00:00:05
[phone rings] NARRATOR: Police first,
ambulance second. The caller's wife
apparently dead at the hands
00:00:26
of a policeman. Adrian Goldsmith is
quite a strange character, and I think that he
was and always had
00:00:34
been quite a dangerous person. The death of Jill Goldsmith
has had a big impact in both the local community and
within Northamptonshire Police,
00:00:43
as the accused has been a
member of this organization for 27 years. NARRATOR: But the
veteran police officer
00:00:49
has a defense, self-defense. Goldsmith told police that
Jill was on drugs, that she was
00:00:57
having some sort of
psychotic episode and had attacked him with
a knife and a broken glass.
00:01:03
NARRATOR: What is the truth? Is PC Adrian Goldsmith
the abused or the abuser? [music playing]
00:01:36
All over the world, women
turn to police officers for help when facing danger. The forces of law and order
are trusted in an emergency.
00:01:44
But there are occasions when
it is the police themselves who partners need protection from.
00:01:49
In Houston, Texas, for
example, when Susan White faced a man whose advances
she'd already rejected,
00:01:55
she called the police for help. NARRATOR: It turned out the they
she referred to was one man,
00:02:08
and he was the police
himself, Officer Kent McGowan. If a guy like Kant
McGowan wants to kill you,
00:02:14
he's going to kill you. He just managed to do it
under the color of law. NARRATOR: Another
example from Scotland,
00:02:20
Alex Farquharson always knew
her husband was a womanizer. And the evidence had
indicated that his wife had come
00:02:27
across on his own phone
some contact between himself and someone with whom he'd
started an affair, something
00:02:36
like 11 or 12 years earlier. NARRATOR: The couple
argued about it, but when Keith
Farquharson became
00:02:42
abusive towards his wife,
who could she turn to? He had been a long
serving police officer.
00:02:48
I know this from experience. Just imagine being a
victim of police officers who are abusing you.
00:02:54
Do you ring 999, or
111, or whatever it is? If you ring them
up, do you think that that person at
the end of the phone
00:03:00
will keep this confidential? So she would have been really
reluctant to report anything
00:03:06
that was happening
to her because she couldn't trust the system. NARRATOR: The police are
often in the front line
00:03:11
when it comes to tackling
domestic abuse as it escalates, potentially towards murder.
00:03:16
They provide a vital
lifeline to victims. But serving police officers
throughout the world
00:03:21
can be the abusers themselves. Between 2015 and 2018,
in one country, Britain, there were 700 cases of
police officers reported
00:03:30
for domestic abuse, a fact
which led lawyers at the Center for Women's Justice
to take action.
00:03:36
Center for Women's Justice
recently launched what's known as a super complaint around this
very issue, police-perpetrated
00:03:45
domestic abuse. If they are not immediately
held accountable for any abuse of
that power, then
00:03:51
they can continue doing so. NARRATOR: It's an
issue the world over, who polices the police
when it is a police officer
00:03:59
suspected of domestic abuse? A question facing
one force in 2016 when a wife was
reported for attacking
00:04:06
her police officer
husband, only for the woman herself to end up dead. Northamptonshire police couldn't
investigate one of their own.
00:04:15
ANDY FROST: In order to ensure
that a thorough transparent investigation took place, we've
used officers from the East
00:04:22
Midlands Serious
Crime Unit to conduct their independent
investigation on our behalf.
00:04:35
NARRATOR: Adrian Goldsmith's
long career in the police force had been largely unremarkable.
00:04:39
Former serving police
officer, Jane Monckton Smith has been looking at the case.
00:04:44
Adrian Goldsmith had
been a serving police officer for a very long time. It is really all
he had ever done.
00:04:55
He had not risen
to dizzy heights. He hadn't really had anything
in his career that made
00:05:02
him stand out as an individual. I think the only
thing he got really was a Long Service Medal.
00:05:08
He'd managed to stay in for
a great number of years. In 2009 when Goldsmith
was a detective constable,
00:05:16
he was awarded the Police Long
Service and Good Conduct Medal. NARRATOR: Despite a lack of
progress through the ranks,
00:05:23
being a police officer
was a lifelong commitment. He stuck to his job no
matter at times the risks
00:05:30
to Agent Goldsmith. Goldsmith joined the
police back in 1986. 1986 was a time when policing
was very male-dominated.
00:05:39
Women were not featured
largely in the police service in those days. And we noticed that Goldsmith
then went on to work
00:05:46
in the Dangerous Offender Unit. And units like that attract
a certain kind of kudos.
00:05:51
There's no doubt that
policing attracts some men who are attracted by having
power and having the power
00:06:01
and also the status
of a police officer. NARRATOR: Officer Goldsmith,
known in the force as Otis,
00:06:07
met Jill Rowland in 2011. Jill was a domestic
cleaner with a son from a previous relationship.
