Kill List - Bath | 14

Episode Date: December 17, 2024

A young woman from England has just moved into a new apartment when she realizes a stalker is watching her. The horror story she lives through next makes her question her closest relationships.Be the first to know about Wondery’s newest podcasts, curated recommendations, and more! Sign up now at https://wondery.fm/wonderynewsletterFollow the Kill List on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting www.wondery.com/links/kill-list now. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondry Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of Kaolist early and ad free. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts. Hey, it's Karl. Before we get going, I just wanted to let you know that this episode contains references to suicide and self-harm. There are links in the show notes to resources, in case you're affected by the things we talk about. It's a bright spring day,

and Lisa is settling into her new flat in Bath, a small, picturesque city in the southwest of England. And after weeks of moving vans and unpacking, the place is finally starting to feel like home. I'd just moved into my new flat, gotten settled and everything, and then all of a sudden I get this text. At first, the text looks like spam. It didn't have an actual phone number, it just had words where the number would be.

But when Lisa looks closer, she sees that this text contains a sinister message. We have explicit photos and videos of you. We want more from you. Send more photos and videos of you of an explicit nature and we won't send whatever we already have to your family members. I thought it was funny. I thought it was a joke. I was quite confident that they didn't have any real images of me, anything explicit like they said they did. Lisa doesn't pay this message too much attention.

It looks like the kind of stupid scam message that we all get every now and then. So she doesn't respond and gets back to organizing the flat. But then... About a week later, I got another one saying, I know that you've just moved into a new flat. I know things about one of my ex-boyfriends that was quite secret, and new family members' names as well.

And was threatening to send things to my family members, which I think that was the first time I kind of took it a bit more seriously. Lisa's sister lives nearby with her husband, so naturally they're the first people Lisa turns to for help. They just said, you know, it's really strange, but just ignore it. I'm sure it's nothing serious. Over the following weeks, the messages keep coming. There'll be nothing for days, and then a burst of new threats. In text messages, and then emails. And it's not just Lisa who's getting them. It got to the point where emails were sent to my family,

and it looked like they contained photoshopped images of me, explicit ones. They sent kind of what was assumed to be sex noises as well and claimed those were recordings of me but I obviously knew that they weren't. Lisa tries going to the police but she says they tell her there's not much they can do. There's no way to trace the messages, so she should just ignore them. Then, as suddenly and unexpectedly as they'd started, the messages stop. About a month after the last message, Lisa is having a shower. She turns off the water and opens the door when she catches sight of something in the corner of her eye.

Something fell from underneath my sink. It looked like some kind of electric device, like a battery powered device. And I thought it was really strange. At first I thought it might be something to do with the plumbing, but it didn't seem likely. It was covered in kind of tape, really strong tape to stick it up under the sink, which was kind of directly facing my shower. I took all the tape off to kind of see what it was.

I couldn't make sense of it. So I just texted a friend. I just said, I'm quite concerned. I don't know what this is and it's in my flat. He called me and asked me on a video call, show it up to the camera and show all the parts. And he said, that's a camera. Doesn't that completely change what you thought was happening?

Yeah, it was tickling because I thought it must be someone close to me. My name is Karl Miller. Since 2020, I've been part of a team working in secret to stop people getting murdered. We broke into a scam Murder4Hire website on the dark web. We could see every order being placed, real money being paid to have real people murdered. The tally of these targets now stands in the hundreds. We call it the Kill List. So far, we've managed to help law enforcement arrest or convict

more than 30 people all around the world. In covering those stories, I've learnt that the Kill List is a window into a world that, more often than not, concerns violence and threats against women like Lisa. And as she tries to get support for this new and unexpected threat she's facing, Lisa finds that uncovering the identity of her stalker is only half the battle. Because what do you do when out of nowhere someone decides to surveil and threaten you and not one of the institutions we all rely on seem to take it seriously? I'm Indra Varma and in the latest season of The Spy Who, we open the file on Daphne

