As The Raven Dreams Podcast - ATRD Ep. 193 - UK True Crime

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

Today on the 193rd episode of The As The Raven Dreams Podcast, we have 3 truly disturbing true crime write ups all the way from The United Kingdom. Today's episode was written by Tom K, Find his other works here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DBVX81W7 Also I know today's episode is shorter than normal, apologies, but I feel like true crime eps should probably be a little more contained. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like or rate the podcast, and leave me a comment with your thoughts if the platform your own supports it! I upload episodes every 3 days, so there are 2 days between new uploads. The podcast consists of new scary story collections, Glitch in the matrix collections, and also what I call the "Dark Dreams" collections (which are older stories, remastered and layered with rain sounds). If you have a story to submit, would like to find where to listen to the podcast, or want to find me on social media platforms, all of that info can be found at https://www.astheravendreams.com You can also send stories into my subreddit (r/theravensdream) or email them to me at [e-mail] Want to check out some ATRD Podcast Merch? ➤ https://teechip.com/stores/astheravendreams Or for signed merch ➤ https://ko-fi.com/AsTheRavenDreams I wrote a novel, "The Insomniac's Experiment" by Raven Adams! Check it out on amazon (Or you can email me for a signed copy!) Join Patreon to get early access and support the Podcast! ➤ https://www.patreon.com/AsTheRavenDreams Check out my gaming channel with my pal Ghost_Ink ➤ @superNefariousBros On YouTube TimeStamps… One ad break after the 2nd case. Case 1 ➤ 2:42 Case 2 ➤ 10:35 Case 3 ➤ 16:33 ----- Disclaimer ➤ Episodes include a content warning for language and sensitive/disturbing content. Listener discretion is always advised. ALL Audio and visuals on this podcast are copyright of AS THE RAVEN DREAMS / RAVEN ADAMS and may not be duplicated, in any format. Bless This Mess. None of my audio is AI Generated, I am a real person reading real stories into a real microphone. #ScaryStories #UnexplainedMysteries #TrueCrime Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The conditions apply. on Paramount Plus. Hello and good afternoon, friends. I hope you are doing well on this lovely day. The weather's a little warmer today than it has been. It's going to get warmer this weekend, apparently, but that is okay. We'll be in the autumn temperatures here very quickly.

I have a feeling. Today's episode is not a stories episode, as you can probably tell by the visual, the thumbnail that comes with it. Although I couldn't say thumbnail. In the title, this is a true crime episode. I know some of you don't enjoy true crime episodes, but I wanted to put this here just so you knew beforehand.

This is a true crime episode that was researched and written by a friend of mine, Tom Kay. All of his links are in the description below, his Amazon link for all of his writing. He is an author. He does have some fiction books that he writes that he's been writing. I enjoy his work personally, and he and I have been working together for a while, so you probably know his name by now. And I probably don't need to do these kinds of, this is by Tom Kay. it's a little different kind of things, but sometimes I feel it's necessary. Anyways, today we have some disturbing true crime stories from the UK. So the word disturbing also implies a little bit here.

Content warning. These are going to be disturbing stories. So these are all from the UK. I know very little about the UK. I've never been, obviously, never been out of the U.S. Do you have some friends that live in the UK, and I love talking to them. And actually, one of them helped Tom with one of these cases. So it's been fun to learn about these kinds of things.

So anyways, today we have disturbing UK true crime stories, not really, not stories, but write-ups, you know what I mean. I hope you enjoy. Hope I see you again here very soon. Until then, friends, much love, and on to the stories. From this moment on, up into the outro, all statements and opinions are those of author of these write-ups, Tom Kay. I want to start this off by saying that I absolutely love the United Kingdom, despite my Irish heritage. For all its faults, the UK is generally a great place with great people, a fascinating history, and a culture that has arguably brought a lot of class to a rather uncivilized world. But I digress.

