Fifteen years after the murder of Rachel Nickell on Wimbledon Common in 1992, Colin Stagg - the Roehampton man who for years was believed to have "gotten away with her murder" - has published a book with Fleet Street veteran Ted Hynds to finally set the record straight and to reveal what it was like to be the most hated man in Britain. Ben Thompson reports.

Imagine 10 years of people putting maggots through your letterbox and throwing bricks through your window.

Now imagine you are publicly vilified and your name synonymous with a crime of the very worst kind.

Colin Stagg for years put up with such torment but refused to be driven from his home while he publicly maintained his innocence.

He has, in the words of his co-author, "been through the fire and come out hardened on the other side".

"If you were to ask people 10 years down the line, one of hundreds of people who are killed in London over a decade, people will never forget the name Rachel Nickell and everything she seemed to represent," said Ted Hynds.

"The way the photos of her bubbled off the newspaper and the nature of the act is ingrained in people's psyches."

Close friendship

After spending several weeks together filming an episode of The Cook Report with Mr Stagg, the Fleet Street veteran developed a close friendship and stayed in touch. For nearly 15 years he acted as Mr Stagg's mouthpiece providing his only communication with the press.

"I was living in Wimbledon in Sycamore Road at the time of the murder. All I knew was what I read and thought - Colin Stagg looked like he'd done it.

"But as I got to know him I went from being 80 per cent sure he was Rachel Nickell's killer to 50 per cent, then 40 per cent. There were inconsistencies in his story but after the show we were very close and stayed in touch.

"There was no road to Damascus moment. It actually took about five or six years to be thoroughly convinced he was not guilty."

As Mr Hynds researched Stagg's trial in depth, the greater he perceived the level of injustice against him to be.

Highly critical

The officer in question, "Lizzie James" befriended and seduced Mr Stagg in an effort to incriminate him. But the judge was highly critical of the operation and threw the case out of court after describing the efforts to force a confession from Mr Stagg as "wholly reprehensible."

"The manipulation that took place leaps off the page," said Mr Hynds. "It may have seemed like the right thing for the police to have done at first but looking back it was a monstrous act. They were looking for the magic bullet and thought that they had found it. The police had come to a brick wall in one of the most prominent murder cases in the 1990s and this was a way through.

Police leaks

"The police were more than happy to leak information and create the impression of Colin as an odd ball. Four newspapers even reported the sting operation to bring Colin in the morning he was arrested."

Mr Stagg still lives in Roehampton and despite repeated death threats he has refused to move from his home, maintaining his innocence at all times. And Mr Hynds is keen to illustrate Stagg as a principled and intelligent man by chronicling the low points in his life and how he finally found salvation, and even love against the odds.

"He choose not to move for pride in his life," Mr Hynds said. "The area he lived was his home and his father's home and he'll never leave it. It's as important to him as his name.

"This is also a man without any qualifications and he's proud of the Stagg name and his home. You have to admire his fortitude.

Incredibly strong

"He's certainly not a broken man but incredibly strong. He doesn't take anything for granted. If something happens it happens, if it doesn't, it doesn't.

"In a way he is devoid of hope, not able to look to the future. Colin Stagg is a man who lives in the present, unable to look in the future and finding it too painful to look into the past.

"By reading this book, I hope people will understand the ordeal this man has survived, how and why he was put into this situation, and the wrong done to him.

"Colin was let down very badly. What he wants more than anything is an apology from the Metropolitan Police, an admission to say we got it wrong."