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Murdering his Mother with a Hammer at 14 Years Old · History Dark

0:02
Speaker 1: They are some of the world's most notorious serial killers.
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Speaker 2: He was like a god when he had a corpse
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Speaker 2: at his plaything.
0:08
Speaker 1: But were these psychopaths born evil or did their mothers
0:12
Speaker 1: make them into monsters? I'm Donald McIntyre and I'm on
0:17
Speaker 1: a quest to explore how some of history's most horrific
0:20
Speaker 1: murderers were moulded by their dysfunctional relationships with their mothers.
0:25
Speaker 3: When it comes to people who are pathological, psychopathic, the
0:28
Speaker 3: influence of the mother is absolutely dominant.
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Speaker 1: I'll be piecing together events in their childhoods and talking
0:35
Speaker 1: to criminologists and psychologists to try to understand what motivated
0:39
Speaker 1: their monstrous crimes.
0:41
Speaker 2: We had never come across a serial killer who'd killed
0:43
Speaker 2: that many people.
0:44
Speaker 1: In this program, Daniel Bartlem, the Coronation Street Killer. At
0:49
Speaker 1: just 14, he took a hammer to his mother's skull
0:52
Speaker 1: and set her body ablaze in an attempt to commit
0:55
Speaker 1: the perfect murder.
0:57
Speaker 4: He believes he can pull off the great crime. He
1:00
Speaker 4: can pull off murder and get away with it.
1:02
Speaker 1: Did this relationship between a mother and her son have
1:05
Speaker 1: any impact on this descent into terrifying and gruesome murder?
1:34
Speaker 5: How does the criminal mind mature?
1:36
Speaker 1: Well, like the rest of us, serial killers and murderers
1:39
Speaker 1: learn by experience, adapting their behaviour to suit their needs.
1:43
Speaker 1: But what happens when the mind isn't mature, when it's
1:45
Speaker 1: still in early adolescence? Kids who kill are one of
1:49
Speaker 1: our worst nightmares, perverting our long-held belief in the innocence
1:54
Speaker 1: of childhood. We now know that Daniel Barlan planned to
1:58
Speaker 1: kill his mum.
1:59
Speaker 6: He then executed the killing.
2:00
Speaker 7: In a violent attack on her.
2:03
Speaker 1: Daniel Bartlem was just 14 years old when he savagely
2:07
Speaker 1: beat his own mother to death with a claw hammer
2:09
Speaker 1: and then set fire to their family home in a
2:12
Speaker 1: desperate attempt to conceal the crime.
2:14
Speaker 8: Meeting him at 11 years old, I never thought he'd
2:16
Speaker 8: be capable of that sort of violence.
2:19
Speaker 1: Bartlem's story was short and simple. An interrupted burglar had
2:23
Speaker 1: attacked and then killed his mother before setting fire to
2:26
Speaker 1: the body. The story was a transparent one, though, and
2:30
Speaker 1: the police very quickly found clear evidence of how he
2:33
Speaker 1: had planned the killing. His family, friends, and even the
2:36
Speaker 1: police themselves were shocked at the discovery.
2:46
Speaker 9: There are very few cases I've covered as a reporter
2:50
Speaker 9: involving young people as young as Daniel. It's surprising that
2:54
Speaker 9: compared to some notoriously dangerous criminals, Daniel Bartlem was scaring
3:00
Speaker 9: another way.
3:02
Speaker 1: In the very house behind me in his first floor bedroom,
3:04
Speaker 1: Daniel Bartlem wrote a soap script on his laptop.
3:08
Speaker 9: It was awful to hear in court how a 14-year-old
3:12
Speaker 9: boy had been googling how to get away with murder
3:16
Speaker 9: and then he'd written his own play on his iMac computer.
3:20
Speaker 1: In this story, Daniel casts himself as a murderer, a
3:23
Speaker 1: master criminal and a serial rapist. It's a horrific portrait
3:27
Speaker 1: of a psychopath that no one could have imagined would
3:30
Speaker 1: become reality.
3:33
Speaker 9: Most boys of his age were thinking about football and
3:36
Speaker 9: computer games. He was thinking about killing his own mum.
3:41
Speaker 1: But how did a 14-year-old turn into a murderer? Why
3:45
Speaker 1: did Daniel take a claw hammer to his own mother?
3:49
Speaker 5: Daniel was born on.
3:50
Speaker 1: The 11th of November 1996 to Jacqueline Bryant and Adrian
3:54
Speaker 1: Bartlam here.
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Speaker 5: In Nottinghamshire.
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Speaker 1: He was the couple's firstborn and Jackie adored him. The
4:01
Speaker 1: couple were married three years later and Daniel, suited and booted,
4:05
Speaker 1: was the picture of innocence. However, the marriage began to
4:09
Speaker 1: fall apart and in 2005, shortly after his younger brother
4:13
Speaker 1: Dominic was born, the couple divorced. To begin with, Daniel
4:18
Speaker 1: seemed to take the split in his stride, living with
4:20
Speaker 1: his mom, Jackie, and spending his weekends with his dad.
4:24
Speaker 1: A few years after the marriage breakup, Jackie met a
4:27
Speaker 1: new partner, Simon Matters.
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Speaker 8: Well, initially, when I met him, he was quite engaging.
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Speaker 8: He'd talk to you about anything, really, and he was
4:37
Speaker 8: only about 11 at the time. A lot of the time,
4:39
Speaker 8: he would try and talk to you about things that
4:41
Speaker 8: he knew nothing of, but he was just sort of
4:43
Speaker 8: trying to impress you. But quite a pleasant chap.
4:46
Speaker 6: Is that a good camera angle?
4:48
Speaker 7: Yay!
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Speaker 9: Yay!
4:50
Speaker 1: When Simon met Jackie, she was starting a new life
4:53
Speaker 1: for herself and her sons. At first, Daniel seemed like
4:56
Speaker 1: a normal 11-year-old. But soon, Simon noticed that his behavior
5:00
Speaker 1: was deteriorating.
5:02
Speaker 8: I think the main problem with Daniel was the divorce
5:04
Speaker 8: going back, even though that had been a few years before.
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Speaker 8: Daniel started pinching his little brother and sort of hitting
5:11
Speaker 8: him when his mom wasn't looking. But his brother was
5:15
Speaker 8: much younger than him. And there were incidences where I
5:18
Speaker 8: saw Daniel give him a dig in the ribs, for example,
5:20
Speaker 8: when they're passing each other. His little brother being three
5:22
Speaker 8: or four, he'd sort of, you know, scream. On the
5:25
Speaker 8: other hand, they'd be sat on the set here watching
5:27
Speaker 8: TV together, you know, and Daniel would be showing his
5:29
Speaker 8: brother loads of love. So it was sort of, is
5:32
Speaker 8: that normal or is it just kids playing, you know?
5:35
Speaker 3: Following the divorce, his mother's attentions would have been on
5:39
Speaker 3: the small child, on his baby brother. And usually you
5:44
Speaker 3: get in that situation, a new person in the family,
5:47
Speaker 3: There would be tensions between Daniel and the small child
5:50
Speaker 3: and there would be some sibling rivalry. Perhaps that was
5:55
Speaker 3: something that was a growing problem for Daniel to deal with.
6:00
Speaker 1: And this wasn't Daniel's only issue.
