NARRATOR: When a killer strikes...
He died at 8:50 this morning.
So, we've now got a murder investigation.
..catching the suspect falls to a specialist team of detectives.
MAN: Wow. It's quite shocking.
His last moments were in this room.
First, they must hunt for clues. BOTH: What was that?
Could be the murder weapon.
There are messages of interest. "I've killed someone."
He was just possessed. He was a man on a mission.
Then... Ah, there we go.
..identify a suspect...
That is spot on. ..and bring them in.
SIREN WAILS
Get on the floor now!
DOG BARKING
You're under arrest for murder, OK? What?!
Next, they must question the suspect to build the case...
Explain to me what's going on.
..separate the truth from the lies...
You said there wasn't a plan. Where were you heading, then?
..and deliver justice for the victims and their families.
They are two really dangerous people.
MAN YELLS
The streets will be a much safer place without them.
SIREN WAILS This time...
Wow. It's quite shocking.
..a vulnerable man is assaulted and left in a burning building.
Ah, there we go. I think that's our suspect.
Will detectives be able to track the suspect down?
WOMAN: When you've got a dangerous individual,
you know, the stakes are higher.
DIAL TONE
SIREN WAILS
Police and fire crews have been called
to a raging inferno at a flat in Hull.
Officers arrive and discover a man has been pulled from the fire
with life-threatening injuries.
Cheers.
Come on.
OK, no worries.
Police officers automatically question passers-by.
Witness reports of a second person in the flat
raised police suspicions.
Definitely heard two different voices. Yeah.
Do you wanna look after the back?
The property is now a potential crime scene.
SIREN WAILS
The rescued man is taken to hospital,
where it's discovered he's been seriously assaulted.
He's identified as 54-year-old Anthony Ibbitson.
Two days later, he tragically dies from his injuries.
The suspicious house fire is now a murder investigation.
Can you grab everyone for us, please, mate?
The case is passed to Humberside's Major Crime Team.
Leading the investigation
is Detective Chief Inspector Amy Keane-Christie.
It's so horrific in terms of the incident itself.
He was quite a vulnerable gentleman.
We know the victim was assaulted.
We've established that there is a witness
and the witness heard more than one voice.
'It's really key to understand actually what happened
'and who was in that address at the time.'
Right.
DCI Keane-Christie needs to familiarise herself
with the crime scene.
My intention is just to get
an overview of the scene externally first. Yeah.
We can then obviously look at it room by room. Yeah.
The type of elements of it in terms of the assault,
the fire, that's quite unique.
So really, hopefully with this visit,
it will help us then understand the layout,
understand what could have happened within it.
Police believe that the fire started in the bedroom.
Wow. You can see the extent of the fire damage, can't you?
It's... It's quite shocking.
The bed of Antony's was just here
with the headboard towards this wall. Yeah.
He's then found by the firefighters and dragged out
from just next to the bed on this side,
dragged out through the hallway, out to the front door.
And this room was disturbed, and there was items everywhere.
And we understand that the fire would have started
somewhere around here.
It was through this window that the witnesses first saw
the fire starting.
There's blood on the wall.
You can see the arrows just down here on the wall.
He passed away in hospital,
but, you know, his last kind of moments or,
you know, his interactions were in this room, really.
Yeah.
Definitely thought-provoking, isn't it? It is, yeah.
Yeah, it must have been horrendous in this room when it was on fire.
So, it's like, in this room, obviously,
even though the seat of the fire was in the bedroom,
you know, the smoke damage is really, really extensive.
It's obviously come throughout the whole of the flat.
Also, really, I suppose,
it just shows you the contrast, doesn't it,
of this room is obviously really, really tidy as well?
And obviously, other than the smoke damage...
Yeah. ..it's not particularly, you know, messy,
but the difference in the scene to...
Contrasting to the living room and the bedroom, yeah. ..the bedroom.
There's two priorities, really.
One is to understand the scene itself.
The second then is to look at forensic opportunities,
especially in the case
where we don't have a suspect that's identified.
Any scene that has any type of fire damage
can really compromise your opportunity for forensics.
