00:00:05
NARRATOR: To Martin
Cavanagh, his wife, Sophie, was his entire world. But was his devotion to
her entirely healthy?
00:00:13
ALEXANDRA HEALY:
Martin Cavanagh was incapable of handling his own
jealousy and possessiveness.
00:00:18
NARRATOR: As he faced
losing his wife, Martin went to
desperate measures to spend time with her.
00:00:23
TONY KENT: He told her he
was facing a prison sentence. He told her he had
been the getaway driver
00:00:27
in a jewelry robbery. NARRATOR: There was even
an indecent proposal. RICHARD VANDENBERGH: He was
constantly pestering her.
00:00:33
On one occasion, offering
her money for sex for one last time. EMMA KENNY: She isn't a woman.
00:00:38
She isn't a human. She's something that
can be bought or sold. NARRATOR: Where would Martin
Cavanagh's obsession end?
00:00:44
JANE MONCKTON SMITH:
It could be said that Sophie was doomed from
the moment she met Cavanagh.
00:00:50
NARRATOR: They had met
and married shortly after. One of them was stable, happy.
00:00:56
The other had issues. JANE MONCKTON SMITH: If somebody
is routinely possessive, routinely jealous,
and tries to control
00:01:03
what you do or do not do, I
say get out, and get out quick. [theme music] NARRATOR: Martin
Cavanagh's friends
00:01:37
might have been surprised when
he fell head over heels in love with a young woman
called Sophie Wickers.
00:01:42
EMMA KENNY: Cavanagh
was a man's man. So he enjoyed going
to the football. He enjoyed drinking.
00:01:46
He enjoyed going to the
pub, going to the gym. NARRATOR: Born and bred in
the London Borough of Croydon,
00:01:51
Martin appeared not to be
the settling down type. But in 2010, a chance meeting
with Sophie at his local pub
00:01:59
changed all that. EMMA KENNY: Cavanagh and
Sophie met when Sophie was 23. He was four years
older than her.
00:02:04
And it seems that they had
a real whirlwind romance. She was a young,
fun-loving person.
00:02:09
NEIL LANCASTER: Sophie
is from Croydon. A very happy-go-lucky girl. Her friends remember in school
they wouldn't be allowed
00:02:15
to be in the class
together because they'd keep each other giggling. She loved a good night out.
00:02:19
She'd had a big
circle of friends. NARRATOR: The young couple
were far from well off.
00:02:23
TONY KENT: Martin
and Sophie Cavanagh were a young couple who had
met back where they both grew
00:02:29
up around the Croydon area. They did not have the
best start in life. The part of Croydon
they grew up in
00:02:36
was very rundown,
full of high-rises, and they were living
together in Sophie's mother's
00:02:45
very, very small council flat. These were not the circumstances
that Sophie certainly
00:02:52
wanted to live her life in. Sophie had her real
big dreams of what she was going to do with her life.
00:02:59
She had real ambitions
to make it big, to open her own beauty therapy
salon, and then to branch out,
00:03:05
and to have lots of them across
London and across England. So she was somebody who
had some real gumption.
00:03:10
She knew what she
wanted, and she wanted to achieve those dreams. NARRATOR: Not the way of
life displayed by Martin.
00:03:15
TONY KENT: At the same
time, Martin Cavanagh had no discernible
source of income.
00:03:20
He spent his time supporting
Arsenal, and it seems drinking. NARRATOR: Prosecuting
barrister, Alexandra Healy.
00:03:27
ALEXANDRA HEALY:
They married in 2011. I think Sophie was 24 years
old when she got married.
00:03:32
It was a wedding
at which Sophie was said to look like a princess. They had-- everything was
white, everything was lavish.
00:03:38
EMMA KENNY: So it
really was an event. And there was clearly the
idea of it being a fairy tale
00:03:44
when they went through with it. NARRATOR: If their big
white wedding hinted at their aspirations
for life together,
00:03:50
the reality of their existence
was somewhat different. Firstly, they moved
into his mother's flat.
00:03:55
And then a short while
after that, they moved into a property of their own. EMMA KENNY: It was
above the Skoda garage,
00:04:01
and it's not exactly in
the most perfect location. So it shows you that they were
having those early relationship
00:04:06
struggles financially. NARRATOR: Sophie was determined
to make a comfortable life
00:04:10
for herself and Martin. TONY KENT: Sophie
found herself a job as a part-time cleaner in
Bromley, in the Bromley area.
00:04:16
The whole idea of the
job that Sophie had was so she could
save some money, and she'd get started on
what her real passion was.
00:04:22
And she worked as
many hours as she could to make that possible. NARRATOR: Martin Cavanagh
meanwhile, still a gym regular,
00:04:27
adorned his musclebound
chest with a tattoo expressing his devotion to
how his married life had
00:04:32
turned out. Before long, Mrs.
Cavanagh would realize that the extra-large
tattoo was just
00:04:38
one sign that her husband's
devotion was going too far. ALEXANDRA HEALY: He was quite a
controlling partner, and quite
00:04:46
possessive and jealous. EMMA KENNY: That statement
tattoo isn't just about him letting the world know
how much he loves his family,
00:04:52
it's that they belong to him. It's a possession issue. NARRATOR: Professor
Jane Monckton
00:04:56
Smith researches
the patterns that emerge in abusive relationships I find that quite concerning.
