The Murder Of Ronald Platt
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00:00:00Albert Walker was the most manipulative person I've ever met.
00:00:07Albert Walker is the former financier accused of killing a British associate after assuming his identity.
00:00:14Twenty times a hundred.
00:00:17Albert Walker was Interpol's fourth most wanted worldwide.
00:00:21A murky tale of murder involving two continents and millions of dollars.
00:00:28He needed a convincing, uncomplicated identity.
00:00:32No close family, just a single girlfriend.
00:00:35Within two hours of first meeting this voice, he had decided she was a perfect front for his operation.
00:00:41If I hadn't have got taken in on the first meeting and gone along with everything,
00:00:46things would have been completely different.
00:00:49It could have happened to anybody.
00:00:51The mobsters are intelligent, they hatch a plan, but they'll always make a mistake.
00:00:58The crew of the Brixham trawler, the Malkeri, hold up the body in their nets in July.
00:01:02Police have spent weeks trying to identify the dead man.
00:01:06Ultimately, the whole inquiry began with the Rolex watch.
00:01:11It's alleged he threw the body over the side of his yacht, weighed down with a ten pound anchor.
00:01:16Did you kill Ronald Black?
00:01:18Of course I didn't. He was a friend of mine.
00:01:21Us human beings are a mixed bag.
00:01:24Mostly we are really quite nice people, and every now and again there's an absolute rogue who gets away with murder.
00:01:31Well, almost got away with murder.
00:01:33I was a policeman for 30 years. Majority of my career as a detective.
00:01:52We ran a busy office. Burglaries, rapes, assaults.
00:01:58I dealt with quite a few fraudsters over the years.
00:02:01They were always very personable characters.
00:02:06Albert Walker was probably the slickest, most effective, most convincing one that I came across.
00:02:27I was working as a secretary to a fine art valuer in the centre of Harrogate, and this man walked in.
00:02:40He was tall, broad, and very gentlemanly.
00:02:48Charm is a very good way of describing how these people operate, if they get the right target.
00:02:53He said his name was David Davis, and I thought he was American.
00:02:57We just started chatting.
00:02:59He said to me, living in London at the moment, and looking at moving up to Harrogate,
00:03:05I couldn't get rid of him, to be honest. It took about two hours.
00:03:09They're looking for a vulnerability, be that appearance, behaviour, socialising.
00:03:19Once they home in on that, they're there. They're home dry.
00:03:23When this man was behaving the way he was to us, and speaking the way he was, it felt nice. It felt good.
00:03:33When I first met Elaine, I just liked her immediately.
00:03:37Elaine makes friends really easily.
00:03:39She's always been capable of far more than just being an admin person,
00:03:43but she never managed to escape that role, if you like.
00:03:49He said, I could do with somebody like you.
00:03:51He said, working for me, and he offered me a job.
00:03:56She was clearly impressed.
00:03:59I just felt that he could see something in me that nobody else had noticed before, and I felt special.
00:04:07So it did feel good. Yeah, it did.
00:04:10Me and my boyfriend, Ron, were saving up to go to Canada.
00:04:13So I thought, well, I might as well tell him this.
00:04:16If I came to work for you, I would only be working for you for, say, two years or so.
00:04:21So he said, that's fine. He said, if you work for me for a couple of years,
00:04:25I'll pay you more than you're earning here, you'll save up and you'll get to Canada quicker.
00:04:31Davis must have thought all his birthdays had come at once when he met Elaine in Harrogate
00:04:38and discovered that not only did she have a boyfriend who was virtually the same age as him,
00:04:45but that he wanted to live in Canada.
00:04:48It was just like almost a screenplay written for him.
00:04:55When I went back home and told Ron, he was ecstatic.
00:04:59He was like, oh, I'm on my way to Canada already.
00:05:04He was quite proud of the fact that he grew up in Canada.
00:05:08We always thought one day we'll go back together.
00:05:13Ron was very quiet, very shy, very soft-spoken, really a gentle sort of person.
00:05:23Oh, that's a good one of Ron. I like that. That was a super picture.
00:05:28I remember taking that. That was in my flat at Rutland Road.
00:05:32And I wanted to take his portrait.
00:05:35And it's a super picture. I love the eyes. It's just got beautiful eyes.
00:05:40The watch.
00:05:42He loved it so much he wouldn't take it off. He even had it on in the shower.
00:05:46So he wore it 24-7, that watch.
00:05:50I feel as if he's looking at me. Yeah.
00:05:54But he's not blaming me. He's all right. He knows.
00:06:03I was a 28-year-old young detective.
00:06:08I was posted down here on the 22nd of July, 1996.
00:06:13And this was my fourth or fifth shift when I got the call
00:06:17where a body had been discovered in the sea.
00:06:21I was on my way to work.
00:06:23I was on my way to work.
00:06:25I was on my way to work.
00:06:27...when I got the call where a body had been discovered in the sea.
00:06:46A body had been trawled up by a local fishing trawler and brought into Brixham Harbour.
00:06:51Harbour. I got the call from Brixham Coast Guard, could I either intercept it or
00:06:58meet it in Brixham and clear the quay?
00:07:02In the days preceding that, there'd been an unfortunate incident in Torbay where
00:07:09a young lad had gone missing off a pedalo and it did cross my mind at that
00:07:13stage that this could be the body of that young lad that had been brought in.
00:07:20When I actually got there, we got on board and I saw the trawl cut end in
00:07:28the fish pound and a big lump inside. It looked quite fresh, the skin was still
00:07:33intact and was still, I wouldn't say a good colour, it was very grey and mottled, but
00:07:40bits of the body were still there that you wouldn't expect to be there had it
00:07:45been some time in the water. I would have put him in his probably 30s, he was
00:07:51certainly older than the student we were looking for. It didn't have any
00:07:55identification on him at all, he was dressed in a check shirt with a pair of
00:07:59light trousers, a belt and a pair of deck shoes. Looking down I saw his pockets,
00:08:06trouser pockets were turned inside out, so now I'm thinking probably robbery or
00:08:12whatever gone wrong. The only thing of any note on the body was he was wearing
00:08:17a Rolex wristwatch. So then things didn't fit. I could probably do my whole service
00:08:26again and I still wouldn't get a case like this one.