Park, the spy who killed the Prime Minister. As the Belgian Congo gains its independence, MI6 dispatches Officer Park to build a spy network. Its aim? To thwart a communist land grab, promote African democracy, and prevent nuclear war. Along with Field Officer Larry Devlin, they work to be a part of what would be one of the darkest operations in MI6 and CIA history. In order for Park to succeed, she needs to win the trust of Congo's first Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, or remove him. Follow the Spy Who on the Wondery app, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

You can binge the full season of The Spy Who Killed the Prime Minister early and ad-free with Wondery and Novel, I'm Carmilla, and this is Kill List. That night, Lisa hardly sleeps. She keeps turning everything over in her mind. She's certain that the camera must be connected to the strange messages. There's no way this can all be a coincidence. And that means that whoever is threatening her is somebody very close. Someone who has access to her new home. The next morning, she calls the police.

The police asked whether it could be anyone I knew. I told them it could only really be, feasibly, two people. My landlord, who had been in my bathroom doing some tiling, something like that, but I knew it wasn't likely. Or my brother-in-law, who'd been around to help quite a bit. I really didn't want it to have been my brother-in-law

because he was literally like a brother to me. He was literally like a brother to me. Lisa's brother-in-law is called Nival. They first met when Lisa was 15 and Nival 17. He'd just started dating Lisa's sister, who we're going to be calling Phoebe. Nival and Phoebe were childhood sweethearts, the first relationship either of them had ever had. They got married in France in 2019 and Lisa was a bridesmaid at the wedding,

where Navao, as is tradition, gave a speech. I'd say a few words about my wonderful, wonderful bride. She was the strongest woman and the nicest that I've ever met and so'm so happy to be with her. She is literally the light of my life every day. So Lisa's known Nival for more than a decade. And although their relationship hasn't always been easy, over the years she's started to feel like she can really trust him. When I went to him about this for advice, he'd be really understanding and caring

and he would, you know, try and hook me a lot. You know, he'd always been really there for me. During the Covid pandemic, Lisa struggled with the isolation of lockdown. Her sister Phoebe was sticking rigorously to the rules

and wouldn't let Lisa come around and visit. So Navale would secretly take their dog around to Lisa's flat to help give her some company during the lonely lockdown months. And during those visits, Lisa would confide in Navale about intimate details of her life, and he would listen and offer sympathetic advice. So, as Lisa contemplates this new possibility, it's incredibly hard for her to believe that Naval is a culprit. He's well liked by her family, he's clever, he's got a PhD in

computer science, and he's always helping Lisa's parents out with one thing or another. He's nerdy, a little odd, but he seems fundamentally sweet-natured, and he certainly makes Lisa's sister Phoebe happy. So how can she believe that this clever, sweet man could do something as sick as put a camera in her bathroom to secretly film her? A few days later, it's the weekend, a Saturday, and the paranoid questions firing around Lisa's head become too much. She needs answers and she sees an opportunity to get them. Phoebe and Naval are on a holiday

and won't be back until Sunday. And Lisa has a key to their flat. I decided to take the spare key, go around and have a look through his laptop myself, because I knew his password. We were very close, so we had talked about our passwords before. It was the middle of June, nice day. While I was walking there, I was kind of in a daze as everyone was happy and walking to the park and having picnics. I felt so unsafe at the time. I knew someone close to me is trying to do something seriously wrong here. Lisa lets herself into the flat and grabs Navarro's laptop. She sits in the living room and types in the password.

I didn't really know what I was looking for, but I tried his Amazon account to see what he'd been buying recently. And I found in his recent purchases, this Gorilla Glue tape. And it was the same one that I'd found on my sink, a 64 gig memory card. Again, the same one that I'd found. It was really sinking feeling. I looked through his internet history

and I found some searches about how to control Wi-Fi hubs as well. Exactly the same Wi-Fi that's just been installed in Lisa's flat. Presumably it could have been to access my internet searches and get, I don't know, potentially get information on me to blackmail me further.