00:06:14
She met Goldsmith in 2011. And the following year,
they moved into a house together just next door
to Northamptonshire Police
00:06:23
Headquarters. NARRATOR: Both in their mid 40s,
Adrian came to the relationship after a couple of
failed marriages.
00:06:31
Jill was a widow. Adrian told friends they
were enjoying a fairy tale romance, that
their courtship was
00:06:37
the happiest time of his life. Jill's story is
so typical of women who has met this man,
who believes him to be
00:06:45
a strong, good, safe person. Supportive of the fact, she
moved in with him very quickly,
00:06:52
believing that he's the
man she wants to settle down with and be with. They get married, her
son moves in with them.
00:07:00
It sounds like a great,
perfect type of relationship. NARRATOR: Jill Barr is a former
police inspector and an expert
00:07:07
in domestic abuse. JILL BARR: Jill met Goldsmith
and the relationship, she moved in with
him very quickly.
00:07:13
And you could assume
that Goldsmith could be a bit of a charmer
initially, and she
00:07:17
moved into a house very close
to the police headquarters. So again, that sense of
trust, that sense of he's
00:07:24
a police officer
and we're living very close to
headquarters, all is well. Police officers often are
seen as upstanding citizens.
00:07:35
They've served the country,
they've done good deeds. [music playing] NARRATOR: Shortly after the
couple had begun dating,
00:07:48
a professional
setback for Adrian. Clare Mackintosh, also
a former police officer.
00:07:54
In 2012, Goldsmith was
placed under investigation by the force's professional
standards unit.
00:08:02
He was accused of
data mismanagement, and he was subject to an
internal investigation
00:08:07
and placed on indefinite leave. Data mismanagement
allegations sounds as if it's probably
quite non-dangerous,
00:08:19
perhaps a bit trivial. But actually, data
mismanagement could have very strong links
to misuse of power
00:08:28
and misuse of information. So it could potentially
be quite serious. As a result of the stress
of that investigation,
00:08:35
he was on long-term sick leave NARRATOR: Adrian told a
friend that the investigation
00:08:39
felt like being on death row. And it wasn't just his
reputation at stake, it was his future
financial security.
00:08:46
For Goldsmith, the police
pension is a really big thing. He joined the service in 1986.
00:08:51
In those days, a final salary
pension, it was a pot of gold and every police officer
aim was to get to the 30
00:08:57
years and that pot of gold. They paid a lot
into it, but it's still a large sum of money.
00:09:02
Disciplinary proceedings
could potentially cause him to lose his pension. NARRATOR: Officers visited him
during his period of sick leave
00:09:11
and noted another problem. Stress had led Goldsmith
to habitually drinking excessively.
00:09:18
We have evidence of
this from his colleagues that had concern about
him drinking at work
00:09:21
and his performance at work. We've had his point
of contact officer, there was concerns
about alcohol.
00:09:27
He was using alcohol every day. NARRATOR: After an
inquiry in September 2013, Otis Goldsmith was told
he could keep his job,
00:09:35
but he received an
official warning. Back at work, though,
the drinking continued.
00:09:40
Goldsmith used
alcohol, and Goldsmith was alcohol-dependent. His colleagues, when he
was in the police force,
00:09:46
commented on this. In fact, there was suspicion of
him being under the influence
00:09:50
of alcohol quite early on. The decision was made
to watch and see, I think was the
phrase that was used
00:09:55
just to see how it was going. NARRATOR: Jill stood
by him throughout this traumatic period
and to all appearances,
00:10:01
the relationship was solid. It was reported by friends
that Jill was a lovely person,
00:10:05
very kind and thoughtful. The couple were initially
very happy together. And in May 2014,
they got married.
00:10:12
You're always invested in the
second marriage in a way that's very distinct from the first.
00:10:17
You want the next one
to last a lifetime. NARRATOR: But it would not be
long before the marriage would
00:10:22
run into trouble with
Officer Goldsmith writing bizarre and critical
notes about his wife.
00:10:27
One of these
notes have 23 pages. So this is kind of an
obsessive-compulsive action
00:10:36
on his part. NARRATOR: The heavy
drinking policeman and the devoted wife, what
had happened to make this
00:10:42
a tale destined for tragedy? [music playing] Married in 2014, but according
to Adrian "Otis" Goldsmith,
00:10:55
by 2015, the relationship
between him and his wife, Jill, had turned sour. By the time they
took their honeymoon
00:11:03
in the summer of
that year, things had already started
to deteriorate. He said he'd become a
doormat and a punchbag.
00:11:10
NARRATOR: He would soon find
fault with his new wife. Her age, he would
claim, put her off sex.
