The man who was wrongly accused of murdering young mum Rachel Nickell has revealed he is living in a homeless shelter after blowing his £706,000 compensation.
Colin Stagg was handed the payout by the Home Office in 2008 to help “rebuild his life” after being the victim of a Met Police honey-trap operation.
But he admits that getting the cash felt “a bit like winning the lottery” and he splashed out on cars, holidays and gifts for loved ones because he wanted “to live for the moment” after his ordeal.
Now, he has burned through the payout and turned 60 last month living in a council emergency shelter after his girlfriend kicked him out in April.
Colin said: “It’s a terrible shock being homeless at my age. All I’ve ever wanted is a quiet life.
“I never had big ambitions but I certainly didn’t see myself spending my 60th birthday in a homeless hostel.”
Former model Rachel, 23, was stabbed to death in front of her two-year-old son while walking her dog on Wimbledon Common, South West London, in July 1992.
Innocent Colin, then 29, spent 13 months in custody waiting for a trial that was eventually thrown out due to what a judge called “deceptive conduct” by the police. A female officer had been told to pretend to want to date him to get him to “confess”.
Despite the case collapsing, Colin’s life was torn apart as speculation that he had got away with murder went on until serial killer and rapist Robert Napper admitted in 2008 that he was the one who stabbed Rachel.
Colin knows the compensation cash he got could have turned his fortunes around and set him up for life – but he insists he has no regrets.
He said: “After everything I’d been through, I just wanted to live for the moment. I guess it did feel a bit like winning the lottery. I thought it might last me 10 years, possibly 20. I wasn’t really thinking about the future.”
He admitted he spent “like there was no tomorrow”, buying cars and luxury holidays, and gifts for partner Terri Marchant, her kids and their families. He said: “I didn’t care how much anything cost. Anything I wanted, I bought. Terri never asked for anything. But I loved her and wanted to spoil her.”
After also giving cash to charity and making a string of dud investments, he now lives on less than £300 Universal Credit a week. Terri, who suffers from severe arthritis, dumped Colin in April after 17 years together. For the last year, he had been her full-time carer at her house in Farnborough, Hants, quitting a job he had at Tesco.
Colin said: “It came as a big shock. As far as I was concerned, we were OK.
“She said to me, ‘I’m sick of the sight of you’. So I turned around and said, ‘Well I’m sick of the sight of you too!’ I went for a walk to clear my head. It hit me that I had nowhere to go and I was going to be homeless.”
For the past seven weeks, Colin has been staying in a cramped room at a former Army barracks in Aldershot, Hants. He said: “The room isn’t big but it’s clean and safe.
“If I can survive a year in prison for a crime I didn’t commit, I can survive this. It’s not going to break me.”
Colin added that he did not blame his fate on the police entrapment, saying: “I don’t really think about the past. When the repeats of crime shows come on and I see myself on telly, it’s as if I’m looking at someone else. I feel like it happened to someone else.
“I can’t really explain it. Maybe it’s because I’ve blanked it out.”
Speaking about the split, Terri said their relationship “had a lot of issues”.
She added: “We get on better now we are apart. We are still friends.”
