Body on the Beach () - full transcript

Annie didn't feel lonely.

Even if she was alone, she was

independent, she was strong.

She wanted to explore new things

in life, do something new.

If she wanted to do something,

she did it.

I remember Annie as a very happy,

very lively girl.

She enjoyed music,

she enjoyed dancing.

With her long, thick blonde hair,

she was like a Viking princess.

She was a great friend,

taken from us too soon.

This programme contains some scenes

which some viewers may find upsetting

and deals with Suicide.

I was just walking along

Prestwick Beach.

When I got to about the curve

coming up here,

I looked over and she was lying

head in against the wall.

She wanted to come back to Sweden.

PHONE RINGS

Then this terrible phone call -

Annie had been found dead.

15:14 is the first sighting of her

and she's on her own.

When she comes back into the airport

she looks distressed. What happened?

She was in a good mood.

She didn't seem depressed at all.

It doesn't add up.

There was nothing to indicate that I

was dealing with a potential murder.

Now, if what the family

is saying is true,

then you're talking about

a potential cover up.

Obviously, there's ways and means

of deleting phone records.

People who can do that

are the security services.

We want to know the truth,

whatever it is.

My dad's from this part of Scotland.

My granny used to stay

just up there.

I've got tonnes of happy memories

here.

But now I've got a different

association with this place.

This is the spot right here

where Annie's body was discovered

on a winter's morning.

I was only 13 when Annie died

but the story of her death

has always stayed with me.

We all know that when terrible

things happen to women,

sometimes their stories

just aren't taken seriously

by the people that are supposed

to be looking after them.

And even though Annie died

18 years ago,

it feels like a story

we could have heard yesterday.

And many people, her friends

and family included,

believe that Annie

was actually murdered.

The question is, though,

could they be right?

I want to find out what

really happened to Annie.

And the best place to start

is the day she was found

right here on this beach.

TICKING

It's a Sunday morning, you've

got a report of a female body

having been discovered

on Prestwick Beach.

My name is Michael Neill

and my connection with

the Annie Borjesson case was

I was the detective on duty

the morning Annie's body

was discovered.

You've got a young female

who's dead on the beach.

To err on the side of caution

it was treated as a crime scene.

The crime scene manager attended,

along with scenes of crime officers,

who were going to photograph it, but

we were in a race against time here

to get Annie's body off the beach

before the tide was upon us.

A bag was sitting beside her,

her jacket was beside her.

Her wallet was still there,

her passport was still there.

Annie was a Swedish

foreign national.

We contacted the Swedish

police authorities

to pass on a death message.

Annie was my best friend.

She had told me that she was going

to come home to Sweden to visit me

and stay at my house

for a couple of days.

And she had great plans

what she wanted to do.

My son was preparing his room

for her to be able to have.

PHONE RINGS

Then this terrible phone call came.

I thought it was Annie and I was

so happy running to the phone.

And then I heard her sister's voice

and I was...

..shocked to hear

Annie had been found dead.

PHONE RINGS

Her mother called me

and told the tragic

that had happened in Scotland.

That day and some days after

were not so funny.

Erm...

It isn't fair.

It's a cruel world we're living in.

One of the things I've done

a lot as a journalist

is spend time tracking down material

like documents, reports and photos

that can help get to the truth

in a case like this.

It's not the most glamorous

part of the job,

but it sometimes gets the results.

This is a document that I've tracked

down from the Swedish authorities.

Now, it is in Swedish,

but I've had it translated,

and what it says is that Annie

Borjesson was found drowned

in the water at Prestwick and that

the Scottish police suspect suicide.

But you need to take

a look at the date.

This letter is from

December 5th, 2005.

That's only one day after

Annie's body was discovered,

so, if you think about it,

there's been no postmortem,

there's been no investigation

into her death,

yet the Scottish police are already

telling the Swedish authorities

that they suspect suicide.

When the Scottish police

said suicide,

it was a devastating time.

And first thoughts was,

no, this must be a mistake.

Not Annie.

The Scottish police said it was

a suicide just within some hours.

But what I know her for...

..20 years or something like that,

no, definitely not.

I've managed to get my hands

on Annie's postmortem.

There's loads of details in it

and some of them are pretty graphic.

Now, I'm not an expert

on this kind of stuff,

and I could use some help

in understanding it.

This is the guy.

Now, he seems to have literally

written the book

on death by drowning.

I'm Dr Stuart Hamilton.

I'm a Home Office-registered

forensic pathologist.

I've got 14 years of experience

of suspicious deaths and murders.

And I'm one of the co-authors

of the guidelines

on autopsies in drowning.

It is the most detailed

medical examination

a human being will ever undergo.

And with that comes

an immense responsibility.

In Annie's case, there are no

significant injuries present.

There's no evidence of trauma.

The vast majority of the examination

is recorded as normal.

The doctor concludes that

death was due to drowning.

Having read that report,

I would agree that she has drowned,

but as a forensic pathologist,

that raises the question

of how she came to drown.

Any time the police are asked

about Annie's case,

they insist that they did it all

right,

so you'd think that they'd be

happy to talk about it, right?

