A bestselling true crime author, and the crimes he’s accused of

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:08Today, the famous crime writer accused of rape and sexual assault.

0:20Just before we start, a warning that today's episode does contain descriptions of sexual abuse and violence.

0:31So this story starts in a family home in Southampton. And it's a very normal family home, red brick. It's quite idyllic, actually, surrounded by fields, rolling countryside. And in this house in the early 1990s lives a family. So there's the father, who is a true crime writer called Christopher Berry Dee. and he's living there with his second wife, Tracy, and their two young daughters, Zoe and Sasha. This is Shirin Kale. She is an investigative journalist at The Guardian. Months ago, she and her reporting partner, Lucy Osborne, started looking into Christopher Berry Dee and what was happening inside that house.

1:15And what they discovered was almost as disturbing as one of his grisly true crime bestsellers. Christopher Berrides' profession, he's a true crime writer, his fascination particularly with serial killers, his thing is that he gets inside these people's heads and the intention is for you, the reader, to almost be there seeing the matter unfold in real time. And how Berrides' fascination with these killers seeped into the lives of his young family. So you have in a wardrobe what's alleged to be the clothes that a nine-year-old girl was murdered in, in a very famous murder case. And later, when the family moves to another house nearby, outside the house is actually the car that a convicted murderer used to transport a woman's body in.

2:07But it wasn't just that. Over the following months, as they dug deeper into Berry Dee, Shirin and Lucy heard multiple accounts of terrible crimes that he is alleged to have committed. and crimes always denied by Berry Dee that were never fully investigated or heard in court, while his books continued to be bought by millions.

2:35From The Guardian, I'm Annie Kelly. Today I'm Focus. The family of Christopher Berry Dee speak out.

2:47shirankale you're an investigative reporter for the guardian and recently you have been looking into the actions of one man christopher berry d for listeners who have never heard of him who is he christopher berry d is the uk's best-selling true crime author of all time He describes himself as an investigative criminologist and in his books he will often meet or interview serial killers in prison. If I got scared they'd smell it. They can sense it. They're like a beast in a cage. He really prides himself on being able to get inside their heads and understand how these murderous criminals do the things they do and why they do the things that they do.

3:33You know how far you can push them. You know what pushes their buttons. You know what annoys them. And it's about manipulation and mind control. So I never get scared. I'm in control. They think they're in control, but I'm in control. I mean, he's a really big deal. This is a huge industry, isn't it? What might be some of the books that he's most famous for that some of our listeners might have heard of? So his most famous book is 2002's Talking Miss Serial Killers. That book has spawned an incredibly successful series of Talking Miss Serial Killer books that have sold almost a million copies.

4:10And he also was involved in a very pioneering documentary that was filmed in 1994, which also travelled around the US interviewing serial killers, you know, some of the most violent criminals who ever lived. When I get mad, this chemical that's inside my head, whatever part of my body, elevates and I just lose control. And it brings on this sweating and other sensations. There's something inside me that is hidden, but only comes out in certain moments. Nowadays, true crime is everywhere. I'm sure we can all relate to that feeling of opening up a streaming platform and the first thing that the algorithm is recommending for you is a three-part documentary about some terrible murder.

4:59True crime has not always been this hugely profitable, really successful industry. And I think it's largely due to the influence of people like Christopher Berrity that it has become so successful and so popular. And as you said, his niche, for want of a better word, is serial killers. What's the methods that he bases his work on? He openly says, I entrap them, I lie to them. police can't use entrapment, but I can. And it's really about making them feel comfortable with you and you letting them know that although that you're on their side, but you know you're not on their side. So his MO, his playbook, is he writes some letters and say, I think you've been the victim of a terrible injustice.

5:41I think that you're innocent and I want to prove your innocence. and then he dates and switches them and writes a book about how they're terrible evil murderers. Along the course of your reporting, you met a lot of people who'd known him very, very well, from his children to former colleagues. What kind of a character did they paint of him as a man? One of the phrases that really stands out to me is somebody who knew him from the publishing industry who said he's the sort of person, once you meet them, you never forget them. he physically is very imposing so he's tall he wears a masonic ring he likes to wear a cravat he's been known to seal his letters with wax stamps and he likes to talk about how he's descended from this famous elizabethan occultist called sir john d and he can be very charming very persuasive i think that's a word that comes up a lot very very persuasive very good at getting the families of murder victims sometimes to trust him and give him materials that will help him by his books.

6:40But there's also another side to Christopher Berrady. The sources that we spoke with alleged to Lucy Osborne and I that he was violent, abusive and had a sexual interest in children and underage girls.