In a matter of seconds, everything Lisa thought she knew about her relationship with Naval has been completely upended. But now, after so many weeks of anxiety and confusion, she knows the truth. It felt triumphant in the sense of just knowing, because at that time I was feeling quite unsafe. And now, at that point, I knew this is the person that I need to stay far, far away from. The following Monday morning, a friend is sleeping on Lisa's sofa. She asked him to stay over because she doesn't feel safe. So it's Lisa's friend who answers the door

to find Nival on Lisa's doorstep, asking to come in. And my friend just said, I don't think that's a good idea. Close the door. He continued knocking, tried calling me, and texting me. The text said, I need to speak to you urgently. Please, can I just speak to you, even if it's through the door? I knew he wasn't going to go away easily, so I went to the front door and I opened it

and I just said go away and closed it again. He carried on knocking. Lisa's friend goes back to the door and starts shouting at Naval, at which point Naval starts shouting back. I just remember him shouting the words, they were going to kill Benji, which is my sister's and his dog. They were going to kill Benji. Yeah, it didn't make any sense. But my friend didn't give him any time to explain himself.

He just told him that he was him any time to explain himself. He just told him that he was a creep and to go away. Liza's not exactly sure how Naval realized that she discovered the camera. It wasn't broadcasting, only recording. She thinks that his laptop was connected to his other devices. And so when she went into it, Naval got a notification and could see what she was looking at. And having been firmly told to go, he promptly leaves Lisa's flat. About an hour or so later, the doorbell goes again.

It's Phoebe, Lisa's sister. She came in and she just looked like she'd seen a ghost. She was just completely pale. She just, the first thing she did was apologize to me. She just said, I can't believe he did that. I'm so sorry. Basically she told me what he'd told her, that he was threatened by a group of people, or two people, to put a camera in my bathroom.

Apparently they had video footage of him and my sister and they had pictures of their flat, they knew where they went cycling, they knew where they walked the dog. When he was telling her all of this, he was sobbing and pleading with her to not abandon him and just insisting. He swore he was telling the truth. He didn't do anything. He was threatened. And I asked her, do you believe him? And she said, I don't know, do you?

And I just said no. And I could see the disappointment in her face. It really did seem like she wanted to believe him. Phoebe doesn't know what to make of all of this. On the one hand, the whole story Nival is telling seems completely incredible. But even so, he's her husband. And Phoebe is struggling to come to terms with the idea that any of this could be real.

So, Phoebe tells Navouta leave and go back to Manchester. For her part, Lisa calls the police again, who send an officer to take a fresh statement. She asked, if it comes to it and you know it does go to court, would you want a conviction to happen? Would you be comfortable with that? And I felt so guilty for some reason because it was someone that I'd cared for like family for 11 years. At the same time I did look back at things and

realize he had been inappropriate towards me quite a lot in the past. Inappropriate in what way? When I'd introduce him to a new boyfriend or something, he'd ask, have you two had sex yet? When I was 15, he would ask me almost every time I saw him, have you lost your virginity yet? At the time then you kind of just brush these things off to do, like you just, that's what he's like.

I talked it down to immaturity, and a lot of people in the family did whenever he was kind of strange in that way. Obviously it was a bit more sinister than that. So what did you decide then when the police told you, do you want to proceed with a prosecution? I said yes, because I thought it would be for the best, especially because my sister was kind of undecided and she didn't know what to believe. I thought if they investigate further, then they can probably get some hard evidence

as to whether it was him or not, but by that point I had already made up my mind anyway. In a parallel universe, this would be the beginning of the end of Lisa's story. The police would investigate, Navar would be arrested, he'd be told not to contact Lisa again, and then put on trial. We've seen that it is possible for the police to respond to threats like this quickly. In the US, France and Germany, we've seen that results can happen fast. But in true British fashion, Lisa's case joins a queue. A very long queue.

And despite promising to investigate in the months that follow, she says the police were unable to give her even an update. I'd contact them a lot and nothing had been done. I'd ask them, have you looked into it any further? Have you looked at the footage on the camera? Nothing had been done. Whilst the police apparently sit on their hands, the text messages start up again.

