Jo Cox: Death of an MP

This programme contains some scenes which some viewers may find upsetting.

-MAN ON PHONE:

-'He's shooting everybody.'

-WOMAN ON PHONE:

-'Who's shooting everybody?'

-'A gunman.

-A gunman's shooting everybody?

-'Yeah.

-OK, whereabouts?

'Outside the library at Birstall.

-'He's stabbed someone as well.

-He's stabbed someone as well?'

It's a brutal attack, he is going to kill her,

there is nothing going to stop him from doing so.

There's rage, there's real rage.

-NEWS REPORTS OVERLAP:

-Reports of a stabbing, reports of a shooting.

The Labour MP Jo Cox, shot and stabbed in her constituency...

..in a killing which led to the suspension of campaigning

in the EU referendum.

Police have charged Thomas Mair with the murder of the Labour MP...

Even now, I don't think I'll ever be able to reconcile it,

because it's not him. How can you know someone for nine years

and not know that he's capable of doing that?

We're asking you WHY you've done it?

Jo Cox's family want to know why...

she's dead.

-Thank you, it's been nice to meet you.

-It's really good

-that you're here. Hello!

-A wonderful-looking lady.

-Go, Labour!

I can't remember anybody not liking Jo.

We were really, really close. We were close all our lives, really,

but particularly when we were kids.

We grew up in Heckmondwike.

We used to go up and play in the barley fields.

There was a wild horse that used to chase us

and there was a bull, so I remember, like,

playing out for hours and hours and hours.

We had a very good childhood, a very happy childhood.

She was a hard act to follow, going through school,

cos Jo was good at everything.

She was academic, but she was also sporty.

She was very popular, she'd got a lot of friends.

She was a little bit too good to be true.

2005 has been an unprecedented year for Oxfam,

both in terms of the number and scale of the disaster...

MAN: Jo and I were both were both working at Oxfam.

She was very, sort of, well-known as being this very, sort of, effective,

passionate advocate.

People talked about her with a sort of mix of admiration and awe.

We ended up having dinner together one night

and she cooked me a very bad vegetarian lasagne, which she burnt.

Cooking wasn't her strongest point,

but it was a very nice meal anyway.

We'd always lived on boats together.

Every two weeks, we'd live somewhere different. It was beautiful.

Amazing way to live, for a period, at least.

One of the, sort of, defining things of her was that energy

and that she just put into everything,

from the most mundane tasks to the most significant.

Therefore, made days exciting and interesting

even if they weren't necessarily going to be so,

and particularly with the kids.

She put such an energy into them.

There was once a banana, and it was a cheeky kind of banana.

Do you know what it did?

What Jo did, she passed on to both of them,

her excitement and her, sort of, joy at life.

People said, "I quite fancy eating a banana."

-SING-SONG:

-"You can't catch me, I'm a banana!"

Thomas Mair was eight years of age when his mum and dad separated,

and he came to live in the Birstall area,

which is where his grandmother lived.

His mum and his grandma, Tommy, and his younger brother, Scott,

all in lived in the same house.

You might see Tommy now and again,

I don't think he ever played out, really.

He spent every evening reading or writing stories.

His mum described him as an intellectual child.

Quite gifted at school, certainly sat Mensa exams. In his teens,

not interested in girls, not interested in going to the pub.

All the regular things that you would expect from a teenager,

Thomas wasn't interested in.

His mother remarried and had another son.

I know that his mother formed a relationship with

an African-Caribbean man, and from that time onwards,

their relationship deteriorated.

Mum left and got her own place, so it was just Tommy and his grandma.

About 20 years ago, the grandma died

and Tommy was left in the house on his own.

Very cold, very impersonal.

Clearly he was a very well-ordered individual.

Single bed, very, very neatly made.

Everything had its place.

He had a very well-structured lifestyle,

in terms of his daily routine.

It was evident that he ate the same things.

There's an obsessive compulsiveness about him.