00:05:04
To say on a tattoo
that you have no life gives us an insight into
some of the anxieties
00:05:14
and some of the concerns
he had about the way relationships should be. No matter what you write
on your body, the assumption
00:05:22
there is that you've not
thought that things could ever go wrong, meaning that
in the likelihood,
00:05:26
he was never prepared for that
to actually come to an end. And that kind of
shows you his mindset;
00:05:31
his wife is his wife for life. JANE MONCKTON SMITH:
The relationship would have been dominated
by his anxieties
00:05:37
about that relationship ending. So he would have been possessive
and controlling to, in effect,
00:05:45
trap Sophie in the
relationship, so that he felt OK, he felt stable. EMMA KENNY: While he
definitely loved Sophie,
00:05:54
he loved her in a jealous way. And we see this in
controlling relationships. The belief is that their
partner is one step away always
00:06:03
from betraying
them, so they must keep a tight leash on them. NARRATOR: So paranoid was
Martin about the possibility
00:06:10
of Sophie leaving him that he
began to haunt her every move. ALEXANDRA HEALY: If she were to
go out on her own without him,
00:06:17
with friends or
something of that nature, he would tend to plague her with
telephone calls incessantly.
00:06:22
He was not happy with
her not being with him. Cavanagh is one
of those individuals
00:06:27
who has a very short fuse. He's your typical
road-rage person. An individual who,
if there's somebody
00:06:32
looking at him the wrong way,
is going to start a fight. So we know that
throughout his life,
00:06:37
he was one of those people
with that kind of streak. And certainly in his
marriage, it didn't
00:06:42
play out any differently. He was a bully. NARRATOR: The man
charged with one day
00:06:45
finding the truth about
the married couple and their relationship is
the top murder investigator,
00:06:50
Richard Vandenbergh. He would go into her
social media accounts. He would look at her phone.
00:06:57
On occasions, he
changed her passwords and spoke to people she was
communicating with, telling
00:07:05
them that he was Sophie. There'd been an occasion where
they'd booked a holiday, where
00:07:10
he ensured that he
was the lead person, and she was unable to change any
of the details of the holiday
00:07:15
and cancel the booking. She didn't like
that possessive, controlling behavior. You know, she felt like
it was constraining her.
00:07:25
She had things she wanted to do. She wanted to enjoy life. NARRATOR: Before
long, Sophie Cavanagh
00:07:30
was miserable in her
marriage with Martin. She started hinting
she wanted out. They separated on
more than one occasion.
00:07:39
Like many whirlwind
relationships, their relationship comes
crashing down within six years.
00:07:47
It's unsurprising. With Cavanagh
being such a bully, being incredibly jealous,
really controlling,
00:07:53
when you are the partner
of somebody like that, it is exhausting. You are constantly
walking on eggshells.
00:07:58
You don't ever feel
secure in your world. And you're just waiting for
the next set of questioning,
00:08:04
or the next argument. A very dominating,
controlling character, who took every opportunity
to spy on Sophie.
00:08:13
JANE MONCKTON SMITH: A lot
of people are controlling, and they are controlling
for different reasons.
00:08:17
High-risk controlling people
are largely controlling for two key reasons. One, that they might have
a personality disorder,
00:08:26
and just be very, very
focused on themselves and not really care
about anybody else.
00:08:31
Another broad category
is those people who are quite dependent
on the relationship,
00:08:37
only see themselves as
whole within a relationship. So they're quite needy. But they're high-risk because
their whole world falls apart
00:08:49
if the relationship falls apart. NARRATOR: Towards
the end of 2016, as Martin's controlling
behavior escalated,
00:08:56
things came to a head in
the Cavanagh household. ALEXANDRA HEALY:
There was an incident
00:09:01
then on the Boxing Day, which
again, related to his jealousy. Because they having
been separated,
00:09:10
Sophie had used her social
media to date other people. I think he found her Kik
Messenger application
00:09:19
and found that she had
been messaging somebody, and this infuriated him. And he went onto Kik
Messenger, and he
00:09:27
sent a message to
the person, telling them to keep away from her. He, I think,
changed the password
00:09:33
to her social media account. He ended up smashing her
mobile phone on that occasion,
00:09:42
and there was a
physical altercation. The police were called, and he
was arrested and interviewed
00:09:47
in relation to that incident. JANE MONCKTON SMITH: Cavanagh
was a controlling person.
00:09:51
And the reason he
was controlling is because he wanted to trap
Sophie within the relationship.
00:09:56
So all of that control,
all of that abuse was to stop her leaving. Of course, it had
the opposite effect
00:10:03
because Sophie actually wanted
to end the relationship, she wanted to leave. And when he found that out,
that's all his fears realized
00:10:13
all at once, the worst
possible thing was happening, it's like putting a stick
into a hornet's nest.
00:10:20
NARRATOR: They had met. They had married. But six years on, the
world that Martin Cavanagh
00:10:25
said was his everything,
his reason for living, was slipping away. It meant that Sophie was
in a dangerous place.
