10:20am Tuesday 29th September 2009
By Emily Parsons
THE boyfriend of murdered Colchester mum Rachel Nickell is set to sue the police for failing to prevent her murder.
The 23-year-old was stabbed 49 times and sexually assaulted while walking with her then two-year-old son Alex and their dog on Wimbledon Common.
Alex was found by a passer-by clinging to her body, crying ‘Mummy, get up’.
The 1993 attack shocked the country, and was one of the UK’s most high-profile cold-cases until paranoid schizophrenic Robert Napper, 42, admitted manslaughter in December.
The Metropolitan Police came under fire when it emerged Napper also killed Samantha Bisset, 27, and her four-year-old daughter Jazmine in November 1993.
He is believed to be responsible for up to a further 86 rapes and sex attacks.
Now, Miss Nickell’s partner Andre Hanscombe is said to be preparing to sue the force for failing to prevent the murder of Colchester High School pupil Miss Nickell.
It revolves around claims Napper’s mother called police in 1989, claiming her son had admitted raping a woman near his home.
She mistakenly told officers it happened on a local common, when in fact it happened at a nearby house.
Officers carried out an initial examination of the common but, despite reports of a rape from a woman near the area, Napper was never interviewed nor a DNA sample taken.
This would allegedly have tied him to DNA at the scene of the rape.
It is thought Mr Hanscombe, 46, is suing the force for negligence, claiming if they had successfully followed up this case, Miss Nickell would still be alive.
Compensation would focus around the trauma suffered by their son.
The claims have emerged in letters the Daily Mail claims he sent to Napper’s other surviving victims.
The Metropolitan Police says it has not yet been told of any impending court case.
Mr Hanscombe and Alex, now 20, live in a village somewhere in the Mediterranean.
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