00:08:36The crew of the Brixham Trawl of the Malkyrie pulled up the body in their nets
00:08:40in July. Police have spent weeks trying to identify the dead man. Initially there
00:08:47was local publicity around any missing persons in the area in
00:08:52Devon and Cornwall or Dorset. The body's discovery by a fishing boat started a
00:08:57meticulous search by police for a cause of death. It was then publicised further
00:09:02afield. How long did it take you to realise there was actually a body snarled
00:09:06in the net? Once we'd realised what had happened, I mean I suppose we were still
00:09:11in a state of shock when we came in. And some of the main ferry companies were
00:09:15contacted to see if they'd had any missing persons overboard, but all that
00:09:19came to nothing.
00:09:29One of the coroner's officers mentioned to me that he was aware that Rolex
00:09:36kept really good records of the servicing of any wristwatches and in
00:09:41fact if we opened up the back of the Rolex they could get a little serial
00:09:45number from there and then compare it with their records at head office. So
00:09:48that's what we did. We sent the Rolex off to a Rolex company in Kent who opened it
00:09:53up for us and then were able to inform us that it had been repaired and
00:09:56serviced in a small jewellers in Harrogate in Yorkshire. Once the
00:10:01inquiries of the jewellers had been conducted, we finally had a name and it
00:10:06was Mr. Ronald Joseph Platt.
00:10:24Elaine rang me to say that this American guy was offering her a job. There was a
00:10:30lot of whining and dining involved. He was taking her out to dinner quite
00:10:35often. She certainly gave the impression that he'd got money. There was no doubt
00:10:40about it. He arranged to meet me one particular night after work. I was unsure
00:10:47about everything and I hadn't made my mind up. This American, he was charming.
00:10:52Yeah, he could be absolutely charming. She would not expect anybody to be so
00:10:57manipulative. Fraudsters, a lot of the times, they're very clever. I think Albert
00:11:03Walker came in contact with Elaine and quickly realised that she was a
00:11:08character that was able to be manipulated and she and her partner, Ron
00:11:13Platt, could suit his own ends and was merciless in his pursuit of that. He said
00:11:20to me, he said, I think really I need to meet Ron, he said, because it sounds to me
00:11:25like if Ron was on board with you that you would be more interested in joining
00:11:32me, sort of thing. So that's what happened.
00:11:39They hit it off straight away. I think it was the accent and the way that Mr. Davis
00:11:45was, the way he spoke, they were just like buddies and he sort of
00:11:50actually asked Ron, are you happy for Elaine to work for me? And Ron said, yes,
00:11:55yes, of course. So left a few weeks later and started working for this Mr. Davis.
00:12:11Next thing, she's working for this guy. She's flying to Geneva for
00:12:19Elaine to get a touch of that high life. Obviously, she's quite excited. He would
00:12:24send me abroad because he wanted to buy a property. He wanted to buy a property
00:12:28in France eventually. He actually rang the estate agents in France and he set
00:12:34it all up for me. He was totally controlling, totally coercive in almost
00:12:38every one he came into contact with. He set up the trains, the plane, so yeah, well
00:12:47it was exciting. It was exciting. It's the controlling of a person's life, how
00:12:52they act, what they can do, what they can't do. I think there was so much
00:12:56travel involved that we didn't get to speak so much at that time. Part of the
00:13:02job, what I would do is take photographs of the properties that I was
00:13:05been showing around and I would write like a little report. It's a means of
00:13:11manipulating people to believe something that isn't there.
00:13:17The police have spent weeks trying to identify the dead man, what they now
00:13:33believe is 51-year-old Essex businessman Ronald Platt. It was down to me to try
00:13:38and establish why Mr. Platt had ended up in the water. Ron was a quiet gentleman,
00:13:44kept himself to himself, appeared to be a solid, loyal gentleman who was really
00:13:52no enemies, was just a quiet, hard-working man. The bank, after we
00:13:58enquired with them, were able to give us the last known address of Mr. Ronald
00:14:02Platt in Beardsley Drive in Essex. I phoned Essex police one evening and
00:14:08spoke to a detective sergeant, Peter Redman, who happened to pick up the phone
00:14:12in the office that day. It wasn't an enquiry that came to me, the phone just
00:14:16happened to be ringing, I was the only one in the office. Hello? The enquiry
00:14:21came through to make enquiries at the address Beardsley Drive here in
00:14:24Chelmsford. I spoke to the landlord and they said, oh, the property is now
00:14:31vacant and this was the chap who stood guarantor, Mr. Davis, Little London
00:14:38Lane. I had a phone number, so I phoned it and spoke to him. I didn't want to
00:14:51say why I was calling because obviously I was potentially giving this chap
00:14:56notification of his friend having died. I wanted to visit him or at least meet
00:15:00him face to face. But anyway, he got me to tell him why and he said, I'll come
00:15:07to the police station. And that's what he did. I brought him from the front
00:15:16counter into the office. Tall chap, casually dressed but very expensively
00:15:21dressed. Immaculate, everything was clean and I would imagine top-notch.
00:15:28Shoes, trousers, the jacket. He looked a country gentleman. That was possibly
00:15:34the best way to describe him. Very personable character, could talk with
00:15:38very ease. So he came in with photographs of Ron. I put him on the phone to Ian
00:15:47Clennahan down in Devon and the two of them had a chat on the phone. He was
00:15:51obviously upset and appeared shocked to me and wanted to know some detail about
00:15:56what had happened and how he'd been found, which I told him. And he was able
00:16:01to tell me that as far as he was concerned, Ronald Platt set off the week
00:16:05previously to France on some sort of boating vessel to emigrate to France and
00:16:11start a new life over there. At that point, the story started to fit together
00:16:15a bit more and I was along the lines of there had been some tragic boating
00:16:20accident and unfortunately he'd fallen overboard a ferry or another boat and
00:16:25he'd met his end like that, unfortunately. I didn't think I had any
00:16:32idea of what was coming next, to be fair.
00:16:34It was quite exciting. David Davis would send me to go to Geneva usually on a
00:16:55weekend and I would meet up and show him the photographs and give him a report
00:16:59of the area. Around that time, he actually moved up to Harrogate. He got
00:17:07involved with various things like the Baptist church. He came across as a very
00:17:11good Christian person. David came to church one Sunday morning with his
00:17:19daughter, Noelle. Blazer, God's tight tie, very Harrogate. And he fitted in to this
00:17:30kind of congregation where people did dress smartly for church in those days. He
00:17:35happily introduced himself. He could sing, good singer. You could hear him singing.