00:11:16
So Jill is going
along to speak to a GP because she's got a
low libido and she was going to seek advice
around the menopause hormone
00:11:23
replacement therapy. NARRATOR: Another issue
Goldsmith would claim, Jill's use of drugs.
00:11:28
He said that Jill
started using cannabis. NARRATOR: Goldsmith
began to make a record of how he
saw things, going as
00:11:35
far as secretly recording Jill. Goldsmith is known to have
recorded Jill in the bathroom
00:11:41
as he believed this would
evidence her using cannabis. In a healthy relationship, why
would somebody want to do that?
00:11:48
What is the gain from that? It's to use it against Jill. If she was using cannabis, why
would you want to record it?
00:11:56
But actually saying that
was the reason for doing it legitimizes it. I was worried about her.
00:12:02
She was using cannabis, so I've
recorded her in order to show her the error of her ways.
00:12:07
There's nothing to suggest
Jill was using cannabis, but it legitimizes his
reason for surveillance.
00:12:12
Recording somebody
in their own home, your wife, your partner,
somebody you love
00:12:18
is an abusive behavior. It's an ultimate
sign of control. NARRATOR: All this within
a year of their marriage,
00:12:23
meticulously noted by
Otis Goldsmith in writing. Adrian would keep forensic,
detailed notes of his feelings.
00:12:32
Some of his long rambling
missives that he would write would refer to
the fact that they
00:12:38
were at each other's throats. NARRATOR: Goldsmith's notes
also suggested that he had fears
00:12:43
for his own state of mind. This was far from
a happy marriage. One of these notes
amounting to 23 pages
00:12:52
detailed how Goldsmith
was increasingly concerned about his own behavior. He worried about the venom
that came out of his mouth
00:13:00
as though someone
else is saying it. Maybe these letters
took him into a world that he wasn't
actually living in.
00:13:12
He could be somebody else. He could be somebody
much cleverer. He could be somebody
much more heroic maybe,
00:13:20
and he could maybe
vent on what he saw as injustices and the
stupidity of other people.
00:13:29
NARRATOR: Or maybe he was laying
the groundwork for defense. There is a police officer who
knows about the ways in which
00:13:35
crimes are investigated,
and he's obviously laid a trail there to protect
himself by creating
00:13:41
a diary of being a victim. NARRATOR: His notes
revealed something else. Goldsmith felt that he
himself was a danger to Jill.
00:13:51
He admitted to being scared
of what he might do and didn't know how far this would go.
00:13:56
He felt he could explode. And says that
he felt genuinely scared of what happened
when the switch got flipped.
00:14:03
NEIL LANCASTER: He said when he
would be out walking scanning like Terminator was the
terminology he used,
00:14:08
scanning in on a
stick and thinking he could use it as a weapon. Here was a man who was
almost frightened of himself.
00:14:14
He knows that he's rageful. He knows he's paranoid
and suspicious. He describes how Jill refers
to him as Jekyll and Hyde.
00:14:23
Which would
indicate there's two different sides to Goldsmith. All these fantasy characters,
these frightening fantasy
00:14:31
characters kind of
gives us an insight into the way that he sees
himself as a lot less ordinary
00:14:41
than the evidence suggests. So this is kind of an
obsessive-compulsive action on his part that's maybe
feeding his view of himself.
00:14:54
This man was a police
constable for 30 years. He didn't rise
through the ranks. He didn't have any
bravery medals.
00:15:02
He didn't shine
in any way at all. He's not somebody who has
achieved much in his life.
00:15:09
NARRATOR: Within months
of their marriage, Mrs. Goldsmith would
find out exactly how
00:15:12
dangerous the groom could be. His alcohol use
appears to have got worse as he's been with Jill.
00:15:19
CLARE MACKINTOSH: Jill said that
she felt afraid of her husband when he drank alcohol,
and so he did make
00:15:25
an attempt to stop drinking. NARRATOR: But going booze-free
seemed to make things worse.
00:15:31
He found this very
difficult and it only added to his frustrations. Jill may have believed
that Goldsmith's behaviors
00:15:38
were due to his use of alcohol. There's a belief sometimes that
it's not him, it's the drink.
00:15:43
If only he stopped drinking,
he wouldn't be the way he is. It's quite possible
Jill believed
00:15:48
that the reason he
behaved like that was because he was
drinking too much. If only he didn't drink,
things would get better.
00:15:55
NARRATOR: The first six months
of the Goldsmith marriage were marred by blazing rounds.
00:15:59
In December 2014, the
couple briefly separated. In the new year, they hoped
a permanent change of scenery
00:16:05
might reset the
struggling marriage. The couple decided to
move to the countryside
00:16:10
to make a fresh start. There's obviously
a recognition that something needs to change.
