Wimbledon Common murder victim Rachel Nickell predicted her death in chilling knife attack nightmares, her son reveals
Rachel Nickell was sexually assaulted and knifed 49 times by serial rapist Robert Napper
A YOUNG mum who was stabbed to death on Wimbledon Common predicted her own murder in chilling knife attack nightmares, her son has revealed.
Rachel Nickell was sexually assaulted and knifed 49 times by serial rapist Robert Napper as she walked through the London park with her then-toddler son in 1992.
As her family prepares to mark 25 years since the murder that shocked the nation, Ms Nickell’s son Alex Hanscombe told how she had a number of omens about her death.
He told the his mum had a terrifying nightmare about being attacked by a man with a knife.
The premonitions about her death meant that she became too afraid to do things on her own.
On one occasion she reportedly told Alex's dad, Andre Hanscombe, she needed the toilet during a trip to the cinema, but didn't dare go.
"She said, 'I'm afraid someone might take me from behind,'" Alex said.
Alex was just a month short of his third birthday when she saw his own mother getting murdered on Wimbledon Common, South West London, when she was aged 23.
In an exclusive interview with The Sun, Alex — now 27 — told how his dad became “my mother and my father”.
He revealed that the violent attack he saw carried out by Robert Napper sparked a life of trauma and flashbacks.
MOST READ IN LIVING
On July 15, 1992, serial sex offender Napper lurched from the bushes and attacked former model Rachel, 23, before strolling off and leaving the toddler pleading for her to get up.
Alex told The Sun: “My flashbacks to the attack were being triggered at the most random times, manifesting themselves in ways the adults around me struggled to understand.
“I would remember things often.
“There was this one time we went to a swimming pool.
“I was swimming confidently, something I used to do often with my mother.
“I was playing with my father in the water when suddenly, for no apparent reason, I became deeply distressed and clamped down on him like I couldn’t hold myself up.
“My dad looked around the pool and it seems the lifeguard bore an extremely strong resemblance to the killer.
“He had the same fox-like face and same fair hair.
“Just the similarity was enough to trigger that response.”
Alex also revealed that, on the first day without his mother, he burst into tears while watching a cartoon in which a group of rhinoceroses waged war on a group of elephants.
He added: “One time I went for a walk on Hampstead Heath with my father and a friend of his.
“We were playing around and having a great time when once again, for no reason, I became deeply distressed.
“We were basically on our own.
“There was nobody around us.
“My father and his friend looked down the hill.
“More than 200 metres away, there was a stranger walking his Alsatian dog with a particular loping walk.
“My father couldn’t understand what triggered a reaction in me.
“Later it was verified by the police that witnesses who had been followed by the assailant, minutes before the attack on my mother, had described this distinctive loping walk.
“These were the kind of ways memories were being triggered.”
As he marks the release of his new book, Alex said he and Andre are closer than ever despite the rifts and obstacles they faced, which at one point caused Alex to lose respect for his dad, now 54.
He said: “My mother’s killing forced me to mature beyond my years.
“As a young child, you look up at your father as the protector of the family, a hero.
“The fact he had not been able to stop the killer that morning led to an underlying loss of respect in him as a father figure, which along with all the other tensions, reached boiling point in my teenage years.”
Alex revealed he and former tennis player Andre gradually came to terms with Rachel’s death and he was protected from the recurring reminders of that July day.
It was not until 2008, 16 years after the attack, that Napper, then 42, admitted stabbing Rachel.
The conviction for manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility destroyed any continuing, misguided belief that Colin Stagg — formerly the chief and only suspect — had anything to do with the crime.
Napper, a schizophrenic, is being held for life in Broadmoor Hospital.
But police missed a series of chances to catch him before his six-year spree of sex and rape attacks was brought to a close.
Yesterday in The Sun on Sunday, Alex spoke about the harrowing moment he saw Rachel killed in front of him as they walked their family dog on the common.