00:17:41All of that threw himself into it with gusto and we were glad he was here. His
00:17:46daughter, Noelle, came as well and kind of impressions of her. I think I was a
00:17:50little bit in love with her, actually. She was very good looking. A few years
00:17:54older than me, 15 or 16 maybe. David was happy to talk to people and to chat. He
00:18:01said, I'm a financial man. I've got lots of expertise around the world in handling
00:18:06finances. If any of you want any help with all of that, I'm your man. As far as
00:18:12we saw, he was a nice guy. The first or second time that we went to Gatwick, he
00:18:21booked me into a hotel there because the flight to Geneva was the first thing the
00:18:25next morning. So we had dinner and then he said, do you mind if I just have a
00:18:34look at your room, see what your room's like? So I was a bit perplexed and I
00:18:39thought, well, I can't say no. So we got into the lift and I'm thinking, what's
00:18:46going on here? And I was really quite nervous inside but I was trying not to
00:18:50show it. He goes into the room and he said, oh, it's a nice room sort of thing.
00:18:56Sits on the edge of the bed. I'm sat on the other edge of the bed and he went
00:19:01into his jacket pocket and he brought out an envelope and he said, when you're
00:19:06over in Geneva, I'd like you to change some money for me. He said, Geneva is full
00:19:12of bureauty changes and that's what happens, that's what businessmen are
00:19:15doing all the time, they're changing money. When he'd gone, rang Ron and I
00:19:20explained what had happened and he said, Mr Davis is a businessman, he understands
00:19:26these things. It sounded right. So anyway, when I went, I saw there was loads of
00:19:30bureauty changes and I actually thought, oh well, that sounds like it's what
00:19:35happens. You're giving them your passport, they change the money and that's it.
00:19:41I would have thought nothing of it because he was a wealthy man. The banking
00:19:46system is nothing like it is today. It's so easy to transfer money anywhere in
00:19:51the world, isn't it? If it wasn't there.
00:19:55Elaine was transferring money between accounts in Europe but what she didn't
00:20:01know was Albert Walker was wanted in Canada by the Royal Mounted Police for a
00:20:07large-scale, multi-million pound fraud.
00:20:17After a few months, this man became a friend to Ron and he was like a father
00:20:23figure to me because my family, we had quite a difficult childhood. It felt nice,
00:20:30it felt good, it felt cared for. There was one day when he said he wanted to
00:20:37set up a company called Cavendish Corporation Limited. So he bought this
00:20:41company and he said, what I want to do is I want to meet you and Ron Directors.
00:20:47We just sort of went along with it because he talked us through what was
00:20:53involved, he would be putting the money into the business so there
00:20:57wouldn't be any problems. Everything was being done in the company name.
00:21:04It was this Cavendish Corporation Limited and Elaine was a director and then next
00:21:12thing Ron was involved in it as well and it was all very odd and he was keeping
00:21:17his name out of everything. We went to the banks in Harrogate to open a bank
00:21:24account for Cavendish and the guy said how much money are we talking about and
00:21:28he did say something like two million or something ridiculous. He didn't go back
00:21:35to that bank because of whatever questions he'd asked but he went to a
00:21:39different bank and it was all easy. He just was able to, yes we just need this
00:21:44Mr Davis, we just need that, that document, that document and we'd opened an
00:21:48account for Cavendish Corporation and Ron and I as directors. He was using them
00:21:56to front this business which I mean I just thought the whole thing was incredibly suspicious.
00:22:01At this point I was just tying up a few loose ends and then putting the file into our local
00:22:20coroner. I needed a few more facts from David Davis and I contacted DS Redman again
00:22:25and asked him whether he would go around to the address and speak to him on my behalf.
00:22:29Yeah, no problem, I can do that.
00:22:37So I drove over to Woodham Walter. I'd never been there before. It's a very sleepy village,
00:22:43not a lot happens so not a lot of call for police and I went to the address.
00:22:51Now there are three houses in that road.
00:22:54None of them have got the name so I've pulled up in front of the middle one just, well it's the
00:22:59middle one, knocked on the door. Lovely couple, elderly couple, come in for a cup of tea. So I sat
00:23:05down in their beautiful cottage with them. Who are you looking for? Oh, I'm after David Davis.
00:23:10Oh no. They said that a couple lives next door, both had American accents. He's a lot older than
00:23:18her. She's quite a young, pretty young thing, Noel. I don't know a David Davis.
00:23:26Ron Platt lives next door. I think, hang on, what's going on here?
00:23:47The sheer amount of people Albert Walker was able to con
00:23:51and make believe he was something other than he was is incredible. If you were to change your
00:23:58identity now and become someone else, there'll always be something on the internet that proves
00:24:03you're not that person, whereas in the mid-90s, I think it was easier to hide your tracks back then.
00:24:11I was sat at my desk one evening when I received a call from Peter Redman.
00:24:15He told me that, in fact, there'd been some major developments in the case.
00:24:19This American guy living next door to this elderly couple seemed to be posing as Ronald Joseph Platt.
00:24:26I put the phone down from Pete and I thought, where's this going? Phil Sincock was the DI.
00:24:34So I knocked on his door and he was actually really busy and he said, not now, go away.
00:24:38And I said, no, I think you need to listen. No, he said, I'm really busy. Come back in half an
00:24:41hour. I said, no, boss, I really think you need to listen to me. Go on then. So I said, look,
00:24:46this is what's happened. And he was like, oh, God, right, OK. He said, the governor's shut himself
00:24:51in his office thinking about it. And then half an hour later, he said, the boss will be up tomorrow.
00:25:00And of course, it changed the whole complexion of the inquiry.