00:10:33
The thing that this
person has been guarding against for the
entire relationship,
00:10:38
there it is, it's happened. And what they
usually do is panic. Cavanagh felt that if
he couldn't have his wife,
00:10:46
then nobody could. NARRATOR: It was
on Boxing Day 2016 that Sophie Cavanagh
told her husband, Martin,
00:11:00
that their marriage was over. TONY KENT: She leaves
Martin, and she finds her way back to Croydon.
00:11:04
She gets herself her own flat. RICHARD VANDENBERGH: She was
a young, fun-loving person.
00:11:09
She had her whole
life ahead of her and was looking to move
on, looking to enjoy life.
00:11:15
Sophie's really looking
to the future now. She wants to build a
new life for herself.
00:11:19
She wants to build an
online beauty brand. She's boasting on
Facebook about it, about how she's a "boss
girl" building her brand.
00:11:25
NARRATOR: Martin moved
to a one-bedroom flat on Chatterton Road in Bromley. Though Sophie had ended
things with Martin,
00:11:33
she couldn't wash her
hands completely of him. She would still involve
Martin in her life.
00:11:38
Despite all these
things he was doing, she tried to involve
him in her life. EMMA KENNY: One of the
key characteristics
00:11:42
we see in Sophie is
that she's a peacemaker. She doesn't really want any
antagonism, or any arguments.
00:11:47
So when Cavanagh asks her to
meet up with him for days out, she does it to placate him.
00:11:52
NARRATOR: But in denial about
the end of the marriage, Martin would simply not let go.
00:11:56
JANE MONCKTON SMITH: He
knows that whatever happens, he's going to have some
connection to Sophie
00:12:01
for the rest of her life. And it also will help to
keep some of the panic at bay if she leaves
him, because he
00:12:09
knows that connection is there. He clearly was
not happy accepting the end of the relationship.
00:12:17
Sophie had moved on,
but was trying her best to handle him in a way. Sometimes it involved
deflecting what he was saying,
00:12:26
and in other times,
trying to ignore him when he was pestering
her, or threatening
00:12:30
to come and see her when
she didn't want to see him. NARRATOR: Sophie filled
out divorce papers
00:12:36
and asked him to sign them. There was no ambiguity
on what she wanted. Sophie wants to
move her life on.
00:12:42
She's desperate for a divorce,
but he will not agree to it. TONY KENT: Martin has
no intention of letting
00:12:48
this be the end of things. She is desperate-- Sophie
is desperate for a divorce by this point.
00:12:54
She has tried everything she
can to force the divorce. And Martin just will not let
her have one, because Martin has
00:13:00
not accepted that his
possessions, allegedly his world and his
life, his possessions,
00:13:07
are no longer his own. He's saying no, this is one
bit of power that I have got,
00:13:12
I'm not giving you a divorce. NARRATOR: In fact, far from
granting her a divorce,
00:13:17
Martin tried to find more ways
to keep Sophie tied to him. ALEXANDRA HEALY: Sophie didn't
have a car available to her.
00:13:23
Her car had been off-road
for tax purposes, she said as a result of Martin's
recommendation to save money.
00:13:33
And so the idea was that
she would borrow his car. But he would then use
the offer of the loan
00:13:40
of his car to continue
to try to control her. And so if she needed the car
to get to a cleaning job,
00:13:46
because she was working
sometimes as a cleaner, they would have arrangements. And he would then leave
the car, but not the keys.
00:13:53
She would be waiting to go to
work, waiting for him to drop the car off, and he would
refuse to drop the car off, just
00:13:59
to frustrate her life. NARRATOR: Things
became even worse for Sophie when
she decided it was
00:14:03
time for a new man in her life. She wants to meet new people. She wants to date people.
00:14:08
She starts up an
online dating profile. NARRATOR: Martin Cavanagh was
not about to let that happen.
00:14:13
The muscle-bound, gym
enthusiast may have appeared very intimidating. He finds a way to
contact the people
00:14:20
with whom she's making dates. He texts them and calls them. He frightens them off.
00:14:27
ALEXANDRA HEALY:
He was somebody who had said at times during
their relationship,
00:14:32
if he couldn't have
her, nobody could. And he put that into
practice in doing everything
00:14:38
that he could to disrupt
her opportunities of going out with other men. She would use social media
sometimes to meet people,
00:14:47
and he would become aware of it. Maybe he knew her passwords, but
he would access dating sites,
00:14:55
change her profile
on dating sites, send messages to people with
whom she was in contact,
00:15:00
in an effort to scupper
her making, or moving on with other relationships. JANE MONCKTON SMITH: He's
thinking, how do I keep
00:15:07
this relationship together? How do I get her back? But he's in a state of panic.
00:15:12
So his controlling
behaviors start to escalate, and he starts stalking her. So he's outside of
the relationship
00:15:23
as far as she's concerned, but
in his head, he's still in it. And he's following her,
surveilling her, seeing
00:15:31
if she's meeting other men. If he finds out that she
is meeting other men, he tries to go
and warn them off.
