Small change of plan this week. A technical issue took out the episode that was meant to be landing today, and rather than leave you with nothing, we're opening up one of our Patreon-only Sinister Stories instead.

So this one is a deviation from the usual. No case file, no victim, no court reports. Sinister Stories is our bonus strand for £10 and up patrons, where the only rule is that the story is strange, sinister or otherwise just bloomin interesting. It doesn't have to be true crime and it doesn't have to be South London, though on this occasion Rach has managed to keep it the right side of the river.

The subject is the Thames foot tunnels at Woolwich and Greenwich. How they were built, who fought for them and what they meant for workers south of the river, followed by the stranger stuff: the Woolwich time slip claims that surfaced during the 2010 refurbishment, the Victorian couple said to walk the Greenwich tunnel, and the infrasound and psychology that might explain a fair bit of it. Plus a detour through the Blackwall hitchhiker, Liverpool's Bold Street, the Edinburgh vaults and a lost street under Soho.

Normal service resumes next week.

Support the show

Thanks for tuning in! If you loved diving into the dark corners of South London with us, don't forget to hit that subscribe button to never miss an episode of "Sinister South."

Also, follow us on Instagram @SinisterSouthPodcast for sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes content, and more cheeky banter, or www.sinistersouthpod.co.uk. Remember, every crime tells a story... and South is the best side of the river...

Produced and hosted by Hannah Williams & Rachel Baines
Mixed & edited by Purple Waves Sound (A.K.A Will)

This week Rach is dreaming of Devon (and still hasn't worked out what to do there beyond letting the kids run feral), Hannah's fun employed and doing her best to enjoy it before real life catches back up, and we somehow end up talking about McDonald's drink orders for far too long. Sorry, Trevors.

Tucked behind St Paul's Cathedral is Postman's Park, a small memorial garden with a wall of hand painted tiles, each one commemorating an ordinary person who died trying to save someone else's life. This week we look at how the wall came to exist, the Victorian painter George Frederick Watts who built it from newspaper cuttings, and why that method means the wall gets things wrong.

Then we cross the river to meet the seven South Londoners honoured there: a nursemaid who dropped three children from a burning window, a policeman killed searching an empty house, two boys who drowned holding onto each other, a woman who went back for her mother-in-law, a nine-year-old who died trying to save his baby brother, a surgeon who wrecked his own health saving a stranger abroad, and a 2007 rescue that became the first new tablet added to the wall in 78 years. We also ask whether a memorial like this should be a finished, unchangeable record, or something that keeps growing.

Support the show

Thanks for tuning in! If you loved diving into the dark corners of South London with us, don't forget to hit that subscribe button to never miss an episode of "Sinister South."

Also, follow us on Instagram @SinisterSouthPodcast for sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes content, and more cheeky banter, or www.sinistersouthpod.co.uk. Remember, every crime tells a story... and South is the best side of the river...

Produced and hosted by Hannah Williams & Rachel Baines
Mixed & edited by Purple Waves Sound (A.K.A Will)

This week Han is living her best funemployed life (interviews pending, privilege duly checked, pottering about as a fun auntie), which means that before we get anywhere near a murder we get into: the great "she's not mine" saga, in which she spent an entire festival being mistaken for Will's wife and handled it with all the grace of a woman several ciders deep; the Broadstairs school trip that gave us the working title of Rachel's autobiography, I'd Like to Not Have Wet Knickers on a School Trip; a very stern telling-off from a five-year-old about the perils of smoking; the discovery of "pissy feach" on a Japanese honeymoon (yes, Japan came up again, it's called growth); and Rach staying up until half four in the morning to silently scream through England v Mexico. You know. The usual.

And then, as ever, things take a turn.

Content warning: this one covers the murder of a teenage boy, knife crime, serious injury and a great deal of grief. Please look after yourselves.