00:25:19So Christmas 92, David Davies suggested that we have Christmas together, the four of us,
00:25:24you know, him and Noel, his daughter and Ron and I. So we had Christmas dinner at his house
00:25:33and then he gave us a Christmas card. It was very simply, it just read that I will pay for two
00:25:41tickets to Canada, but to be redeemed by the end of February. So when I looked at that, I thought,
00:25:48my goodness, Ron was ecstatic. Ron was ecstatic. You couldn't believe it. He was,
00:25:54he just was like a little kid that's just got his sweets, you know. But I was like, well, what? This
00:26:00is only two months. I was quite shocked, really. I thought, well, what do we do with our flat? We've
00:26:05got to sell our flat. And when I asked him that, I said, what about all that? He said, he said,
00:26:10don't worry, leave it with me. I'll sort it for you. I'll sort it. He said, he said, what I'll
00:26:15need to sell your flat and Cavendish. I understood he was closing it all down because he was going to
00:26:21France with Noel. He said, what I'll need is access to your national insurance number and
00:26:26we'll have to make some rubber stamps of your signatures. He said, and this is common practice
00:26:30in business. I felt I didn't have any choice. I felt I wanted to make Ron happy. I knew that
00:26:42ultimately we'd end up going to Canada. And I suppose, why not now? And I think that was his
00:26:49argument was, why not go and achieve your dreams now? Get on with your life and move to Canada.
00:26:56Elaine wasn't telling it as if he was getting rid of them. It was sort of how kind of him.
00:27:05But I saw it very much as he's getting rid of them.
00:27:13Heavy snowfall develops for the region. That will be unleashing very cold temperatures. So
00:27:19bitter wind chills as we head into the weekend.
00:27:25Canada, in the middle of January, it was about minus 35 to 40. It was freezing.
00:27:33We found somewhere to live fairly quickly that was cheek and cheerful on the outskirts of Calgary.
00:27:38And we walked from the outskirts of Calgary to the centre of Calgary and it was freezing. I'm
00:27:45not kidding you. We had to, we got downtown and we had to rush into a store to stop us
00:27:51getting like frostbite. We were that cold. In Calgary, it was, it was quite difficult because
00:28:01legally I couldn't work there. But Ron could. So he tried to get a job, but he found it difficult.
00:28:08In the meantime, I said, well, why don't you try and get something local in a local shop,
00:28:12get a job doing anything? And he didn't want to do that. He said, no, I want a job doing
00:28:20engineering, doing something that he knew. But yeah, it put a strain on our relationship.
00:28:26I'd never seen Ron angry ever, but I could see that the pressure and the stress was getting to him.
00:28:35And that started to change our relationship.
00:28:42He did get down. Yeah. And I got down, we both got down to be honest.
00:28:47She didn't particularly enjoy it and she was just
00:28:50desperately homesick. All in all, it wasn't a good experience.
00:28:57I was going back at the end of July for my sister's wedding, but I had, I sort of decided
00:29:01that I wasn't coming back to Canada, but I didn't say anything. I couldn't discuss it with him.
00:29:07It would be too painful. Of course, Ron was expecting her back,
00:29:13but she just couldn't bring herself to go back.
00:29:20But I think she also felt extremely guilty that it was his dream and she wasn't living it.
00:29:28So it was, it was sad really.
00:29:36At some point I did speak to him and said I wasn't coming back and he was heartbroken.
00:29:45This is a postcard Ron sent me. He writes to say, dear Elaine, the landlord is selling the house,
00:29:52so I'll have to look for somewhere else nearby if possible.
00:29:56I'm still at the job at Strathmore. I hope it takes me through the winter,
00:30:02which is very cold, 30 below zero with snow blizzards.
00:30:09Dear Elaine, I've had to move into one of those grotty apartments
00:30:13down the road. You passed them on the way to Reno's hairdressers. No choice really. I'm
00:30:18posting many parcels to you every day to get your things to safety. Every last penny goes on postage.
00:30:26Keep your spirits up and take care. All the best. Love, Ron.
00:30:32Gosh, that's sad, isn't it? Sorry. It's really sad that, because he's sending all his, all my things
00:30:39back to England. Yeah. And he's got to get out of where he lives. But it's just sad really, because
00:30:46he didn't deserve to be stuck there on his own. I should have been with him really.
00:31:05There are so many reasons why people would lie. There are so many reasons why people would live
00:31:11under a false identity. We're putting together this picture of who is actually there, who's
00:31:18paying the council tax. By that time, we'd done all the checks and everything had come back. Bank
00:31:24accounts had come back in Ronald Platt's name. I think driver's license had come back in Ronald
00:31:28Platt's name with photographs of David Davis on. I mean, it was completely, right, we need to know
00:31:35what's going on here. But at the time, we were a million miles away from thinking he was a murderer.
00:31:40We were just a million miles away from putting two and two together and getting four.
00:31:48From his army records, we discovered Ronald's next of kin was his brother, Brian Platt.
00:31:54And I traveled up to Hay-on-Wye and spoke with Brian about it. And Brian informed me that he
00:32:00had a longtime partner, a lady called Elaine, who was now living in Harrogate.
00:32:10I wasn't rushing to sort of keep friendship with David Davis. I wasn't rushing to communicate
00:32:36with Ron, particularly. So I sort of thought, I've just got to sort of look after me now.
00:32:42I was thinking, oh, well, you know, will she go back to work for David Davis again? But there
00:32:47was no offer of continued employment with him, none whatsoever. It was very obvious
00:32:56that he didn't want that. He was moving down to the south of England with Noel.
00:33:04And so basically, as far as I knew, that there was no Cavendish Corporation.
00:33:11It had all just dissolved.
00:33:23Probably about two years later, I think Ron had written to me to say that he was coming back.
00:33:28I phoned him up and said, are you sure you want to come back, Ron?
00:33:34He said, yeah. He said, I can't cope with the winters. I'm not happy in my job. I want to come
00:33:39back home. But he said, don't worry, I'm not coming back to Harrogate. And then in the conversation,
00:33:45he sort of said that David Davis was meeting him at the airport. So when he said that, I said,
00:33:53well, just be careful, Ron. He promised me he would be there to help me. And he didn't.
00:33:59He just dropped me. Beware of that. And I just warned him, really, to be careful.
00:34:06David Davis would have been furious. It certainly didn't suit his plans, did it?
00:34:13It would be about September 1996, and I was living at home with my mum,
00:34:19and we needed some legal advice. So I thought I would phone David.
00:34:29Just towards the end of the phone call, I said to him, have you heard from Ron recently, David?
00:34:34And he said, no, I haven't. And I said, OK, well, I'm going to call David.
00:34:39I said to him, have you heard from Ron recently, David? And he says, no, he says, I haven't seen
00:34:48him since the beginning of June. He said, I sent him to France to start a TV repair business.
00:34:53And I said, what? Why would he do that? He can't speak French. So how would he survive in France?