Hours after losing his mum, Andre rushed from work on his motorbike to the South London hospital Alex had been taken to.
Andre defiantly said to him: “We’re going on together.
“Daddy’s here for you now.”
But that night Alex’s bad dreams started.
He said: “In the early hours the nightmares began, their unwelcome arrival marking the beginning of a repetitive pattern in our daily life together over the years to come.
“In the past, whenever I awoke, it was always my mother that I called for.”
Alex revealed his dad, who was already contemplating suicide, said: “Everyone dies some time.
“Hardly anyone dies young like Mummy.
“This was just a terrible accident.
“One day our dog Molly will be too old to run around and will just want to sleep.
“And one day she just won’t wake up any more.”
Days later, Alex said Andre picked a “dark, red rose” and put it on his grandmother’s dining table.
He told Alex they were going to place it at the spot where his mother died.
Alex said: “Taking me aside, he gently began to explain: ‘The rose’s petals will fade and fall into the earth.
“They will feed next year’s flowers in turn, and in time those new flowers will blossom.’”
Telling how he helped identify the location of his mother’s killing to his dad, Alex said: “We laid the rose on the ground together.
“We stood silently and, dry-eyed, I watched my father crying.
“Moments later he lifted me into his arms again. ‘It’s all right,’ he said reassuringly.”
With a killer on the loose and their life under the spotlight, Alex and his dad fled London for France and then Spain.
While in his teens Alex, then a yoga teacher living with his dad in Barcelona, got into trouble with the police and fell in with the wrong crowd at school.
He said: “While my father once again struggled to deal with suicidal thoughts, tensions between us had reached boiling point and the slightest spark was enough to start the fire.
“At the time I didn’t always appreciate the trials my father was going through or how difficult it had been for him, as a single parent, to raise me.”
In recent years Alex and Andre have studied yoga together and for a time lived in India.
He said: “During our roller coaster ride we have remained very close and talk about everything.”
Last year, Alex returned to the spot where his mother died, something his father has decided not to do for years.
He said neither of them wanted to visit the place where her ashes were scattered in Devon.
“My mother’s spirit and the love she gave to me is always with me.”
LONG ROAD TO JUSTICE
JULY 15, 1992: Rachel Nickell stabbed to death on Wimbledon Common.
AUGUST: Police visit Robert Napper in connection with two rapes and attempted rapes. He twice refuses to give a DNA sample.
SEPTEMBER: Colin Stagg arrested for Rachel’s murder.
OCTOBER: Napper ruled out of rapes investigation but found guilty of possessing a firearm and is jailed for eight weeks.
AUGUST 1993: Colin Stagg charged with Rachel’s murder.
NOVEMBER: Samantha Bisset and her four-year-old daughter Jazmine killed at their Plumstead home in South East London.
MAY 1994: Napper’s fingerprints identified from Bisset house. He is charged and a DNA sample taken.
JULY: Napper charged with two rapes and two attempted rapes.
SEPTEMBER: Colin Stagg released. Official review of Rachel Nickell inquiry launched.
OCTOBER 1995: Napper admits two charges of manslaughter, one rape and two attempted rapes. One rape charge is dropped. He is detained at Broadmoor Hospital.
DECEMBER: Napper interviewed in Broadmoor over Rachel’s death.
JANUARY 2002: Met Police asks LGC Forensics to work on review of Rachel’s murder.
JULY 2004: DNA from Rachel’s body matched to Napper.
JUNE 2006: Napper interviewed again at Broadmoor over Rachel’s murder. He denies involvement.
OCTOBER 2007: Independent review rules out contamination of DNA samples. Napper charged with Rachel’s murder weeks later.
DECEMBER 2008: Schizophrenic Napper pleads guilty to manslaughter of Rachel on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
JUNE 2010: IPCC reports “bad errors” by Met police and “missed opportunities” to find Napper before he killed Rachel.
- Alex’s book Letting Go: A True Story Of Murder, Loss And Survival is out on Thursday (HarperCollins, £7.99).