7:00These allegations that you were hearing from people that knew him, I mean, they include his family. the people very closest to him. You spoke to his former wife, Tracy, and she started to reveal a horrific pattern of behaviour. What did she tell you about their relationship? So Christopher Bode's second wife, Tracy, spoke with my reporting partner, Lucy Osborne, for our investigation. She described to Lucy the most extreme physical violence imaginable. Got a scar there, which was where I was pregnant. He came back one night and he was really drunk and I was already in bed. He started having a go at me because he said that I was ruining his life because I'd got pregnant and then he just like put a cigar like that on my face.

7:52So she alleged that during their marriage he put out a cigar on her face leaving a scar which Lucy was actually able to see. He went upstairs, he got one of the guns and he loaded it. And I was sat on the sofa as if I was standing there. She alleged that he pointed a loaded shotgun at her. The terror of this moment, understandably, was so extreme that she actually wet herself. And he just put it right up to my mouth. And then he threw the glass of red wine in my face.

8:26And embarrassingly, I ended up wetting myself. I was so scared. and was routinely being beaten by Barry D. I should say that Lucy and I were able to cooperate this with family and friends who told us that they remembered Tracy at the time often having things like black eyes. And Tracy's children, Sasha and Zoe, also described witnessing extreme physical abuse. You know, Zoe said to me, the phrase that she used to describe her father was absolute evil. Another incident that she described to me was Barry D ripping out her mother's earrings and she said that she remembered washing blood from her mother after he did that just horrific absolutely awful it must have been really hard for them to go back and tell you all of this as well so lucy and i was speaking and reviewing her interview transcripts and notes like one thing we really remarked upon was how she would be describing these appalling acts of brutality that she alleged took place in this very kind of matter-of-fact tone that sort of almost really downplayed the severity of them you know it was almost like she was talking about the weather or a recipe that she liked about he had a like a butcher's thing you know those butchers i don't know what they're what they're called something had happened and i was like cowering on the floor because he was standing over me with it and i think i sort of like rolled over to try and get out of his way and then he kicked me in the back so it never touched me with this meat cleaver is it meat cleaver yeah i should say that barry d denies that he was physically violent towards tracy during their marriage and uh he specifically denied that he put out the cigar on her face he also denied other instances that she described to us so for example tracy described to us an incident in which she alleged that he stood over her holding a butcher's knife and barry d denied this so that they didn't even have a butcher's knife and how did tracy and her children get away from this marriage?

10:23I had made the decision to leave while Chris was away in America. He was doing it. So in 1994, when Verity was in the US interviewing serial killers for a pioneering documentary, Tracy took the children and fled. And the two girls, Zoe and Sasha, did they talk to you or Lucy at all about other memories of growing up inside that house? Zoe and I spoke about how things became normal that really were not normal. So her father would play tapes from these serial killers in the house and she could hear them being played. And she would say that you would just get used to hearing these interviews kind of echo through the house and these are men confessing to violent murders.

11:01Zoe described the car that a convicted killer used to transport a body and it was just outside the house. And there were bits of the seatbelts that had been cut out for forensic testing. And these things that were very abnormal became normal in that context.

11:21And Shirin, you also went on to look at allegations about his behaviour and action outside of the home. By the year 2000, Barry D was an established crime writer. He also taught art on the side. You've already said that he was an accomplished painter. So he was teaching at the Castle School of Art in Portsmouth when a 13-year-old girl, who you're calling Helen, started attending the school. it's not her real name and you've taken great steps to protect her identity and we have altered her voice so what was Helen like when she first started classes what does she tell you about that time I think I was a happy young teenager had a very secure happy home life so Helen started attending the Castle School of Art in 2000 and she described herself as a very talented artist kind of a prodigy like really sort of academically smart very bookish very clever but very unworldly was uh i'd say quite naive and a bit of a late developer as well i was still basically a little girl really had never even held hands as a boy before let alone kissed anyone and she was 13 years old and within weeks of starting at this art school as a 13 year old girl barry d was in his 50s at this point, she alleges that Barry D began grooming her for a sexual relationship.

12:43And Sharon, when you say grooming, can you tell us what did that look like? Part of what gave her mother confidence to drop her off at this art school with students that were quite a bit older than her was actually the fact that Barry D was a crime writer. So, you know, she actually said to Lucy, my reporting partner, that the fact that he was investigating in criminals they have her confidence you know he seemed to be somebody on the side of the good guys and Helen describes meeting Barry D as a 13 year old he was kind of quite charismatic and he had a when I look back on it now it all feels very sort of paint by numbers Bob Rossi but like when I was 13 years old it was like magic you know like there'd be nothing and then he'd kind of do this and then there'd be a painting and it was all very kind of magical and exciting she would later write in a submission to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority that he presented as this intensely charismatic figure and he had this amiable rogue personality.