00:35:03There was something wrong, yeah.
00:35:09A couple of weeks later, I'm working in the coffee shop, and my mother turns up at five o'clock.
00:35:16She said, I've got some bad news. And I could just tell by the look on her face, there was something
00:35:22horrible going on. And she said, the police have phoned this afternoon. Ron's body's been found
00:35:29off the south coast somewhere. And I said, I'm going to go and see what's going on.
00:35:35Ron's body's been found off the south coast somewhere.
00:35:40And I just went, I don't know. My mum said afterwards that I was just in shock,
00:35:44complete shock. I was. I was just, yeah, a wreck, really. Just awful. Just horrible.
00:35:53To be honest, I still feel like I'm that rabbit in the headlights. I'm still stuck,
00:35:59frozen, with the shock of it all.
00:36:04The police wanted to speak to me that night at seven o'clock.
00:36:11The phone rang at seven. It was Cornwall and Devon police.
00:36:14Chatted with Elaine, and she told me about their life together and their relationship with,
00:36:20her relationship initially with David Davis, and then the introduction of Ronald into that
00:36:25relationship and how they all got on together. He'd spoken to David Davis as part of their
00:36:29inquiries. And I said, when did you speak to Mr. Davis? He said, weeks ago.
00:36:39And I just froze. He said to me, what's wrong? I said, well, yeah. I said, I spoke to this man
00:36:48two weeks ago. But you're telling me you spoke to him five or six weeks ago. So that means that
00:36:54he knew that when I had that phone call with him, he knew that Ron was dead.
00:37:00He sort of said, oh, don't worry. He said, we are going to be speaking to
00:37:04Mr. Davis. There was no suspicions there. They just wanted to chat to me about Ron and
00:37:10close the file. I got the impression that they were sort of closing the file.
00:37:15We wanted to play it down because we were unsure where the investigation was heading at that time.
00:37:21And of course, we were unsure who was involved. So we needed to get our facts sorted out and
00:37:27establish exactly what had been going on before we were open with our thoughts,
00:37:33if you like, with Elaine. So in a way, we played our cards very close to our chest.
00:37:39The next day, the phone rings. Who is it? David Davis. Oh, come, he's phoning me. So I'm panicking,
00:37:47aren't I? I'm panicking. And he says, hi, Elaine. It's David. So I said, oh, hi, David.
00:37:54He says, how are you? He's really upbeat. He's really jolly. He's got a lovely voice.
00:38:00He's got a lovely voice. He's got a lovely voice. He's got a lovely voice. He's got a lovely voice.
00:38:05He says, how are you? He's really upbeat. He's really jolly and all the rest of it. And I said
00:38:10to him, I said, have you heard about Ron? And he said, oh, yes. He said, oh, I wanted to contact
00:38:18his mum and send his mum some flowers. And he said, well, he said, I'm in Leeds, actually, he says,
00:38:24and I was going to head over to see you. Can I come over and see you now? I'm sat there,
00:38:29terrified. So he said, I'll be there in about, I don't know, 45 minutes or so.
00:38:33So I put the phone down and freeze, just freeze.
00:38:49Elaine contacted us and told us that David Davis had been in contact with her
00:38:54and he wanted to meet up with her. And she was panicking a bit over that meeting.
00:38:59But she was advised to meet him in a public place and not ask too many questions and see
00:39:06what he wanted to offer to her and then obviously report back to us.
00:39:23So David comes to where I work and we sit down and somebody gets us a coffee.
00:39:36I'm sat there really, really scared and I don't know what to say. That's the main thing. I don't
00:39:41know what to say. He said he was really shocked and he said that he was so upset that he'd shed
00:39:49tears on the way up on the train. He was so upset about what had happened to Ron.
00:39:54I was quite wary of what I said and I was listening to what he was saying
00:40:00and I was trying to not be with him for very long.
00:40:04There must have been a reason why he wanted to meet her and I would imagine it was to find out
00:40:12what the police had asked her and what information she had given to the police.
00:40:16I was being careful, yeah, what I said.
00:40:21We stood up and he held my hands and he sort of looked at me and he said,
00:40:24he said, I really do care for you, you know, and yeah, oh dear, it's weird, isn't it? Weird.
00:40:31Inquiries had continued with the house and the utility bills and we'd looked into David
00:40:36Davis's mobile phone number, which I'd spoken to him on, and we made inquiries with the cell provider.
00:40:44Those inquiries came back that in the week preceding the body being recovered,
00:40:50we could see that there was a lot of blood on the floor and there was a lot of blood on the
00:40:55that in the week preceding the body being recovered,
00:41:00we could place David Davis down in Devon, in South Devon in particular.
00:41:05And that really kind of was the tipping point in this investigation that we decided then
00:41:10we were going to arrest him for the murder of Ron Platt.
00:41:18Somewhere along the line, someone said, well, they're American,
00:41:21we think it might be a murder inquiry, he might have a gun.
00:41:25I've no idea where that came from, but anyway,
00:41:27it got ramped up and suddenly it was going to become an armed operation.
00:41:33I thought, I'll go past the house on the way to work. From the corner, I could see the house
00:41:41and a taxi came past me and went down the lane and it stopped outside one of the two houses,
00:41:46I couldn't see which. Very dodgy phone signal, but I managed to get through and say, look, car's there.
00:41:54They put two armed response vehicles on standby.
00:41:58This taxi came back out the lane, I thought, I can't take a chance that he's not in it.
00:42:04So I followed it in my car, caught up and then the armed response vehicles
00:42:10caught me up and overtook and then stopped this taxi.
00:42:17Mr Davis, cool as a cucumber. I said, good morning, Mr Davis, remember me?
00:42:24I'm arresting your suspicion of the murder of Ron Platt and, OK, that was it.
00:42:32No other response at all, none at all.
00:42:39We organised a dedicated search team to come and do the house,
00:42:43it's a big house, and to do it properly.
00:42:46One, two, three, four.
00:42:48When they searched the house, they did find numerous documents in the name of both David
00:42:52Davis and Ronald Platt, including passports and bank details, driver's licences, etc.
00:42:5820 tonnes a hundred.
00:43:03His young wife, she was packing a bag and when the officers searched that bag,
00:43:08the bag was stuffed with gold bars and cash.
00:43:11We'd also discovered from paperwork during the house search that he had a boat.