The tins are facing the right way.

It's that classic OCD-ness.

He'd wash his hands with the use of Brillo pads.

His mum described them as blue, almost, his hands,

cos they'd basically taken the skin off.

His face and forehead were red, but not as bad as his hands.

Apparently, he had a thing about germs.

Nobody has come forward to say they've ever been in any form of

relationship with him at all.

Just not communicated on any level with anybody, really.

Lived a solitary life and, in fact,

some witnesses have described him as almost being a hermit.

So, first of all, I'm standing for the Labour Party in Batley and Spen,

which is quite a large constituency around here

and many of your listeners, I think, live in that constituency.

I grew up in Batley and Heckmondwike...

She got a call letting her know that the MP from her hometown

was standing down.

For me, it was so obviously the thing that she wanted to do next

with her life, and I knew that she'd be incredibly good at it,

and I knew that this chance wouldn't come up again.

So we said, "Let's go for it."

You'd be here five years?

Five years. But, hopefully, I'll be here for 20 years.

-You'll be getting tired of seeing me.

-So once you're in...

Jo was driven by a desire to help people

and I think she had become very politically aware

whilst at university, and since,

that politics was a means of helping people,

and politics was a means of creating a difference.

APPLAUSE

The Conservative Party candidate, 15,769.

This was where we grew up, she wanted to be our MP.

She wanted to be the MP for Batley and Spen.

It was never just about getting a constituency.

It was getting her home constituency,

with the people that she cared about

and the area that she knew and loved.

Cox, Jo, Labour Party,

-21,826.

-CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

-Jo, how do you feel right now?

-I'm elated, but I'm humbled that

the people of Batley and Spen have put their trust in me

to be your next Member of Parliament.

But I'm very excited.

My husband and I have been up all night.

I remember lifting her up into the air and giving her a hug and, yeah,

just being really excited, and her, sort of,

bounding with enthusiasm and excitement about it.

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

It's a great privilege to be called to make my maiden speech.

Batley and Spen is a gathering of typically independent, no-nonsense,

proud Yorkshire towns and villages.

Our communities have been deeply enhanced by immigration,

be it Irish Catholics across the constituency,

or Muslims from Indian Gujarat or Pakistan,

and whilst we celebrate our diversity,

the thing that surprises me

time and time again as I travel around the constituency is that

we are far more united and have far more in common

than that which divides us.

From getting elected, she just really threw everything into it.

She was so determined.

-JO COX:

-It's been a busy year. You know, we hit the ground running.

I've probably dealt with about, oh,

4,000 or 5,000 individual families already across Batley and Spen.

Jo picked up hundreds of issues

during the campaign, so we had a lot to go at, to start with.

You know, the ability to stand up in the House of Commons and actually

really challenge the Government to make sure that its policies reflect

what local people are worried about...

She was just like Tigger.

She'd just bounced around all over the place.

Sometimes I felt like I was just trailing along in her wake

and she'd be bouncing off somewhere.

She just had so much energy, and just keeping up with her,

mentally and physically, was hard work.

You know, we've helped people get discharged from hospital faster,

get better compensation, get new houses.

She just had this unbelievable gift to bring everybody on a journey

with her. She was very, sort of, down-to-earth, very humble,

and I think she had a very, sort of, um, friendly, sort of,

informal, sort of, approach with people.

Just to repeat to any of your listeners, if anyone does have

a problem they're really grappling with,

where they think me and my team can help,

they just need to come to one of my surgeries.

They're all on the website. Give my office a ring...

Thomas has never worked,

and that's because he's been signed off due to his anxiety.

But what that did allow Thomas to do was to work voluntary.

It would be around 2007,

and Tom came to increase his confidence, his IT skills.

Which, you know, that is what we do.

We're there to work with people that have got physical disabilities,

mental health, learning disabilities.

You know, there are a lot of people out there that can do more,

if they're given the opportunity,

and given the right guidance, and the confidence.