He still continued to send texts and threats, only they got more serious. The text kind of sounded like someone trying to portray a movie criminal, he would kind of imply that he was, or this anonymous person, was watching my sister's house, watching wherever she went and I went because he began texting her too, saying things like, I saw you outside of your house walking the dog, or I saw you and your family in a coffee shop. Be careful. You shouldn't have gone to the police. We'll never leave you alone.

The stalking and harassment then morphs into something even more sinister. Lisa finds a package has been delivered to her home addressed to her with bags of cocaine and MDMA. I handed it straight over to the police. They tested it and it was positive drugs. As Lisa waits for the police to step in and actually do something,

the threats are escalating fast. And it's at exactly this moment that someone goes onto the dark web and starts making active attempts to have her killed. Two months after she discovered the camera in her bathroom, Lisa receives a message, not from me, but from a stranger on Facebook. Saying they'd come across my name and my details on a hitman website. The person tells Lisa someone has been posting her private information on public dark web forums. And this good Samaritan is getting in touch

to warn Lisa that someone seemed to wish her harm. The person making the threats goes by the alias, I Hate Lisa. They post Lisa's full name, her address and mobile phone number, as well as photos of her and her sister Phoebe. Lisa immediately sends the screenshots to the police. Within hours, the officer leading the case is standing in Lisa's living room to take another statement from her. We had a conversation about it and he said that he would be arrested. The police have been analysing the camera Lisa found in her bathroom.

And they found a significant, really substantial piece of evidence. The police have been analysing the camera Lisa found in her bathroom, and they've found a significant, really substantial piece of evidence. Footage of Nival setting the camera up alongside footage of Lisa. On the one hand, Lisa is relieved that the police have actually managed to uncover solid evidence, linking N vow to the crime. On the other hand, all they've really done is to take the memory card from the camera and review the footage.

It was already in the police's possession. All they needed to do was to plug it in. And yet this seemingly simple act has taken nearly three months. The simple act has taken nearly three months. A little after 10pm on the 13th of October 2021, four months after she first reported the crime, Lisa finally gets the news she's been waiting for. The police are on their way back from Manchester

and Naval has been arrested. But any reassurance Lisa feels is short-lived. Naval has been released on bail pending further investigation. As part of his bail conditions, he's not allowed to contact Lisa or Phoebe or set foot in Bath. He's supposed to stay at his mum's house in Manchester and he'll have a curfew. It was a bit anticlimactic in the sense that he was in police custody for a few hours and

then he was back out again. One of the things I did find interesting was he had asked them when they dropped him back home in the car, he'd asked them, if anything happens again, will I be arrested again? Almost as if he were kind of trying to gauge how far he could push. And then interestingly, from that point on, when the police had told him, yeah, you would be arrested again, nothing else happened. Just went silent. That silence lasts for about a month. Until Lisa gets a call from another number that she doesn't recognise. Hello? Hi there Lisa, thanks for picking up the phone. We haven't spoken before but my name is Carl

Miller, I'm a journalist based in London. Can I have five minutes of your time to talk? The reason I'm calling Lisa, in fact the whole reason we met and that you're hearing this story is that we discovered a kill order on the hitman for hire site we were investigating and this order targeted Lisa. She runs late in the evening at 8 to 9.30pm, every two to three days, and weekends around 2 to 3pm. The messages begin in August, the same time that Nevao was claiming to have been threatened by shady gangsters. The messages are written in a broken English, like someone's ridiculous idea of how a gangster might write. In apartment most of the time. As long as she's badly hurt or dead, we do not care.

A couple of weeks after the first messages, I Hate Lisa uploads a new kill order. But this time they're not targeting Lisa. They're focusing on her sister, Phoebe. But they don't want Phoebe to be hurt. No beating or hurting, just intimidation. Means to feel very threatening, so will not mess with us again.