00:43:17In the room we were using, the conference room, big white board,
00:43:21Bill and I and others had made different notes on the board and one of the notes was the Lady Jane.
00:43:27That was the name of his boat. We didn't know where that was.
00:43:30It wasn't down in Brixham because they checked, it couldn't be found down there,
00:43:34we didn't know where it was.
00:43:35The inspector in charge comes in and he's looking at the board and he says,
00:43:39Lady Jane. I said, yeah, that's, we think that's his boat, don't know where it is.
00:43:45Oh, it's down at Tillingham, in Dry Dock at Tillingham, I'm a sailor, I saw it there at the weekend.
00:43:58Chances are that.
00:44:02They didn't search it there at all. It was sealed and trailered down to the
00:44:07forensic science service in Devon.
00:44:14David Davis turned up at the police station immaculately dressed.
00:44:18He was very smart, very polite.
00:44:21His fingerprints were taken because he was suspected to be an American citizen.
00:44:27We had sent the fingerprints off to Interpol for further examination.
00:44:31When they searched him, in one pocket he was David Davis and in the other he was Ron Platt.
00:44:38They didn't think he was David Davis, so that was really bad because I was thinking,
00:44:43well, if he isn't David Davis, who the heck is he?
00:44:50A man in his mid-50s and a woman in her 20s were brought to Torquay police station for questioning.
00:44:56They'd been detained at a house in Essex where Ronald Platt is registered as the sole occupant.
00:45:01The police say they're having difficulty establishing the identity of the pair in custody.
00:45:07Throughout the dealings with him in custody prior to the interview,
00:45:11he was most helpful and most polite and talkative.
00:45:14We sat down an interview, pressed the record button on the interview tapes
00:45:19and he never said another word during the interview.
00:45:24We can keep him up to 24 hours without charge.
00:45:27But prior to the 24 hours being up, we got notification from Interpol
00:45:31that in fact, David Davis was not David Davis at all
00:45:35and he was Interpol's fourth most wanted man in the world and his name was Albert Johnson Walker.
00:45:46The murky world of Albert Walker, a world of switched identities, lies and a life on the run.
00:45:52In all, Walker conned people in Ontario out of more than three million dollars.
00:45:57The next thing, I've got a Canadian journalist knocking on the door
00:46:02with a wad of newspapers from Canada with all the stuff about him.
00:46:08Jim O'Connell.
00:46:09Hello, Jim. It's our officer.
00:46:10Walker agreed to a series of exclusive telephonic interviews with Canadian journalists.
00:46:16Jim O'Connell.
00:46:17Hello, Jim. It's our officer.
00:46:19Walker agreed to a series of exclusive telephone interviews
00:46:23discussing the many crimes of which he's accused.
00:46:31Are you ashamed of what you've done?
00:46:33I'm sorry for what I've done.
00:46:35But you're not ashamed of it?
00:46:37Well, remorse is, I think, a more appropriate word.
00:46:43Walker had stolen millions of dollars from elderly investors.
00:46:46A lot of people lost their life savings with him.
00:46:48They were retired school teachers, doctors, etc,
00:46:52who had dealt with Mr. Walker for the last 10 or 15 years.
00:46:56That's heartbreaking when you've got to think back and realise that
00:47:04you lost everything through one man.
00:47:07But people do bad things and regret it and ask for forgiveness.
00:47:21He'd had an investment company and he literally fled with all the money
00:47:25and ripped people off, so their pensions and stuff.
00:47:29He just fled.
00:47:32Do you think that you'll ever tell police where you stashed the money?
00:47:36Well, I don't think I want to go into that.
00:47:40But the money is here and there.
00:47:44Albert Walker was a pillar of the close-knit community.
00:47:48He taught Sunday school and served as an elder in St. Paul's United Church.
00:47:54It just made you realise all those lies, like his wife was an eminent GP,
00:47:59he said he'd been a banker in Geneva, or everything about him was all lies.
00:48:05He, his wife and their four children lived an apparently idyllic life in this attractive house.
00:48:10Al was a very charming kind of guy that could talk to anybody on any subject.
00:48:14And on the outside or away from the house, he was well-liked and people enjoyed his conversations.
00:48:22At home it was different because he had a bad temper, he could be physical at times.
00:48:29I was in a situation where my marriage was on the rocks,
00:48:33my business was ready to fall apart, my wife was
00:48:37telephoning some of the investors and saying that I was going to run off with their money.
00:48:43Old friends and clients trusted him with their life savings.
00:48:47People here and officers who deal with me every day say they've never met a more honest inmate.
00:48:52Everything I asked him, any questions I asked, any queries, any concerns,
00:48:56he seemed to have an answer for it. He seemed to have a plausible answer.
00:49:01For the victim, it is so heartbreaking and very often they don't realise they've been a victim.
00:49:07They really don't. They're convinced that this person
00:49:12is genuine and that they've been doing them a favour.
00:49:16Every police force in the country, including the Mounties,
00:49:19were looking for him after he left his family behind in Paris, Ontario.
00:49:23When he left Canada, Walker travelled to Geneva,
00:49:26then England where he lived with his daughter under the name David Davies.
00:49:30How do you justify taking your teenage daughter away from her home and her family,
00:49:36making her a fugitive and using her as a cover, as your wife?
00:49:40I didn't want her to come with me. She pleaded with me.
00:49:43She threatened to run away from home, you know, if I didn't take her with me.
00:49:48She just didn't want to go back and live with her mother.
00:49:52So David's daughter was Noelle, Noelle Davies.
00:49:56She was lovely, a very nice, very nice young lady.
00:49:59It was almost impossible to get Noelle to talk.
00:50:03She was massively shy, reticent, yes, quiet, all of that.
00:50:09I mean, she came, she sat with her father and came and went.
00:50:18You would hardly know she was here in terms of relating to other people,
00:50:23just quietly in the background all the time.
00:50:26According to Barbara Walker, the Ontario Provincial Police
00:50:29never undertook an active search for her daughter.
00:50:33And despite help from neighbours,
00:50:34private detective costs and now legal fees have broken the family financially.
00:50:42It became clear that what was the young wife living with him at the address
00:50:46under Noelle Davies was in fact his daughter, Sheena.
00:50:50We're especially impressed with the people in England who are helping Sheena right now
00:50:55because their understanding of the situation is so complete and so thorough
00:51:01and they're treating her as a victim rather than a criminal.