00:16:15
And one of the shifts
that they think might improve their relationship
is to go somewhere more rural.
00:16:19
So that they can
potentially have a quieter life, a less stressful life. This is borne out by the
fact that his wife was actually
00:16:25
doing a load of
internet research, looking for new
properties to buy. NARRATOR: Jill
confided in friends.
00:16:31
If the couple moved, if
Otis stopped drinking, if he was removed from the
stresses of his career, perhaps
00:16:38
then she'd get back the
man that she'd fallen for. The Goldsmith she met at the
beginning, the charming one
00:16:43
when she moved in
really quickly, there's an assumption that
was the real Goldsmith.
00:16:47
But we know that
was the Goldsmith he showed to Jill
in order to get her to enter into the relationship.
00:16:53
The real Goldsmith
was the abusive, controlling, violent Goldsmith. And quite often,
there's a real attempt
00:17:00
to try and win that person
back that they first met, but he never existed. It was a complete myth that the
nice Goldsmith ever existed.
00:17:08
NARRATOR: As
Goldsmith's drinking increasingly affected
his behavior, did Jill call the police?
00:17:14
Did she call his colleagues? No. To some women's campaigners,
Jill may have felt unable to.
00:17:21
When women won't report
because they don't believe that they're going to be believed.
00:17:27
And that's often because
the police officer tells them that, that
their partner says,
00:17:31
no one's going to believe you. I'm a police officer. So there is a lack of
confidence in the system
00:17:38
generally from women. NARRATOR: There is no
suggestion that Jill contacted Northamptonshire Police
Force around the time
00:17:44
of Otis Goldsmith's heavy
drinking and increasingly bizarre behavior. Campaigners believe,
however, that wives
00:17:50
of serving police officers
are reticent to ask for help. One-time leading
prosecutor and campaigner
00:17:56
for more recognition of violence
against women, Nazir Afzal. She would have been really
reluctant to report anything
00:18:04
that was happening
to her because she couldn't trust the system. And police have got some
work to do about that.
00:18:10
When you have a
community of 125,000 police officers, any
community, you have abusers.
00:18:16
You have to find a system that's
confidential, that's private, that's secret, that
enables victims
00:18:21
to be able to seek help. And do so in confidence and be
reassured that the perpetrator
00:18:27
will not hear about it. NARRATOR: The Goldsmiths
lived on an estate adjacent to the Northamptonshire
Police Headquarters.
00:18:34
Everywhere Jill
looked, she would have seen there police officers. But throughout a
period of 12 months,
00:18:40
she raised no alarm
about a relationship that was falling apart,
about a man she had
00:18:45
become increasingly fearful of. March 26, 2015, a
fresh, drizzly spring afternoon in the
English East Midlands,
00:18:54
the day had begun unremarkably. On the morning
of March the 26th, Goldsmith had been
doing some renovations
00:19:00
to the family home
in preparation for putting it on the market. At lunchtime that day, he
left Jill house-hunting online
00:19:07
while he drove to his
eldest son's house to have lunch with him. NARRATOR: A little
before 1 o'clock,
00:19:13
Adrian Otis Goldsmith returned
home to Wootton Hall Park. At six minutes past
1:00, he dialed
00:19:19
999, the Emergency Services. Seven minutes later,
the first patrol car reached the Goldsmith's home.
00:19:37
Former Police Sergeant,
Clare Mackintosh, has experienced the
feelings of an officer
00:19:41
approaching a crime
scene when they have no idea of what has happened. From the police
officer's point of view,
00:19:48
this is a horrific
scene to arrive at. And you can only imagine what
was going through their minds.
00:19:54
They've got a potentially
dangerous armed man, a dead woman, and no
way of establishing
00:20:01
exactly what happened until
the forensics tell their tale. Upon arrival,
they found Adrian.
00:20:08
He was injured. He had paint over him. He was sweating. He had a knife in one hand
and a broken drinking glass
00:20:15
in the other. He was, himself, covered in
blood and had facial injuries. He was crying.
00:20:22
NARRATOR: 49-year-old
Jill Goldsmith, Adrian's wife of just 10
months, laying nearby.
00:20:27
They find her. She's in the fetal position
lying on the porch. She has over 70 injuries.
00:20:33
Police found a
mallet at the scene covered with Jill's blood. Adrian says to
the police officers
00:20:38
that his wife had come at
him like a whirling dervish and that he had initially
tried to just stop her.
00:20:44
Goldsmith told police that
Jill was on drugs, that she was having some sort of
psychotic episode
00:20:51
and had attacked him with
a knife and a broken glass. NARRATOR: Less than a year
after they had married,
00:20:56
Jill Goldsmith was
dead, her police officer husband telling
those on the scene that he had been
defending himself.
