It's been 30 years since the horrific murder of Rachel Nickell.
On July 15 1992, 23-year-old Rachel Nickell was out walking her dog with her two-year-old son, but the young mother never returned home.
Rachel was walking on Wimbledon Common when an attacker jumped out of the bushes and proceeded to stab and sexually assault her in front of her young son.
After Rachel's shocking murder, police were under pressure to capture her killer, but they bundled the investigation and it took 16 years before Rachel's real killer was caught.
In the meantime, an innocent man became entangled in the investigation and his life was ruined too.
Here's what happened to Colin Stagg and how much compensation he got.
What happened to Colin Stagg?
After Rachel's death the police received a tip-off about Colin Stagg, who was 29-years-old at the time and often walked his dog on Wimbledon Common.
There was no evidence linking him to the crime but police became convinced that Stagg had murdered Rachel, and he became a victim of a honey-trap operation.
During the investigation, criminal psychologist Paul Britton was enlisted by the police force and created an 'offender profile' that the officers believed Colin fitted.
Britton then worked with the police to devise a plan dubbed Operation Ezdell.
As part of the plan, an undercover police officer took the alias "Lizzie James" and feigned a romantic interest in Stagg to gain his trust in an effort to get him to confess to the murder.
The officer spent five months meeting Stagg and exchanging letters that contained violent sexual fantasies, but he never confessed.
In a taped conversation released by police 'Lizzie' at one point even said: “if only you had done the Wimbledon Common murder… it would be all right” and Colin responded by saying: “I’m terribly sorry, but I haven’t.”
Despite the failed operation, police charged Colin with the murder a year after Rachel was killed.
But the trial at the Old Bailey collapsed as Mr Justice Ognall condemned the police operation as “deceptive conduct of the grossest kind”.
Stagg had been innocent all along but he would go on to spend 16 years with many people still believing he had murdered Rachel, until her real killer was caught.
How much compensation did Colin Stagg get?
For 16 years Colin Stagg's life had been torn apart by the false murder allegations against him, and police only admitted that they'd got the wrong man when Nickell's real killer was convicted in 2007.
Stagg was awarded £706,000 in compensation by the Home Office for police blunders and the Met Police issued a full apology to him.
Assistant Commissioner John Yates said: "In August 1993, he was wrongly accused of Miss Nickell's murder. It is clear he is completely innocent of any involvement in this case and I today apologise to him for the mistakes that were made in the early 1990s.
"We also recognise the huge and lasting impact this had on his life and, on behalf of the Metropolitan Police, I have today sent him a full written apology."
Stagg is now reportedly working at Tesco after he spent all of the compensation money that he was awarded.
He told The Sun: “After decades without a holiday we took three or four a year. I was making up for lost time doing the things I should’ve done in my youth if it hadn’t been blighted by Rachel’s murder.”
"I got a passport for the first time and fulfilled a lifelong ambition to visit the Pyramids. There were several more holidays in Egypt, Gran Canaria and Lanzarote."
Who was Rachel Nickell's real killer?
Rachel Nickell's real killer was serial rapist and murderer Robert Napper.
In 1993, just over a year after Rachel's murder, Napper killed 27-year-old Samantha Bissett and her four-year-old daughter Jazmine in their home.
Napper stabbed Samantha in her neck and chest before sexually assaulting her and assaulted and smothered her young daughter.
He was arrested and charged with the murders in 1995 after his fingerprint was found in the flat.
Despite similarities between the Bisset murders and Rachel's case, police didn't see Napper as a suspect.
But in 2002 Rachel's murder case was re-opened after advances in DNA profiling.
Napper was identified as a suspect and was interviewed in Broadmoor high security hospital before being charged with the crime.
He initially pleaded not guilty to the murder, but later changed his plea to guilty of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
Napper was convicted of Rachel's murder and was sent back to Broadmoor indefinitely.
