This is a straightforward crime documentary about a very unstraightforward murder. In May 2006, Nisha Patel-Nasri was stabbed to death apparently during the course of a break-in at her Wembley home. The victim was both a hairdresser and a special constable; she and her husband Fadi Nasri appeared to be the perfect couple, but this illusion was shattered three months after the crime, entirely due to Nasri's stupidity, or perhaps it was the one deliberate clue every murderer is said to leave.
Nasri gave the police his mobile phone which contained the recording of a message from a woman in Scotland who had threatened him and his wife over a bad business deal. He may have been hoping to deflect the investigation, but as well as the message, police found on the same phone photographs of his mistress, who was also a prostitute. She rather than him became a suspect, but naturally the investigation widened, and it soon became clear that the grieving husband was not the kind of man one would expect even a part-time, unpaid policewoman to marry.
Even then, although the police realised he had hidden information from the investigation, they suspected him not of organising his wife's murder but of hiding unrelated secrets, or perhaps of being threatened by professional criminals for whatever reason. Eventually though their persistence paid off, and they were forced perhaps reluctantly to join up the dots. The bottom line was money; on the death of his wife, Nasri would clear all his debts and become a wealthy man. The insurance policy on Nisha was the final piece of evidence they needed. In any murder investigation, immediately family and friends are always suspects after a fashion, but in this one it is clear the police zeroed in on the mastermind only with the greatest reluctance.
"A Very Special Constable" was broadcast less than 5 months after Nasri was convicted of his wife's murder. Along with two hired accomplices he was given the mandatory life sentence. The programme includes reconstructions, archive footage, and interviews with the police who worked on the investigation as well as the victim's family and friends.
Nasri gave the police his mobile phone which contained the recording of a message from a woman in Scotland who had threatened him and his wife over a bad business deal. He may have been hoping to deflect the investigation, but as well as the message, police found on the same phone photographs of his mistress, who was also a prostitute. She rather than him became a suspect, but naturally the investigation widened, and it soon became clear that the grieving husband was not the kind of man one would expect even a part-time, unpaid policewoman to marry.
Even then, although the police realised he had hidden information from the investigation, they suspected him not of organising his wife's murder but of hiding unrelated secrets, or perhaps of being threatened by professional criminals for whatever reason. Eventually though their persistence paid off, and they were forced perhaps reluctantly to join up the dots. The bottom line was money; on the death of his wife, Nasri would clear all his debts and become a wealthy man. The insurance policy on Nisha was the final piece of evidence they needed. In any murder investigation, immediately family and friends are always suspects after a fashion, but in this one it is clear the police zeroed in on the mastermind only with the greatest reluctance.
"A Very Special Constable" was broadcast less than 5 months after Nasri was convicted of his wife's murder. Along with two hired accomplices he was given the mandatory life sentence. The programme includes reconstructions, archive footage, and interviews with the police who worked on the investigation as well as the victim's family and friends.
