Crime and Investigation Network's blog

Saturday, November 13, at 7.30pm on Crime & Investigation Network

Throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s women in the north of England lived in fear of a killer known as “The Yorkshire Ripper”. When a letter and tape was sent in to police with the voice of someone claiming to be the killer, the police released those who they had in custody; one of them tragically was the real, Yorkshire Ripper. This is the remarkable inside story of the biggest hoax in criminal history. This chilling documentary reveals how a cutting edge police investigation finally solved a 25-year-old mystery, which had allowed the infamous Yorkshire Ripper to kill and maim with impunity.

Friday, November 12, at 7.30pm on Crime & Investigation Network

There are 16,200 registered motorbike owners in South Yorkshire. The county has some of the most beautiful, but dangerous, roads in Britain. Bikers from all over the UK, not just locals, flood into South Yorkshire during the summer months to enjoy themselves. But an unacceptable number of them end up either dead or injured as a result of crashes. Last year, 15 bikers died and almost 500 were hurt in South Yorkshire. It’s the traffic cops who have to deal with the influx and carnage and in this episode they come against a whole series of problems on two wheels.

In Sheffield, an audacious off-road-biker goes for broke in a midnight chase through fields and gardens before being caught red handed. While on the open road a biker dies.

Part one of three.

Tuesday, November 9, at 7.30pm on Crime & Investigation Network

Crime Investigation Australia returns with a brand new series, Families of Crime giving insight into some of Australia’s most infamous crime families who wielded power, fear and destruction through the community. Each episode will explore how they became criminals and look into their personal lives and backgrounds through interviews, associates, victims and the investigators who attempted to bring them to justice. Through the use of archival footage and re-enactments, the programs will set the scene of where and what they controlled, how they built their crime kingdoms, the murderous lifestyle they led and the legacies they left behind.

Saturday, November 6, at 5.30pm on Crime & Investigation Network

Emergency: Firefighters takes a behind-the-scenes look at the demanding work of the Avon Fire and Rescue Service in the UK. With exclusive access to real life emergencies and rescue operations, discover the devastating impact of fire and other emergencies on the one million residents of the Avon region. Over the course of the series, Emergency: Firefighters also follows the rigorous training process for 12 new recruits as they battle an unrelenting schedule to become fully-fledged firefighters. After three months of intensive and gruelling exercises, the series culminates in the award of the coveted ‘silver axe’ to most deserving and promising trainee.

Wednesday, November 3, at 9.30pm on Crime & Investigation Network

Controversial and eye-opening documentary following families training up their kids to be the best in the boxing ring. Children as young as four or five years old are becoming the latest recruits to the trend and growth of Thai boxing. Controversial and eye-opening documentary following families training up their kids to be the best in the boxing ring. Children as young as four or five years old are becoming the latest recruits to the trend and growth of Thai boxing.

Episode Five of TOUGH NUTS: AUSTRALIA’S HARDEST CRIMINALS premieres on Thursday, October 28 at 7.30pm AEDT and profiles one of Australia’s most notorious and successful criminals, Russell ‘Mad Dog’ Cox.

Born in 1949 as Melville Peter Schnitzerling, Russell Cox went from bike thief at age nine to Australia’s most wanted man for a record 11 years.

Known as one of Australia’s best armed robbers, his criminal mates called him ‘The Fox’, but to police and journalists he was Russell ‘Mad Dog’ Cox.

Cox was sentenced to life after a failed 1975 escape bid from Long Bay, during which he kidnapped two warders at gunpoint. He was then incarcerated in the notorious Katingal Unit at Long Bay Jail. Katingal was a maximum security prison that was dubbed the ‘electric zoo’ and said to be escape-proof.

But Cox proved to be a criminal no prison could hold and he escaped Katingal in November 1977. His incredible escape is explained in detail in this episode of TOUGH NUTS.

A master of disguise, Cox remained on the run for the next 11 years, accompanied by his partner Helen Deane, a nurse and also the sister-in-law of Australian criminal mastermind Raymond ‘Ray Chuck’ Bennett.

But in 1988, Cox’s luck ran out and he was captured in a shoot-out in Melbourne and imprisoned once again.

Cox went on to become a reformed character – in his final stint in jail, he decided to remain behind bars and assist in the young offenders’ scheme, helping young inmates on the road to a life free of crime.

Cox was released from prison on December 8, 2004 and now lives a quiet existence on Queensland’s Gold Coast.

Presented by bestselling crime author Tara Moss, TOUGH NUTS is an eight-part series that blows the lid off Australia’s criminal underworld and reveals the real story behind what made and shaped the most notorious figures in Australian criminal history.

The series profiles a different criminal in each episode and features, in order: Christopher Dale Flannery, Chow Hayes, Alphonse Gangitano, Dennis Allen, Russell Cox, Michael Sayers, Raymond Bennett and Lenny McPherson.

TOUGH NUTS is produced by Bryan Cockerill from The Full Box and is exclusive to Crime & Investigation Network.

Saturday, October 9, at 6.30pm on Crime & Investigation Network

One of the most intriguing developments on the Internet is the invention of online role-playing, where people from all corners of the world can come together in a virtual reality.

Fascinating expos� of the weird and wonderful world of cyber alter egos, and the complex consequences of online communities which bring the real and the virtual to collide.

Wednesday, October 6, at 9.30pm on Crime & Investigation Network

From a bagful of four-inch carpenters nails in a man’s stomach, to a boat anchor in another man’s skull to a two by four through a woman’s face, This special looks at an astonishing medical list of “101 Things Removed from the Human Body”. The stories are all true and every person featured lived to tell about it. The show features synopses and interviews with people worldwide, who have undergone miraculous removals of dangerous objects that could have killed them.

Tuesday, October 5 at 8.30pm on Crime & Investigation Network

Showcases some of the most notable and challenging investigations in contemporary law enforcement. Each episode will profile completed cases that were anything but cut and dry, with twists and turns, multiple suspects and the unlikely culprit (or culprits) who almost got away with it. Crimes range from murder to extortion, from sexual assault to kidnapping and more. Using news footage, recorded 911 calls, home videos and recreations, stories will be told through eye witnesses, victims and the investigators who cracked these complex cases.

Monday, October 4, at 8.30pm on Crime & Investigation Network

The story of one of the world’s most audacious hoaxes: Tania Head’s heartrending account of narrowly surviving the terror attack on New York’s Twin Towers, but losing her fianc�e to the terrorists that same morning, became the ultimate tale of inspiration not just for other survivors but for an entire nation left reeling by 9/11. She was a Hollywood scriptwriter’s dream, until every detail of her story was exposed as a lie. This special reveals the extraordinary hoax pulled off by a rich kid from Barcelona who was living thousands of miles away from New York studying for an MBA in Spain at the very moment of the World Trade Centre attack. This impostor gradually built up her victim persona online, before moving to New York to live out a new life as the 9/11 heroine. It shows how she methodically grafted her story onto the lucky escapes and horrible deaths of actual people on 9/11, until finally, as President of the Survivors’ Network, one of the powerful 9/11 action groups, she could even move Mayor Rudi Giuliani to tears with her story.