6:02
Speaker 10: His mother may have been preoccupied with her new partner
6:06
Speaker 10: and that Daniel felt emotionally neglected and he'd lost the
6:10
Speaker 10: relationship with his mother.
6:12
Speaker 8: All his family doubted on him. There was no-one who would,
6:17
Speaker 8: you know... They all looked after him, they all cared
6:20
Speaker 8: about him. They all doted on him, had a lot
6:24
Speaker 8: of love around.
6:24
Speaker 5: Him, yeah.
6:25
Speaker 1: Despite the loving environment, Daniel's behaviour was about to get worse. Eventually,
6:31
Speaker 1: he withdrew into his room and became more and more
6:34
Speaker 1: aggressive towards his mother. Jackie did her best to stay cool,
6:38
Speaker 1: hoping it was just a phase and that the worst
6:40
Speaker 1: of it would pass.
6:42
Speaker 8: Jackie would keep it all in, and you could see the...
6:44
Speaker 8: So he could physically... You could see the stress levels
6:47
Speaker 8: building with her.
6:50
Speaker 1: The divorce of Bartlett's parents would have been a traumatic
6:53
Speaker 1: event for him. But can we attribute any of his
6:56
Speaker 1: crime to this shattering emotional moment? It's undeniable that obviously
7:05
Speaker 1: divorce is always a traumatic event for any child. But
7:09
Speaker 1: what impact did this have on the crime?
7:11
Speaker 11: I think when you look at the experience of many
7:13
Speaker 11: children in society, lots of them go through the separation
7:16
Speaker 11: and the divorce of the parents. So it's very difficult
7:19
Speaker 11: to be able to make that causal link between this
7:22
Speaker 11: and what later happened. But I think for Daniel Bartlett,
7:25
Speaker 11: what we've got here is it's about control for him.
7:28
Speaker 11: When his parents separate, when his world is disrupted, he
7:32
Speaker 11: loses control over his personal situation. And I think that's
7:36
Speaker 11: the seed from which the later events grow.
7:39
Speaker 1: And did he lose his place, his status within that family?
7:42
Speaker 6: I think that's right.
7:43
Speaker 11: There would have been a particular dynamic in that family.
7:46
Speaker 11: He would have known his position within that family and
7:49
Speaker 11: the amount of power and control he had through where
7:52
Speaker 11: he was. And then to have that disrupted, he's got
7:54
Speaker 11: to find his feet again. He's got to find himself
7:57
Speaker 11: in a position to be able to control the others
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Speaker 11: around him again. And that's something that he would have
8:01
Speaker 11: been quite frustrated by.
8:03
Speaker 5: So in terms of this divorce....
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Speaker 1: One can say is actually, it was a life event.
8:09
Speaker 1: If it wasn't this divorce, it would have been another
8:11
Speaker 1: trigger that would have sent him down this path.
8:13
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think that's right.
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Speaker 11: It would have been something that made him feel he
8:17
Speaker 11: was losing control of his personal situation.
8:19
Speaker 1: So even for a child like that, it is like
8:21
Speaker 1: a lot of other perpetrators. It's still about control and power.
8:25
Speaker 6: It's very much about control and power. Absolutely.
8:28
Speaker 1: I've seen it a lot with young girls around that age.
8:31
Speaker 1: where in order to re-exert power on the environment, they self-harm.
8:35
Speaker 5: There's no sign of that here.
8:36
Speaker 9: No.
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Speaker 11: And when you look at how individuals react to this
8:41
Speaker 11: type of thing, they'll often do one of two things.
8:44
Speaker 11: They'll either internalize it, so they will self-harm, they'll take
8:49
Speaker 11: it out on themselves, they'll lose themselves in a fantasy world,
8:53
Speaker 11: or they'll externalize it, so they'll begin to display violent
8:57
Speaker 11: behavior that might harm others. And I think what's going
8:59
Speaker 11: on at this point in time, is that Daniel's internalising
9:03
Speaker 11: these things that are happening to him.
9:07
Speaker 1: Coming up, the flashpoint that led to murder.
9:10
Speaker 8: His fists were clenched and he was shouting, you know,
9:13
Speaker 8: sort of right in the face, sort of nose to nose.
9:16
Speaker 1: Six years after his parents' traumatic divorce, Daniel Bartlett savagely
9:21
Speaker 1: beat his mother to death with a claw hammer before
9:23
Speaker 1: burning her body and setting fire to the crime scene.
9:27
Speaker 1: He'd had a radical change in his home life, But
9:29
Speaker 1: what provoked him towards psychosis, into becoming a cold-blooded killer?
9:35
Speaker 1: At 13, the effect of the divorce on Daniel was
9:38
Speaker 1: already showing. But there was another dramatic change in the
9:41
Speaker 1: family's circumstances. To make ends meet, Jackie had to sell
9:45
Speaker 1: the family home, which meant asking Daniel to make a
9:49
Speaker 1: sacrifice of his own.
9:50
Speaker 9: It did emerge that the background of Daniel and how
9:55
Speaker 9: he'd been to a private school, and then when his
9:59
Speaker 9: parents divorced, it meant that he had to go to
10:03
Speaker 9: a mainstream school. And I think it seemed like a
10:06
Speaker 9: lot of the problems began to happen after then.
10:12
Speaker 8: What had happened was that Daniel's father used to pay
10:16
Speaker 8: for him to go to a private school. Jackie decided
10:20
Speaker 8: that she needed to downsize the house. So she bought
10:24
Speaker 8: another nice house, which is a lovely house, in another
10:27
Speaker 8: part of Nottingham in Arnold, and told Daniel that he
10:30
Speaker 8: would be going to a sort of a normal school.
10:34
Speaker 1: The disruption of divorce, moving home and school was to
10:38
Speaker 1: prove extremely unsettling for the young boy.
10:41
Speaker 8: He liked the large house and he liked to be
10:43
Speaker 8: at a private school. I think that was a sort
10:45
Speaker 8: of status symbol for him. So when that was going
10:48
Speaker 8: to change... He didn't want that change. So the arguments
10:51
Speaker 8: were there, and it's all your fault we got divorced.
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Speaker 8: My dad didn't want to get divorced, et cetera, et cetera,
10:55
Speaker 8: and it was all Jackie's fault, even though he didn't
10:57
Speaker 8: know the facts. But all you would hear was Daniel
10:59
Speaker 8: shouting and swearing regarding the fact that he was having
11:02
Speaker 8: this sort of quite a big change in his life.
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Speaker 3: I think probably Daniel had some fairly obsessive traits of
11:08
Speaker 3: trying to keep things the same, and this was a
11:10
Speaker 3: massive disruption to the fabric of his life.
11:14
Speaker 2: He blamed it.
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Speaker 3: On the mother, and the father would probably be the
11:18
Speaker 3: more innocent role, the person that he had more of
11:20
Speaker 3: a kind of relationship with, and the person who he
11:23
Speaker 3: saw less of, and therefore someone who could be fictionalised
11:27
Speaker 3: more into being the good guy.
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Speaker 8: He'd start swearing at his mum, saying, I'm not leaving school,
11:34
Speaker 8: you know, I can still get to this school. And
11:36
Speaker 8: in actual fact, his mum did pay for him to
11:38
Speaker 8: continue at the private school off her own back for
11:42
Speaker 8: probably about six months. She went totally out of her way.
