder of Carl Bridgewater”, said Spencer.
The Carl Bridgewater case became embroiled in controversy when men who had been sent to prison for Carl’s murder, the ‘Bridgwater Four’ had their convictions overturned.
A month after the Bridgewater Four were convicted for Carl’s murder, Bert Spencer shot dead his friend Hubert Wilkes at a neighbouring farm to the one at which Carl was murdered.
Spencer was released from prison in 1995 after serving 15 years for Wilkes’ murder but has always maintained his innocence in connection to Carl’s death.
‘Interview with a Murderer’ is repeated on 4seven at 12am on Tuesday 14 June. Catch-up on demand on the channel 4 website.