I need you to say, are you Phoebe? Do not trust Lisa. We will no longer come after you, Naval, or Benji. Then, a few days later, a third order, this time targeting Lisa again, but it's not a kill order. Instead, the user wants the hitman to frame her. And finally, a month later, in early October 2021, there's a fourth and final order, this time targeting Nival, and coming just a week before he was arrested. Beat him to an inch of his life. Don't know where he is at the moment. He should be back

at some point. So there's not just one target, but three. Lisa, Phoebe and Nevao. Well, four, if you count Benji the dog. And four different requests. Killing, intimidation, planting drugs, and a beating. And given everything Lisa's been through already, when we break this news to her, she's not in the least bit surprised.

The way Naval is using the kill list is unlike anything we've seen before. He's committing a crime in order to cover up another crime. He's weaving a web of illusion to try and back up his strange alibi about being threatened by gangsters as the explanation for why he stalked and harassed Lisa. But underpinning that bizarre strategy is a much more sinister motivation. I did think it was particularly interesting from those messages. One of them said, I'm a good looking girl,

and the person could do whatever they wanted to me. It seemed almost like an invitation to sexually assault me, which would fit into his cover story of someone else other than him wanting some kind of perverse footage of me and, you know, sex motive. With Lisa's permission, my team and I hand the police everything we have about the kill order, including a payment of $479 in Bitcoin that we can trace, which was made to pay for the hit. By tracing the Bitcoin, the police should be able to tie Nival to the kill order. Between Nival's devices, the text messages, the camera footage,

and now the kill order and the Bitcoin payment attached to it, the police have everything they need to swiftly investigate this case and bring charges. 12 months pass. Naval is interviewed by the police three times. They gather more evidence, including a PDF on how to send anonymous messages as well as similar search requests on Reddit. And yet, no charges are brought. Essentially, from Lisa's perspective, nothing happens. Naval remains out on bail,

and Lisa feels no closer to getting justice. In fact, the injustices keep piling up. Lisa says that in her view, Navaal repeatedly breaks his bail conditions. Not long after his arrest, he sends a text to Lisa's sister, Phoebe. He tells Phoebe that he's taken an overdose of sleeping pills. She was pretty caught up about the whole thing. So she called my dad straight away when she got it and he called their family. His mum went up to his bedroom and found him

and he was hospitalized. I think just for the night, we hated what had happened. There was a lot of speculation as to whether he'd taken an overdose to kind of get attention from my sister again, because he really wanted to speak to her. That isn't the only time Nivalau messages Phoebe throughout this period. It's nothing threatening per se. A happy birthday here, how are you doing there?

But Lisa still finds it hard to understand why he isn't facing consequences for breaching his bowel conditions. Meanwhile, Niveau carries on with his life as if nothing has happened. He starts a new job as a software engineer at a company in Bristol, a city not far from Bath. He posts photos on LinkedIn laughing with colleagues at a company away day. He looks like a totally normal guy in his 20s, a little nerdy but athletic with long shaggy hair and a big grin. Six months later, in December 2022, Naval is pictured on holiday on the Spanish island of Tenerife, seemingly in breach of his bail conditions again.

When Lisa sees the pictures, she calls the police. And when I had questioned the police about him being on holiday, they had told me, well, the bail conditions, they were partly put in place for his own mental health and his own mental wellbeing. So that was really disheartening. It just didn't seem like at that point he was suffering any consequences.

It's been 18 months since Lisa found the camera in her bathroom and still no end in sight. But 12 weeks later, in April 2023, Lisa gets news that, she hopes, will change everything. The police tell Lisa that they've finished their investigation and are charging Navau with three crimes, stalking with serious alarm or distress, voyeurism and sending

communications conveying a threatening message. Naval is looking at serious jail time, potentially up to nine years in prison. And when Lisa googles it, she finds out that once cases land in the hands of the Crown Prosecution Service, it's usually only about 10 weeks before they go to court. I mean, the police were so unbelievably slow. We just thought if it were passed over to some other people, surely. Anyone else.