On 24 May 2008, 18-year-old Robert Knox was stabbed to death outside the Metro Bar in Sidcup, just four days after wrapping his breakout role as Marcus Belby in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Rach tells the story of who Rob really was: the Sidcup boy, the M&S Saturday-job hero, the D&B Theatre School kid making twenty-quid zombie films with his best mate, and the brother who ran straight towards danger to protect his little brother Jamie. We get into the man who killed him, Karl Bishop, and his long, violent history. The police failures that left a known, dangerous suspect walking free. The Old Bailey trial, the chilling lack of remorse, and a family who took the most unimaginable loss and built a foundation, a film festival and a knife-crime campaign out of it.

It's a heartbreaker, but it's really a story about a life, not an ending. Watch the documentary (K)nox: The Rob Knox Story when you're done.

Find us on Instagram and TikTok @SinisterSouthPod, join the Trevors Unite Facebook group, support us at patreon.com/SinisterSouth, and if you've got a spare thirty seconds, a cheeky five-star review on Spotify or Apple makes all the difference.

Support the show

Thanks for tuning in! If you loved diving into the dark corners of South London with us, don't forget to hit that subscribe button to never miss an episode of "Sinister South."

Also, follow us on Instagram @SinisterSouthPodcast for sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes content, and more cheeky banter, or www.sinistersouthpod.co.uk. Remember, every crime tells a story... and South is the best side of the river...

Produced and hosted by Hannah Williams & Rachel Baines
Mixed & edited by Purple Waves Sound (A.K.A Will)

This week starts with the usual...tattoo double-bookings, a very inebriated weekend, Will doing himself a mischief in the pit at The Offspring, and a knife-wielding, mozzarella-eating stand-off with the ghost of Luther. Standard.

In the early hours of 28th May 2021, a young woman answered a FaceTime call from her partner, Jack Forde. What she saw on the screen was him attacking his own grandfather, 74-year-old Christopher Martin, in the New Cross home they shared.

This week Hannah tells Rach the story behind the headlines, a man who'd just lost his wife of 55 years, a grandson the system already knew was dangerous, and the safety net that was never more than one grieving widower. It's a story about supervision orders, disengagement from mental health services, and what happens when the only thing standing between danger and disaster is love.

Content warning: this episode discusses a violent killing, mental illness, addiction, bereavement and the Covid-19 pandemic.

If you or someone you know needs support, resources can be found below.

Mental health support & crisis
Samaritans – 116 123, free, 24/7. For anyone struggling to cope, not just suicidal crisis.

SANEline – 0300 304 7000, 4.30pm–10pm daily. Emotional support for anyone affected by mental health problems.

Shout – text 85258, free 24/7 confidential text support.

NHS 111 – select option 2 for 24/7 urgent mental health support.

Rethink Mental Illness – 0300 5000 927 (Mon–Fri, 9.30am–4pm). Support and advice for people living with severe mental illness such as schizophrenia, and their carers.

Rethink Carers Hub – online advice for people caring for a loved one with mental illness, including what to do in a crisis.

SAMM (Support after Murder and Manslaughter) – national charity offering peer support to people bereaved through homicide, including a confidential helpline (0121 472 2912) and non-religious retreats. All volunteers have been bereaved this way themselves.

Support the show

Thanks for tuning in! If you loved diving into the dark corners of South London with us, don't forget to hit that subscribe button to never miss an episode of "Sinister South."

Also, follow us on Instagram @SinisterSouthPodcast for sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes content, and more cheeky banter, or www.sinistersouthpod.co.uk. Remember, every crime tells a story... and South is the best side of the river...

Produced and hosted by Hannah Williams & Rachel Baines
Mixed & edited by Purple Waves Sound (A.K.A Will)

Once we've covered the essentials (Hannah's official unemployment era, a Duran Duran Father's Day card with some truly phoned-in puns, and the ongoing scandal of Rach absolutely not saying the words "Henry Cavill"), we get into the actual case.

In the spring of 1954, a box of sweets went round a London office. By the end of that night, two of the young women who took a piece were dead. This week Rach takes us back to the Arthur Ford case, and to the woman at the heart of it: Betty Grant, a 27-year-old typist from Wimbledon. Betty had told her married boss, more than once, that she wasn't interested. His answer was to lace her sweets with Spanish Fly, an old "love potion" that is really one of the most savage poisons known to man. Betty and her 19-year-old colleague June Malins never stood a chance.