13:44And then what really happened after that was a process, I would say, of straightforward grooming. So she starts going to the school in August 2000. She's 13 years old and then Barry D, within a month, kisses her. He said, you know, it would have to be our little secret. And then he sort of pulled me on top of him and kissed me. I felt very freaked out by that. It was just like, you know, we'd gone from something feeling kind of like, oh, this is sort of fun and a bit like exciting almost, or like I was being treated like a special person to this has completely gone beyond my comfort zone and frame of reference.

14:26She doesn't tell her parents. And then the term that Helen used to describe this was him slowly turning up the pressure. And he was all the time, he was slowly turning up the pressure gauge of what he was doing. And I guess I was getting used to what he was doing in some ways. It was just like it wasn't shocking when he was trying to do something. So it was sort of frog in boiling water, really. so on the 2nd of October 2000 she wrote that Mary D in her diary had asked her to perform oral sex and one thing I think that really kind of stands out was particularly heartbreaking is that she didn't know what that was but he asked if I thought I'd be able to give head and I didn't know what that meant and he had to explain it to me and I just remember saying I don't I don't know and she says that by December she was performing oral sex on him and she characterises this oral sex as aggressive.

15:27Helen says that Berydi was insistent that they had sex before she turned 14 and she said that the day before she turned 14 they had sex for the first time and then after she turned 14 she alleged that they were having sex multiple times a week at this art school. You know, the sex was very violent and, you know, still a sort of developing girl, really. So it was incredibly painful. She alleged that he developed a code. So during the classes, he'd do a signal that was either like looking up to the ceiling or looking down to the floor. And that would indicate which bathrooms he wanted me to go to.

16:04And that's where he would meet her to have sex with her. I should reiterate that any sex with a child under 16 is statutory rape. and she didn't tell anyone, as many child sexual abuse victims don't do, because at the time she thought that it was a relationship. She said that as the abuse went on, she began self-harming. And I told Barry D about it. I think there's this sort of common theme that I would often kind of call upon him sort of for help almost, because he was the only person who I could speak to in this situation, and he would, you know, he was not in the business of helping me. So, and he said that it was kinky was the word he used.

16:43This is a 13 and 14 year old girl. And I should say as well that, you know, in addition to having sex with her when she was 13 and 14 years old, which is statutory rape, according to UK law. She describes these experiences as sex to differentiate them from a later incident that she says took place when she was 14 years old, in which she alleges that he violently raped her.

17:08So Helen alleged that her abuse took place in 2000, 2001. In 2002, Berry D published his breakout runaway smash hit book, Talking with Serial Killers. So he was researching that book at the time that he was allegedly abusing Helen. And I should say that Berry D denies abusing Helen. He says that he hasn't committed any of the crimes that we have accused him of in our reporting. And I do need to emphasize that. But really interestingly, Helen alleged that when she later read his Talking with Serial Killer book as an adult, she actually recognised some of the practices that he had described in the book.

17:46Oh my God. And she alleged that he had done them to her as a child. So for example, and I'm sorry, these details are quite extreme. She said that Barry D liked to have very violent oral sex, which is also a practice that he writes about in the book, is favoured by one of the serial killers that he writes about Kenneth McDuff. And Helen said to me that she found this really shocking and she described how what she called were perversions, his inspiration for these sick perversions were hidden under the guise of serious research. So, you know, it's her feeling that his interest in these things was hiding in plain sight in his books.

18:21Barry D denies that he took inspiration from the books in this alleged abuse of Helen. Yeah, I believe he told you, and I'm quoting here, quite how and why Helen has transposed this onto me regarding her is a total fiction. But as Helen alleged it to you, did she realise what was happening at the time, that this was rape and sexual abuse? So Helen went to the police in 2006 and reported Barry D for child sexual abuse. And she had the amazing forethought, I think, to actually preserve two pieces of evidence. So she had kept a tissue that she had spat his semen into and also a sanity tile that was stained with her blood and his semen.

19:05And she had kept them. And when she went to the police in 2006, she provided them with this evidence. She provided them with her diaries, which documented the abuse in real time. And so these are allegations of serious child sexual abuse and rape. And she went to the police in 2006, even though Barry D was arrested in January 2007. in June 2007, Helen was called with bad news and was told that the CPS would not be prosecuting him. The stated reason given by the CPS was that due to a legal loophole, it wouldn't be possible to prosecute Barry Dee. And that is because according to the law at the time, which is section six of the sexual offences at 1956, allegations of unlawful sex involving children aged 13 to 16 years old have to be reported within a year of the abuse taking place.