But we have contacted a dozen police

officers involved in this case

and pretty much nobody

wants to speak about it.

But one man who is prepared to

is retired detective Mick Neill.

He wasn't in charge

of the investigation

but he is willing to talk

about his role.

As part of the investigation,

a timeline was established

to try and get a picture

of what's happened

leading up to Annie's death

on the beach that day.

We reviewed hours and hours

of CCTV at Prestwick Airport

and eventually got her on the

walkway over into the airport.

She was alone.

We lose her out of camera,

then she appears back,

goes out one of the doors

for a matter of minutes,

and then comes back in,

comes back across the walkway,

still alone...

..and then she goes out

of the airport.

She's seen heading down

towards the beach area.

It's so common when people

take their own life

that it's a snap decision,

a decision that's made in a second,

and that changes everybody's life

around about them.

Now, that is definitely Annie,

there.

You know, she's got her passport

on her,

but instead of catching

that flight back home,

police believe that Annie then

left the airport,

walks to the beach

and drowns herself.

But is that credible

and does it fit with the evidence?

It looked someone had pressed

their thumbs

standing in front of Annie,

and with matching finger bruises

on her back, like someone had hold

her, grabbed her, around the throat.

The family saw

this big, big bruising

from the temple, over her nose

and down to her cheek.

It was a huge bruising.

All these are not mentioned

in the Scottish autopsy.

We got angry, upset, devastated.

I think that something very

terrible happened to Annie.

Annie was murdered.

CAMERA CLICKING

Now, if what the family

is saying is true,

then the implications of this

are massive.

I mean, you're talking about

a botched police investigation

and you're talking about

a potential cover up.

I mean, those allegations

are just huge

but could it actually be true?

I mean, how likely is it really

that Annie's body

was discovered with the injuries

that the family describe?

Could they be mistaken?

Well, I've dug a little deeper

and I've found evidence

that on her way back home to Sweden,

Annie's body was handled by

another undertaker in London.

I've got my hands on this letter

from the person who picked

Annie's body up.

"The deceased was collected

from the hospital mortuary

"and her condition

was extremely poor.

"In respect to her bruises,

I can verify that she did have

"significant bruising to her body,

which, for reasons I cannot explain,

"I believe were not included

in the autopsy report.

"I find this to be quite unusual

"considering the circumstances

of her death."

Now, this is really significant

because it means that

two separate undertakers

in two different countries

think that the marks

that they saw on Annie's body

were bruises.

So it does seem like there

were marks on her body

but I wonder what they were.

What creates a bruise is damage

to the small blood vessels

just under the skin and they leak.

The pressure in your blood vessels

from your heart beating

pushes the blood into the tissue

around the damaged vessels

and that produces a bruise.

Dead people do not bruise.

So what I have here is a photograph

that the family took

when Annie was repatriated

to Sweden.

There's a limited view

but there is certainly bluish

discoloration around the face.

And particularly down

onto the cheek,

there is a more dense,

purplish-type discoloration.

I have to say that simply

looking at this,

it looks like a bruise.

A bruise is blunt trauma.

It's not recorded in

the first postmortem report.

I would have expected that

to be recorded and it's not,

and that needs to be explained.

There's pretty convincing evidence

that the family are right

when they say the marks

on Annie's body were bruises.

But there's one piece of

evidence

which could determine once and

for all whether that's the case.

Look here. It turns out that

during Annie's postmortem,

multiple photographs are taken by

a police photographer at the time.

Now, these photos could

hold the answer,

so I've submitted a Freedom of

Information request for the photos

taken during Annie's postmortem,

which should take a few weeks

to get a response.

But hopefully soon we can start

to get some answers.

One shock led to another.

The family started to clean her

and prepare her for her own clothes.

Afterwards, Gun phone me.

When she told me about that

the hair had been hacked off,

it felt so wrong, so bad.

Somebody had desecrated Annie.

Her hair was a part

of her personality.

I mean, where's the rest

of her 80cm of hair?

At one point, the police, they

said she hacked it off herself.

Depressed people do so.

Annie's family have never accepted

the fact that her death

was classed as a suicide.

A lot of families can't accept

their loved ones have taken

their own life.

There was never anything at all

in the whole investigation

to indicate that there was

any criminality involved

in Annie's death.

So the police were telling

Annie's loved ones

that she could have been depressed

at the time she died,

but she didn't have a history

of depression.

Was she in a state of mind that

might lead her to take her life?

So, what do we know about Annie?

Her full name is Annie

Kristina Borjesson.

She was born near Malmo

in Sweden in 1975.

She's a really talented linguist.

She speaks six languages,

which is pretty unbelievable.

One of the things Annie loves most

in the whole world is music.

She's a music college graduate,

she plays in a band -

Annie and the Wolves.

SONG PLAYS

It's really funny hearing

her voices, isn't it?

This is actually one of the few

recordings of Annie.

SONG PLAYS

My name is Micke Persson.

I'm an old friend of Annie and

her family since the late '80s.

It's nice.

It's nice.

It's strange to hear in some way.

This is how I remember Annie.

