Heidi Blake

If what Nick Milbank told me about this 999 call was true, that not only meant that Jeremy had to be innocent, but also that police had allowed vital evidence to lie buried for years.

Because he said no one had ever asked him about what he heard on the phone that night, and that a statement police had produced in his name in 2002 had not been given by him.

I'd expected the CCRC to go to every possible length to speak to Nick Milbank directly.

But instead, the CCRC hadn't contacted him at all.

They said that they didn't need to because Essex Police, the force responsible for the shockingly improper investigation of this crime, had got there first.

It turns out that Essex Police, of their own initiative, located Mr. Milbank and spoke to him about it.

And so they've allowed Essex Police to interview Nick Milbank rather than speaking to him themselves.

When the allegation here is against Essex Police.

So they're allowing the person being accused of something to do the investigating and the interviewing of the witness.

That is...

That is shocking.

Yeah.

I mean, my mind is kind of blown by it.

Nick Milbank still worked for the force, and his bosses told the CCRC that after they read his interview with me, they'd gone ahead and taken a new statement from him, on their own, to ask him about what he'd said.

This new statement, produced by Essex Police, is handwritten and dated September 10th, 2024.

So this new statement from Nick Milbank says, I am making this statement in relation to a recent article in The New Yorker.

I was not aware of the existence of this article until today.

I have never, to my knowledge, spoken to The New Yorker and certainly have not endorsed the article.

I mean, that is just not true.

That is just, I mean, needless to say, that is completely false.