19:51So the abuse began in 2000 went on in 2001, but she reported in 2006. However, and this is a big however, there's no time limit on when you can report rape. And so Helen alleged that Berry D raped her when she was 14 years old, violently, and that could have been prosecutable. The CPS in their responses when we approached them for comments said that there was insufficient evidence to have a realistic prospect of conviction, and that was the termination that was made at the time. I think that there are legitimate questions to be asked about why that is. I should also add that in 2009, the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority found that on the balance of probabilities, Helen was a victim of a violent crime and they awarded her over£18 ,000 in compensation.

20:36Just for my own, to try and make me feel a bit better about everything that you've just told me, is she okay? Is she doing okay now? Yeah, she is doing okay. She is a really strong woman and she is a very successful artist. part of the reason for her speaking about this now is that she was um diagnosed with cancer a few years ago um she's doing okay at the moment and she said that she felt like this was a kind of piece of her life that has never really fully been closed there was a period of time at the beginning when we weren't sure like how like bad it was or how much it spread or anything and there was a few weeks so i thought ah might be but going like i might be about to die here you know um and you know you do a little re-evaluate a little like stock take of your existence and I suddenly I sort of realized like oh this is a loose thread that I have not tied up that's going to really annoy me like if I've just left this and he's just going to carry on being in the world without having like tried to get justice for it and so I think I thought at that point okay I do need to do something about this.

21:39And I should say that one of the factors that motivated Helen to go to the police in 2006 was she came across a press cutting about Berry Dee being arrested for another incident of alleged child sexual abuse that took place in the 1980s. So through our reporting, Lucy Osborne and I were able to confirm that Christopher Berry Dee was also reported to the police for child sexual abuse in 1983. And that case involved his own stepdaughter from his first marriage, a girl called Tracy Hurdle. And she went to the police in 1983 and alleged that Barry D raped her when she was 12 years old. In 1984, Barry D was arrested and he was charged with having unlawful sexual intercourse with a child under 13.

22:23But the case was later dropped when the prosecution offered their evidence. And when we put this to Christopher Barry D, he said that Tracy actually was raped by somebody else, but he declined to say who it was.

22:43And you know, your investigation uncovered others who also alleged that they were abused by Christopher Berry Dee, horrifyingly, including one of his own daughters. Can you tell us about Sasha and what she told you? Sasha alleges that she has memories of Christopher, her father, touching her inappropriately in the shower when she was around three to four years old. and she says that these vet elections resurfaced in 2024, prompting a mental health crisis, and she confided in her mother and sister at the time and went to the police the following year. I should say that whether children so young can recall these sort of events is very controversial.

23:23You know, three and four years old is very young. We spoke to academics for this piece and they said that, you know, children can remember things that take place when they're three or four years old, but seldom in as much detail as Sasha. And they said that her awareness of the sexual abuse allegations involving Tracy Hurdle could have influenced her memories. But they did also say that the fact that Sasha hasn't received therapy makes her more credible because therapists have unfortunately been known in the past to implant false memories of child sexual abuse. And Barry D has denied the suggestion that he molested Sasha.

23:54He says it's unfounded and a very spiteful allegation that was probably engineered by her mother. And really, this would be something that only the police could determine through an investigation had sufficient merit to take further. What is happening with the police case? Is there an investigation ongoing into that? Sasha reported to the police and then she had, I would say, a very dispiriting experience of having to repeatedly chase the police to take her statement. The case was transferred from the police force that she reported it to to a police force closer to her, but it didn't progress further for months.

24:28She ended up actually chasing the police for almost a year to arrange an interview to discuss these allegations involving her father. And then when it got closer to the time, she was told that she wouldn't be able to speak to a therapist for support as she prepared, because that could be seen to undermine her credibility. And at that point, she requested to pause the interview because she felt that she simply couldn't do it without receiving some form of mental health support first.

24:54Coming up, what one of Christopher Berry Dee's alleged victims thinks about our fascination with true crime? Thank you.

25:53You know, I think it took you about six months, this investigation into Christopher Berry-D. The people you've spoken to have alleged that this man is a violent abuser of women and children who was reported to the police multiple times for child sexual abuse. Yet he has continued to enjoy success despite the fact that some of these allegations were publicly known. Why do you think people like Christopher Berry continue to be published? What is it about the stuff that he writes about that we're all so fascinated by or some of us are? I don't know. I've thought about this a lot. I don't understand it.

26:33I've read his books. I've read all of them. I think you can report true crime ethically. I've read true crime books that I felt were sensitive. I don't think Christopher Berry is doing it ethically. When I read the books, I had this overwhelming feeling that the women and children whose final moments were being described in these books were being denied their dignity, that this should not be entertainment. I had the feeling that this was almost sacrilegious, that this is something that we should not be reading. And I couldn't just stop thinking about how I would feel if this was somebody that I had loved being described in these terms.