The little rock star

and a happy smile.

We had known each other

for many, many years,

and then we had a fling

or what you can call it -

a small, small relationship to

see if we would fit together,

but, no, we didn't, but we were

still really good friends.

Annie could really

look after herself

and she was a strong individual.

Annie didn't take her life.

Definitely not. Not a chance.

So the people who knew Annie

back in Sweden didn't believe

that she was depressed,

but they were hundreds of miles away

and they hadn't seen her for months.

So what about someone, then,

that knew her in Scotland?

I started working at

The Scotch Whisky Experience.

So that's where I met Annie.

I remember Annie as a very happy,

very lively girl.

She wasn't shy in voicing

her opinion about things.

It's very strange to have been one

of the last people that they know

saw Annie and spoke to Annie.

On the Friday I was working

an evening shift,

I sat down in the staffroom,

and there was a knock on the door.

It was Annie just standing there,

smiling. "Hiya"

She was in a good mood.

She didn't seem depressed at all,

she was very happy,

and everything seemed to be

just normal.

Hearing that the police

concluded very quickly

that Annie committed suicide,

it just doesn't add up in my mind.

So we know that the friend

who spoke to Annie

said that she was behaving normally

and she seemed happy.

And this was the day

before she died.

But one of the things that the

police said to Annie's family

was that she could have been

depressed and that might have been

a reason that she cut her hair.

But look here...

This is the last CCTV image

of Annie at Prestwick Airport.

Now, the police say

that this was taken

just a few hours before she died

and you can clearly see that her

hair is all the way down her back.

Is it really credible that Annie

cut off 80cm of her hair

between leaving the airport

and arriving at the beach

just a few hours later?

I need to ask someone

who's qualified to know.

My name is Dr Keri Nixon.

I'm a consultant

forensic psychologist.

I work on a kind of profile of

a suspect, profile of a victim.

The police put forward

a potential explanation

that Annie could have cut her own

hair as an act of self-harm.

Now, there's footage of her at the

airport that shows her hair is long,

so at some point from leaving the

airport to going into the water,

she gets out scissors

and cuts her hair?

I've worked with people in my clinic

who have severe anxiety.

It can include pulling at the hair

and pulling hair out.

It can include taking out

your own eyelashes.

You know, this is a known anxiety

response, particularly in females.

But to apply that to those few hours

at the point that the police say

she's going from the airport

to the beach, it just doesn't

make any sense to me.

I mean, if Annie didn't cut

her hair, then who did?

And why did the police say that

she might have been depressed

in the first place?

There are so many

unanswered questions.

I mean, I wonder how thorough

the police really were,

so to try and find an answer

I want to go back, right back,

and track down the person

who first found Annie's body.

Come on, then.

Typical December. I was just

walking along Prestwick Beach

as normal.

When I got to about the curve

coming up here,

I saw legs.

I looked over

and there was the body.

She was lying head in

against the wall

and legs pointing outwards.

I felt helpless, you know?

There was nothing I could do.

I just slumped down onto the wall

and phoned the police.

Ten minutes and there was

a constable here

and he took all my details and said

that they would get in touch with me

if they needed me.

Never heard from them again.

I thought I would hear something.

I thought, you know,

they would contact me to...

..I don't know, get a bit more

detail and that, but...

It was surprising that they never,

I would say, for me.

The first time I heard about it

again was in the newspaper.

On the day Annie's found dead,

David is the only witness

that the police have,

so why didn't they speak

to him again?

Had they already made up their mind

about what happened to Annie?

When the body is found at 8:30

and it's in the mortuary by 10:10,

which is 20 minutes away,

it seems unlikely that...

..everything that needed to be done

was done forensically.

It's suggesting that the decision

as to what has happened to her

has already been made.

There is not concern

that a third party

could have been involved

in this death.

A young woman found dead outdoors

is always a matter of concern.

It wasn't that it was just assumed

it was suicide and nothing was done.

There was hours and hours

of police work done.

There was nothing to indicate that I

was dealing with a potential murder.

We didn't find anything

because there was nothing to find.

Remember, I've submitted

a Freedom of Information request...

..for the photos taken

during Annie's postmortem

just so that they can be looked at

by an independent expert.

Well, I've just had a response...

..and the answer is no.

And the reason that they've given

for this is that they say

it's not in the public interest

to release these photos.

Now, I'm not the first person

to get a knock-back like this

because time and time again, Annie's

family have requested these photos.

And each time they've been refused

as well.

Now, the authorities say that

the reason for this refusal

is because it's not

in the family's interest...

..even though they're the ones

requesting them.

So it's just like they're

being gaslighted, really.

I don't understand

the decision making around that

and that could be easily rectified.

Just show those photographs.

It makes it look like

there's something to hide.

And that's either poor decision

making or there's something to hide.

She is saying that somebody

is following her,

that somebody is reading her emails.

She's very anxious

and feels threatened.

That's where you start to think,

what is going on here?

You can't do that if you're

a member of the public.

People who can do that, of course,

are the security services.

Why has that been marked

as classified?

When she comes back into the

airport, she looks distressed.

What happened at the airport?