Crime scene investigators have taken forensic samples
of several items in the flat.
These will be fast tracked to see if any DNA of a suspect can be found.
OK. Anything else you need to look at while you're here?
No. No, I don't think so.
It's weird, I suppose, isn't it,
of how much still, like, smoke there is in the air? Yeah.
DISTANT SIREN WAILS
It's this alleyway at the back of here, isn't it? Yeah.
Which is that one. Yeah. You're right, yeah.
Detectives have located CCTV from near the victim's house.
This is the camera covering the property address.
Detective Sergeant Sam Cunnington is reviewing the footage
in the minutes before and after the fire.
Ah, there we go.
So, it appears we've got an individual leaving the address
shortly after the fire began.
That's gonna be a key line of inquiry.
It's a breakthrough for the team.
But who is the shadowy figure,
and did they have a part to play in Anthony Ibbitson's murder?
NARRATOR: Humberside Major Crime Team are investigating the murder
of 54-year-old Anthony Ibbitson,
who was pulled from a house fire with signs of being brutally beaten.
Ah, there we go.
That's gonna be a key line of inquiry.
The team have an image of a suspect leaving the address
in the minutes before the fire took hold.
And I think that's him arriving at the scene.
And, yeah, goes into the victim's address.
So we've got him arriving now. We go back a bit.
Definitely two tones on the jacket or hood.
And definitely some kind of a marking
on the back of the shoulder.
White trainers.
So the aim now will be to track this suspect
to somewhere where we can get a decent facial image.
Detective Constable Dani Crawforth is heading to the scene of the fire
to hunt for more CCTV cameras.
The initial thing is trying to work out
where that person has gone,
to try and ID this guy. Yeah.
It's literally a tracking from place to place to find out
where that person has gone and trying to work out a direction
and seeing them on another camera or some more footage.
This street is the location of where the incident took place
and the subsequent fire.
Was it that camera up there?
Or he went up the street? Yeah. This side of the road and across.
Starting at the scene, they follow the suspect's route
away from the property in the hope of locating more cameras.
We know he's come up here...
..even though we see quite a grainy image.
There's another camera just on the left-hand side.
This camera, it points onto the car park,
so if he is gonna walk past...
There's good coverage all the way outside of there, isn't there?
Cos it looks like a new camera.
Yeah, good-quality footage from it...
..or to check it.
The footage from the CCTV camera is downloaded
and given to Detective Sergeant Sam Cunnington
in the Digital Media Unit.
This is the store around the corner from the scene.
Definitely the same jacket,
same white mark on the shoulder, trainers.
Happy with...
The next job will be tracking him further along here
to see where he ends up going to.
There's another camera.
Wondering if it's possible to have a look at your CCTV.
Over the next few days,
using the suspect's direction of travel,
officers collect footage from over 50 cameras,
which they painstakingly pieced together.
And then we have him walking on Beverley Road, up Beverley Road...
..and then again past the Beverley Road Baths.
So, he carries on...
..and goes into a phone box.
He's definitely in there for a while.
So, the key thing in this footage is the walk of our suspect.
It is a noticeable walk.
He's got a bit of a swagger.
Every camera we have is just... not enough.
He's managed to avoid everything facially.
He always managed to keep his head down, his face out the imagery.
Detectives track him for over five miles
to a housing estate in the north of the city.
This is on... Bransholme.
We can see our suspect in the background walking across,
and we know that once we get into this housing estate,
this is a large housing estate in Hull,
he... he disappeared.
So we still need to find who this person is.
It's really frustrating that we haven't got a facial image.
While digital media officers have been collecting CCTV,
a number of items from the crime scene
have been fast tracked for DNA testing.
Will they provide any clues?
Are you in a position now to go through them and just confirm
what the results were for us? Yeah.
First item was the black wallet,
which was from under the head of the bed.
There was nothing to identify any other person.
The next item was a picture frame, but again,
there was nothing to identify any other person
that may have touched that item.
So we also submitted three swabs,
which were taken from blood staining on the wall of the bedroom.