We're not here to listen to me stroke the ego of the British. No, we're here to learn about some of the most disturbing moments to occur in the history of the UK. Now, this will by no means be a full comprehensive list. Just a few of the most interesting and disturbing cases I could find from the 20th and 21st centuries. Case 1. The Manchester Arena Bombing. May 22nd of 2017 is a day that the people of the United Kingdom, and specifically the people of Manchester, will never forget. And I do mean never. It was on this day at 2231, which is 10.31 p.m., in the wake of an Ariana Grande concert,

that thousands of lives would be shattered in an instant when an Islamic suicide bomber by the name of Salman Abedi would detonate a bomb that completely destroyed the arena's foyer and killed 22 people and then injured over a thousand others. I very distinctly remember when this happened because it was just absent. Who would attack an Ariana Grande concert? Well, I guess the answer is clearly a madman or a monster. Though I think that is a bit reductive, and just labeling him a monster and not looking any further into things is why these kind of things still happen. When you fail to understand a person's motives and do zero self-reflection on what kind of things triggered someone to strap a bomb to their chest to kill as many people as possible,

then you only make future attacks inevitable. This attack had very serious repercussions for a lot of people. Abeddy's brother who had aided in the attack was sentenced to life in prison in 2020, with a mandatory minimum of 55 years, the longest sentence ever handed out by a British court. The ensuing investigations determined that more should, have been done by the police to stop the attack, and even the famous MI5 admitted that they had

acted far too slowly to deal with Abedi. But now the question lies in just what drove a man like Abeddy and his brother to commit such an act. Remember that it's important to understand these things if we ever want to prevent them from happening again. Well, fortunately, we actually know the answer to this question, because Hashem Abadi was taken into custody during the aftermath of the attack, and he stated that their motive was responding directly to the United States' recent intervention in the Syrian Civil War, which had resulted in the deaths of many Muslim children. While during the earlier part of the investigation, there were obviously concerned about it being a coordinated effort among an entire terrorist's cell. It was eventually determined that while other people

were aware of his plans, that he had ultimately defies the plans and acted on his own beyond the aid of his brother. The device that he used was very specifically designed to cause as many casualties as possible within a pretty wide area. It was an IED, improvised explosive device, containing triacetone triperoxide, TATP, and was loaded with nuts and bolts to provide shrapnel, which is designed to do nothing more but raise the body count. We have further corroboration as to the motives behind Abeddy's actions from interviews given by his sister, who seemed to know of his plans. She confirms that his motives lie in the injustices in Syria and the murder of Muslim children.

A further motive was revealed when someone attested that Salam had vowed revenge for Abdul Wahab Hafidah. Abdul was a personal friend of Salam and Hashem that had been stabbed and run over by a Manchester street gang. Worse yet, the Manchester Arena bombing was not the Abedi brother's first act of violence. As the police investigated Salam and Hashem in the wake of the terror attack, they found that both of the Abedis were veterans of the Libyan Civil War, having fought there during that period of strife. I wasn't able to find much in the way of detailed records,

of any significant battles or actions they might have been a part of during this time, but one can imagine just what they may have been a part of there in North Africa, during one of the most chaotic periods in the modern era. What I can say for certain is that they were seen with members of Al-Qaeda. ISIS also tried to claim credit by posting on the app telegram that a soldier of the caliphate had detonated a bomb amidst a crowd of people in the city of Manchester. but inaccuracies in some of their claims cast doubt, as well as the fact that ISIS is often known to claim credit for attacks they had no part of.

As such, ISIS's involvement cannot be confirmed beyond reasonable doubt. At one point, there was an Imam that was close to Abeddy's family that came under scrutiny, as rumors that he had called for armed jihad in the days before the concert briefly circulated, but the greater Manchester police determined that no offense had been committed. Four days prior to the bombing, Abedi returned home to Manchester from a trip to Libya. Later that day, May 18th, CCTV spotted him at the arena interacting briefly with an arena worker, and then observing the queues and entrances in the city room before departing. He was spotted again on May 21st by CCTV, and on May 22nd, he was seen around 30 minutes after the concert had begun.

