The Murder of Jamie Lavis (Part 2)
6/2/202628 min
By the summer of 1997, eight-year-old Jamie Lavis had been missing for nearly a month — and the Manchester bus driver who killed him, Darren Vickers, had vanished too. Tracked down to a North Wales fairground, where he was strapping children in and out of rides, Vickers was arrested, then released for lack of evidence, and welcomed back to the Lavis family home with a celebration party. In Part 2, forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes follows the police hunt for Jamie’s body in Reddish Vale Park, the trial that exposed Vickers as a grooming predator and child sexual abuser, and the chilling jailhouse confession he made only after the verdict was in. This is the story of how detectives finally broke through one of Britain’s most brazen killers. Listen now to The Profiler, with Kerry Daynes.
Key psychological themes
This episode explores: brazen manipulation • performative empathy and staged grief • the predator who returns to the scene • grooming and child sexual abuse • blame-shifting and false allegations • the psychology of a post-conviction confession
Contributors featured in this episode
Kerry Daynes — Forensic psychologist, presenter, and author of Dark Side of the Mind and What Lies Buried.
Roy Rainford — Retired Senior Investigating Officer, Greater Manchester Police; led the Jamie Lavis murder investigation.
Asif Husein — Former Greater Manchester Police Family Liaison Officer to the Lavis family; arrested Vickers in North Wales.
David Ward — Former Northern Correspondent for The Guardian; covered the case and the trial.
Jeff Anderson — Former Head of News, ITV Granada, Manchester.
What you'll learn in this episode
How Darren Vickers tried to evade arrest by fleeing to a North Wales fairground job that put him in daily contact with children
Why Vickers kept returning to Reddish Vale Park — and what Kerry Daynes says that compulsion reveals about him
How a single jaw bone, identified through dental records, finally gave detectives enough to charge him
What QC Brian Leveson’s courtroom address exposed about the grooming and sexual abuse of Jamie Lavis
Why Vickers confessed to senior detective Roy Rainford only AFTER the jury’s guilty verdict
How Karen Lavis went from defending her son’s killer to telling the press, on the courthouse steps, that justice had been done
Relevant links and further reading
Kerry Daynes — Dark Side of the Mind (Endeavour, 2019)
Kerry Daynes — What Lies Buried (Endeavour, 2021)
Faking It: Tears of a Crime (Warner Bros. Discovery) — some interviews in this episode were originally featured in the series. Watch on https://www.discoveryplus.com
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/326657.stm — BBC News archive: contemporary coverage of the Jamie Lavis case
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/disturbing-picture-shows-how-evil-15392826 — Manchester Evening News: how an evil child killer wormed his way into his victim’s family
Support for families of missing or murdered children — Missing People (UK) • Victim Support • NSPCC
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Credits
Presented by Kerry Daynes
Produced by Shearwater Media
Executive producers: Jeff Anderson and Steve Anderson
Editing & Music by Rob Warner
Content note
This episode contains descriptions of the abduction, sexual abuse and murder of a child, and references to the discovery of human remains. Listener discretion is strongly advised. If you have been affected by the issues raised, support is available from the NSPCC (0808 800 5000) and Victim Support (0808 168 9111)
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsKerry Daynes· Host0:00
[dramatic music] Manchester in the summer of 1997, a city in shock and a family in torment. Eight-year-old Jamie Lavis has been missing and feared dead for nearly a month. Now the man suspected of abducting and murdering him has himself vanished.
Speaker 2· Soundbite0:23
Police have launched a hunt for a 28-year-old bus driver wanted in connection with the disappearance of a schoolboy in May. They've warned anyone who sees the man not to approach him, but to contact the authorities instead.
Kerry Daynes· Host0:38
I'm Kerry Daynes, and as a forensic psychologist I've studied and met some of Britain's most notorious killers. But throughout my career I've come across few as brazen and as arrogant as Darren Vickers. In this new episode of The Profiler, I reveal how the police finally brought him to justice.
Jeff Anderson· Guest1:01
The police were sure Vickers was the killer, yet he befriended the victim's parents, family, he joined in the searches and even started doing TV interviews on the family's behalf.
Roy Rainford· Guest1:14
We started talking about the search and what he was doing, and I found myself thinking, "Does he know that I know that he's the prime suspect?"
Asif Hussein· Guest1:24
The pressure was getting to him and he went missing. It, it felt to me like he was