The real story behind ITV's A Confession starring Martin Freeman
The harrowing events that led to Christopher Halliwell's conviction form the basis of 'A Confession', with Freeman portraying the role of Det Supt Steve Fulcher
Jane Lavender
Katie Brooks
A new drama starring Martin Freeman starts on ITV tonight.
The new six-part series is based on the real life story of the detective who solved the murders of Becky Godden-Edwards and Sian O'Callaghan and brought the perpetrator to justice, giving their families some closure.
The harrowing events that led to Christopher Halliwell's conviction form the basis of 'A Confession', with Freeman portraying the role of Det Supt Steve Fulcher.
His desperate bid to solve the case cost him his career after he broke a key policing rule.
Martin Freeman stars as Steve Fulcher and Joe Absolom as Christopher Halliwell in ITV's The Confession (Image: ITV)
Sian was just 22 when she vanished after a night out with friends on March 19, 2011.
Her walk home should have taken 15 minutes but she never arrived to the home she shared with her boyfriend, Kevin Reape, after leaving the club Suju in Swindon.
CCTV captured Sian leaving the club at 2.52am and by the following morning Kevin had reported her missing to police.
Mobile phone records showed Kevin had messaged his girlfriend at 3.24am and Sian's phone had received it in Savernake Forest - 12 miles away.
Police and hundreds of members of the public searched the forest in a bid to find Sian but by March 23 the hunt was stood down as officers had "significant lines of inquiry".
CCTV was issued of a taxi - a green Toyota Avensis - and Det Supt Fulcher had identified Halliwell as a prime suspect, placing the 47-year-old under surveillance.
Sian O'Callaghan was murdered in 2011 (Image: Wiltshire Police/PA Wire)
What happened next would be a break through in the case but also a career defining moment for Steve Fulcher.
Halliwell was seen buying a huge amount of pills, and fearing he was about to take his own life, he was charged with Sian's kidnap and his green Toyota was seized.
Rather than cautioning him for a third time and taking him straight to a police station where he'd have access to a solicitor, Halliwell was taken to Barbury Castle, an Iron Age hill fort.
For the next four hours, the officer questioned Halliwell and the two men formed a bizarre sort of connection as they sat on the hill, smoking.
Initially, Halliwell refused to give up any of his gruesome secrets, but the officer wouldn't back down.
He warned him he would be crucified in the press and just seconds before he was about to throw in the towel, Halliwell cracked.
former Detective Superintendent Steve Fulcher of Wiltshire Police (Image: Steve Parsons/PA Wire)
The killer offered to take officers to where he had dumped Sian's body - the White Horse in nearby Uffington, Oxfordshire.
He then asked: "Do you want another one?" and led police to a field where he had buried Becky Godden-Edwards in 2003.
The 20-year-old sex worker had been missing for nine years when police found her body in a shallow grave.
Christopher Halliwell was convicted of Sian's murder and jailed for 25 years, but despite him confessing to both killings, the judge threw Becky's case out.
Judge Mrs Justice Cox ruled both of Halliwell's confessions were inadmissable as evidence because Det Supt Fulcher had breached Police and Criminal Evidence Act guidelines by not cautioning the killer and giving him access to a solicitor.
Halliwell had already been cautioned twice but he should have been a third time.
Christopher Halliwell (Image: PA)
An investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission in 2013 found the police officer had a case to answer for gross misconduct for ignoring force orders and the following January, Det Supt Fulcher was found guilty of gross misconduct and given a final disciplinary warning.
He resigned from the force in May 2014 and has struggled to get work in the UK since - but that's not the end of the story.
Two years after Fulcher left the police judge Sir John Griffith Williams allowed his evidence about Becky's death to be heard in court.
Halliwell was convicted and will now never be released from prison.
Fulcher told the Guardian : "It's a simple moral issue. I did these things because they were the right things to do in the circumstances.
"In fact, they were the only thing to do."
Rebecca Godden, also known as Becky, was murdered by Christopher Halliwell (Image: Wiltshire Police/PA Wire)
Becky's family are also grateful to the police officer who led to the discovery of her body and Halliwell behind bars.
Her mum, Karen Godden-Edwards, previously told the Mirror: "I know for a fact that if Halliwell had been given a lawyer he would not have told the police where my Becky was buried.
"We may never have found her if it wasn't done this way.
"I think a senior police officer should be able to make decisions about the arrest at the time.
"Steve made a split-second one. If it was not for him Halliwell could still be driving around in a taxi and God only knows how many ­others there could have been."
Brummies on TV
Great British School Swap
Location Location Location in West Mids
Alison Hammond joins Celebs Go Dating
MasterChef: The Professionals Brum chef
SAS: Who Dares Wins
Ben Hanlin on Dancing on Ice
For Fulcher, he knows his actions that day meant a dangerous killer was put behind bars for life, he said: "But for my intervention, Christopher Halliwell would be walking the streets now.
"And whatever the public thinks about it – and I'm as liberal as the next person – there's a very good chance he'd have killed other women in the meantime."
A Confession also stars Joe Absolom as Christopher Halliwell, Imelda Staunton as Karen Edwards and Siobhan Finneran and Elaine Pickford.
A Confession starts tonight at 9pm on ITV.
CrimeHeartbreak as thieves 'destroy everything' - and even rob boy's homework in Sutton Coldfield raid"These things they have stolen are the only things I have got from my past," the Kittoe Road burglary victim said