11:46
Speaker 8: to sort of appease him.
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Speaker 9: From what I heard in court, Jacqueline Bartram was a lovely, caring,
11:52
Speaker 9: supportive mother. She had arguments with Daniel Bartram like any
11:56
Speaker 9: mother would have.
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Speaker 7: He lived in a nice house.
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Speaker 9: Everything that he wanted, he had.
12:02
Speaker 1: As Jackie was settling everyone into the new home in Arnold,
12:05
Speaker 1: Daniel began to isolate himself and chose to lock himself
12:08
Speaker 1: away in his room.
12:11
Speaker 8: He would never, for example, go out and play football.
12:13
Speaker 8: Just a normal thing that kids would do. He'd never
12:15
Speaker 8: do anything like that. It would always be something that
12:17
Speaker 8: I wouldn't expect an 11th, 12th-year-old to do, playing 18-rated
12:21
Speaker 8: games or watching Coronation Street, for example, which he loved.
12:25
Speaker 8: But I wouldn't expect an 11th, 12th-year-old to be doing that.
12:29
Speaker 1: Whilst alone in his room and away from the prying
12:31
Speaker 1: eyes of his mother, he began to develop a disturbing pastime.
12:36
Speaker 1: There he would watch graphically violent DVDs and TV shows,
12:40
Speaker 1: most of which were 18-rated. Then he would post his
12:43
Speaker 1: favourite clips, those dealing in death and murder online on YouTube.
12:56
Speaker 10: He was watching some quite horrific horror movies, violent horror movies.
13:02
Speaker 10: and gory horror movies at around age 8 and 9,
13:05
Speaker 10: which was completely inappropriate imagery for a child of that age.
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Speaker 4: Clearly, his mum was being liberal or letting him have
13:12
Speaker 4: access to materials that he probably shouldn't have seen at
13:15
Speaker 4: his age. Indeed, his own stepfather had been concerned about
13:20
Speaker 4: him having access to such inappropriate material.
13:23
Speaker 10: The effects that would have had is that he will
13:26
Speaker 10: look for violence in anything that he's watching from that
13:30
Speaker 10: point on because what has happened is his body's become
13:34
Speaker 10: excited and aroused through the flight fear response of being
13:38
Speaker 10: scared to a violent imagery.
13:42
Speaker 1: Left alone with the videos, Daniel found a worrying form
13:45
Speaker 1: of self-expression.
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Speaker 3: Daniel just took in these images and let them foster
13:50
Speaker 3: and fester in his mind to become something that was
13:53
Speaker 3: almost bubbling out.
13:54
Speaker 2: He almost felt probably a.
13:55
Speaker 3: Frustration that he wasn't able to enact what was going
14:00
Speaker 3: on in his head.
14:01
Speaker 2: So he would produce stories.
14:02
Speaker 8: I was downstairs one day. Daniel just came down into
14:07
Speaker 8: the kitchen and showed me this story that he'd written.
14:10
Speaker 8: It was a handwritten story. And it was about two
14:13
Speaker 8: lads who were walking to school. One had started picking
14:16
Speaker 8: on the other. The other had fought back and there
14:19
Speaker 8: was some sort of running battle towards school. And then
14:22
Speaker 8: the lad who'd been picked on in the first place
14:24
Speaker 8: ended up stabbing the lad who was picking on him.
14:26
Speaker 8: So I read it, gave it him back. And I
14:28
Speaker 8: was just like, oh, I've written that. And then he
14:30
Speaker 8: showed his mum quite proudly. And she was the same
14:33
Speaker 8: as me. Oh, I've written that for Daniel.
14:37
Speaker 2: He would write out violent episodes.
14:40
Speaker 3: He would produce perhaps drawings or whatever kind of output.
14:44
Speaker 3: But this wasn't actually fulfilling Daniel. what he needed, which
14:48
Speaker 3: was actual enactment.
15:00
Speaker 1: Back in his room, Daniel made use of a new computer,
15:03
Speaker 1: a gift from his dad, experimenting with.
15:05
Speaker 5: It like any teenager would.
15:07
Speaker 8: Hello YouTube, this is Daniel Eby, 17 and a two year.
15:14
Speaker 6: And it's finally happened.
15:16
Speaker 8: I now have and iMac, and I can now make
15:20
Speaker 8: bigger and better videos.
15:23
Speaker 1: He became fascinated with Coronation Street, and in particular one
15:27
Speaker 1: episode featuring a character called John State, who kills a
15:31
Speaker 1: woman with a hammer and conceals her body in a fire.
15:34
Speaker 1: He would eventually write a script featuring himself getting away
15:38
Speaker 1: with the exact same crime, but with his mother as
15:41
Speaker 1: the tragic victim.
15:44
Speaker 10: The violence in horror movies would have shocked him, excited him,
15:48
Speaker 10: aroused him, but he wouldn't necessarily copy those because they
15:53
Speaker 10: were outside his reality. However, when he then concentrated on
15:57
Speaker 10: the violence in soaps that are like his reality, family arguments,
16:02
Speaker 10: family breakdown, all the things that he experienced, what he
16:06
Speaker 10: locked into in that soap was the excitement of the violence,
16:09
Speaker 10: the murder.
16:10
Speaker 4: Bartlett became obsessed not just with the violence, but with
16:14
Speaker 4: getting away with it. So he became very interested in
16:17
Speaker 4: the state storyline in Coronation Street, because not only does
16:21
Speaker 4: the killer engage in a bloodthirsty, vicious murder, but he
16:25
Speaker 4: gets away with fooling everybody by disguising the death.
16:31
Speaker 3: Coronation Street was probably some kind of instrumental thing in
16:36
Speaker 3: giving him a plan or the basis of a plan
16:39
Speaker 3: of something that he could enact himself.
16:41
Speaker 2: His mother was readily accessible. She was hated. The werewithal
16:45
Speaker 2: was there.
16:49
Speaker 1: Was Daniel just an emotionally confused and lost boy looking
16:53
Speaker 1: for answers and an outlet for his anger? And should
16:56
Speaker 1: his mother have been much more concerned about his escalating
16:59
Speaker 1: fascination with violent videos?
17:01
Speaker 5: And if she had intervened, would it have made any difference?
17:08
Speaker 7: He's creating these stories which feature real people.
17:11
Speaker 11: So that, for me, I think is the point at
17:14
Speaker 11: which fantasy goes into reality and internalising becomes externalising.
17:20
Speaker 1: In other cases, there'd be some degree of transference, a
17:24
Speaker 1: different name. It would obviously be Daniel's character. That's a
17:28
Speaker 1: real signpost.
17:29
Speaker 6: Yes, it is.
17:30
Speaker 11: There isn't any kind of attempt to cover this up.
17:33
Speaker 5: No camouflage, no disguise?
17:35
Speaker 7: No, it's very much this is all about me.
17:37
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not convinced that the videos play a
17:40
Speaker 1: significant part. It's part of a journey, but to my mind,
17:43
Speaker 1: it's kind of nearly a rite of passage for teenagers.
17:45
Speaker 5: So in one sense, this is kind of normal behaviour
17:49
Speaker 5: for him.
17:50
Speaker 1: Lots of his other stuff was not, but this is
17:53
Speaker 1: not hugely significant for me.
17:54
Speaker 7: No, no, not for me either.