Surely it would be faster. Yeah. At that point, it did feel like progress had been made. For once in this whole story, it feels like the system is finally on Lisa's side. After waiting for so long, it should now only be a matter of weeks before she comes face to face with Naval in court

and finally gets justice. After Lisa learns that the Crown Prosecution Service is taking over her case, she waits to find out when Nauvon will appear in court. She's hoping a couple of months at the most. But then ten weeks pass with no news. Then ten more weeks pass with no contact from anyone at CPS to explain what's going on. It's been two years now since Lisa found the camera in her bathroom, and her patience finally snaps. I wrote to them and explained the situation. Essentially the police are telling me it's with you, and there aren't any updates,

and it's getting ridiculous at this point. Navao, meanwhile, has announced on his LinkedIn that he's going travelling in Japan and South Korea, whilst Lisa feels utterly powerless. I feel like to be taken seriously, like you need money or some level of power. For a long time I was walking around with this flimsy little rape alarm. That was it. That was all I had to make me feel safe. So it was nothing. I didn't have the money or the resource or the connections.

Lisa decides to turn to someone who does have connections and power, her member of parliament. This is her local representative in the UK's national legislative body. And this is where Lisa finally gets some luck. Lisa's MP is a woman who has been campaigning tirelessly for the rights of victims of sexual offences. We are letting survivors down. It is shocking. Her name is Vera Hobhouse,

and here she is talking at a debate in parliament about tackling violence against women and girls. We absolutely need better training and more resources for prosecutors and judges to punish perpetrators and deliver the justice that victims and survivors so desperately need. So when Lisa arrives at the constituency office for a scheduled meeting about her case, she hopes that Vera Hophouse will help. I walked into her office, she was kind of sat at her computer, she didn't really look up or anything, and eventually she kind of turned away from her computer, greeted me,

and asked me what my reason was for coming in. Lisa does her best to lay out the whole story, although she's barely gotten the words out when the questions start coming back and she says not in the way that she expected. I was really taken aback by how, it's just kind of combative questioning she was. She was almost challenging me. I think she asked me what she was supposed to do about it. And I just kind of said, well, you know, I thought you might be able to put some pressure on

or something. She told me, well, you know, I'm not the prime minister, like, I don't have power to change things. And so she kind of said like, oh, well, I can write a letter if you want. And that was about it. And at that point, she turned away from me and she was just back on her computer typing away. Yeah, I had a 20 minute appointment I think and I was in there for about five minutes. Gosh. I went back to my office and sat at my desk and cried. Of all the institutional failings Lisa's facing, her account of this meeting is the one that I find the most difficult to understand.

Here we have a politician who's made it her mission to combat misogyny and in particular sex crimes. And yet Lisa claims she struggled to even get more than five minutes of her MP's time. We put Lisa's frustrations to Vera Hophouse, who, in a written statement, told us, I am very sorry to hear that Lisa left feeling distressed and upset. When cases like Lisa's are investigated by the police and are in the judicial system, there is indeed little that I can do. I always point out to my constituents that I cannot interfere in police or judicial matters,

so my constituents' expectations are managed. It is, however, within my power to advocate for my constituents to the CPS, and this is what I offered Lisa at this time. constituents to the CPS and this is what I offered Lisa at this time. To be clear, Lisa's MP did offer to write a letter to the CPS on Lisa's behalf, an offer which, after their meeting, Lisa ultimately chose not to take up. Lisa left a consent form to allow us to write to the CPS on her behalf, once she'd sent us all the details of her case. We received no further communication from her so could take no further action. Lisa says she feels like no one in a position of power has been taking her or what's happened

to her seriously enough. And now she to just feel strapped. It's hard to put into words, but when things like this happen, there's so much narrative around being a victim. And because it was going on for so long, I was kind of stuck in this limbo of being a victim and I didn't want to be. I was spiraling with my mental health because it just wasn't getting any better. I was just so stuck. No one was taking me seriously. But yeah, I started self-harming quite a lot, which was difficult. Yeah, I was drinking quite heavily at times throughout that period as well, and that kind of numbed the pain, so that would be especially bad because I would wake up with pain, so that would be especially bad because I would wake up with cuts that I didn't even remember giving myself. My perception of myself was just terrible.