00:15:38
You know, he's doing
everything in his power to stop her moving on. NARRATOR: One night in
February 2018, Martin
00:15:46
took drastic action
when his efforts to ruin Sophie's love life didn't work. She made him really
jealous by the fact
00:15:53
that after meeting
up with him, she confessed to him
that she was going to go and see another man.
00:15:58
He became infuriated that
he couldn't get hold of her, knowing that she was
with another man.
00:16:03
He was bombarding his wife
with texts, with messages. He was bombarding
friends, trying to find
00:16:10
out exactly where she was. NARRATOR: Ten months later,
Barrister Alexandra Healy
00:16:16
would play for a jury messages
left by Martin Cavanagh that night. ALEXANDRA HEALY:
What the trial heard
00:16:22
were a series of recordings, of
voicemail messages that he left for a mutual friend as he tried
to persuade the friend to tell
00:16:30
him where Sophie was, because
he didn't know where she was, and he couldn't get her
to answer the telephone.
00:16:35
And it showed him
apparently searching for Sophie in his car, waiting
outside her mother's house.
00:16:43
Desperate to find
out where she was, unable to bear the thought
that she was with another man,
00:16:48
and then saying that he
didn't know what he was going to do if he found her. NARRATOR: When Martin
failed to find Sophie,
00:16:55
he made a dramatic
video call to a friend, a man called Plowman,
who he thought might be able to reveal
the whereabouts of Sophie.
00:17:03
ALEXANDRA HEALY: Martin
Cavanagh was at home. He was seen to pick up
a knife on the video
00:17:08
and hold it against his neck. And Mr. Plowman said he saw
red coloring on the neck.
00:17:13
So whether, in fact,
the defendant even went to the lengths of getting
some ketchup or something
00:17:18
of that nature, I don't know. But having held the
knife to his neck and there being apparent
redness, he then collapsed.
00:17:24
Police were called
to his address, but they found him unharmed. This was clearly just him
trying to prompt Sophie
00:17:33
to reach out to him again. He was so manipulative as to
even fake a suicide attempt,
00:17:38
thinking that
surely will push him to reveal where Sophie is and/or
get Sophie to come and see him.
00:17:45
And that was a completely
fabricated suicide attempt. NARRATOR: It was a desperate
play for Sophie's attention.
00:17:52
And it was by no
means his final play. JANE MONCKTON SMITH: This is
where Cavanagh would have made
00:17:59
a decision about how
he was going to finally resolve the situation. And I think from--
00:18:07
maybe from things that
happened afterwards, this is the point at
which he made the decision
00:18:13
that he was going to kill her. NARRATOR: After months of
begging, threatening, stalking,
00:18:18
manipulating Sophie, desperate
to get back into her bed, in May 2018, he
tried a new tactic.
00:18:24
On the 15th of May, Cavanagh
sent Sophie a whole load of WhatsApp messages. A number of them were rambling,
where he was accusing her
00:18:33
of breaking him, and
saying other really, really unpleasant things to her. NARRATOR: Angry that Sophie had
refused to see him that night,
00:18:40
Martin was drowning his sorrows
in the pub with friends. That evening, he drank, and
he may have taken some cocaine.
00:18:47
And one could see
from his messages that they became more
and more paranoid, more
00:18:52
and more jealous. He was more and more angry. He sent her a message which
he introduced by saying--
00:18:58
it's going to sound
strange, but he said, you've stripped for money,
for peanuts, online--
00:19:05
so he'd apparently been told
she was stripping online-- so I want you to sleep
with me one final time.
00:19:13
NARRATOR: One message said,
"You have broken, shattered, destroyed, ripped me to shreds.
00:19:19
I want to have u 1
last final time ok." Another one begged, "And I mean
badly it's all I fink about."
00:19:26
TONY KENT: And he tells
her, I've got 100 pounds. I want to have sex
with you one last time.
00:19:31
I want to-- I need it. I'm obsessing with it. This is the thing
that I have to do.
00:19:35
NARRATOR: Repeating
his untrue claim, he said, "u stripped online
to strangers for money.
00:19:41
If you were able to do
that then plz Sophie I'm begging you plz do this
for me just 1 last time plz."
00:19:47
"Uno wot I've got 100
pounds hear spare. I won't see it as I'm
paying to sleep wiv u,
00:19:54
but at least that way u
get something out of it." Another message, "It will mean
nothing, it won't lead me on.
00:20:00
I'm just craving to have
you 4 1 last final time. PLEASE SOPHIE." ALEXANDRA HEALY: He effectively
said, "it won't lead me on,"
00:20:09
so it was clear that
he knew that she was trying to get him to accept
the relationship was over.
00:20:15
And he'd come up with this
rather bizarre proposal, which was if she
slept with him that
00:20:20
would help him have closure. NARRATOR: Sophie refused,
telling her family she was furious and disgusted.
00:20:26
Once again, she tried
to put some distance between her and
her obsessive ex. But once again, he
appeared to know just
00:20:34
the line to reel her back in. And this time, he had
more than sex on his mind. This was the moment he was
going to make his decision;
00:20:41
you either get back
with me, or I kill you. NARRATOR: On Friday,
the 18th of May 2018,
00:20:55
Martin Cavanagh contacted
his estranged wife, Sophie, with an urgent request. He cooks up this
story, saying that he
00:21:02
is about to be sentenced for
his part in a jewelry robbery. He's saying he's
facing 8 to 12 months.