17:56
Speaker 11: I think there's been a debate raging for many years
17:59
Speaker 11: about the impact of violent media. Does it make people
18:02
Speaker 11: go out and commit violent acts?
18:04
Speaker 6: What effect does it have?
18:05
Speaker 11: And actually, there's not very much evidence to say that
18:07
Speaker 11: there's a direct causal link between viewing this type of
18:10
Speaker 11: thing and then going out and harming somebody. They're just
18:13
Speaker 11: one of the many things that were in the background
18:16
Speaker 11: for Daniel Bartlett.
18:17
Speaker 1: Much more important is that The increasing isolation within his
18:21
Speaker 1: little bedroom, his world was getting smaller and smaller and smaller,
18:24
Speaker 1: and this kind of desensitization from reality. He's actually losing
18:29
Speaker 1: a huge amount of motherly time.
18:31
Speaker 11: His position in the family is very kind of uncertain
18:35
Speaker 11: at this point in time. So very kind of chaotic,
18:38
Speaker 11: a very difficult situation to control for anybody, but particularly
18:42
Speaker 11: for somebody like Daniel, for whom control is a really,
18:45
Speaker 11: really important thing.
18:47
Speaker 1: When Daniel did emerge from his room, he would find
18:50
Speaker 1: new ways to get his family's attention, ones that Jackie
18:53
Speaker 1: would struggle to ignore.
18:55
Speaker 8: His favourite trick was to push you to the limit,
18:57
Speaker 8: to see how far they could push them before they
18:58
Speaker 8: actually snapped. I always said Jackie's favourite word was Daniel.
19:02
Speaker 8: She'd shout Daniel with a big explanation mark, as if
19:06
Speaker 8: to say, what's going on?
19:11
Speaker 1: As Simon spent more time with the family, he noticed
19:14
Speaker 1: their problems grow. He was particularly surprised one morning as
19:18
Speaker 1: he and Daniel worked together to help clear Jackie's new
19:21
Speaker 1: garden pond.
19:22
Speaker 8: Jackie was at work. I went around to help shed
19:24
Speaker 8: a garden pond. Started clearing the pond, chopping bits back
19:28
Speaker 8: and taking out the dead bits. Daniel was off school
19:30
Speaker 8: that day. It was about dinner time. I said, look,
19:32
Speaker 8: I'm going to go and get a sandwich. Came back
19:33
Speaker 8: and the pond, every single plant in it had been
19:36
Speaker 8: totally chopped back, destroyed. A right mess. And I was
19:43
Speaker 8: just flabbergasted. I'm like, well, you know, we'd cut it
19:46
Speaker 8: back and generally just finished it so it would look
19:48
Speaker 8: nice and neat, but he'd literally just... the whole pond.
19:51
Speaker 8: So I questioned him about it, and he said I
19:54
Speaker 8: was just trying to help. And at that point, I
19:56
Speaker 8: can remember, you know, like it was yesterday, he literally
20:00
Speaker 8: just lost his temper, started crying.
20:03
Speaker 1: When it came to his mother, the confrontations were worse.
20:06
Speaker 1: and Daniel's aggression became much harder to manage.
20:09
Speaker 8: Daniel had wanted a pizza, and his mum wouldn't order
20:12
Speaker 8: him one because they'd already had some food. He then
20:15
Speaker 8: proceeded to order it himself, and when it came, he
20:18
Speaker 8: paid for it out of his own money. He'd got
20:20
Speaker 8: more and more annoyed with the fact that his mum
20:22
Speaker 8: had questioned why he'd ordered a pizza after he'd already
20:24
Speaker 8: had his tea. This was the first time I'd actually
20:27
Speaker 8: seen them stand toe-to-toe. Jackie was sat down on the settee.
20:30
Speaker 8: He sort of stood over it. His fists were clenched,
20:32
Speaker 8: and he was shouting right in her face. swearing and
20:36
Speaker 8: sort of shouting, I hate you. Daniel then ran upstairs
20:40
Speaker 8: and he was stood at the top of the landing
20:41
Speaker 8: for probably a good, what seemed like about two, three minutes.
20:45
Speaker 8: And he started hitting himself and hitting the walls, screaming.
20:49
Speaker 8: I'd heard arguments and shouting between the two, but nothing
20:52
Speaker 8: like that. That was the first time I'd ever seen
20:54
Speaker 8: him get that close to her.
20:58
Speaker 1: If Jackie couldn't ignore his aggressive teen tantrums, then confrontation
21:01
Speaker 1: was proving equally hard. Was there anything she could have
21:04
Speaker 1: done to correct his alarming behavior? But the role of
21:12
Speaker 1: Simon in this is quite interesting because I get the
21:15
Speaker 1: sense that Jackie wanted him around more and more. And
21:18
Speaker 1: not only just to be a kind of bit of
21:19
Speaker 1: a referee, a bit of a policeman, a bit of
21:21
Speaker 1: a manager of this kind of strange environment.
21:24
Speaker 5: But also to be a kind of male role model.
21:26
Speaker 11: Maybe she thinks that at this point in time, this
21:28
Speaker 11: might be, you know, the magic thing that is going
21:30
Speaker 11: to make this behaviour, you know, make him rein it
21:33
Speaker 11: in a little bit.
21:34
Speaker 5: I just wonder if.
21:36
Speaker 1: She pulled the rein a little tighter and he referenced
21:39
Speaker 1: that tight rein, but clearly it wasn't tight enough.
21:43
Speaker 11: When parents do try and discipline children who are behaving
21:46
Speaker 11: in this way and being very kind of narcissistic and
21:50
Speaker 11: very self-centred, Often that kind of tough love doesn't work.
21:54
Speaker 11: If anything, sometimes it escalates the behaviour further. So it
21:57
Speaker 11: could be that his mother had tried to discipline him
22:00
Speaker 11: and it just hadn't worked. So she'd given up trying
22:03
Speaker 11: that particular path.
22:04
Speaker 1: So in this kind of state of denial, you look
22:06
Speaker 1: at a parent's guilt, the parent's divorce, kids a bit dislocated,
22:10
Speaker 1: they come across strange writings. A mother's unlikely to kind
22:14
Speaker 1: of start to label because to do that is to
22:16
Speaker 1: kind of elevate the guilt she feels. it's best perhaps
22:20
Speaker 1: to be in a state of denial to ignore these
22:22
Speaker 1: writings and move on.
22:23
Speaker 7: There's been a turbulent period.
22:26
Speaker 11: Maybe he's coping with it in his own way by
22:29
Speaker 11: doing these things, and he'll move on from it, he'll
22:31
Speaker 11: get over it, it will be OK. And you can
22:34
Speaker 11: understand how somebody would rationalise it in that way and
22:38
Speaker 11: choose not to further spark the fire. So you can
22:41
Speaker 11: understand his mum didn't do anything at this point.
22:44
Speaker 1: One thing stands out for me. So he goes and
22:46
Speaker 1: he creates and works with Simon... Jackie's partner and builds
22:49
Speaker 1: this wonderful fish pond and it's a wonderful kind of
22:52
Speaker 1: bonding experience and Simon undoubtedly would have been enjoying that
22:56
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden the minute Simon leaves
22:58
Speaker 1: and when.
22:59
Speaker 5: It's all completed he destroys it. So to my mind.