All those three swabs came back as being the blood of Anthony Ibbitson
with no other... So nobody else?
..no other contributor. No.
We knew due to the fire damage and the scene itself
that it may be difficult. Yeah.
In their efforts to identify their suspect,
detectives also swabbed the phone box
the suspect was seen going into.
So, we sent off a black plastic telephone handset,
and there was no DNA recovered from that
which would take us any further forward to identifying a suspect.
It was definitely worth a shot, I think, just to see if we could get
some early forensic indication on who the suspect is.
It's another blow for the team.
And obviously, if he's come from this direction,
then this whole area might then become relevant.
So they decide to focus their efforts
on the housing estate where he was last sighted
in the belief that he may live there.
DCI Keane-Christie sends teams to canvass the area for further CCTV.
So, from this last sighting,
we just know that he's come down that path,
that he doesn't go back on himself, and we're here.
We think he's gone across there.
So it's quite a large housing estate
with sort of community areas, shops, parks.
There's pathways crisscrossing all the way through the houses
and shortcuts that...
Like a maze.
When you've got no name, no links,
you have no idea who the suspect is...
..we've got a dangerous individual...
Yeah, the stakes are higher.
We are so determined that we're gonna catch them
and get to the bottom of the story.
And when you're beginning to constantly come to dead-ends
and not get anywhere, it just starts to feel like,
"Is this it?" Mm.
"Is this as far as we're going with it?"
Police still have no idea who the suspect is
and no idea what went on inside Anthony Ibbitson's flat.
But the Digital Media team have made an important discovery.
One camera near the victim's property
has recorded audio.
Fuck!
MAN SHOUTS
The audio is incredibly important
because it provides you, like, that third eye
into the property itself and what was happening.
MAN SHOUTS
From the audio, we can hear on there
that the suspect has a non-local accent.
He's asking Anthony about drugs.
From our information,
Anthony doesn't have a history with drugs
in terms of drug supply or holding any type of drugs,
so we're not sure whether it was mistaken identity.
RUSTLING ON TAPE
BANGING
You can hear threats of violence. It's so horrific.
The suspect has left Anthony in the address.
We know from the audio he was aware of the fire.
He's had opportunities since leaving the address to call the police,
to call the fire brigade, and he hasn't done.
We can hear the level of violence that's displayed.
So the quicker we can get hands on
and have that person in custody, the better.
So, if we can't identify them
because of the quality of the footage,
then we need the public's assistance to be able to find out who they are.
DISTANT SIREN WAILS
I'm Detective Chief Inspector Amy Keane-Christie,
and I'm the senior investigating officer
who's leading the murder investigation.
We need your help.
Were you in the area of Freetown Way, Ferensway,
Spring Bank or Beverley Road between the hours of 7pm and 8pm?
If so, we really need to review your dashcam footage.
However small, it could be crucial to our investigation.
Along with the appeal to the public,
DCI Keane-Christie releases some of the CCTV online.
It's hoped when we release the footage
that we firstly, obviously, identify the suspect involved.
But secondly, it could be that people
that may have been passing by, driving by,
seeing something that maybe just didn't seem normal.
But also, they might have been driving
in their vehicle using dashcams -
anything to help us that could ID that suspect.
Whilst the team wait for the public to respond,
the detectives that were sent to canvass the area
have had a possible breakthrough.
They've stopped a man matching his description.
It was the walk.
I literally stood in front of him and stopped him. Yeah.
He didn't seem bothered, did he? No.
And when, erm...
when I asked for his name and he said his name
and we heard the accent...
Yeah, the accent. ..it threw us, didn't it?
Yeah, it did. We looked at each other and thinking, "Whoa."
And he showed his, like, working permit.
Mark Vaskouski.
But having no grounds to detain him,
they have no option but to let him go.
Oh, it's frustrating. Frustrating.
It's really frustrating.
Cos it starts feeling like everything is against you.
Is Mark Vaskouski the suspect they're looking for?
DISTANT SIREN WAILS
NARRATOR: Detectives in Humberside's Major Crime Team
are working around the clock trying to solve the brutal murder
of 54-year-old Anthony Ibbitson.