00:21:08
JANE MONCKTON SMITH: In his
head, he's probably thinking, I'm going to give her one last
chance to change her mind.
00:21:16
I am going to-- because of the nice guy that
I am and because I love her, I'm going to give her one
last chance to come back to me
00:21:26
and save her own life. So he thinks up this-- another absurd story. ALEXANDRA HEALY: He told her
that his fingerprint had been
00:21:35
found on a watch stolen in
the robbery when someone had tried to sell the watch.
00:21:41
And as a result of that,
the police had contacted him and asked him to attend
the police station.
00:21:46
JANE MONCKTON SMITH:
He tells Sophie that he's about to be arrested. He tells her that within
days, he's going to be gone,
00:21:54
he's going to be
out of the picture. But this was just a ruse to
get her on her own with him,
00:22:03
have a family day, and give
her that last chance to say, yes, let's be a family again.
00:22:09
He'd done that because their
relationship was at an all-time low ebb after he'd asked her
to sleep with him for money,
00:22:15
and she was disgusted by it. So having reached
that very low ebb, he needed to come up with
something quite spectacular
00:22:21
in order to be
able to manipulate her to spend the day with him. NARRATOR: Perhaps
Martin Cavanagh
00:22:26
thought this would be the
dramatic scenario that would finally win his wife back.
00:22:30
But to Sophie,
agreeing to a day out was probably more about getting
Martin off her back once again.
00:22:35
In order to appease Cavanagh,
she agreed to go out with him. And on the 19th of May, they
went together to Wingham
00:22:41
Wildlife Park near Canterbury. EMMA KENNY: And I do think,
probably, part of that
00:22:44
is because she's hoping that
he will be going to prison, because she'll have
some relief from him.
00:22:48
There was CCTV footage showing
them having a happy day out. They returned to
Bromley, and then CCTV
00:22:57
showed them going
to a local pub, where they met some friends. And there was CCTV
footage showing
00:23:03
them apparently getting on well,
having a pleasant afternoon. It was a sunny afternoon.
00:23:09
They had some drinks in
the pub garden together. I think there may have been
some sport on an outdoor screen.
00:23:14
And then they returned
to Martin's flat. NARRATOR: To Martin, it had
been just like the old days.
00:23:21
Had he deluded himself that
he was winning his wife back? Cavanagh possibly
thought that things
00:23:25
were beginning to get back on
track between him and Sophie. But he was wrong. NARRATOR: What exactly happened
next may never be known.
00:23:32
ALEXANDRA HEALY:
They appear to have spent the evening together. I think some neighbors
were walking a dog
00:23:38
and heard a scream
that they thought sounded like someone in real
distress late in the evening.
00:23:44
NARRATOR: Only the
following morning did the estranged couple's
family begin to get an inkling
00:23:48
that something was wrong. NEIL LANCASTER: At 10 past
8 the following morning, Cavanagh goes to
his mother's house.
00:23:54
He's clearly in
a bit of a state. He tells his mother
that he's got to go to the police station.
00:23:59
NARRATOR: He then
leaves and doesn't make it clear to his
mother where he's going.
00:24:04
ALEXANDRA HEALY:
During the day, his mom tried to get hold of him to
find out where he was, sent
00:24:08
him messages, unsuccessfully. So she contacts a
couple of his friends and says, can you go
and have a look for him.
00:24:14
The friends that
Sophie and Martin had been out with the day before
had gone back to the flat.
00:24:22
They went to the address,
looked through the window, and saw Sophie's
handbag there, which
00:24:27
was unusual because Sophie
wasn't living there. Martin's mom gave
them the key to the flat
00:24:31
and asked them if they
could check the flat. When they returned to
the flat with the key,
00:24:36
they discovered that Sophie
was lying dead under the duvet, on the mattress in the bedroom.
00:24:40
She was naked. She had her clothing folded
neatly at the end of the bed. NARRATOR: 31-year-old
Sophie Cavanagh was dead.
00:24:49
Her estranged husband, Martin,
the last person to see her alive, was nowhere to be seen.
00:24:55
NEIL LANCASTER: While it's clear
from the outset to the police officers attending,
this is a murder scene,
00:24:59
their first job is to make sure
that Sophie is in fact dead. Of course, they checked,
and she was deceased.
00:25:05
When we first
took the case on, we didn't know
where Cavanagh was. And we believed he'd
been on the run.
00:25:11
NARRATOR: DCI
Richard Vandenbergh was tasked with finding out
how Sophie had died, and why.
00:25:17
Upon the initial
finding of Sophie, it was unclear at this stage,
whether it was indeed a murder
00:25:23
or not. There was no obvious
signs of injury to Sophie. There were no signs
of a disturbance
00:25:29
to speak of at the address. The flat itself was
very untidy, but there was no clear disturbance
that was obvious.