23:02
Speaker 1: He planned to create just for the purpose of destroying.
23:07
Speaker 11: Exactly and this isn't behind a screen or behind his
23:10
Speaker 11: bedroom door anymore. This is now becoming much more visible.
23:13
Speaker 11: Daniel knows that Simon is going to feel devastated by
23:16
Speaker 11: him doing that, and that's why he does that, because
23:19
Speaker 11: people like Daniel enjoy playing with the emotions of others.
23:23
Speaker 1: One really strange event, they have a lovey family dinner,
23:27
Speaker 1: and then he decides, which is a direct insult to Mama,
23:31
Speaker 1: he decides he's going to order a pizza. And then
23:34
Speaker 1: the pizza arrives, and this provokes an extraordinary row I
23:37
Speaker 1: think part of the reason why she let him get
23:39
Speaker 1: away with some of this really egregious behaviour is because
23:44
Speaker 1: she was scared.
23:45
Speaker 11: She's adopting, I think, this trial and error approach because
23:47
Speaker 11: she simply does not know what to do with this
23:50
Speaker 11: young lad who is increasingly spiralling out of control. He's
23:54
Speaker 11: reading other people's behaviour and how they're reacting to him
23:57
Speaker 11: and by going upstairs and appearing to self-harm, He's kind
24:01
Speaker 11: of flipping the situation around and changing it, and I'm
24:04
Speaker 11: the victim now. So this is a young lad who's
24:07
Speaker 11: really acutely aware of other people's emotions and exactly what
24:10
Speaker 11: he needs to do to manipulate them.
24:12
Speaker 1: Well, coming up, Daniel goes walkabout and begins to exhibit
24:15
Speaker 1: even more worrying behavior.
24:17
Speaker 3: If I was dealing with somebody who was hearing voices
24:21
Speaker 3: defecating around a room and having massive fantasies, I'd be
24:24
Speaker 3: seriously concerned that they were on the limits of personality disorder.
24:30
Speaker 1: At just 12 years of age, Daniel was writing graphic
24:33
Speaker 1: scripts detailing gruesome and violent murders. Just two years later,
24:37
Speaker 1: he acted upon them, savagely killing his own mother.
24:41
Speaker 5: There were warning signs. How come his mother never noticed?
24:45
Speaker 1: Jackie attempted to look past his challenging behaviour, but it
24:49
Speaker 1: was about to become even more extreme and obscene.
24:53
Speaker 8: Back 2009, lots of things started worrying me about what
24:56
Speaker 8: we found in his bedroom. But then when we actually
24:58
Speaker 8: started clearing out his room, I found a collection of
25:00
Speaker 8: Jackie's underwear in a briefcase.
25:05
Speaker 10: Some people may interpret the fact that he stole his
25:07
Speaker 10: mother's underwear as there was some psychosexual aspect to that, which,
25:12
Speaker 10: given that he's a growing young man, there might have been.
25:16
Speaker 10: But I think it was just a cry for attention.
25:20
Speaker 3: Perhaps in some way, Daniel was actually kind of grasping
25:23
Speaker 3: back a certain amount of power from his mother.
25:26
Speaker 2: He'd lost when it came to the divorce.
25:29
Speaker 1: His mother, Jackie, chose to play down the hidden lingerie
25:32
Speaker 1: incident as best she could.
25:35
Speaker 8: On that particular occasion, she did laugh it off. She said, well,
25:39
Speaker 8: I wondered where all that had gone. But there was
25:41
Speaker 8: no explanation or there was no inkling that she was
25:43
Speaker 8: going to say anything to Daniel about it. We just
25:46
Speaker 8: laughed off and that was it.
25:48
Speaker 1: Jackie's lack of reaction may have backfired. Did it appear
25:52
Speaker 1: as though she didn't care?
25:54
Speaker 10: He was deliberately being naughty and he wanted his mother's
25:58
Speaker 10: attention and his mother to come and tell him off
26:01
Speaker 10: and find her underwear. He just wanted any form of
26:03
Speaker 10: interaction and his behavior.
26:05
Speaker 5: Got worse and worse and worse.
26:07
Speaker 10: To get that interaction because interacting with your mum by
26:12
Speaker 10: being naughty and getting her attention by telling you off
26:16
Speaker 10: is better than getting no attention at all.
26:18
Speaker 1: Daniel certainly got their attention when Simon and Jackie uncovered
26:21
Speaker 1: a disgusting surprise as they cleaned.
26:23
Speaker 5: Out his room.
26:25
Speaker 8: I then started finding he'd urinated in plastic tubs of toys.
26:31
Speaker 8: He liked his sci-fi stuff, Star Wars and that sort
26:34
Speaker 8: of thing. If you looked at the tub, you wouldn't know,
26:36
Speaker 8: but when he started moving stuff out, they'd been ruined
26:40
Speaker 8: and he'd also defecated in these tubs as well and
26:44
Speaker 8: left dirty towels around the place, under the bed, in
26:48
Speaker 8: the boxes... So all that sort of stuff was adding
26:51
Speaker 8: up and it was sort of, it's not really quite
26:53
Speaker 8: right this.
26:55
Speaker 4: When individuals are going through psychiatric distress and their reactions
26:59
Speaker 4: or responses can be unpredictable, it's very hard for parents
27:04
Speaker 4: or loved ones to actually challenge them.
27:07
Speaker 10: I think that he did suffer emotional neglect and that
27:10
Speaker 10: when he started to toilet in his own room, this
27:14
Speaker 10: was a cry for attention.
27:17
Speaker 3: The fact that Daniel actually urinated on his Star Wars
27:20
Speaker 3: figures and defecated not only there but also around his
27:24
Speaker 3: room is a kind of bizarre fragmented behaviour we get
27:29
Speaker 3: when someone is slightly schizotypal, which is kind of a
27:33
Speaker 3: muted form of schizophrenia. It's where his idea of fantasy
27:38
Speaker 3: and reality is completely disturbed and he starts to give
27:42
Speaker 3: things more significance and meaning.
27:46
Speaker 10: But it also might be, I hate you, you bought
27:48
Speaker 10: me these toys, and this is what I'm going to
27:50
Speaker 10: do to them. So it is an indication that he
27:54
Speaker 10: began to hate his mother and feel aggressive towards her,
28:00
Speaker 10: and his aggression was being, at that time, redirected to
28:03
Speaker 10: the toys that she had bought him.
28:05
Speaker 1: Finally, would this provoke Jackie to take notice and question
28:09
Speaker 1: his behaviour?
28:11
Speaker 8: Jackie's reaction with the tub thing was one of, you know,
28:14
Speaker 8: pretty horrific. She just said, that's what kids do. Daniel
28:18
Speaker 8: just didn't, you know, just didn't give a damn about anything.
28:20
Speaker 8: He just sort of didn't realise the value of money,
28:23
Speaker 8: didn't realise the value of the toys he'd got, didn't
28:26
Speaker 8: respect them. Even though he had an en suite in
28:28
Speaker 8: that particular room, he couldn't be bothered to get up
28:31
Speaker 8: and go to the toilet. He would do it in
28:33
Speaker 8: the tubs. Had it been me, I would have took
28:36
Speaker 8: him to task, but obviously I wasn't going to because
28:38
Speaker 8: he wasn't my son. And I was pretty horrified what
28:41
Speaker 8: I saw because obviously I was the one that's cleaning
28:43
Speaker 8: it up.
