Listen Now: I Am Not Nicholas

0:00Jane MacSorley:Hi, I'm journalist Jane MacSorley and I'm about to play you a clip from my podcast, I Am Not Nicholas. I came across this story as I was scrolling the morning news back in January 2022. And I immediately thought, this is unbelievable. A man had been arrested in a Glasgow COVID ward. Police were saying he was a fugitive called Nicholas Rossi, who is wanted for rape in Utah. But he was claiming to be an Irish orphan called Arthur Knight. I thought, I really want to look into this, and would you believe? I ended up following this story for over four and a half years. Here's a taster.

0:41Miranda Knight:I wanted to ask if you knew the American man that lived here. I was seeing this as months and months of work.

0:46Arthur Knight:Hello, my name is Jane McSorley. Could you have just a few minutes now?

0:51Miranda Knight:And it has become practically a year. You just don't know what's going to happen when somebody answers that door. Oh.

1:00Arthur Knight:oh my god oh my god he's not dead no way i knew he was still alive i knew right away it was very strange it was very strange he would lock me in the upstairs bathroom all i had was the running water he has never hurt me never touched me he doesn't abuse me

1:21Miranda Knight:a case of mistaken identity i mean what on earth is going on it really is an unfortunate situation I cannot get my head around the magnitude of this. It is beginning to become a storm.

1:40Miranda Knight:Top of my list when I start work on the story in January 2022 is I want to see this man, Arthur Knight. Well, he claims to be Arthur Knight, an innocent Irishman living in Glasgow. the US authorities say he is really an American fugitive called Nicholas Rossi. I hear he's due to appear at Edinburgh Sheriff Court a few days later for a bail hearing. The court is just a 10 minute bike ride away from my house and I'll be there. It was just the most unbelievable sight. I was outside the courtroom. Arthur Knight is wheeled in. he was in a wheelchair and he had burgundy pajamas on he had a burgundy matching dressing gown and he even had a burgundy cloth covering his entire head so you could not see his face it was just like this burgundy mask on wheels he had socks on, he had no slippers on so it was just that first image of him I was blown away I was with a group of journalists and we're all looking at each other thinking, what on earth is this story?

2:55Miranda Knight:What on earth is this man all about? So then we all get into the courtroom. He's got at least two paramedics there. There must have been prison officers there and Miranda, his wife, is there and the cloth is gone from his head. Clearly, Arthur Knight wasn't well. You know, he had COVID very badly and he was in a night of intensive care. He had a mask covering his nose and his mouth. He had oxygen going into his mask. He's 34. He looks like he could be 64. He's small, he's round, he's hunched over. He's got greasy, lank hair. He's got this beard that's peppered with grey. He's very pasty white.

3:41Miranda Knight:He's got these round, black, John Lennon-style glasses. he had complete disrespect for the court proceedings. He repeatedly, repeatedly interrupted the prosecutor, his own lawyer, and shockingly, the sheriff. The sheriff, the judge. And it started from the outset. He asks him, are you Nicholas Rossi? And he said, no, I'm Arthur Knight. And then he continued, unabated. and he was told off by the sheriff at least twice if not three or four times

4:20Jane MacSorley:so that's how it started but are you curious to know how it ends? Follow I Am Not Nicholas on Audible or wherever you get your podcasts for series one and series two I Am Not Nicholas The Trials you can binge all episodes early and ad-free by joining Audible on the Audible app or Apple Podcasts Thank you.