00:25:37
NARRATOR: Work had already begun
to build a picture of what had actually happened at the flat.
00:25:41
RICHARD VANDENBERGH: There
was another team that first went to the address from
the homicide assessment car,
00:25:47
and made the initial assessment,
and secured the crime scene. ALEXANDRA HEALY: There
was in the kitchen dustbin
00:25:52
a mobile telephone that
had been destroyed, as well as a pair of
scissors that were bent.
00:25:57
Her handbag had
been-- the contents of her handbag appeared
to have been tipped out.
00:26:01
In the living room was a
child's easel-type whiteboard, and there was a note on the
whiteboard that was written,
00:26:10
we believe, by Martin. He thanks his family, which
we believe is directed probably towards his mom.
00:26:17
He then goes on to talk
about no more suffering. There were the words,
"she deserved it."
00:26:21
NARRATOR: Police suspected those
words amounted to a confession. RICHARD VANDENBERGH: It
became apparent to me
00:26:26
fairly quickly that Martin was
pivotal to the investigation, and we needed to ask
questions of him.
00:26:34
NARRATOR: They had a potential
murderer on the loose, and they had no idea what
his mental state might be.
00:26:39
I had concerns around the
phrase in the whiteboard, "together forever and
no more suffering."
00:26:44
I thought that he was going
to be committing suicide. NARRATOR: It was clear to London
Metropolitan Police's Homicide
00:26:50
Major Crimes team that
catching up with Martin was a matter of urgency. This is now a manhunt.
00:26:56
The police are
searching for Cavanagh. They know he is the only
suspect to this offense.
00:27:01
They're looking all over. There is a media appeal for him. RICHARD VANDENBERGH:
Martin was on the run.
00:27:05
We needed to try and
locate where Martin was. One, for his own welfare
and his own safety.
00:27:10
But equally, for the
investigation of Sophie's murder, he was a prime suspect. I put out a media appeal--
00:27:19
we had a photograph of Martin-- with a view of identifying
him to the public and asking for help in
locating where Martin is.
00:27:27
We knew Martin had family in
the area and ties to the area, so I never suspected
that he'd gone very far.
00:27:34
So it was important that we
use the media to try and flush him out, or to locate him.
00:27:39
NARRATOR: In the
meantime, pathologists confirmed what Detective
Vandenbergh had suspected.
00:27:43
Because there was
no clear injuries at the scene to Sophie, a
special post-mortem was held.
00:27:51
And it wasn't until
that post-mortem that we identified that she
had bruising around her neck,
00:27:57
under the skin. But also that she
had hemorrhaging around the eye sockets. She had been strangled.
00:28:03
She had bruising
around her neck. She had what are called
petechial hemorrhaging
00:28:10
in her eyes. So the capillaries in
the eyes are very thin, and if a person constricts
the blood supply to the head,
00:28:22
because the arteries are
thicker walled than the veins, blood still goes to
the head, but can't
00:28:33
get away because the veins
are compressed by the pressure to the neck. And that causes the
pressure to build up.
00:28:38
So then the very smallest
capillaries, those burst. And when those
capillaries burst,
00:28:44
you get petechial hemorrhaging. She also had congestion
to her face, which again,
00:28:49
is a sign of the blood
having gathered in her head and not been able
to be released.
00:28:54
And that's an
indication that there's been pressure to the neck. So this did show to us
that Sophie's cause of death
00:29:00
was strangulation. NARRATOR: Sophie's death was
no accident, no sudden illness, she had been murdered.
00:29:06
The autopsy that
was carried out stated that he must
have strangled her for a sustained period
of time to ensure
00:29:14
that she was not only
unconscious, but was, in fact, dead. NARRATOR: It was now even
more crucial to track down
00:29:20
and apprehend her former
husband, Martin Cavanagh, suspect number one
in a case of murder.
00:29:27
He didn't travel far as
part of his escape plan On the 23rd of May, Martin
was found by his family,
00:29:33
hiding in the garden shed. Police had arranged to go
around to the family address
00:29:37
and take some
statements that day. But before we got
round there, they'd discovered Martin and
taken him in their car
00:29:44
to Bromley Police Station. ALEXANDRA HEALY:
When he was arrested, and he gave himself
up to the police,
00:29:50
as they were arresting--
this was all captured on CCTV in the police station-- he said, I would
never hurt a woman.
00:29:57
And he said, that's why
I run, I tried to do CPR. NARRATOR: Martin
Cavanagh was denying
00:30:02
that he had murdered his wife. Was he implying that he'd
simply discovered Sophie
00:30:06
already lifeless on the floor? RICHARD VANDENBERGH: Martin
made a comment to an officer
00:30:10
that he wouldn't hurt a
fly, that he'd even tried to do breaths and
pumps on her, but had
00:30:17
to stop because her
nose started to bleed. NARRATOR: Where custody
officers were booking Martin in,
00:30:21
they found in his pockets
three of Sophie's bank cards. But when questioned,
he gave no explanation
00:30:28
for that, or for anything else. When he was
formally interviewed, he elected to make no
comment to the questions
00:30:34
that were asked of him. He was charged and
remanded in custody. NARRATOR: Detectives
were left with the task
00:30:39
of finding out exactly
what had happened on the Cavanagh family day out. RICHARD VANDENBERGH: During
the early hours, he'd been out,
00:30:45
and met with a drug dealer,
and bought drugs, and would return to the address. NARRATOR: In December 2018,
as families around the world
00:31:00
began their preparations
for Christmas, Martin Cavanagh went on
trial for murdering his wife.