00:21:05
What was the truth? I'd like to start by
passing my condolences to the family of Jill
Goldsmith and her friends
00:21:12
following her tragic death. Any loss of life is very serious
and we treat it very seriously.
00:21:19
The death of Jill Goldsmith
has had a big impact in both the local community and
within Northamptonshire Police
00:21:25
as the accused has been a member
of this organization for 27 years. NARRATOR: An officer of the law
was about to be investigated
00:21:33
by officers of the law. Which way would justice
fall, Goldsmith's self-defense defense or
in a judgment of murder?
00:21:45
[music playing] Jill Goldsmith was found
in a pool of blood, trauma to her head and
face clearly visible.
00:21:59
Her husband offering a story. He initially claims that
many of these injuries were
00:22:04
self-inflicted, that she was
hitting herself with a mallet over the head, that
she was banging
00:22:09
her head against the wall. And that he only put
her in a headlock just to try and stop her
from injuring herself.
00:22:14
But she'd broken free
and began stabbing him. He said that the couple
were struggling, that he was
00:22:20
hit over the head by a battery. And in turn, he then
hit Jill with a paint can to try and stop her.
00:22:28
It had no effect, and so
he picked up the battery and hit her. He hit her repeatedly
over the head
00:22:34
and had made a
conscious decision to do that until she stopped moving. He said he thought
he was going to die.
00:22:40
NARRATOR: He showed
them injuries that he claims his wife had inflicted. Cuts to his face, a
stab wound in his side.
00:22:46
He told them this
wasn't the first time his wife had gone berserk and
held a knife to his throat.
00:22:51
That had happened
before, he said. Strictly obeying protocol,
Northants Police requested help
00:22:57
from another force. We've used officers from the
East Midlands Serious Crime Unit to conduct their
independent investigation
00:23:04
on our behalf. NARRATOR: Investigators
would soon be told by Goldsmith that
this was not the first time
00:23:10
he'd suffered at Jill's hands. He actually turned
around and said he was a victim of domestic abuse.
00:23:15
He said it several times. NARRATOR: He had made a similar
claim the previous October
00:23:19
to a colleague whose
job it was to monitor his welfare during
the earlier misconduct
00:23:25
proceedings against him. He said to his point
of contact officer who was visiting him
at home, one day, he's
00:23:32
a victim of domestic abuse. Two days later, he says,
no, it's all right. It's sorted now.
00:23:37
NARRATOR: Later,
Goldsmith would claim there were multiple occasions
when Jill had lost her temper
00:23:41
and gone for him,
punching him, kicking him. He's starting to say that
she's the one that's behaving
00:23:47
poorly or badly in the family
home, and he's worried, he's concerned she's
the one using abuse.
00:23:52
It's very easy to say that
with no evidence to back it up. NARRATOR: But on the contrary,
evidence from PC Goldsmith's
00:23:59
secret recordings
suggested that it was he, not his wife, who was abusive. In fact, it
recorded her saying
00:24:06
she was frightened of him. NARRATOR: Indeed, Adrian
admitted that he often recorded
00:24:11
their arguments and
that he considered installing CCTV in the house
so he could spy on his wife.
00:24:18
That fear that everything
she does is being looked at, being monitored,
being controlled.
00:24:22
If a man is controlling
in a relationship, the control increases over time. And then the need
to control becomes
00:24:31
overwhelming in a sense. The suggestion here is
that he's far more dangerous than he first appears.
00:24:37
This man is obsessive,
unstable, and paranoid. And he knew that his wife
was terrified of him.
00:24:48
He was a ticking time bomb. NARRATOR: As investigators
investigated the claims her husband had
made against her,
00:24:54
a friend came forward with
another example of his desire to control and possess her.
00:24:59
Jill mentioned that he used to
record her mileage in her car. And the terms of the
jealousy, the belief that
00:25:07
actually, where is she going? Who is she seeing? The belief that she
is his property.
00:25:13
And if she has left
the family home, if she has gone out, if
I recall the mileage,
00:25:17
I'll know exactly
where she's gone. If it's four miles to
Asda and she's done six,
00:25:22
she'll need to account
for those mileage. NARRATOR: It seemed
to detectives that Goldsmith had become
jealous and paranoid,
00:25:29
convinced too that Jill
was seeing somebody else. In a healthy
relationship, even if you're
00:25:34
taking the mileage of your
partner's car, where they're going, this is another
indication of his power
00:25:40
and control over her. The jealousy, where is Jill
going when she's gone out? She would have been very upset
about this growing discontent
00:25:48
and aggression towards her. It is scary to watch
the person that you love unravel, particularly
when the unraveling is
00:25:55
projected at you. NARRATOR: In the days
after Jill's death, detectives would have seen
a picture of another police
00:26:00
officer's marriage
that did not fit with what Adrian had
described in the moments
00:26:04
after his wife's death. And when the forensics
evidence was analyzed, that picture did not
support Goldsmith's claims.