He would sit there...very solitary, he would not engage with anybody.

He wouldn't chat with the person next to him.

If he was stuck with something, in the work that he was doing,

he would not ask,

he would just stare at the screen, waiting for someone to go to him.

If you tried to engage in a conversation,

it was like trying to extract teeth, getting him to actually talk.

He then left us to go and volunteer -

volunteer as a gardener.

"I can honestly say

"it has done me more good than all the psychotherapy

"and medication in the world.

"Many people who suffer from mental illness..."

Indeed, there's an article,

I think in the Huddersfield Examiner, going back some years,

where Thomas is interviewed, and describes the fact

that those types of groups were far more beneficial

than anything that medication could ever do for him.

"Feelings of worthlessness are also common,

"mainly caused by long-term unemployment.

"All these problems are alleviated by doing voluntary work."

Tom came back to us, wanting to be a volunteer.

He wanted to help people.

And he did just short of five years volunteering.

He would come to me with ideas, erm, for example,

at Christmas he said,

"Can we make balloon animals, you know, in the group?

"Can I get some balloons?" And...fine.

I've got to say, it was one of the loudest,

most chaotic groups that I've ever seen.

We were just giggling all afternoon.

I think Tom was a bit of a show-off, as well.

Because, you know, it was something he could do.

And I think it was, really, he wanted to be liked.

He was treated with respect by those learners,

he was liked by those learners.

And he wanted to give them something back, because he'd been accepted.

Nobody knew this guy.

His own mother didn't really know him.

-HITLER:

-Ich face der fuhrer!

-CHEERING

HITLER CONTINUES IN GERMAN

Almost on a daily basis, Thomas Mair was looking at web pages

relating to the Nazis.

HITLER SPEAKS IN GERMAN

He volunteered at the libraries in Batley and Birstall.

And that gave him access to the internet.

There was no online activity going on at his home address.

There was no iPad, iPod, laptop, or anything like that in his own home.

-Ich liebe Deutschland!

-CHEERING

He spends the majority of his spare time in the library.

His internet search history, which we were able to access,

would indicate that he'd been using that facility since 2012.

Anything far right,

he appears to have had an interest in for some time.

He wasn't in chatrooms with other people in political groups,

he wasn't on any online forums

engaging in any healthy social debate.

Hitler! Hitler aber ich Deutschland...

He was able to immerse himself in this hatred and this ideology,

and nobody knew about it.

DAVID CAMERON: I will go to Parliament

and propose that the British people decide our future in Europe,

through an in-out referendum on Thursday the 23rd of June.

Get our country back!

Get our country back, absolutely! We're there.

Our economy is better if we're inside...

-No, it isn't.

-Yes, it is.

-No, it isn't.

-Yes, it is.

-All right...

We need to think about the younger generations,

the people that are going to bring this country forward in the future,

-but you're not.

-If we want to vote to leave this organisation,

let's vote to leave it,

but let's not do it on the basis of three things

that are completely untrue.

If we leave the European Union, the world's our oyster.

We can do what the hell we like.

Yeah!

Many businesses in Yorkshire also want the security and stability

of Britain's continued membership of the European Union,

a cause I look forward to passionately championing

in this place and elsewhere.

Jo was very strong to Remain.

She did market stalls.

She did a column in the paper about it.

She went to talk to groups about it.

But she was very adamant that she would be voting to Remain,

and she tried to encourage other people to do the same.

Very quickly, in or out?

I'm in. We should definitely stay in Europe.

Good for jobs, good for security,

I don't want Scotland to leave England...

The Remain vote was one of the things that she was working on,

she was out, busy campaigning and knocking on doors,

engaging with people.

But it wasn't the only thing that she thought was important.

She was very interested in Syria, and the problems going on there.

Very, very passionate about trying to improve things

for the Syrian people.

-JO COX:

-It's how history judges us.

I believe that Syria is our generation's test.