00:51:05When we spoke to Sheena, she was able to tell us that on the night in question
00:51:10that she and her father had been visiting a holiday cottage down in South Devon.
00:51:16It was a defining moment in the inquiry,
00:51:18but the whole case was still built on circumstantial evidence.
00:51:22Ronald had died by drowning.
00:51:25So we had to prove, number one, that he'd been murdered
00:51:28and number two, who had done that murder.
00:51:40It's nearly two years now since a man's body was trawled up
00:51:43in the nets of this fishing boat just off Tynmouth.
00:51:47Under police escort, Canada's most wanted man arrived in Exeter Crown Court.
00:51:52He's pleaded not guilty and the trial's expected to last at least three weeks.
00:51:57There were lots of cameras about and film crews.
00:52:01This was a case which had hit all the front pages of the tabloid newspapers
00:52:06and the BBC and ITV main evening news.
00:52:10And there was a lot of press interest in and around Exeter Crown Court
00:52:14at the time of that trial.
00:52:15To be honest, it was a bit bizarre to be attending a court case with the press there
00:52:23and me being part of it.
00:52:24It was like it wasn't the real world, you know.
00:52:28It's very hard to believe that a man could do that
00:52:30to somebody who was supposed to be a friend.
00:52:33It's a shock.
00:52:34I mean, I believe he is guilty, but I still can't come to terms with it.
00:52:38Well, of course, I'd never actually met Davis,
00:52:41so I wanted to see who this person was in the flesh.
00:52:48It was a very old-fashioned courtroom with all the woodwork and the dock
00:52:55and very sort of Victorian looking.
00:53:01I mean, I remember the case going on in bits of news
00:53:05and therefore that was quite shocking to know the man who was sat here
00:53:08singing his heart out on Sunday mornings to all the hymns
00:53:12suddenly was accused of all this, you know, horrific, hideous series of crimes.
00:53:19One of the broadsheets, I can't remember which one,
00:53:21double page spread the story on three quarters of the double spread
00:53:25and then kind of one quarter of the page is an advert for the Rolex watch.
00:53:31I mean, we couldn't believe it.
00:53:32This, you know, obeying, nice, gentle man that it seemed he was.
00:53:38We heard this story which was horrific about what had gone on.
00:53:43So, yes, we were sat there.
00:53:47God smacked, absolutely.
00:53:49During his sensational trial, Exeter Crown Court heard that
00:53:53Albert Walker lured his victim on board the Lady Jane,
00:53:56knocked him unconscious and threw him overboard with an anchor in his belt to weigh him down.
00:54:00Richard Ferguson was defending and he was the defence counsel.
00:54:03He was the Irish guy that defended the Birmingham Six,
00:54:07um, a real, a decent lawyer, you know.
00:54:10Ferguson admitted his client is a liar.
00:54:13Mr. Walker had programmed himself to lie, he said.
00:54:16I am not seeking to justify his behaviour but he's not on trial for telling lies.
00:54:21Detective work is about investigating and about finding the mistake.
00:54:26Very few crimes are committed without a mistake being made.
00:54:30Bought, you need luck and we got it in abundance, we got it in abundance.
00:54:38The search of the boat took place.
00:54:41Inside that is a receipt for an anchor from a local ship chandler down in Brixham.
00:54:48The anchor was one of several purchases made by Walker.
00:54:53This is a jacket that he bought.
00:54:56All the other items were found on his yacht,
00:54:59the Lady Jane, which was moored on a river in Devon.
00:55:02But the anchor was missing.
00:55:05And that prompted an inquiry back with the, um, fisherman.
00:55:15He said, oh yeah, they did find something else in there, an anchor.
00:55:19Oh, what happened to that?
00:55:21Oh, he took it home and his mum took it to a boot store.
00:55:24God.
00:55:25We traced his friend and he informed us that the anchor hadn't been sold at the car boot sale
00:55:30and was stored safely in his mother's garage in Brixham.
00:55:36And there's the anchor, brand new anchor.
00:55:39Significantly too small for his boat.
00:55:43Now that, that then showed the premeditation.
00:55:50They'd found two pieces of the anchor.
00:55:52They'd found two marks on the body that couldn't be explained.
00:55:56Two bruises, one on the hip and one just above the knee.
00:56:00And when you put the anchor alongside the thigh, the two points matched.
00:56:08They then looked at the inside of his belt, the forensic suit,
00:56:12and found traces of zinc from the newly galvanized anchor.
00:56:18So straight away, you think of him fitting Ron with this anchor before throwing him overboard.
00:56:27During the course of the inquiry, in a lockup, was a global positioning system unit,
00:56:32which had come from the Lady Jane boat.
00:56:35This was examined by the company that built the system.
00:56:38And from that, we were able to establish that on or about the 22nd of July, 1996,
00:56:45the Lady Jane was about nine miles off Tynmouth,
00:56:49at the location roughly where Ron Platt had been trawled up by the fishing boat Mulcary.
00:56:56Then the Rolex watch, not only did it provide the identification,
00:57:00it also provided a time of death or time of going in the water.
00:57:05The Rolex fellas were able to say,
00:57:07this watch would have carried on running for so many hours.
00:57:11Put that together with the GPS, it all tied together.
00:57:16Ultimately, the whole inquiry began with the Rolex watch telling us who the victim was.
00:57:23And then at the end of the inquiry, the Rolex watch telling us when,
00:57:28and ultimately where, Ron Platt was killed.
00:57:35I thought the evidence showed, overwhelming evidence, the forensic evidence,
00:57:39extremely convincing.
00:57:41At some point, there was, the press were talking amongst themselves
00:57:45about whether Albert Walker would give evidence.
00:57:50And they were debating, they weren't sure.
00:57:53And I thought, oh, please, please, please give evidence.
00:57:57Please defend yourself.
00:57:59I'd love to see you get on the stand and be questioned,
00:58:02because I was hoping that he would.
00:58:04Because I thought, if he does, hopefully the jury will see through him.
00:58:16Albert Walker was always going to speak.
00:58:18He didn't speak in interview, but he had to speak in the trial
00:58:23if he was to prove his innocence.
00:58:25He'd spent his life defrauding people and lying to people,
00:58:29and he'd become very good at it.
00:58:31And he bet on himself that he could talk and convince 12 people
00:58:39that he was innocent of this crime.