Lisa went to her doctor for help with her mental health, but they told her that the NHS could only offer cognitive behavioural therapy, which she says didn't feel like the kind of talking therapy that she needed. She had a couple of private therapy sessions, but couldn't afford to keep them up long term. And in the end, it was her dad who helped her through. He told me, you're not a victim. Like, you are so, so much more than this. You can't let what he has done affect you for the

rest of your life and affect you in this way. You're gonna do so many more things and be so much better than the way he sees you. So yeah, that did help make me feel stronger, I suppose, because I think seeing yourself as a victim is a really unhealthy headspace to be in. We have so many kill-less cases where the victim hasn't got justice at all, where people like Lisa just get left in limbo, forever watching over their

shoulder, confident that they know who tried to have them harmed, but sat within a system unwilling or unable to get them the resolution they deserve. But in the end, this is not one of those stories. Despite everything, this is a story where the perpetrator does have to answer for their crimes. The change in momentum begins with a phone call from the CPS in autumn 2023. Up until now, Naval has always stuck by this incredible, fantastical story that he stalked Lisa because he was being threatened by gangsters. But on the 18th of October 2023, to Lisa's astonishment,

Naval finally admits what she'd long known and he pleads guilty to all the charges. We haven't spoken to Naval so we don't know why he decided to finally plead guilty. in a vow, so we don't know why he decided to finally plead guilty. However, one factor might be that he will get a third off any prison sentence he might receive. And this is the very last chance for him to take that deal. Four weeks later, on a cold November morning, Lisa and Phoebe are ushered through a side entrance of Bristol Crown Court. They walk up the steps to Court No. 10 and take their seats, next to Nival's family. His mum, his two sisters and his brother were there and it felt like we were outnumbered.

So we just kind of sat down just a few meters away from them. The reality of the situation kind of started to sink in. And there was nothing really to say. We just sat there in silence. Lisa and Phoebe are shown new seats on the other side of the room, and quickly the judge and the defense barrister enter the court. And then, Naval is brought in. room and quickly the judge and the defence barrister enter the court. And then, Naval is brought in. It's the first time Lisa's seen him since the day she confronted

him about the camera. He looked cold. He looked scared. He was handcuffed, which made it feel really real. I was, for some reason, not very nice to see. I tried not to look at him too much. I kind of, I wanted to know that he was there. I could just about cope with looking at him out of the corner of my eye. The prosecution argument runs as Lisa expects. It takes about 15 minutes to lay out the entire ordeal.

But it's the defense's case that Lisa is really interested in. So far, Naval has never offered any real explanation for his actions. And Lisa's ear pricks up when the barrister mentions that Naval had mental health problems. When he started speaking about mental health, I thought, oh, maybe this will explain something, maybe this will explain some kind of, I had no idea. You've been diagnosed with some profound problem. Yeah, exactly. Personality disorder, but nothing. It was just generic mental health, which I can safely say we both struggled as a consequence

from this with our own mental health, so there was no remorse. The defense argue that Nival is a first-time offender. He has a PhD, a good job, he's got a loving family, and he picks up his nieces and nephews from school. There's even a character reference from Nival's new girlfriend. The judge doesn't take these arguments very seriously. He describes Nival's actions as cruel and calculated. He calls out Nival's lies,

and the way he tried to manipulate his way out of being caught. The judge hands down the sentence, three years in prison, with half of it served on probation. At a minimum, Navarro will now spend 18 months behind bars. I just kept thinking to myself, this is the right thing. I hate him for what he's done and I never want to see him again but he's a person at the end of the day and I hope not for good things or bad things to come his way, I just hope he's okay. After the judge had finished speaking, he just stood up so slowly. He just looked devastated.

And then he was gone, and that was it. So what does justice mean in this case? Nival has been punished, he's got in jail time. For Lisa, that genuinely means something important. It means that in the end, the system validated what she'd been through. On the other hand, Nival will spend less time in prison than Lisa had to endure waiting for him to be convicted. In a sense, the slow, interminable grinding of this dysfunctional system has punished

her longer than it has him. Yeah, I mean this wasn't a whodunit, was it? That's Caroline Thornton, my producer. Naval's image was on the camera that they found, there was more evidence on his laptop, they worked out who the prime suspect here was very quickly. And yet it still took so long. And I think you get some perspective on just how extreme Lisa's situation is when you look at what other cases normally take.