28:45
Speaker 1: Daniel didn't seem to be getting the response he desired
28:48
Speaker 1: from his mother, so he took matters even further. Looking
28:51
Speaker 1: for attention or acting out another fantasy, he ran away
28:55
Speaker 1: from home.
28:59
Speaker 8: Jackie rang to say that Daniel had run away. She
29:05
Speaker 8: was frantic with worry because obviously she didn't know where
29:08
Speaker 8: he'd gone, but he'd sort of done it for attention before.
29:12
Speaker 1: His disappearance sparks a police search and leads to Daniel's
29:16
Speaker 1: first encounter with the law.
29:18
Speaker 8: He'd run from the new house. He was trying to
29:21
Speaker 8: make his way to the old house.
29:23
Speaker 1: Police found him at 1am walking towards where he'd lived
29:26
Speaker 1: with his parents before they divorced. While it was clear
29:30
Speaker 1: there'd been a serious disagreement, it was never really revealed
29:33
Speaker 1: why he'd run away. When the police dropped him home,
29:38
Speaker 1: Jackie didn't flag up her concerns.
29:40
Speaker 5: So they simply left her to deal with the matter.
29:42
Speaker 1: Was Jackie hoping that Daniel's behaviour was nothing serious, or
29:46
Speaker 1: could she have intervened to prevent him drifting further from
29:49
Speaker 1: her reach? My first initial reaction is this is like
29:56
Speaker 1: a cry for help.
29:57
Speaker 11: On the surface, if you look at this behavior, running
30:00
Speaker 11: away from home, running back to a place where, you know,
30:04
Speaker 11: his family was kind of secure. And you might interpret
30:07
Speaker 11: that as, you know, a cry for help, somebody wanting
30:10
Speaker 11: to return to a situation which which was comfortable for them.
30:13
Speaker 11: And I think Daniel was well aware of the impact
30:16
Speaker 11: that that behaviour would have on his mother and feel
30:20
Speaker 11: guilty about that. And I think that's exactly what he
30:22
Speaker 11: was doing. That's exactly the kind of feeling he was
30:25
Speaker 11: trying to generate. So I think it was very carefully orchestrated.
30:29
Speaker 1: He did his own form of the paramilitary dirty protest.
30:33
Speaker 1: What he did, he defecated on his precious toys, expensive toys,
30:38
Speaker 1: and urinated on them.
30:39
Speaker 5: And you get it as a form of protest. but
30:42
Speaker 5: he's seeking and provoking a reaction.
30:44
Speaker 11: My reaction to this is perhaps what Daniel was trying
30:46
Speaker 11: to engender in his.
30:48
Speaker 6: Mum, you know, a state of confusion.
30:50
Speaker 7: Why is he doing this?
30:51
Speaker 11: A real state of anxiety and concern for his son.
30:55
Speaker 1: In military terms, I talk about a choke point, certain
30:58
Speaker 1: crossroads which are really significant. And for him, moving out
31:01
Speaker 1: of his old childhood home into a new home, into
31:04
Speaker 1: a destabilising, unusual, fresh environment, it's a difficult time. And
31:11
Speaker 1: He was keen to let everyone know this was a
31:14
Speaker 1: difficult time.
31:15
Speaker 6: Yeah, he was, absolutely.
31:17
Speaker 11: And that manifested itself in him running away and going
31:21
Speaker 11: back to the house in which he used to live
31:23
Speaker 11: to basically say, oh, look at the terrible impact that
31:27
Speaker 11: the breakup of his family has had on this young lad.
31:30
Speaker 11: So he's been incredibly cunning, very manipulative there.
31:36
Speaker 1: Back home and safe, I'm sure Jackie had hoped that
31:39
Speaker 1: things might soon return to normal. However, just a few
31:42
Speaker 1: months later, Daniel was referred to the on-site counsellor here
31:46
Speaker 1: at his school after telling his fellow pupils that his tie,
31:49
Speaker 1: which he named Fred, was trying to strangle him. He
31:52
Speaker 1: told the counsellor he was hearing voices. These voices told
31:56
Speaker 1: him to hurt people who'd upset him, to stab them
31:59
Speaker 1: with a knife and to kill them.
32:04
Speaker 8: He was in class, but he'd started pulling at his
32:06
Speaker 8: tie and shouting that his tie was talking to him.
32:10
Speaker 8: and hearing voices in his head as well. But 12,
32:13
Speaker 8: 13-year-old kids, little lads in the class, they're probably going
32:17
Speaker 8: to laugh at it. They're not going to know the
32:19
Speaker 8: significance of that.
32:23
Speaker 3: It may be that Daniel was actually reporting hearing voices,
32:26
Speaker 3: and this could be aligned with schizophrenia-like symptoms. And perhaps
32:33
Speaker 3: the defecation around the room and urinating inappropriately, these are
32:38
Speaker 3: characteristics that you would see in schizophrenia, when it's completely unmedicated,
32:44
Speaker 3: et cetera.
32:45
Speaker 2: But it clearly was not picked up psychiatrically.
32:53
Speaker 8: I think it's unusual at that age to be hearing
32:56
Speaker 8: that your own son or daughter is going through mental
32:59
Speaker 8: health issues at 12 years old and hearing voices. Quite worrying, really,
33:03
Speaker 8: isn't it?
33:04
Speaker 3: If I was dealing with somebody who was hearing voices,
33:08
Speaker 3: defecating around a room and having massive fantasies and relaying
33:11
Speaker 3: these fantasies to others, I'd be seriously concerned that they
33:15
Speaker 3: were on the limits of personality disorder.
33:19
Speaker 1: Jackie, it appears, found it hard to believe it was
33:21
Speaker 1: a serious issue. Despite the school's insistence Daniel see a
33:25
Speaker 1: mental health specialist, she chose to keep a lid on
33:28
Speaker 1: the situation as best she could.
33:31
Speaker 9: I don't think his father was aware that he had
33:34
Speaker 9: been having some counselling It was something that his mum
33:39
Speaker 9: wanted him to keep to himself and to herself for
33:43
Speaker 9: his own confidence.
33:46
Speaker 8: I don't actually believe that he was hearing voices. That's
33:49
Speaker 8: what I thought at the time. I think Jackie thought
33:51
Speaker 8: the same. They all basically came up with the fact that,
33:54
Speaker 8: you know, having studied him and talked to him, that
33:58
Speaker 8: he was OK. There was nothing actually mentally wrong with him.
34:02
Speaker 1: Jackie was relieved at the diagnosis. But what had Daniel
34:05
Speaker 1: actually been discussing in private with the specialist?
34:08
Speaker 8: The last session, apparently, when he came out of the session,
34:11
Speaker 8: she'd hugged him in the car as if to say,
34:14
Speaker 8: thank goodness that's over, we know you're all right, there's
34:16
Speaker 8: nothing to worry about now. But in that same session,
34:19
Speaker 8: unbeknownst to Jackie, Daniel had said that she didn't treat
34:23
Speaker 8: him very well. I think a lot of it was
34:27
Speaker 8: lies mixed up with attention-seeking.
34:30
Speaker 1: Why had Daniel used her therapy sessions to vilify his mother...