00:58:45Davis was so confident in the dock.
00:58:47He was laughing with the judge and making little jokes,
00:58:51and he was very relaxed.
00:58:54He looked like he was set at home.
00:58:56A glass of water was there, like his glass of port.
00:58:59And he was just David Davis.
00:59:02He was the charming man that I knew.
00:59:04I could see easily how Elaine had been taken in by him.
00:59:08Defense attorney Richard Ferguson asked, point blank,
00:59:12did you kill Ronald Platt?
00:59:14Walker fiercely denied it, breaking down.
00:59:16He sobbed through tears.
00:59:18Ronald Platt was a very nice person,
00:59:20and I have no reason in the world to kill him or ever harm him.
00:59:24Walker tried to be charming, attempting and failing to crack jokes.
00:59:28And even when there were tears, the jury didn't stir.
00:59:31And that's who Walker has to convince,
00:59:34that he may be a crook, but he's no killer.
00:59:39Anybody that knows me would know that I couldn't do something like that.
00:59:43He was a friend of mine.
00:59:45What do you think happened to Ronald Platt?
00:59:46I don't know.
00:59:47I really don't know.
00:59:48I mean, you know, we brought up the issue of, you know,
00:59:52perhaps, you know, he committed suicide.
00:59:54But you just don't know.
01:00:00His daughter, Sheena, with a knapsack on her back,
01:00:02was the surprise witness, barely glancing at her father,
01:00:06calmly admitting she willingly led a double life.
01:00:10When Sheena took to the stand,
01:00:12it was massively anticipated about the exact detail,
01:00:16what she was going to say.
01:00:18Albert Walker's eyes were fixed on his daughter throughout her testimony.
01:00:22But the young woman who once masqueraded as her father's wife,
01:00:25never even looked in his direction.
01:00:27She stood up there, despite the fact that it was her father.
01:00:31She stood up there and told the jury exactly what had happened on that day.
01:00:36And as far as we were concerned, she was truthful and honest,
01:00:39and stood up to her father.
01:00:43And it was vital evidence that she gave.
01:00:46She told court, he had asked me to change my testimony.
01:00:51It was a bombshell.
01:00:52Shocking allegations that Albert Walker
01:00:54tried to get his daughter to change her testimony.
01:00:57As Sheena left the courtroom,
01:00:59Walker couldn't take his eyes off the daughter he once claimed was his wife.
01:01:03I think that he's evil.
01:01:05And I know a lot of people would describe him as a sociopath or a con artist.
01:01:12But for me personally, I think he's evil.
01:01:14Effectively, she was able to provide the real detail
01:01:18that he was out on the boat at that time
01:01:21when Ron Platt was assaulted and thrown into the water
01:01:25and ultimately killed by Walker.
01:01:32At the end of the day, the judge said it had to be unanimous.
01:01:37This has to be unanimous.
01:01:39So I knew then that if one person in that jury felt sorry for him,
01:01:43or thought he hasn't committed murder, he could get away with this.
01:01:47And that was a real fear for me.
01:01:48That was really, really quite strong.
01:01:51Because I thought he could just walk free.
01:02:04I'd gone to one of the local coffee shops and sat in there.
01:02:08And I heard the journalists,
01:02:09because they're all in there chatting amongst themselves.
01:02:11And I heard them say, oh, they've got a verdict.
01:02:13They've got a verdict.
01:02:14The green light's gone on or something like that.
01:02:17So we all rushed down to the courtroom.
01:02:29It was clear from the start the jury didn't believe Albert Walker,
01:02:33didn't believe his tears or his story.
01:02:36After just two hours of deliberating, they found him guilty.
01:02:39As the verdict was being read, Walker showed no emotion, watching impassively.
01:02:45Oh, the verdict, it was unanimous.
01:02:48And it was guilty.
01:02:49And it was like, oh, yes, yes.
01:02:53It was a wonderful feeling, I have to say.
01:03:00I had no doubt in my mind that he had done it, none at all.
01:03:05And to hear that the jury had the same view was wonderful.
01:03:11It really was.
01:03:14Albert Walker is a person who enjoys inflicting that behaviour on other people.
01:03:20He enjoys the power that he perceives he has over other people.
01:03:24And still to this day, you know, Elaine is probably,
01:03:30may be affected by him to that extent.
01:03:33And he'll probably have that hold over her particularly forever,
01:03:36because, of course, he took something very precious away from her.
01:03:40He was looking around, he caught my eye.
01:03:43I caught his eye and he caught my eye.
01:03:45And I tried to stare him out.
01:03:48I thought, I'm going to beat you, you know, I'm stronger than you.
01:03:53I'm going to beat you, mate.
01:03:54Anyway, he stared and he stared and he stared and he beat me.
01:03:58I had to look away.
01:04:00I just couldn't stare any longer, do you know what I mean?
01:04:05He was a man of his word.
01:04:08He was totally controlling, totally coercive in almost everyone he came into contact with.
01:04:15He thought he was the master con man.
01:04:18But ultimately, it turned out he wasn't.
01:04:22I remember talking to friends about it.
01:04:26It was just sort of bizarre.
01:04:30Yeah, the most just incredible story.
01:04:38It was important that we got justice for Ron.
01:04:40It wasn't about nailing Albert Walker for it.
01:04:43It was about finding out what happened to Ron and why it happened to Ron.
01:04:49I think he killed Ron because he was frightened
01:04:54because there was two people with the same name and the same national insurance number.
01:05:01And if Ron had stayed in Canada, he would still be here today.
01:05:37Ron and I used to come here regularly.
01:05:40It was especially good in the winter for the snow.
01:05:43It was like a picture postcard.
01:05:45And we'd walk together hand in hand, walking around the valley gardens.
01:05:51It is a long time ago, but it's still there.
01:05:53The memories are there, you know, they don't disappear.
01:05:57It's like you're frozen in this weird story that you can't really get your head around.
01:06:03Ron wouldn't have ever believed that he could get involved in such a story like this.
01:06:13No, because he's such a quiet man.
01:06:16And so, you know, honest, decent.
01:06:20I still love him and he's still there.
01:06:24He's still with me, I'm sure.
01:06:27I hope so, anyway.
01:06:28Yeah, I think he is.
01:06:29A vulnerable woman abused by the man she loved,
01:06:33new to Channel 5 next night, sleeping with my murderer.