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Mark Williams-Thomas

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Mark Williams-Thomas
Williams-Thomas in November 2013
Born
Mark Alan Williams-Thomas

(1970-01-09) 9 January 1970 (age 54)
Billericay, Essex, England
EducationBirmingham City University
OccupationInvestigative reporter
Awards
Mark Williams-Thomas's voice
recorded November 2013

Mark Alan Williams-Thomas (born 9 January 1970)[1][2] is an English investigative journalist and former police officer. He is best known for exposing Jimmy Savile as a paedophile in The Other Side of Jimmy Savile, a television documentary he presented[3][4] and as the presenter and investigator of The Investigator: A British Crime Story in the ITV and Netflix crime series.

Background

He was born in Billericay and was educated at Amesbury School and then Pierrepoint and then in 1989 joined Surrey Police. During his time with Surrey Police he was a specialist in major crime and child abuse. He left in 2000.

Williams-Thomas completed his MA in criminology from Birmingham City University in 2007.[5]

In 2013 Williams-Thomas was awarded a Post Graduate Diploma (Honours) and master's degree (MA) in Criminology at Birmingham City University.[6][7]

Career

Williams-Thomas was a detective and family liaison officer with Surrey Police from 1989 to 2000.[2]

On 27 November 1995, school girl Ruth Wilson aged 16 years went missing from her home in from Betchworth, near Dorking Surrey, England. Williams-Thomas was the family liaison officer for Wilson's case, stated that extensive searches across Box Hill had yielded no evidence to suggest she was killed or committed suicide. He also stated that he was sure Wilson was not abducted by a stranger. Williams-Thomas also stated that "From the experience I have had, I would suggest one of two things occurred. She either went up there to meet someone and has subsequently gone away, or she went there and died in some way."[8]

In August 1997 Williams-Thomas was in charge[9] of the child abuse investigation into school teacher Adrian Stark, the director of music at St John's School, Leatherhead, Surrey. Three days after his charges relating to indecent photographs of children Mr Stark's partly-clad body was found in the sea off Beachy Head, Sussex.[10]

Between 2001 and 2002, Williams-Thomas was the marketing manager and a director of GumFighters,[11] a "national chewing gum removal specialist". The company were hired by various councils to clean their streets.[12][13]

In 2003 Williams-Thomas was charged with blackmailing a funeral home director, after alleging that there were multiple bodies buried in unmarked graves. An article ran in a national Sunday paper describing the mass burials. He was subsequently acquitted.[14]

In 2005, he set up WT Associates, an independent child protection consultancy firm.[2]

In September 2013 MP Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con) made a statement to parliament in which he praised Williams-Thomas for his "modest but game changing ITV documentary that exposed Jimmy Savile".[15]

In 2018 Series 2 of The Investigator featured the case of murdered student Jessie Earl, who disappeared from Eastbourne in 1980, her remains being found in 1989.[16] In November 2020, in response to a campaign[17] led by Williams-Thomas into Earl's murder, the Solicitor General, in a highly unusual move gave permission to appeal the verdict for a fresh inquest.[18] The Rt. Hon. Michael Ellis QC MP said: “I have concluded the initial investigation was insufficient and further lines of inquiry should have been pursued. It is in the interest of justice the application for a new inquest be heard by the High Court.”

Television

From 2003, due to his past in the police force, Williams-Thomas began script advising for various television crime dramas which included BBC series Waking The Dead (2007-2011), BBC series Inspector Lynley Mysteries (2007), Channel 5 series Murder Prevention (2004), ITV series Identity and BBC series The Silence.[19]

In 2011 Williams-Thomas created and presented a new series on ITV called On the Run. The premise of the series was to track down and confront offenders on the run from the police. The series ran over three seasons. Series 1 was broadcast on 24 October 2011.[20] Series 2 was broadcast on 11 December 2012[21] and Williams-Thomas was joined by co-presenter Nicky Campbell.[22] Series 3 was broadcast on 29 October 2013[23] and Williams-Thomas was joined by co-presenter Natasha Kaplinsky.[24] In series three Williams-Thomas and his team pursued a convicted child sex offender on the run in Spain.[25]

On 9 August 2012, ITV News broadcast an exclusive interview Williams-Thomas undertook with Stuart Hazell, who was the last person to see missing 12-year-old schoolgirl Tia Sharp. Hazell went missing the day after this interview and was arrested later the same day on suspicion of Sharp's murder. He was later charged and on 14 May 2013 was jailed after changing his plea. The judge ordered that he serve a minimum of 38 years.[26]