34:34
Speaker 1: Did he genuinely believe this fantasy or was there a
34:37
Speaker 1: darker plan brewing? Had he not been declared fit and
34:40
Speaker 1: well and had actually received some consistent therapy, might disaster
34:44
Speaker 1: have been averted?
34:46
Speaker 5: Or would he still have gone on to murder his mother?
34:53
Speaker 1: These voices he claimed he heard in his head, I mean,
34:56
Speaker 1: they're so prescriptive. It does seem like they were taken
35:00
Speaker 1: straight out of one of these videos.
35:02
Speaker 5: It's really comedic.
35:03
Speaker 1: His tie is trying to strangle him. Was this a
35:06
Speaker 1: deliberate act or did he really.
35:09
Speaker 5: Have voices in his head?
35:11
Speaker 6: I don't think he really had voices in his head.
35:13
Speaker 11: He seized upon that one symptom of mental illness and
35:17
Speaker 11: used that and said, I'm hearing voices. It's a stereotypical
35:20
Speaker 11: symptom of mental illness, isn't it? To evoke sympathy in others.
35:25
Speaker 1: This smacks to me as a you know, long journey
35:28
Speaker 1: to an alibi. I think what's really telling, and it's
35:30
Speaker 1: one of the really graphic pictures of absolute manipulation by
35:36
Speaker 1: Daniel was when he told the school counsellor how awful
35:39
Speaker 1: his mother was and she belittled him.
35:41
Speaker 11: I think he'll be well aware of the fact that
35:43
Speaker 11: schools are obliged to, you know, look into it when
35:46
Speaker 11: children do something like this.
35:48
Speaker 1: And then, you know, the counsellor watches him walk out
35:51
Speaker 1: and give his mother, you know, a fulsome hug.
35:53
Speaker 5: And you're thinking, well, those stories don't match up People like.
35:56
Speaker 11: Daniel very much live in the present moment, and we
36:00
Speaker 11: often describe them as prisoners of the present. So they
36:02
Speaker 11: have difficulty reflecting on the past. They don't dwell on things.
36:06
Speaker 11: Because there's a real lack of conscience there, he's not
36:09
Speaker 11: going to get too hung up on the fact that
36:10
Speaker 11: somebody rumbled him at this point.
36:13
Speaker 1: Now, being a prisoner of the present in just the
36:15
Speaker 1: way you described, well, there's another word for that, which
36:18
Speaker 1: is pointing towards a conditioned.
36:21
Speaker 11: Here, I think we're looking at a case of psychopathic
36:23
Speaker 11: personality disorder. Personality disorders are not mental illnesses. People with
36:28
Speaker 11: personality disorders know the difference between right and wrong. They
36:31
Speaker 11: know that it's not right to physically harm other people,
36:34
Speaker 11: but they choose to.
36:35
Speaker 6: Do so anyway.
36:37
Speaker 5: What makes up a psychopath?
36:38
Speaker 6: Well, there are various.
36:39
Speaker 7: Different traits and behaviours that we see.
36:41
Speaker 11: In psychopaths, and this includes things like glibness, superficial charm, callousness,
36:48
Speaker 11: a lack of empathy. failure to take responsibility for own actions,
36:52
Speaker 11: those types of things. They are essentially all very self-centred behaviours.
36:59
Speaker 1: Coming up, matricide carried out by a teen killer. It
37:02
Speaker 1: sends shockwaves across the community and across the country.
37:06
Speaker 9: Daniel Ballester had asked him if he actually planned to
37:09
Speaker 9: kill his mother. And he replied, I didn't plan to
37:15
Speaker 9: kill her at that time.
37:17
Speaker 1: At just 14, Daniel Bartlem is a troubled young man
37:20
Speaker 1: with feelings of rejection and low self-esteem after years of
37:24
Speaker 1: trying to process his parents' divorce. In his bedroom here,
37:28
Speaker 1: just behind me, he carefully scripts a violent drama based
37:32
Speaker 1: on his favourite soap opera, Coronation Street. In the story,
37:37
Speaker 1: Daniel casts himself as the lead and has his character
37:41
Speaker 1: fatally beat his mother to death and then successfully concealed
37:44
Speaker 1: the killing by dousing her body in petrol and setting
37:47
Speaker 1: it ablaze.
37:49
Speaker 9: Daniel's barrister had asked him if he actually planned to
37:52
Speaker 9: kill his mother. And he replied, I didn't plan to
37:58
Speaker 9: kill her at that time. And I just remember being
38:01
Speaker 9: really shocked.
38:06
Speaker 1: At 1am in the morning on Easter Monday, neighbours reported
38:09
Speaker 1: hearing a row between Daniel and his mother, apparently over
38:12
Speaker 1: where his new trainers were. The next thing they knew,
38:15
Speaker 1: flames had engulfed the top bedroom where Jackie slept and
38:19
Speaker 1: fire engines were on the scene trying to put out
38:21
Speaker 1: the blaze.
38:25
Speaker 8: I saw a story about a fire in Arnold and
38:28
Speaker 8: I didn't think anything of it. I text her sister
38:31
Speaker 8: and I found out sort of basically that Jackie was missing.
38:37
Speaker 8: They'd found remains of a body in the fire. and
38:43
Speaker 8: at that point I didn't know what had happened or
38:47
Speaker 8: anything like that. All I knew was that a body
38:49
Speaker 8: had been found in a fire.
38:51
Speaker 9: Daniel Bartlum had come out of the house alive with
38:55
Speaker 9: his dog and his brother and he was the hero
38:58
Speaker 9: of that situation. And yeah, neighbours were concerned. They wondered
39:02
Speaker 9: what had been going on.
39:04
Speaker 8: Daniel's story was that he found a hammer on the
39:06
Speaker 8: floor and he threw the hammer at the supposed intruder
39:10
Speaker 8: who then fled. Daniel made sure he'd saved his brother
39:14
Speaker 8: and dog, getting them out of danger, and then stood
39:16
Speaker 8: in front of the burning house. He appeared to want
39:17
Speaker 8: to be cast.
39:18
Speaker 6: As the hero.
39:30
Speaker 9: Unusually, Daniel was in crisp, clean clothes. The neighbour just
39:35
Speaker 9: remembered how unusual that was of him. Now, they're used
39:39
Speaker 9: to seeing him in perhaps, you know, his tracksuit and
39:43
Speaker 9: bottoms from playing on his computer all day, and maybe
39:46
Speaker 9: his personal hygiene wasn't fantastic. There's smoke pouring out the window.
39:51
Speaker 9: He's rescued his brother and the dog and they've gone
39:53
Speaker 9: outside and Daniel's stood outside in clean clothes. And there
39:57
Speaker 9: was some suggestion that he'd actually gone back into the
39:59
Speaker 9: house and changed into fresh clothing and then gone outside.
40:02
Speaker 9: Doesn't really match the hero persona that he was trying
40:06
Speaker 9: to put across to people.
40:09
Speaker 1: When police questioned him just hours after the crime, he
40:13
Speaker 1: stuck to his story. But it wasn't long before they
40:16
Speaker 1: too became suspicious and put the blame squarely on Daniel's shoulders.
40:21
Speaker 1: It was here in the Nottingham courts on the 2nd
40:24
Speaker 1: of April 2012, almost a year after his crime, where
40:27
Speaker 1: Daniel Bartlam was convicted of the murder of his mother.