In all three visits, he was seen to be using his cell phone, and there were no signs of him carrying any explosives, telling us that these three visits were purely for reconnaissance. Abedi is known to have purchased bomb-making materials after his return to Manchester, and proceeded to make the acetone peroxide-based device on his own. This isn't as unlikely as it may sound as many members of ISIS were known to have trained insurgents in bomb-making during the war in Libya. Given that the device was loaded with nuts and bolts, it was determined to have been intended to be a nail bomb, the shrapnel provided by its payload designed to create even higher numbers of casualties beyond the effective blast range. Now, we're nearing the end of this story, and I personally feel that I have said this terrorist's name far too many times,

and therefore contributed to his atrocious legacy. And so, here I am now going to list the names of the 22 people who were killed. built in a pointless act of apprisal. Please take careful note of how long it takes to read a list of 22 names. No list of the dead should ever be this long, especially innocent people. The overwhelming majority of them young, and just out for a night of fun. Saffy Rose Rousis, Nell Jones, Sorrel Oskowski, Allied, McLeade, Megan Hurley, Olivia Campbell Hardy

Chloe Rutherford Liam Curry Georgina Collander Courtney Boyle John Atkinson Martin Hett Philip Tron Kelly Brewster

Elaine McIver Angelica Cleese Marsenckelis Allison Howe Lisa Lees Michelle Kiss Wendy Fowell and Jane Tweedell

and if I stated any of those names incorrectly I sincerely apologize it's difficult to find online pronunciations of proper nouns like names. But that list is a list of innocent lives lost to a senseless act, an absolute tragedy. And I sincerely hope that they can rest in peace.

Case two, Fortune Lawson's Kidnap Slash Torture Gang. I don't know a delicate way to say this, but I also don't think it would shatter anyone's worldview when I say that, In recent years, probably longer than even I realize, gang crime has been becoming more common all over the world, but definitely has been an escalating problem in the UK. I hate to be the bearer of that bad news to everyone, so apologies. Typical gang crimes consist of the usual drug trafficking, prostitution, human trafficking,

and all other manner of atrocious things. However, one of the more popular club events, is in the kidnapping extortion of hapless victims. Usually a group of these members will snag up an unsuspecting person and then imprison them while extorting the victim's friends and loved ones for ransom money in exchange for the victim's life. For a lot of gangs, this is a very quick way to make a decent amount of money. Sometimes it can get as much as 100,000 pounds from one ransom.

But Fortune Lawson, street name Mills, definitely took things a step further when he began abducting people in order to cash in on some quick money. Authorities have said that it was highly sophisticated. It was targeted and a well-planned blackmail scheme. Lawson and his cohorts were kidnapping and torturing people as they extorted money from them, their friends, and loved ones. And the torture did hit its own particular level of cruel.

They would abduct their victims and restrain them and then proceed. to waterboard, stab, and even unleash a, quote, attack dog on them, all while holding a loaded gun to their head. One victim revealed that not only did they tie him up and stab him, but the gang then proceeded to pour pots of boiling water over his wounds. The victim was detained and tortured like this over the course of 27 hours, before being forced to arrange the delivery of 50,000 pounds and a Rolex to the gang. The victim was then rescued by armed police who took the offenders into custody

and rushed the man to the hospital where he was held for five days, being treated for his severe injuries, and three months later had to undergo surgery still trying to mitigate the damage done to him during this ordeal. It was by investigating the Cardiff flat where the gang was arrested, that they found DNA evidence that led them to a second victim of the gang. In short order, the gang is ringleader, Fortune Lawson, was brought in and charged with both the incidents in Cardiff, as well as being charged with the false imprisonment and torture of a third victim in London some months prior.

When all of this began to come out during the trial, the court started posting armed guards any time the defendants were brought to court. Apparently, the public was crying out for blood. There was no shortage of defendants in this particular case that were in need of being protected from vigilante justice. The list goes something like this. Fortune Lawson, Arnold, Fiummea, David Asadpur, Alexis Mutessa,

Gideon Lawson, Mackiah Marley, Dennis Delishage, Ahmed Omar, and Stephen Isaac. While the crimes they committed will forever change the lives of their victims, I think everyone can rest a little easier knowing that for the foreseeable future, these people will not be on the street,

where they can harm innocent people all for the sake of making quick money. I say for the foreseeable future, as every person associated with this case was sentenced between six and 25 years. There were at least three victims of the gang's brutal methods of extortion. Every single one of the nine people that were sentenced for these crimes were involved in at least one of the incidents. Some of them were there for all three. Jenny Hopkins, the chief crown prosecutor, is quoted as saying, The torture suffered by the victims in this case is almost beyond belief. In their pursuit of money, those responsible were seemingly willing to inflict maximum suffering.