She genuinely believed

that it was the biggest humanitarian crisis of our time.

And I think, having worked for Oxfam for so many years,

she felt like she couldn't ignore that.

You know, she wasn't prepared to just shy away from it

because it was a contentious issue.

She felt very strongly that the people who needed to come here

should be allowed to come here

and that we should help to look after them.

On refugees,

what further can the UK do to get the most vulnerable people

out of harm's way, and surely,

isn't it time to end the Government's shameful refusal

to give 3,000 unaccompanied children sanctuary here in the UK?

CHEERING

Is it not time we took back control of our immigration policy?

And on the subject of immigration,

I think their campaign is verging on the squalid.

-Where are these...?

-Stop shouting!

Where are these refugees going to go?

Do you know what? Every month, I scrape, I scrape...

NIGEL FARAGE: The opinion polls are astonishing.

77% of the British public want cuts to the numbers coming into Britain,

and over half the voters want a reduction to near zero.

We're not big enough.

We're over... We're overdone. We're full! We're full!

The 7th of June is...kind of focal moment, really, for him.

One of the searches that Thomas Mair did

was a general Wikipedia search on Jo Cox.

And then there is a whole section on her political career,

and the causes that she was very, very engaged with.

You can almost imagine him sitting, becoming quite angry.

-JO COX:

-What has Europe done for Yorkshire?

£7.8 billion worth of goods, exported to Europe.

That is about 30,000 jobs dependent on our trade with Europe.

And then he starts looking at an image of a .22 rim-fire rifle.

And then a search on YouTube

of some individuals in the United States test-firing one.

GUNSHOTS

HE LAUGHS

I'm presuming that at that stage,

he either knows how he's going to get hold of such a weapon,

or in fact, at that point, has come into possession of that weapon.

Around about that time,

there would've been posters up in that library,

saying Jo Cox will be here on the 16th of June,

and she'll be doing a surgery on that day.

It's where Jo's constituents could come and see Jo.

People would come to the surgery,

and then they would come in and speak to Jo

and tell them what their problem was,

and we'd tell them what we could do to help.

All around him, he will have been, "Right, motive, opportunity...

"Oh, opportunity, big-time opportunity."

VOICEOVER: It's highlighting a new report from a group campaigning

for tighter immigration controls,

which says a quarter of a million people

cannot face up to the big issue about immigration.

If you're at the bottom of the pile, you've paid the price...

If we've voted to leave, who's going to be happiest?

It's going to be Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson,

and a resurgent right that I think would spell disaster.

I only saw him on the Friday before.

We'd had a quick word - just, "Hi, how are you?"

"Yeah, all right." "What are you doing today?"

Erm...

There was very little said, that wasn't run-of-the-mill,

part of his volunteering.

If he was feeling that way, why didn't he say something?

What had changed from that Friday to the Thursday, when it happened?

It just doesn't make sense.

13th of June, he's researching -

"is a .22 shot to the head deadly?"

It's a very popular round, it's extremely useful,

and no serious...

There'd been some search history about the human anatomy,

locations of organs, etc.

So I have no doubt in my mind

that he'd planned exactly where he wanted to put that knife.

So, the day before, we'd got up,

the kids and I were going out on our little dinghy,

with the motor on the back,

cos Nigel Farage was coming up the river,

with a big "Out" flotilla.

Nigel, you're a fraud.

This campaign's gone way beyond the ordinary,

far past the usual insults and intrigue of politics.

A group of friends had decided that we'd go out with our "In" flags.

It was all very, sort of, er, light-hearted.

So we jumped onto the boats, and Jo had helped get the kids ready,

into their life jackets, and given them a flag to hold each.

Then I zipped off, and Jo was taking some pictures.

Then we all waved her goodbye as we came past the pontoon.

She then went up to the constituency,

and that was the last time that we...that we saw her.

The earliest point that we've got him within the library

is on the previous day, on the 15th,

when he's in, speaking to members of staff.