00:31:05
RICHARD VANDENBERGH:
At court, Martin maintained that, yes, he had
grabbed Sophie around the neck,
00:31:11
but that he'd let go. And he certainly
didn't strangle her to the point of suffocation.
00:31:16
He said that they had
spent the day together. He said they had a very nice
day and they'd returned.
00:31:20
They'd gone to the pub
and had a very nice time, and then returned to his flat. He said at the flat, they
had a pleasant evening.
00:31:28
TONY KENT: Martin
claimed that, in fact, he'd acted in self-defense. He claimed that they'd been
drinking together, that they
00:31:34
had taken cocaine together. ALEXANDRA HEALY: They
then went on, he said, to have an in-depth, a
very nice conversation
00:31:40
about their relationship
over the years. And what had gone
wrong, and what they'd
00:31:45
done to one another, which had
exacerbated their relationship difficulties. In the context of this
heart-to-heart conversation,
00:31:52
he told her that he'd
lied about the robbery. And he said, she then got irate. And then after that,
Sophie had attacked him.
00:32:03
And that when she attacked him,
he restrained her by putting his hands around her neck.
00:32:08
So he described having
held her back by his hand to her neck for a
short period of time.
00:32:15
But he said there
were no ill-effects. He didn't describe her
as having collapsed.
00:32:20
He said, in fact, she
kneed him to the testicles, and that caused him
to take his hand down.
00:32:26
And then she walked
off into the hallway. JANE MONCKTON SMITH: In
court, Cavanagh claimed
00:32:31
that Sophie had attacked him. It's just, you know-- it's
just a ridiculous defense,
00:32:38
and he was just trying to
get himself out of trouble. He was trying to say, look all
this violence was spontaneous,
00:32:46
nobody could have predicted it. NARRATOR: A forensic
examination of Sophie's phone
00:32:50
opened up questions about
his version of events. The phone itself had
been found at the scene.
00:32:55
That phone was found after
the murder was discovered, to have been broken apart
and destroyed, and was
00:33:03
found in the kitchen dustbin. NARRATOR: Much more damage
than simply a cracked screen.
00:33:08
Forensic teams also
discovered that Sophie had apparently continued to
use it long after the incident.
00:33:14
Impossible, as she
was dead, so somebody else must have been using it. If your telephone
is switched on,
00:33:21
it continually sends GPRS
signals to the masks, so you can tell when a phone
is switched on and connected
00:33:29
to the telephone network. And Sophie's phone
remained on until shortly after midnight, when it
disconnected from the network
00:33:37
and didn't ever reconnect. NARRATOR: Martin had
long been fixated on Sophie's use of her
phone and, in particular,
00:33:43
who she was contacting. Would that same phone
now be the evidence that gave lie to his
version of events,
00:33:50
events that he offered as
proof of his innocence? Martin told the court that
Sophie had talked about taking
00:33:56
sleeping tablets,
and that he had also heard a crash in the
hallway and wondered
00:34:00
if she'd banged her head. TONY KENT: What makes his not
guilty plea even more bizarre
00:34:06
is that when Sophie's body was
discovered, there was a note. And it was unmistakably written
by Martin, because Martin
00:34:13
was at best illiterate. It was written in what
could almost be described as badly spelled text speak.
00:34:21
It effectively said that
he had killed Sophie and that she deserved it. NARRATOR: He was sowing
seeds of doubt for the jury
00:34:29
about what had killed her. ALEXANDRA HEALY: But he
said she came to bed, so they slept in the same bed.
00:34:37
What he then said was, he
checked her and realized that she wasn't breathing. And he then described
having attempted
00:34:47
to carry out CPR on her for a
period of time, unsuccessfully. And so he then said, he
realized she had died,
00:34:57
and he then decided to
finish off the cocaine they already had in the flat. NARRATOR: Alexandra
Healy presented the jury
00:35:04
with a completely
different story. ALEXANDRA HEALY:
The prosecution case was this was a nonsense story.
00:35:09
If he had put his
hands to her neck and then she had
recovered, then she would not subsequently have died.
00:35:15
If the pressure to her
veins had been removed, the blood flow would
have been restored,
00:35:22
and there would be no
reason for her to have died. There was absolutely
no way that she recovered
00:35:27
consciousness, or continued
to operate in any way, shape, or form from the point at which
the pressure around her neck
00:35:34
was released. In other words, he killed her
there, and he killed her then, and he intended to do it.