When you compare it to the average amount of time it takes for something like this to resolve. Lisa's case should have taken a year. And what it took was two and a half years, which is a massive difference. And something that I found in the court documents that really struck me about this is that when it came to sentencing Naval, the judge actually found that all of these delays should mitigate in Naval's favour, right? When Lisa's also been having to wait this whole time too. And despite the fact that he's concocted a ludicrous alibi that he's been threatened and pressured by gangsters.

Yeah, if Naval wanted this to be resolved more quickly, maybe he could have told the truth from the start. I think we go about our lives like thinking these institutions are going to be there for us if, God forbid, we ever need them. But what's really scary, and I think should scare everyone listening to this story, is that in Lisa's case, they really weren't. They really weren't there for her.

They really weren't. And Lisa here has run into the reality that so many people face, which is that in our criminal justice system, you know, victims of crimes and often victims of crimes involving sexual violence in particular, often don't see any justice or it takes so long and the conviction rates are often really, really low. For so many people, the systems are not there when they need them. And any one of us is just one piece of bad luck away from being in Lisa's shoes. And that's really scary. In amongst all of that and all the systemic failures here

and how long Lisa's had to wait to get this justice, the kill order can really feel like a bit of a footnote in this story. But actually it played a really significant role. Because Lisa says the kill order allowed the police to upgrade the stalking charge to stalking involving fear of violence. And that's a much more serious offense. So without the kill order and the small payment he made, Naval might not actually have even gone to prison at all. This case hits me really hard, personally. Lisa's only a bit younger than I am, and she lives quite near to where I do in the UK,

and really there was no reason to anticipate that anything like this could happen to her. It's clear, both to me and to Caroline, that we could easily have been in Lisa's shoes. And what I find most profoundly unsettling about Lisa's story is how not one, but a whole host of institutions failed Lisa just at the moment she needed them the most. The police, the NHS, the Crown Prosecution Service, even her own MP for years on end, wouldn't give her the support that she needed, leaving her feeling utterly alone during this time because practically speaking she was. So for me, this case isn't about the Darknet, nor is it about Naval. It's about Lisa being

surrounded by public services failing in their most basic and yet important duties. On the next episode of Kill List, we return to one of the cases that unsettled me the most, that of Dr. Ronilg, and how he tried to evade justice and exert new influence, even from behind bars. You can hear him in there trying to manipulate me. And it's just this very like, I am the teacher. I am in charge. Let me show you how you've got this all wrong about me.

I was thinking, I was like, oh, this guy really thinks he's some kind of Don Juan who can charm anyone. And I think he might be evil. But this guy really thinks he's some kind of Don Juan who can charm anyone. And I think he might be evil. If you like Kill List, you can binge all episodes ad-free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondry.com slash survey.

From Wondry and Novel, this is Kill List. Kill List is hosted by me, Carmilla. The reporter for this episode is Caroline Thornton and it was produced and written by our series producer Tom Wright. Kill List is also produced by J.K. Tyovic with additional production by Anna Sinfield. Our assistant producer is Emalia Sordland and our researchers are Megan Oynka and Lina Chang. Additional research from Chris Monteiro. For Wandery, our senior producer is Mandy Gorinstein.

Fact-checking by Fendel Fulton. Our managing producers are Cherie Houston, Sarah Tobin and Charlotte Wolfe for Novel. Sarah Mathers is our managing producer and Callum Pluse is our senior managing producer for Wandery. Original music by Skyler Gerdeman and Martin Linebelle. Music supervision by Nicholas Alexander, Max O'Brien and Caroline Thornton. Sound design and mixing by Daniel Kempson. For novel, Willard Foxton is creative director of development. Our executive producers are Sean Glynn, Max O'Brien and Craig Strachan,

the novel. Executive producers for Wandery are Marshall Louis and Erin Oflarity.