I was unable to find a list of the people who are victimized by these heinous human beings to give them a little bit of recognition and make this more about their justice than about the people who did these unspeakable things to them. but I suppose I understand their desire for anonymity given the circumstances. I was only able to find that they were charged with the kidnapping, torture, and extortion of at least three people. I was unable to find any mention of their being other possible victims, or if they were even suspected of more crimes, but all in all, I'm pretty happy with the way this one ended, with the guilty facing their day in court and being held accountable for their horrible actions. I know this case ended up being kind of on the short side, but when there's only so much published information, there's only so much that can be relayed.

And despite it being kind of on the short side, I certainly feel it meets the criteria of being a disturbing enough case to make the video. I also feel, as always, that the victims deserve to have their stories told. And also, I feel like cases like this serve as a great piece of social commentary in a world where those at the bottom have less and less, and access to less and less of the things they may need to ink out a living, as well as the depths of depravity that some will descend to in order to have what they see others possessing. Case 3. The Southport mass stabbings. Another thing I am reluctant to draw attention to but feel compelled to do so

is the recent rise of knife-related crimes and mass stabbings within the UK. A recent study shows that within the last five years, the instances of knife crimes have climbed 80%, with a knife being involved in at least 41% of all known homicides. There is a bit of a regional dynamic at work here, as well as the majority of the knife-related crimes tending to be in the West Midlands and London. But also there are socioeconomic implications here as well.

The poorer areas where people have less access to resources do tend to have higher levels of violent crime in general. but knife-related crimes are much higher in these areas as well. The rise of gangs in the kingdom certainly does play a huge role in the rise of knife-related crimes, as most gang members are known to carry knives. This also results in more everyday people carrying knives for self-defense, and among young people as a kind of status symbol. Now, as usual, with all of this being said, I have a specific instance of a knife-related crime,

on standby here that we're going to have a look at. It is certainly a more recent case, having taken place in July of 2024, and it occurred in Southport, Merseyside, United Kingdom. 17-year-old Axel Ruda-Kibbana launched a shocking attack on a Taylor Swift-themed yoga and dance workshop attended by 26 children.

Two of the girls would die at the scene Nul-6 other girls and two adults would be taken to the local hospital, where a third girl would die from her injuries. The day after the attack, chaos broke loose as rioters and police clashed outside a local mosque, after inaccurate details about the identity of the attacker were leaked online. The resulting violence did result in the mosque being damaged and in the days that followed more anti-immigration protest and riots erupted all over the country, making this one of the most sensational cases in recent memory and the deadliest attack against children in more than a decade. The heart space, where the attack occurred,

was a studio dedicated to yoga, dance, pregnancy, and baby toddler classes. The entire workshop was organized by yoga teacher Leanne Lucas and Heidi Liedel, with the group first being announced on July 7 for children between the ages of 6 and 11. It was going to be a dance, yoga, and bracelet-making workshop themed around the music of Taylor Swift. It was scheduled to take place on July 29th and was sold out by July 18th with 26 children booked to attend. So let's take a moment to think about these numbers. 26 children were to attend. Of those 26 children, three were killed and eight others were injured plus two adults.

No matter how you look at this act, it can be careful. categorized as nothing less than atrocious. It was at the scene that Ruta Cabana was arrested and charged with three counts of murder, 10 counts of attempted murder, and possession of a bladed article. He was also found in possession of Risen, which led to him also being charged under the Biological Weapons Act of 1974 and the Terrorism Act of 2000, when he was discovered to have a military study of an al-Qaeda training manual.