We get into what Spanish Fly actually is, and why its giggling aphrodisiac reputation is a two-thousand-year-old lie, taking in ancient Rome, the Marquis de Sade, and a poisoning at the very same Old Bailey where Ford would later stand, more than 200 years before he got there. Then we follow the thread right up to the present, because the myth, and the men who hide behind it, never really went away.

It's a story about a rare and horrible poison, yes. But underneath it sits the same story we seem to tell every week. A woman said no, and a man decided her no didn't count.

Content warning: this episode includes discussion of drink spiking, sexual violence, and graphic descriptions of poisoning.

Support the show

Thanks for tuning in! If you loved diving into the dark corners of South London with us, don't forget to hit that subscribe button to never miss an episode of "Sinister South."

Also, follow us on Instagram @SinisterSouthPodcast for sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes content, and more cheeky banter, or www.sinistersouthpod.co.uk. Remember, every crime tells a story... and South is the best side of the river...

Produced and hosted by Hannah Williams & Rachel Baines
Mixed & edited by Purple Waves Sound (A.K.A Will)

One hundred episodes. We genuinely can't believe it either.

To mark the milestone we've torn up the format. There's no case this week. Instead, Rachel and Hannah are in the hot seat, and for one episode only their long-suffering editor Will steps out from behind the desk to host.

Expect Sinister South by the numbers, including the oldest case we've ever covered and exactly how many days of true crime you'd need to binge to catch up. Then a batch of questions sent in by the people who've stuck with us from the start: why we started, the cases that affected us most, who'd play us in the film, and which haunted corner of south east London we'd least like to spend a night in. After that, Will runs a quiz to find out how well we actually remember our own back catalogue.

Stay to the end for a reel of our most unhinged outtakes, a fresh batch of gloriously context-free voice notes from Rachel's sister Becky, and a proper thank you to you, the Trevors.

Here's to the next hundred. Normal service, and a new case, returns next Wednesday.

Support the show

Thanks for tuning in! If you loved diving into the dark corners of South London with us, don't forget to hit that subscribe button to never miss an episode of "Sinister South."

Also, follow us on Instagram @SinisterSouthPodcast for sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes content, and more cheeky banter, or www.sinistersouthpod.co.uk. Remember, every crime tells a story... and South is the best side of the river...

Produced and hosted by Hannah Williams & Rachel Baines
Mixed & edited by Purple Waves Sound (A.K.A Will)

But first, the important business: Rach's new hair (currently being hated on a strict day-two schedule), Will's ongoing obsession with the Sidcup goose tattoo man, and the small matter of a Netflix documentary sending a flood of brand-new Trevors our way. If you're one of them, welcome. We have cookies, chocolate, and pins we will absolutely never send you.

Then Han takes us back to the summer of 1978, and a five-year-old called Andrea Bernard. She suffered catastrophic burns in the bath at her family home in Thornton Heath, held on for nearly six weeks, and died of an infection the doctors couldn't beat. A coroner recorded the obvious conclusion: a heart-breaking accident. That was the story for 47 years.

This week we unpick how it came undone. How Andrea's older brother carried what he'd heard through the bathroom wall since the age of eight, and finally walked into a Croydon police station decades later to say it out loud. And how the woman who'd been in that house, later celebrated as an author and a former drug dealer turned probation worker, came to stand trial for a death everyone had signed off before some of the detectives were even born.

Please note: this episode discusses the abuse and death of a child, including burns. Look after yourselves.

Support the show

Thanks for tuning in! If you loved diving into the dark corners of South London with us, don't forget to hit that subscribe button to never miss an episode of "Sinister South."

Also, follow us on Instagram @SinisterSouthPodcast for sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes content, and more cheeky banter, or www.sinistersouthpod.co.uk. Remember, every crime tells a story... and South is the best side of the river...

Produced and hosted by Hannah Williams & Rachel Baines
Mixed & edited by Purple Waves Sound (A.K.A Will)