On 3 October 2012, almost a year after Jimmy Savile's death, Williams-Thomas presented a documentary The Other Side of Jimmy Savile on ITV. The expose of Savile examined claims of child sexual abuse and led to extensive media coverage, including 41 days[27][28] on the front pages and the Metropolitan Police launching a criminal investigation into allegations of child sex, Operation Yewtree. The Other Side of Jimmy Savile and Exposure: Banaz: An Honour Killing won the 2012 Peabody Award[29] which was broadcast on 3 October 2012.[2]

In the Exposure documentary, several women claimed that they had been sexually abused by Savile as teenagers. In 2013, Williams-Thomas won two Royal Television Society awards and the London Press Awards Scoop of the Year for the film.[30][31][32] The episode and Exposure: Banaz: An Honour Killing won a 2012 George Foster Peabody Award.[33]

Williams-Thomas is a regular reporter on This Morning, Channel 4 News, as well as long form current affairs documentaries for Exposure.

His undercover work in Cambodia led to the arrest in 2013 of a person suspected of offering underage girls for sex and the rescue of two girls, aged 13 and 14.[34]

In 2014, Williams-Thomas covered the verdict of Oscar Pistorius and was the only British journalist to meet with Pistorius during his trial, writing an exclusive report for UK national newspaper Daily Mirror.[35] On 24 June 2016, ITV broadcast Oscar Pistorius: The Interview[36] in which the former Paralympian spoke in a world exclusive to Williams-Thomas, in his first television interview about the night he shot and killed his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp in 2013.[37] It was broadcast in Pistorius's home country of South Africa immediately after the ITV programme finished.[38]

On 11 November 2014, This Morning broadcast an exclusive interview with Jo Westwood,[39] the ex-wife of jailed sex offender Max Clifford.

In 2015, Williams-Thomas investigated the unsolved murder of BBC presenter Jill Dando. Writing in the Daily Mirror he theorized that she was murdered by the London underworld for her work on Crimewatch.[40]

Williams-Thomas was the reporter for ITV's crime series The Investigator: A British Crime Story, produced by Simon Cowell's Syco.[41] The series re-examined a 30 year old previously 'closed' murder case, the murder of Carole Packman, whose body has never been found. The series was broadcast over four consecutive weeks on ITV, from 14 July 2016.[42] Dorset Police subsequently confirmed that the case remained open and that they would be examining new evidence presented by Williams-Thomas.[43]

Series 2 of Williams-Thomas's crime series The Investigator returned to ITV in April 2018 in a three-part series.[44]

In 2019 Williams-Thomas started investigating for a new crime series[45] the unsolved murder of teenage mum Nicola Payne.[46] Nicola Payne, aged 18, who was from Coventry and had a 6 month old son at the time, went missing on 14 December 1991. She was on her way to her parents' home. Her body has never been found and remains one of the country's biggest unsolved murder investigations.

In February 2020 Williams-Thomas joined the Channel 4 series Hunted, as the Head of Special Operations[47]

In September 2020 following the arrest of Charles and Doris Clark on suspicion of the murder of their 23 years old son Steven,[48] who disappeared in December 1992, Williams-Thomas was given exclusive access to follow the family for a TV documentary[49] whist they were under police investigation.

Filmography

  • To Catch a Paedophile (series) (2009; ITV)[50]
  • On The Run (series) (2011–13; ITV)[51][52][23]
  • Exposure: The Other Side of Jimmy Savile (2012; ITV)[53]
  • Exposure: The Jimmy Savile Investigation (2012; ITV)[54]
  • Missing Without Trace (2012; ITV)[55]
  • Bamber: The New Evidence (2012; ITV)[56]
  • Living With a Killer (2013; ITV)[57]
  • Exposure: Predators Abroad (2013; ITV)[58]
  • Exposure: Inside the Diplomatic Bag (2014; ITV)[59]
  • Oscar Pistorius: The Interview (2016; ITV)[60]
  • The Investigator: A British Crime Story (Series 1 2016; ITV)[61]
  • The Investigator: A British Crime Story (Series 2 2018; ITV)[62]
  • Tonight: Bullies online (2010; ITV)[63]

Publications

  • Hunting Killers: Britain's top crime investigator reveals how he solves the unsolvable. Bantam Press, 2019, ISBN 978-1787631311 which was published in paperback on 9 January 2020[64] and in hardback on the 27 June 2019.[65]