It's so horrific.
We know the victim was assaulted
and he was just left inside of a fire.
They've stopped a man with a similar walk
to the suspect seen on CCTV.
He said his name, and we heard the accent.
Yeah, the accent. It threw us, didn't it?
But as the CCTV hasn't shown a clear facial image,
they've had no option but to let him go.
So they widen their search for more footage.
The area that we lose this figure on the CCTV
has a shopping centre in the middle.
So that's a good area to extend our CCTV parameters,
and the shopping centre itself, we know from previous experience,
has excellent CCTV.
Detectives begin trawling the CCTV from the day of the attack.
And finally, this produces the breakthrough
police have been waiting for.
I can see him immediately coming in to the front entrance.
A very distinctive walk.
You can see the distinctive white logo
on the top-left of the jacket.
It's a big breakthrough.
Now, detectives have a clear image of their suspect's face,
they can check to see if it is the man stopped in the housing estate.
If we look here at the photograph of the ID card,
when we compare it to this piece of footage...
..now that, to me... is spot on.
Mark Vaskouski is now suspect number one.
SIREN WAILS
With a potentially violent murderer on the loose...
..a specialist team armed with Tasers are dispatched to arrest him.
Hello. Hello there.
Police. Stand there for me.
OK, listen to what I have to say to you.
You're under arrest for murder.
You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence
if you do not mention something which you later rely on in court.
Anything you do say may be given in evidence.
Could this be the man
that violently assaulted Anthony Ibbitson
and left him in a burning building?
Do you speak English? HE GRUNTS
English? No?
Is there anybody else in the flat, or is it just you? No.
Just you? I'm just... If you just take hold,
I'll make sure there's no-one else here.
OK. All will be explained in a bit.
There's nobody else here. Oh, right.
Officers seize his mobile phone...
All right.
Pop up in there, my friend.
..before transporting him to Clough Road Police Station.
Take him to C.
Come on, buddy.
Hello. Good afternoon.
You've been arrested for murder.
So, you've been identified through some CCTV enquiries,
and you've been suspected of committing this offence.
Stand up for us, Mark.
With their suspect number one in custody,
detectives have 24 hours to bring charges.
Detective Constable Steve Storey will lead the interviews.
From the initial interview,
we want him to provide us with his version of events.
We want him to explain where he was at the time of the murder.
And we want to get that account in as much detail as we can
without giving him any information that we're aware of.
Assisted by an interpreter,
how will Vaskouski account for himself?
The time is 17:48.
We're at Clough Road Police Station in Hull.
You've been arrested for murder.
IN OWN LANGUAGE:
You are. You're under arrest for that... for that murder, so...
INTERPRETER INTERPRETS
Mm. OK.
Tell me about your involvement in that offence.
INTERPRETER INTERPRETS
OK, so if we go back to that Wednesday...
where were you between half past seven in the evening
and half past nine in the evening?
OK.
So specifically, then, between 7:30pm and 9:30pm,
what do you remember doing?
PlayStation. PlayStation.
OK, so you were at home on your PlayStation?
Yes. OK.
With Vaskouski claiming he was at home,
detectives next show him the shopping centre CCTV.
Do you see that?
So this is CCTV from the North Point Centre
from the 29th of November, and it's...
it's in the morning, at 10:48.
You see this person here where my pen's pointing?
Is that you?
No, that's not you.
You don't have a North Face jacket? No.
Did you have a North Face jacket on the 29th of November?
No.
We believe that's you.
It wasn't you? No.
And this is also from the North Point Centre.
It wasn't you?
Do you recognise the shopping centre?
You can obviously see that the...
this person is wearing black trainers with white soles.
So you're happy that's not you?
OK. OK.
How many mobile phones do you own?
So, at the time of this fire,
at 2038 hours on the 29th of November,
was that mobile phone and SIM card in your possession?
So it would have been at your house, then, at your flat?
Is there anything you want to say before we finish?
The time is 11:40, and that's the end of the interview.
After almost two hours of interview, Vaskouski has given nothing away.
Police have no forensic evidence that puts him at the scene.