When his trial was slated to begin in January of 25, Ruta Cabana initially pled not guilty to all accounts. However, on January 20th, as the trial was due to begin, he changed his plea and pleaded guilty to all 16 counts of the indictment. I find his status to be oddly gratifying as he is detained at His Majesty's pleasure with a 52-year minimum sentence. In the wake of his case, As guilty pleas, it came to light that Ruta Kibana had quite the history of violent behavior,

and while no real motive for the attack in Southport was ever forthcoming, the prosecutor is quoted as saying that, the commission of mass murder was an end unto itself. No evidence of a larger terror plot was ever uncovered. With his violent history, it was also discovered that between 2019 and 2021, he had been referred to the anti-extremism program three different times, but was never accepted into the program as no terrorist ideology was ever identified. Prime Minister Kirstarmar promised to overhaul the anti-terrorism laws to ensure that

non-ideological attacks such as the stabbings at Southport were included, and he also appointed one David Anderson to oversee a review of the prevent program. While certain things in the build-up to this mindless act of violence were most definitely mishandled, I must say that, in the aftermath, I feel this case was handled pretty solidly with a nice long sentence. That means it'll be 2077, before Ruta Kabanah even faces the prospect of seeing life outside of one of His Majesty's prisons. Short of pulling the pin on the grenade of capital punishment discussions, I really don't think that someone could ask for more as the out of the out-officty's prisons. outcome here. I mean, ideally, of course, such an act would never have taken place in the first

place, but since one of these things happened, there is no undermining them. Best case outcome is what we got. The really tragic thing, though, is that this kind of crime has been occurring more and more within the UK. And until we finally decide to take a good long look at the underlying reasons these kind of crimes happen in the first place, and try to figure out what steps can be taken to prevent them from being an issue, the trend will likely only continue to escalate. In one article I saw during my research even equated the UK's rising issues with knife crime to the issue of gun crime in America. And given the numbers, I'm sadly afraid that it's not far from being a very true statement. And now, as always, I'm going to end this by listing the

victims of the attack, and let the end of this be about those who had their lives cut so tragically short on that July day. BB King, six years old, L.C. Dot, Stancombe, seven years old, and Alice to Silva Aguar, nine years old. So that, my friends, was a collection of some UK true crime stories. Obviously, crime can happen anywhere and everywhere, and does happen anywhere and everywhere,

so, yeah, just interesting to kind of get a perspective of things that happen across the pond, because we hear in the U.S. don't hear a lot about the, cases and things that happen elsewhere, especially places like Europe and the UK. I don't know why I said especially. It's not really especially, but definitely those places. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed.

Enjoyed a strange word to use in this context, but you know what I mean. Obviously, I don't do these frequently. Infrequently is probably good word to use to describe them. I do that because I'd rather read the stories of my listeners and that I find, then do consistent true crime. And I know a lot of you don't like the true crime stuff. And again, that's totally fine.

This is why I diversify my content. I like to make things that everyone may like at different times. So, yeah. If you did, do let me know in the comments, if you're on the platform that allows comments. If you're on a platform that has a rating system, like Spotify, for instance, to consider rating the podcast that helps tremendously.

And you can also, I don't know, be amazing. Just keep being amazing. If you do have a story you want to send in to me, please do send it in. As the Raven Dreams.com or As the Raven Dreams at Gmail.com. Specifically, I would like to get some stories from music venues or concerts if you got them. I also need some stuff from, let's see the list here. If you have any Craigslist experiences, that would be fantastic. I want to get one of those in there pretty soon.

Any stories that happened to you on Halloween or whenever you were trick-or-treating as a kid? If you have those, please send them in. I want to make the last week of October a good one. That might be the only time of the year where I try to make the YouTube side and the podcast side, the exact same stories. So, yeah, if you have some Halloween stories or trick-or-treat stories, some Craigslist stories, especially, or Craigslist experiences. Craigslist is such a weird place. Anyways, if you haven't, please send a man. Obviously, glitch in the Matrix stories as well.

Really any creepy stalker encounters, creepy people encounters, anything like that. Anyways, I'm rambling. and I hope you all have a wonderful day. Hope you have a wonderful weekend in a week coming up. Hope I see again here very soon. Until then, remember that you are loved. You are valid. You are important, and the world is a better place with you in it.

Until next time, my friends, much love and sleep well.