00:26:13
The blood spatter analysis
showed that she was beaten repeatedly even after death.
00:26:18
This murder was brutal. Jill suffered
significant head trauma. There was use of a pot of paint.
00:26:24
There was use of a battery,
square-type object. CLARE MACKINTOSH: It showed that
he held her around the neck,
00:26:30
strangling her both before
she died and also afterwards. He throttled her with such force
that he fractured her larynx
00:26:39
and a bone in her neck. Their size
disparity is enormous. He is a 12-stone
fit martial artist.
00:26:47
She was only 6-stone. She would have presented
no physical challenge to him, somebody, remember,
who is a police officer
00:26:56
and used to physical
confrontations. To anybody seeing
that crime scene, there is a word overkill.
00:27:03
And we called it overkill
because it means that you didn't need to do
anywhere near what you
00:27:07
did if you wanted to
prevent that person from harming you further. This is about rage, and to
any forensic pathologist,
00:27:15
it's evident. JANE MONCKTON SMITH: The
violence was orgiastic. It was almost that every single
violent thought he'd ever
00:27:25
had, all of those
times where he'd stopped himself going this far. He just gave himself
permission that day.
00:27:35
Let's just explore,
let's just do this. No holds barred,
I'm going for it. This is what it feels like.
00:27:42
And it just feels like
he went for it and it was way beyond anything he
needed to defend himself,
00:27:50
way beyond. It was way beyond anything
he needed to kill her. NARRATOR: In the aftermath
of the frenzied attack,
00:27:57
it appeared that Goldsmith
felt he needed to take control of the narrative. He murdered Jill.
00:28:03
He then phoned the
emergency services. Not just triple nine in the
panic of somebody who's lost
00:28:08
control, but actually
ringing triple nine and being very clear
what services he wanted.
00:28:18
He didn't ask for the
ambulance straight away. Why was that? Who did he ask
for straight away?
00:28:24
The police. Why was that? Who do you think
was going to come? Why the police? NARRATOR: His friends
and colleagues,
00:28:30
for the best part
of three decades, he would tell them a story
that he wanted them to hear.
00:28:39
At what point
did he think he was a victim of domestic
violence when all he's done
00:28:43
is just batter his wife to
death over the head with a pot of paint and a battery?
00:28:48
He exactly knew
what he was doing. He knows his colleagues
are turning up. He knows he's got to
have an explanation.
00:28:54
So the best explanation,
junkie came at me. But he knows that
there's going to be
00:29:03
a complete forensic
workup and he knows that the
forensics are going to tell a different story.
00:29:09
He's been a police
officer for 30 years. So he's thinking
on his feet now, what are the most
damning things that
00:29:18
are going to come out
of the forensic evidence that I can think of? Probably it was the mallet
in the back of the head,
00:29:25
but if you get
somebody in the back, they're not attacking you. They're no worry for you.
00:29:32
That's probably why he
said the most ridiculous thing he could think
of, she hit herself
00:29:36
in the back of the head. NARRATOR: But what of
Adrian's own injuries? During this ensuing
and terribly violent
00:29:42
melee, obviously his
wife, she fights back. There were some injuries on him. His face is visibly
quite badly injured.
00:29:49
NARRATOR: Police
officers who examines the wound in Goldsmith's side
questioned his claim that it
00:29:54
had been inflicted by Jill. Under pressure, he
admitted that she had not, in fact, stabbed him.
00:30:02
He bludgeons her terribly. He then takes a knife and
stabs himself in the side in order to make it look
like she came for him
00:30:11
and he was defending himself. The fact that he tries to
make up that Jill attacked him.
00:30:15
He's a police officer. He knows the law. I mean, if you're going to
do one thing when you have
00:30:19
a corpse in front of you,
it's how do I make this look like I'm not the
first-degree murder
00:30:24
individual that I actually am? So creating superficial
wounds and wounding yourself
00:30:29
is a way of acting as if you
had a reason to act accordingly. NARRATOR: On Monday,
30th of March, 2015,
00:30:36
Adrian Otis
Goldsmith was charged with the murder of his wife. The following day, he
appeared in court by video
00:30:43
and he denied the
charge against him. Whose story would
the jury believe? [music playing]
00:30:57
10 months after the death of
Jill Goldsmith in January 2016, Adrian Otis Goldsmith stood
in the dock at Stafford Crown
00:31:04
Court to protest his innocence. During the trial,
Goldsmith told the courts that when he got home that
day after seeing his son,
00:31:13
that his wife was ready for it. That she wanted an argument. NARRATOR: He made claims
about the couple's
00:31:19
intimate relationship. He appeared to want
sympathy from the jury. It's one of those kind of
justifications for frustration,
00:31:29
if you like. That he would assume
that men in the room would understand that
kind of frustration.