But can they link him to the crime by the clothing seen on the footage?
So, the clothing is really, really key.
So, he's got really, really distinctive clothing on.
So, he has, like, a three-quarter-length black coat
a over-the-shoulder small bag
and then these distinctive black trainers with a white sole.
It's really, really key to get those because that will help us prove
the man on the footage is Vaskouski.
Whilst officers search Vaskouski's flat
for the coat and the shoes...
..detectives decide to re-interview him.
What we're gonna do is show you some more CCTV now.
This time, they focus in on the events of the night
to see if he'll change his story.
So, this is now Beverley Road, walking out of the city.
We're saying that's the same person in the black trainers
with the white soles and the North Face jacket.
So we believe that's the same person
that you saw in St Stephen's and Tesco's?
Yeah, but he doesn't look like half the people in this city.
This is a figure going walking.
He goes into the victim's address.
INTERPRETER INTERPRETS
Again, was that you, Mark?
We see a figure coming out of the address.
Mm-hm. That's about 12 minutes before the fire brigade were called.
So if that was you in the address... Nyet.
..now is your opportunity to tell me what was happening
when you left that house.
So what we know is that a witness described an over...
what is described as an overheated discussion.
Were you involved in that discussion?
INTERPRETER AND MARK:
Time's 17:14. It's the end of the interview.
'Mark Vaskouski at the moment is very calm.
'He's not giving much away.'
Given the severity of the allegation being put to him,
he sat quite calmly during that interview.
Doesn't look too upset by
the allegations that we've put to him.
Teams searching his flat have reported back,
and it's not good news.
At this stage, we haven't recovered, have we,
either the footwear or the jacket, the long North Face-style jacket,
kind of three-quarters-length one that we haven't found either?
But during the search,
police did find a damaged CCTV camera at the back of his property.
So, this is the back garden.
And crucially, it overlooks his bins.
We observe that this camera had been removed.
So, we obtained the last footage from this camera,
and it shows a figure...
..making one attempt to dislodge it from the wall,
and when that's unsuccessful, comes back and...
..removes it.
And that's the last footage that's captured from that camera.
So for me, really, it's definitely an inference
that he's destroyed the camera in order to not be captured
putting those evidence items that are clothing in the bins.
Absolutely.
The team only have circumstantial evidence.
With the clock ticking down,
will they be able to charge Vaskouski with murder,
or will he walk free?
NARRATOR: Detectives have a suspect in custody for the murder
of 54-year-old Anthony Ibbitson.
The team have been unable to find clothing worn by their suspect,
Mark Vaskouski, on the day of the fire.
This is... what I reckon is our suspect.
But they have continued to review CCTV footage from a shopping centre
to track him in the hours before the murder.
He's gone into a jeweller's.
And he hands something over, and it looks like it's a receipt.
We need to find the receipt.
Finding the receipt would prove that it is Vaskouski in the footage.
Whilst officers try to locate it,
the team have also been analysing data from his mobile phone.
He's told us that his phone is always with him
and that he's at his home address the whole day.
So, we can see that at or before 18:34 in the evening...
suspect's mobile phone is now connecting to a mast
in the vicinity of the city centre.
So then, right at the time of the assault and fire,
at the time that took place,
we can see that the suspect's mobile phone
is very close to the offence location.
With this new evidence,
police secure a custody extension of 12 hours
to challenge him in a further interview.
When you use your phone, it communicates with masts,
and that allows us to put your phone in a particular area
when it's in use.
So, analysis has been carried out of your phone. OK?
And that shows that, on the 29th of the 11th,
your phone is shown to be...
..in the Hull city centre area. Mm-hm.
Can you explain why that is?
We've shown you CCTV of a male we believe to be you
in the Hull city centre.
So, this analysis supports our belief
that you were in Hull city centre
on the evening of the 29th of November.
'Now he's starting to shut down on us.
'He's not answering these questions, and he's reverting to no comment.
'He's not speaking. It's quite telling, really.'
It can be that he's unable to answer the questions
based on the new evidence that we're putting to him.