Transworld Publishing[66] has acquired the UK and Commonwealth Rights from Furniss Lawton to Williams-Thomas's book 'Hunting Killers' which was published on 27 June 2019.[67]

References

  1. ^ "Check Company". Check Company. 12 June 2007. Retrieved 13 October 2015.
  2. ^ a b c d Halliday, Josh (24 February 2013). "Mark Williams-Thomas: I ran the Savile film like a criminal investigation". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 November 2013.
  3. ^ Keogh, Kat (12 January 2013). "The Brum lecturer who unmasked twisted Jimmy Savile". Birmingham Mail. Retrieved 21 September 2013.
  4. ^ Owens, Nick (30 December 2012). "Year of crime: Former detective Mark Williams-Thomas on Jimmy Savile, Tia Sharp, Twitter perverts, and Al-Hilli murder mystery". Daily Mirror. Retrieved 21 September 2013.
  5. ^ "School of Social Sciences : Mark Williams-Thomas". Bcu.ac.uk. Retrieved 13 October 2015.
  6. ^ "Birmingham City University".
  7. ^ "Birmingham Post".
  8. ^ "Fresh Appeal to Find Missing Ruth - Surrey Advertiser".
  9. ^ Live, Surrey (7 August 1997). "Police reassure school over porn scandal teacher". getsurrey. Retrieved 3 March 2020.
  10. ^ "Police reassure school over porn scandal teacher". Surrey Live. 7 August 1997. Retrieved 15 November 2018.
  11. ^ "Gumfighters Uk Limited". OpenCorporates. 13 December 2011. Retrieved 13 October 2015.
  12. ^ "Cleaning blitz to rid city streets of gum". Yorkshire Post. 19 March 2002. Retrieved 13 October 2015.
  13. ^ "By Gum - We'll Beat It". News Guardian. 22 March 2001. Retrieved 13 October 2015.
  14. ^ "UK | England | Southern Counties | Man cleared of blackmail". BBC News. 4 June 2003. Retrieved 13 October 2015.
  15. ^ "Child Protection - Hansard". hansard.parliament.uk. Retrieved 13 November 2018.
  16. ^ Cooper, John (2 October 2020). "Heartbreaking unsolved murder of the young woman found on Beachy Head". sussexlive. Retrieved 24 March 2021.
  17. ^ "Update on fresh inquest into Eastbourne student's murder". www.eastbourneherald.co.uk. Retrieved 24 March 2021.
  18. ^ "Death of Jessie Earl", Wikipedia, 25 February 2021, retrieved 24 March 2021
  19. ^ "Mark Williams-Thomas MA at". Thespeakersagency.com. Retrieved 13 October 2015.
  20. ^ On the Run, retrieved 8 May 2020
  21. ^ On the Run 2, retrieved 8 May 2020
  22. ^ "Nicky Campbell", Wikipedia, 28 February 2020, retrieved 8 May 2020
  23. ^ a b On the Run, retrieved 8 May 2020
  24. ^ "Natasha Kaplinsky", Wikipedia, 2 May 2020, retrieved 8 May 2020
  25. ^ "ITV tracks down sex offender On The Run in Portugal". ITV News. Retrieved 8 May 2020.
  26. ^ "Tia Sharp murder trial: Stuart Hazell jailed for 38 years". BBC News. 14 May 2013. Retrieved 13 October 2015.
  27. ^ "Without Savile exposure, Harris and Clifford victims would never have come forward".
  28. ^ Twitter, William Turvill (26 August 2014). "Mark Williams-Thomas: Without Savile exposure, Harris and Clifford victims would never have come forward". Press Gazette. Retrieved 3 March 2020. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  29. ^ "'Exposure: Banaz: An Honour Killing' and 'Exposure: The Other Side of Jimmy Savile' (ITV1 and ITV)". George Foster Peabody Awards. 2012. Retrieved 1 January 2015.
  30. ^ Deans, Jason (22 May 2013). "BBC Newsnight journalists win award for spiked Jimmy Savile investigation". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 September 2013.
  31. ^ Gover, Dominic (29 July 2013). "Jimmy Savile Sex Crimes Investigator Mark Williams-Thomas Probes Cover-up Claims". International Business Times. Retrieved 21 September 2013.
  32. ^ Turvill, William (21 February 2013). "Double RTS win for Savile documentary maker". Press Gazette. Retrieved 21 September 2013.
  33. ^ ""Exposure: Banaz: An Honour Killing" and "Exposure: The Other Side of Jimmy Savile"". The Peabody Awards. Retrieved 13 October 2015.