00:31:37
So Jill is going
along to speak to a GP because she's got a low libido. Is that what Jill is saying
or is that what she's
00:31:44
been told to say by Goldsmith? Is the reason Jill
maybe wasn't wanting an intimacy in the relationship,
was that linked to her libido?
00:31:52
Or was that because he was
an abusive, controlling man? It's more likely
that Jill probably had
00:32:01
gone off having sex with him. She probably had withdrawn
from him completely. But let's blame Jill.
00:32:07
Let's hold Jill
accountable for that. Let's make Jill feel she's
not a good enough wife
00:32:12
because her libido is low. Make Jill feel she's not
meeting her husband's needs because she's not
good enough, she's not well,
00:32:18
she needs help. Not about my husband
should be patient with me, my husband takes care of me and
wants to make sure that I'm OK.
00:32:27
Gaslighting is really
common, and Goldsmith could be seen that his
behaviors were gaslighting,
00:32:32
convincing her that the
reason things were going on was because of her. Because she was
smoking cannabis,
00:32:39
she was going through
the menopause. Not about he's a controlling,
jealous, angry man
00:32:46
who's alcohol-dependent, who's
risking losing his career in the police service. NARRATOR: Dismissing
Goldsmith's claims
00:32:52
that he was the victim
of domestic abuse and a frustrated husband
whose wife refused sex.
00:32:57
Instead, the prosecution
painted a picture of a heavy drinker
who was frequently
00:33:02
irrational and overbearing. One witness told the
court that Goldsmith had seen Jill as a project,
that he wanted to fix her.
00:33:11
So Goldsmith, by using
the really strict power and control that he's
exerting over Jill.
00:33:18
And telling people she's the
abuser and he's the victim, he's actually manipulating
all the people around
00:33:25
about him, colleagues,
family, that he's the poor victim in all this. So he's then able to continue
his power to control over Jill.
00:33:33
He was described
as a Jekyll and Hyde type character, quite
a common feature of many domestic abusers.
00:33:41
To the outside world, they can
appear a wonderful, charming man, very popular. So everyone would have
thought he's a great chap.
00:33:51
She would have known
that all his colleagues would have thought that. NARRATOR: Prosecution barrister
suggested a picture of Jill
00:33:58
as a wife who lived in fear
but who had nowhere to turn. Many women who are
married or in relationships
00:34:05
with police officers
do not report abuse and do not have confidence in
reporting abuse to the police.
00:34:13
Goldsmith is a
serving police officer. So if you're feeling
threatened or intimidated
00:34:18
in your own home, the advice to
everybody is bring the police. If you're scared
of your partner,
00:34:24
your partner's behaving in
a way that you feel scared, ring triple nine and the police
will come to your rescue.
00:34:29
For Jill, scared in her
own home, ring triple nine, and your husband's mates
are likely to turn up.
00:34:37
How reassuring is that? So we're a victim of
police-perpetrated abuse. Reports said often,
we see various things
00:34:48
happening that
sometimes, it's a failure to properly investigate. Sometimes, there
is a manipulation
00:34:54
of evidence by the police
officer or his colleagues. NARRATOR: There is no
suggestion that that
00:35:00
happened in the case
of Jill Goldsmith and Northamptonshire Police. The suggestion
from campaigners is
00:35:06
that there is a
fear of what might happen if a spouse of a serving
police officer reports him
00:35:11
or her. In court, prosecutors
argued that there was enough evidence
Goldsmith had fully intended
00:35:18
to end his wife's life. If you just take a
step back from that scene and you imagine somebody
snapping and using something
00:35:26
like a mallet. You would imagine
that suddenly, they have that moment of
reckoning, that realization
00:35:32
that they've done something
profoundly dreadful. But to then let go of that and
to find another instrument,
00:35:39
and then to let go
of that and find another instrument
to create that harm, it's sustained and aggressive.
00:35:46
And then to throttle her,
that would have been-- firstly as the victim,
utterly terrifying.
00:35:54
But secondly, how many times
did he have the option to stop, and yet he absolutely went
through with that murder?
00:36:01
He wanted her dead. JANE MONCKTON SMITH: He
probably enjoyed the attack. A lot of the things
in this man's life
00:36:09
suggest that he
was or wanted to be dominant, a dominant character. He studied martial arts.
00:36:18
He was a police
officer with a uniform. It's implied that
in his past, he had been dominant in his
relationships with people.
