How TV’s Fred could change murder history

He was the man who knew everything on TV hit How these days, Fred Dinenage is changing the history books by investigating notorious crimes.

How and How 2 earned a vast telly audience for 40 years from 1966, and during that time, Fred’s also been a newsreader, director of Portsmouth FC and followed countless other pursuits.

But it was crime stories that first got him intrigued as a nipper, and writing books for the Kray Twins merely increased his fascination with the dark subject.

So doing his latest series of TV’s Murder Casebook was a satisfying, if harrowing, job.

“The interview that moved me was a lady whose three children were murdered, Elsie Urry,” reveals Fred. “She got very, very emotional, understandable even after all these years.

“Film crews tend to be hardened individuals, but even they went decidedly quiet as well. So yes, these stories do upset you.”

What happened in that case, involving the murderer David McGreavy, is just too unspeakable for these pages.

In some of the cases, however not least a certain Jack the Ripper Fred reckons things are not as definite as we think.

“I think the James Hanratty case, the A6 Murder, is interesting,” he says. “John Kerr was a student at the time, and carrying out a traffic census nearby when someone found the bodies.

“He found a body, and spoke to the lady, who was still alive. He took down notes of what she said, and she was quite clear about the attacker’s hair colour and all the rest of it.

“He then gave that to a policeman who turned up, but it was never seen again. Very strange. I think there are still big question marks over the whole James Hanratty case, and the fact he changed his defence.

“He said he was in Liverpool, then changed it to Rhyl, but you can see how you might panic and change things.

“It would be easy to bully a man like that and get him rattled. In court, they asked the policeman, but he just denied having received it.

“You wouldn’t make any accusations about the police, especially as my own son is a policeman, but odd things do happen from time to time.

“Honestly, it’s hard for the police today, having to do and say the right things all the time, and they’re so stretched with cutbacks.

“We’re in an age of complaints, everyone suing each other. It’s extraordinary.”

Fred also reckons the general public have some false ideas about criminals, and about how life is for them once they’re finally nabbed and incarcerated.

“A long time ago, I did the Kray Twins’ autobiography, Our Story, and one with Ron, My Story, about life inside Broadmoor,” he recalls.

“There are a lot of misconceptions about life in prison, and we tend to think it is cushy inside.

“In fact, life inside the prisons I saw was really grim and frightening. I visited Reg Kray inside Parkhurst, Lewes, Gartree, and they were all scary.

“One crime that stuck in my mind was the Ruth Ellis case, the last woman to be hanged in the UK.

“I was quite young, but I remember it vividly, and that gave me this interest in these things.

“We’ve been careful in this series to avoid glamourising crime, and it is a very fine line. So the

scenes are dark and serious, nothing is allowed to look exciting.

“Funnily enough, we’ve found that women are big fans of the programme, and the ladies seem very interested in these cases.

“In fact, I went to a birthday dinner recently, and was beside the wife of a man who runs one of the biggest stores in the city.

“She’d insisted on sitting next to me as she wanted to talk about murder!

“She knew more than me, and we’ve found that women make up the biggest proportion of our viewers.”

Fred finds murder cases involving children are, not surprisingly, the ones he least likes doing but one infamous murderer continues to excite him as much as the rest of us.

“We expect our revelations about Jack the Ripper to get a bit of attention, to say the least!” he laughs. “David Wilson, the professor who does the show with me, expects to get threatening letters!

“There’s a lady in the new series who went to a forensics expert in the North-East of England, and they both claim they now know the true identity of Jack the Ripper.

“This is all about to be unveiled, so expect a real furore.”

Murder Casebook is on the Crime & Investigation Network Channel every Thursday at 9pm, from now until December 17.