We can see, on the 29th of the 11th, at or before 19:43,
your phone is communicating with a mast in that area.
So, tell me why that is.
Is it because you're in that area?
This fits with the CCTV we've shown you.
Is that because it is you on that CCTV?
Not you.
So who's got your phone, then?
'Suspect's body language has changed.'
It became a little bit more withdrawn.
What we're gonna do, Mark, is show you some CCTV footage.
Detectives sense the time is right to further challenge his account
with the audio of the assault.
Fuck!
MAN YELLS
I kill you.
So, Mark, tell me what we've just been listening to there.
OK. Could you h...?
What could you make out on that audio?
Explain to me what's going on.
We believe you've gone to his address,
assaulted Mr Ibbitson... over a period of time,
after which a fire has started and you've left the address.
Your phone's in that area, and we've shown you CCTV footage,
including footage which shows... a face, and we believe that's you.
So is there any explanation you want to give before we finish?
Time's 22:24. That's the end of the interview.
Vaskouski is still not talking to police.
But in the hunt for the receipt seen in CCTV footage,
detectives have made a significant discovery.
So, we've obviously got Vaskouski.
Looks like he's trying to make some form of return.
Obviously, we can see,
can't we, from those images, a little Champion bag?
When we can look to the warrant at his home address,
we recovered the Champion bag and sent that off for forensics.
And it was actually when then we've done the forensic examination
that we've actually recovered this receipt here,
shown on the screen, from that bag, from within it.
By having the receipt in the bag,
that timelines him really, really well.
That shows us, really, that, obviously,
the man on the footage is Vaskouski.
With proof that Vaskouski has lied to detectives,
they decide to go to the Crown Prosecution Service.
Will they agree to charge him with murder?
It's Detective Chief Inspector Amy Keane-Christie. How are you?
The CPS have authorised a charge for murder,
and Vaskouski has been remanded into custody.
It's definitely a relief for us
in terms of having Vaskouski remanded.
It means that he then can't cause any further harm to anybody else.
But, really, that's where the hard work starts
in terms of case building and making sure,
not only we can get a charge,
but we actually can get a conviction at court.
The team still don't have any forensic evidence,
but further testing has been conducted on items
from Anthony Ibbitson's flat and Vaskouski's address.
Can they provide the final piece of the jigsaw?
Swabs were taken from some planks,
which were recovered from Anthony Ibbitson's home address.
And a mixed DNA profile was obtained,
and in that profile, both Anthony Ibbitson
and Mark Vaskouski were well represented.
The scientist is happy to say that some of that cellular material...
Has come from Mark Vaskouski. ..belongs to Mark Vaskouski.
Yeah. That's fantastic news.
That is really, really positive.
So that, for me, shows that Mark Vaskouski was present
inside that flat. Yes.
The other significant forensic return that we've had
relates to a black hooded top.
This item was seized from Mark Vaskouski's home address.
Blood staining's been found on the left cuff,
and this blood relates to the victim, Anthony Ibbitson.
So it's a positive link between our victim and our suspect.
The evidence strengthens the police case.
And crucially...
..they've also received the pathologist's report.
Mr Ibbitson's death was due to the combined effects of burns
and inhalation of products of combustion
following an assault in which he sustained
significant head and neck trauma, which rendered him unconscious
and unable to flee the ensuing fire from the property.
Had he have not have been assaulted to the degree that he had been,
he would have been able to get up and leave. Absolutely.
And obviously, then we wouldn't have obviously got those other injuries.
Yeah. It clearly links both the assault and the fire to his death.
Together, doesn't it? Yeah.
So, the importance of the pathology report is that
it allows us to understand the level of injuries,
how those have occurred and also the fact that,
because of the injuries to his head,
he was unable to actually leave the flat when it was on fire,
ultimately leading obviously to his death.
With the evidence that we currently hold,
it's really strong.
So I would hope that any jury would convict Vaskouski of this offence.
Myself and the investigation team are really happy with the outcome,
not only because Vaskouski's been held to account for his actions,
but also because it provides a bit of comfort to the family.
At least they have justice for Anthony.