00:36:29
This was a man who wanted a
lot more dominance than he actually had, perhaps
a bit of a hero complex
00:36:35
going on in his head. Imagine the fall from
grace, to go from a protector to a perpetrator.
00:36:48
NARRATOR: On Monday, the
1st of February 2016, the jury returned
their unanimous verdict
00:36:53
against PC Adrian
Goldsmith, accused of murdering his wife, Jill. A jury at Stafford
Crown Court rejected
00:37:01
his claim of self-defense. He was convicted of murder. Following the guilty
verdict this afternoon,
00:37:08
the force will now conduct an
internal discipline process which will mean a fast-track
special case hearing will be
00:37:16
heard for Otis Goldsmith
that will be heard by the chief constable sometime
in the next two or three weeks.
00:37:21
Goldsmith was sentenced
to 15 years' imprisonment. He was consequently
dismissed from the police
00:37:28
force for gross misconduct. NARRATOR: Not a
sentence campaigners thought long enough.
00:37:33
Perhaps they accepted evidence
that he may have been a victim of abuse himself, I don't know.
00:37:37
But he clearly lied afterwards. It was a very brutal
killing, that he used his power over her.
00:37:47
I mean, there seemed
to be a whole series of potential aggravating features. So to me, that sentence
seems surprising.
00:37:57
NARRATOR: In summing
up, the judge said that it was a
significant aggravating factor
00:38:01
that Goldsmith had
lied about his injuries in order to establish a defense. Simply, he had
nowhere else to go.
00:38:07
There was nothing
else he could do. There was no doubt it
was him that did it. He would have had enough
knowledge of police
00:38:13
investigations to
know that there was absolutely no
chance of him taking a body away and hiding it.
00:38:18
The weight and the wealth
of forensic evidence would have made that absurd. He simply had nothing
else he could try and do.
00:38:25
It was his only option. NARRATOR: Prosecutors say that
as a serving police officer,
00:38:29
the killer should have
been able to exercise a greater degree of restraint. So why did Adrian Goldsmith
attack and kill his wife
00:38:37
that spring day in 2015? What we do know is that
whilst he was out of the house that morning, that she had
been searching for properties
00:38:47
online. Now, what I don't know is
what those properties were. It could have been that she
was looking for properties
00:38:54
for herself to escape him. It could have been she was
looking for what her future was
00:39:00
going to be like, and how remote
these places were and could she actually face it.
00:39:05
If she starts to
try and break away, that's often recognized
as the most dangerous
00:39:09
moment in a relationship. Or if she starts to challenge
his control and power, that's often the
most dangerous point.
00:39:17
And that may lead to those types
of controlling men ultimately committing the final
acts of control,
00:39:25
which is taking a life. I think that is probably
the trigger when he came home, because he was monitoring her.
00:39:34
He was monitoring
everything she did. He may well have checked
on her web history.
00:39:40
He may have seen her
searching for properties, and that could have been
the trigger that pushed him.
00:39:44
She was finally getting
out of his control and he could see it. NARRATOR: Not only would
Goldsmith lose his partner,
00:39:51
but there were also
financial implications. He was two years
away from his pension.
00:39:55
Every police officer worth
their salt knows that pension. They hang onto it for grim day.
00:40:00
If he was to lose
his job at 28 years, that financial chunk would have
gone and he had a lot to lose.
00:40:06
So he was invested
in keeping his job. He was invested in keeping Jill. Could she have got
half his pension
00:40:12
if she'd gone to leave him? NARRATOR: Was this
the reason that Adrian Goldsmith lost his temper and
in a rage killed his wife?
00:40:19
Had she told him she
wanted to ditch him? He says in his own letters
that she had recognized
00:40:25
that he was frightening and that
she was getting increasingly more frightened of him.
00:40:31
And I think that frustrated
him in some ways, that she was pulling back. She was pulling away from him
because she was frightened.
00:40:42
The notion that Goldsmith
lost control the point he murdered Jill is incorrect. He didn't lose control
when he murdered Jill.
00:40:50
He thought he was
going to lose control if Jill was going to leave him,
that's why he murdered her.
00:40:54
NARRATOR: In a
statement read to court, Jill's adult son described her
as a much loved person who was
00:40:59
always there for her family. Referring to
Goldsmith's experience and training as an
officer of the law,
00:41:05
the statement continued he
should have known above anyone how to calm things down.
00:41:10
Those taking out a super
complaint against the police in relation to incidents
of officer domestic abuse
00:41:16
believes the case
of Jill Goldsmith raises important questions. I think that every case of
a police officer who kills
00:41:24
needs to be looked at very
carefully to try and identify how this could have happened.
00:41:31
How a police officer could
have got into the police if he had that potential, how he
was allowed to continue abusing
00:41:39
and ultimately to kill. [music playing]