00:35:40
NARRATOR: Had it finally
dawned on Martin Cavanagh, his marriage was over? RICHARD VANDENBERGH: We'll never
really know the conversation
00:35:46
that triggered the
murder that night, but it potentially could have
been the fact that Sophie
00:35:52
was looking to get a divorce. We discovered divorce
papers in Sophie's flat, and she was in the
background, trying to obtain
00:36:01
a divorce against Martin. After her death,
a divorce petition was found that she'd clearly
taken out a year earlier,
00:36:08
but never actually filed. It got to the
point for Cavanagh where he could see the
situation was irretrievable
00:36:15
and Sophie wasn't coming back. This is a really dangerous
time, this last-chance thinking.
00:36:20
It's the time when killers
decide they're going to kill. There was a confrontation
between herself and Martin.
00:36:28
That confrontation
ended in Martin taking Sophie by the
neck and strangling her until she was dead.
00:36:35
That's a really
intimate murder. It's being able to see the
life going from the person
00:36:42
that you're killing. That's the biggest type of power
play that you'll ever have,
00:36:46
it's snuffing the life
out of your victim. NARRATOR: Even more intimate
was what Martin did next.
00:36:52
EMMA KENNY: After
he murders her, he strips her and
puts her in bed. And I imagine that this is about
trying to play out some fantasy
00:36:58
of when she was his. And now, she's powerless,
and she can't leave him, and he has full
possession of her.
00:37:06
I think Martin killed Sophie
because he couldn't accept the relationship was over.
00:37:11
And he couldn't
live with the fact that she was moving on
and wanting to meet, or meeting other people.
00:37:18
And he couldn't handle that. NARRATOR: According
to the prosecution, after killing Sophie, Martin
had needed to calm his nerves.
00:37:24
ALEXANDRA HEALY:
Further investigations revealed that her
card had been used at a cash point in the
early hours of the morning.
00:37:31
And in fact, further
CCTV coverage showed that a car
arrived outside the flat, picked Martin up in the
early hours of the morning,
00:37:39
traveled to a cashpoint, where
he was to use Sophie's card to withdraw 250 pounds in cash.
00:37:46
And it's apparent
from the text messages surrounding that journey, that
the person who picked him up
00:37:52
was a drug dealer. He was getting cash
out in order to buy yet more cocaine, which he
then took after Sophie
00:37:59
had died that night. NARRATOR: Having killed Sophie,
Martin scrawled a message on the family whiteboard.
00:38:05
RICHARD VANDENBERGH: What Martin
had written on the whiteboard was really important
for the case,
00:38:11
because it showed
that he had made an admission of sorts
around what he had done,
00:38:19
"she deserved it." ALEXANDRA HEALY: He couldn't
explain what he'd written. And he couldn't account
for it, because he
00:38:26
said he was now off his
head because of the drugs that he'd taken. So we can see in his head how
he's perceiving this murder.
00:38:36
He thinks he's a victim. He thinks she caused this, she
brought all this on herself,
00:38:44
and he is entirely justified. NARRATOR: Throughout the trial,
Martin Cavanagh continued
00:38:50
to maintain his innocence. Would his version of
events be believed? ALEXANDRA HEALY: It's extremely
difficult, whether you're
00:38:56
prosecuting or
defending, to even begin to predict what a jury will do. And the moment you start
thinking you might know,
00:39:05
they will always surprise you. NARRATOR: On the
10th of December, the jury returned their verdict.
00:39:10
Had Martin's tale
of self-defense, of an accidental death
that was not his doing,
00:39:13
sewn enough doubt
in the jury's minds? The jury didn't believe him. They convicted him of murder.
00:39:20
Cavanagh was sentenced
to life imprisonment with a minimum term of
16 years to be served.
00:39:26
He clearly had a very
jealous personality. And he clearly could not
accept that Sophie wanted
00:39:35
to move on with her life. He accepted that he drank and
took cocaine, both on the night
00:39:42
and on other occasions,
and it's likely that both alcohol and cocaine
would exacerbate any feelings
00:39:51
of paranoia and jealousy. NARRATOR: When Sophie
met Martin Cavanagh, she was a young woman who
was determined to succeed.
00:39:57
JANE MONCKTON SMITH: She
got into a relationship. She committed to him. She couldn't have
known when she first
00:40:03
met him how dangerous he was. NARRATOR: When Martin's
controlling and jealous ways
00:40:08
began to grind her down, Sophie
took the decision to leave him. But by then, it was too late.
00:40:14
Martin had decided that she
would be his or nobody else's. RICHARD VANDENBERGH: I
think it's really important
00:40:21
that people recognize the
signs, and they understand what a healthy
relationship looks like
00:40:26
and what a controlled
relationship might look like. And if they're in that
kind of relationship,
00:40:31
seek help, seek advice,
speak to the police. If somebody is routinely
possessive, routinely jealous,
00:40:38
and tries to control
what you do or do not do, I say get out,
and get out quick.
00:40:45
NARRATOR: In his sentencing
remarks at the Old Bailey, Judge Michael Grieve said that
Martin Cavanagh had begged
00:40:51
his wife to sleep
with him and even offered a hundred pounds before
acting out of pent-up jealousy.
00:40:58
"You had resolved," the
judge told the court, "that if you could
not have Sophie,
00:41:02
no-one else was going to. You caused a wholly
unnecessary death." The man who had
professed to the world
00:41:08
his love of family on an
unmissable chest tattoo had taken his wife's life.