40:31
Speaker 1: He was sentenced to a minimum of 16 years in jail.
40:34
Speaker 8: I absolutely believe he did enjoy the trial, being the
40:39
Speaker 8: centre of attention. And again, the way he came across
40:42
Speaker 8: in the trial, the way he spoke to people, it
40:45
Speaker 8: just came across that way. that he was totally and utterly,
40:48
Speaker 8: you know, thought that he hadn't done anything wrong.
40:51
Speaker 1: Daniel showed surprising misplaced confidence when faced with the enormity
40:55
Speaker 1: of the murder trial. He tried to convince the court
40:58
Speaker 1: that he'd killed his mother in a fit of rage
41:01
Speaker 1: after a blazing row.
41:02
Speaker 8: All through the evidence, I gave, he stared straight at me.
41:05
Speaker 8: He sort of had a smirk more than a smile.
41:08
Speaker 9: He was this little boy in the dock, big thick
41:12
Speaker 9: hair on his head, baby face, looking completely out of
41:17
Speaker 9: his depth for the situation that he was in. And
41:20
Speaker 9: you wanted to believe that this little boy hadn't been
41:23
Speaker 9: responsible for such a terrible crime involving his own mother.
41:27
Speaker 9: And as time went on, when you saw him answering
41:31
Speaker 9: questions to the prosecution and the defence counsel, my opinion
41:36
Speaker 9: of him changed.
41:38
Speaker 8: The thing that actually snookered him and the police had
41:41
Speaker 8: found on some of his other computers had been completely wiped.
41:44
Speaker 8: Some of the stories were written on the iMac, particularly
41:46
Speaker 8: the story about planning it and murdering his mum. That
41:52
Speaker 8: was found on the third backup on the computer.
41:56
Speaker 1: He was convicted literally by his own hand, the words
41:59
Speaker 1: he'd penned as part of his murderous fantasy. He thought
42:04
Speaker 1: he was clever by deleting the file from his computer.
42:07
Speaker 1: but not clever enough. He was found guilty of premeditated murder.
42:13
Speaker 1: During cross-examination, he admitted to basically having killed her. He
42:18
Speaker 1: showed no remorse and also explained to the jury his
42:21
Speaker 1: obsession with, in his own words, how to get away
42:24
Speaker 1: with them violent crimes.
42:27
Speaker 8: When he was found guilty, he sort of crossed his
42:30
Speaker 8: neck as if to say, you're next to me.
42:34
Speaker 1: Without any hint of remorse or emotion, Daniel told in
42:38
Speaker 1: graphic detail to the jury how he killed his mother
42:41
Speaker 1: with a claw hammer.
42:42
Speaker 5: This is the classic sign of a psychopath. But he
42:45
Speaker 5: was just 14 and came from a loving family.
42:48
Speaker 1: Where did he get his violent impulses from and why
42:51
Speaker 1: did he.
42:51
Speaker 5: Act upon them?
42:57
Speaker 11: When we look at children who kill their parents, they
42:59
Speaker 11: tend to fall into three categories. There's the severely abused
43:03
Speaker 11: child who hits back at the abusive parents. and that's
43:06
Speaker 11: not what we have here with Daniel Bartlem. There's this
43:08
Speaker 11: severely mentally ill child who's not in control of what
43:11
Speaker 11: they're doing, who doesn't know what they're doing is wrong,
43:14
Speaker 11: so they're not responsible for their behaviour.
43:16
Speaker 6: Well, that's not Daniel.
43:17
Speaker 7: Either, is it?
43:18
Speaker 11: Thirdly, we've got the dangerously antisocial child. This is somebody
43:22
Speaker 11: who very much knows the difference between right and wrong,
43:25
Speaker 11: but chooses to be violent and engage in these behaviours anyway.
43:30
Speaker 11: So here's somebody who's very cold, very calculating, who knows
43:33
Speaker 11: what they're doing.
43:34
Speaker 5: So what makes a child killer?
43:36
Speaker 11: If you look at the characteristics which are associated with
43:39
Speaker 11: things like psychopathy, so narcissism, shallow affect, so a real
43:44
Speaker 11: kind of shallowness of feeling. These are things that we
43:47
Speaker 11: see in a lot of teenagers and it's completely normal
43:49
Speaker 11: teenage behaviour. So it's not surprising to me that a
43:52
Speaker 11: parent wouldn't join the dots, especially a parent who wasn't
43:56
Speaker 11: aware of what that was. Because teenagers do behave in
44:00
Speaker 11: unpredictable ways.
44:01
Speaker 7: They do quite mad things.
44:03
Speaker 6: Every now and then.
44:04
Speaker 1: If somebody had identified Daniel as a psychopath or with
44:08
Speaker 1: that kind of mindset at an earlier age, is it
44:11
Speaker 1: possible to manage that?
44:13
Speaker 11: In families where children are kind of neglected, they're abused,
44:16
Speaker 11: services pick up on that.
44:18
Speaker 6: Quite quickly, quite often, and will intervene.
44:20
Speaker 11: Children come onto the radar of the criminal justice system very,
44:23
Speaker 11: very soon. But because Daniel came from a nice background,
44:26
Speaker 11: he had a mum who cared about him, it meant
44:29
Speaker 11: that she kept him away from that for quite a
44:31
Speaker 11: long period of time.
44:33
Speaker 5: I've come back to.
44:34
Speaker 1: The extraordinary irony that because Jackie was such a good mother,
44:39
Speaker 1: she camouflaged a lot of these traits and therefore in
44:41
Speaker 1: many ways her own motherly love wrote her own death
44:44
Speaker 1: sentence because if he'd been flagged earlier, somebody would have
44:48
Speaker 1: intervened and then he could have been managed and she
44:50
Speaker 1: would still be alive.
44:52
Speaker 11: His behaviour has been on a trajectory for quite a
44:54
Speaker 11: considerable period of time and it was to end in
44:57
Speaker 11: absolute tragedy.
44:59
Speaker 1: At just 14 years of age, Daniel Bartram committed a
45:02
Speaker 1: brutal and needless crime.
45:04
Speaker 5: The murder followed his script nearly word for word.
45:08
Speaker 1: With a 16-year sentence to serve, his storyline is now over.
45:12
Speaker 1: But the repercussions of his crime will be felt by
45:15
Speaker 1: his wider family and the community for decades to come.
45:19
Speaker 9: There's an article in the Nottingham Post that we published
45:23
Speaker 9: and in it his grandmother speaks about how she will
45:27
Speaker 9: never understand why Daniel murdered his mum.
45:31
Speaker 6: And she said, I love Daniel.
45:33
Speaker 9: But I have to ask him the question, why?
45:37
Speaker 6: What's the answer, Dan? Just answer your nan and tell
45:40
Speaker 6: us why.
45:40
Speaker 8: I still think about Daniel quite a lot. I don't
45:46
Speaker 8: worry about Daniel himself, because what he's done, he's got
45:50
Speaker 8: coming to him, but I worry about if he got out,
45:54
Speaker 8: would he do it again? I think about what would
45:57
Speaker 8: happen to his brother, because his brother's going to carry
46:00
Speaker 8: that for the rest of his life, because obviously his
46:01
Speaker 8: brother witnessed it. And is brother witnessing something like that
46:06
Speaker 8: at his age?