  34. ^ Hamilton, Mike (10 November 2013). "TV investigation leads to arrest of child traffickers supplying children to British paedophiles". Daily Mirror. Retrieved 21 November 2013.
  35. ^ "Mark Williams-Thomas: Why I believe Oscar Pistorius is no murderer and Reeva's death was a tragic accident - Mark Williams-Thomas". Daily Mirror. Retrieved 13 October 2015.
  36. ^ "Oscar Pistorius: The Interview Episode 1". ITV. Retrieved 15 August 2016.
  37. ^ Travis, Ben (24 June 2016). "Oscar Pistorius, The Interview, ITV: the Paralympian talks about Reeva Steenkamp's killing with journalist Mark Williams-Thomas". London Evening Standard. Retrieved 15 August 2016.
  38. ^ "Here's when you can watch the Oscar Pistorius interview in South Africa - Times LIVE". The Times (South Africa). 24 June 2016. Retrieved 15 August 2016.
  39. ^ "Max Clifford's ex wife, Jo Westwood talks exclusively to This Morning". Itv.com. 12 November 2014. Retrieved 13 October 2015.
  40. ^ "Jill Dando was shot dead because of her work on BBC Crimewatch, claims top investigator". Bristol Post. 2 April 2015. Retrieved 3 April 2015.
  41. ^ Jefferies, Mark; Methven, Nicola (3 August 2016). "The Investigator real-life murder story finishes with 'jaw-dropping' revelations - and clues point to second series". Daily Mirror. Retrieved 15 August 2016.
  42. ^ "The Investigator: A British Crime Story Episode 1". ITV. Retrieved 15 August 2016.
  43. ^ "Police will re-examine evidence into murder of Carole Packman as convicted killer retracts confession made to TV investigator". Bournemouth Echo. 5 August 2016. Retrieved 15 August 2016.
  44. ^ "The Investigator: A British Crime Story", Wikipedia, 1 December 2019, retrieved 3 March 2020
  45. ^ Hartley, Laura; Rodger, James (18 December 2019). "Missing Nicola Payne to be centre of new TV crime show and podcast". birminghammail. Retrieved 3 March 2020.
  46. ^ "List of unsolved murders in the United Kingdom", Wikipedia, 2 March 2020, retrieved 3 March 2020
  47. ^ "Hunted (2015 TV series)", Wikipedia, 3 March 2020, retrieved 3 March 2020
  48. ^ "Steven Clark: Parents arrested on suspicion of son's murder in 1992". BBC News. 16 September 2020. Retrieved 24 March 2021.
  49. ^ Armstrong, Jeremy (14 December 2020). "TV detective joins hunt for man missing for 28 years after walking into toilet". mirror. Retrieved 24 March 2021.
  50. ^ "To Catch A Paedophile". Broadcast. Retrieved 15 November 2018.
  51. ^ On the Run, retrieved 15 November 2018
  52. ^ On the Run 2, retrieved 15 November 2018
  53. ^ The Other Side of Jimmy Savile, retrieved 15 November 2018
  54. ^ Exposure Update: The Jimmy Savile Investigation, retrieved 15 November 2018
  55. ^ Missing Without Trace, retrieved 15 November 2018
  56. ^ Mark Williams-Thomas (5 April 2012), Bamber - The New Evidence, retrieved 15 November 2018
  57. ^ "Tonight: Living With a Killer". ITV News. Retrieved 15 November 2018.
  58. ^ Predators Abroad, retrieved 15 November 2018
  59. ^ Inside the Diplomatic Bag, retrieved 15 November 2018
  60. ^ "Oscar Pistorius: The Interview Episode 1". Press Centre. Retrieved 15 November 2018.
  61. ^ "How to watch The Investigator: a British Crime Story - who's in it and what's it about?". Radio Times. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
  62. ^ www.itvstudios.com https://www.itvstudios.com/catalogue/4921. Retrieved 11 May 2020. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  63. ^ "YouTube". www.youtube.com. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
  64. ^ Williams-Thomas, Mark. "Hunting Killers". www.penguin.co.uk. Retrieved 3 March 2020.
  65. ^ Williams-Thomas, Mark. "Hunting Killers". www.penguin.co.uk. Retrieved 3 March 2020.
  66. ^ "Transworld Publishing".
  67. ^ "Penguin Publishing".
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