The day in July 1992 when Rachel Nickell took her toddler to play on Wimbledon Common was ordinary. It had been just the two of them in a secluded area of woodland, meaning that when a man suddenly appeared out of nowhere, sexually assaulted and stabbed Rachel to death 49 times, her son was the only one to see it. At two years old, Alex became the sole witness to his mother’s murder, and the most promising prospect for catching her killer.
For many the case will be familiar, its torrid details, relayed at the time in a nonstop churn of salacious news coverage, forever etched into the public consciousness. For others, particularly those born after the 1990s, a new three-part Netflix dramatisation, The Witness, will serve as an introduction to one of the UK’s most notorious crimes. And for Rachel’s son and partner, Alex and André, who worked together on the show as consultants, it is an opportunity to make something good out of something unthinkably terrible.