Specifically asking about the Jo Cox surgery

that was due to take place the following day.

Asking questions about the time,

asking questions about whether he needed to book an appointment.

He had a black holdall, sports holdall,

it does appear to be containing something heavy.

I think he's pretty much had hold of the weapon, wherever he's had it,

in his possession. You know, he's had it with him.

Every Wednesday evening, down at the centre,

we have a demonstration of mediumship.

We also have holistic therapies and massage.

Now, I was upstairs, when a gentleman came in,

wanting some more information.

He'd passed the centre on a regular basis,

he'd always wondered what it was about,

but never had the courage to come in.

He'd been suffering with depression and anxiety for a long time,

and was on medication.

He was looking at things to work alongside what he was taking.

As people started to arrive, he became more uncomfortable,

more restless, like moving side to side.

He asked if I would be there on Thursday morning, which I said yes,

and my colleague Suzanne would be there, as well.

And we could sit down and have a cuppa, and a chat,

and go through different therapies and things in more detail.

I asked him his name, and he said Tommy.

And I said, "I'll see you tomorrow, Tommy."

She had a sort of small cottage-type place,

and in true Jo form, she had no food, or milk, or anything.

SHE LAUGHS

She was so focused on the bigger picture,

that the day-to-day stuff just got forgotten.

She never had any food, so you always had to feed her.

She never had anything to wear, so you always

had to find her something to wear, and she never had any cash.

You always had to, you know, sort her out with some money.

So generally, Mum would feed her, she would borrow my clothes,

and Dad would sort out the cash.

She'd rang her mum at night, at about nine, half nine, saying,

"Mum, I've just got home, but I've got no food, no milk, or anything,

"and I'm really hungry."

So her mum had said, "Well, what do you want?

"Do you want a sandwich or a jacket potato?"

She said, "Oh, it's fine. I'll just have a cheese sandwich,

"but can you send some milk?

"Because I've got cereal, but I've got no milk",

so her dad, bless him, had gone out, half nine, quarter to ten at night,

to give her the sandwich, and food, or whatever, which, obviously now,

he's really pleased that he'd seen her the night before.

REPORTER: Immigration is the key issue for UKIP.

The party's latest posters feature a vast queue of people and the

controversial warning that the EU is reaching breaking point.

Jo came into the office,

and she said, "Oh, what an awful thing to do."

We were sort of saying, we can't believe

that he'd put something like that out.

Every one of these can get to Calais.

We know how bad our Government is at defending our borders,

and within a few years, all of these people will have EU passports.

We are much less safe as part of this European Union.

Thomas left his own home address around half nine in the morning...

..took himself up to the Birstall retail park, just by the M62...

..where he spent a large amount of time, simply, kind of,

window shopping. Went into WH Smith's, read a few magazines,

and looked at the local paper.

For want of a better expression, he's killing time.

Significantly, he's in possession of the bag containing the firearm.

Equally as important, he's wearing the two baseball caps - a black one,

underneath the cream baseball cap.

He doesn't make any purchases, and then leaves,

and basically tracks the same route back towards

his home address and indeed goes home for a short period of time.

Jo came to us at about 11 o'clock. I think,

initially, she was scheduled to be with us for about an hour.

Everyone wants to see the fire engines being built,

that's the bit they want to go and see.

Obviously, we were fast approaching the In/Out referendum.

She threw that pebble in the pond,

it was very much Jo said,

"So, go on, dare I ask,

"how are you all voting in here?"

The bulk of that office

was in favour of leaving the European Union,

so she had a tough job.

But it was really well-handled.

Jo was respectful of people's views.

She listened.

I just instantly felt a lot of warmth for Jo for that.

That we could have quite different opinions,

and yet, still, really,

clearly, get on and have a mutual respect for one another.

Interestingly, every time he seems to leave the address,

he's got a bag of rubbish with him.

It seems to be part of his routine, leaving his property,

he takes his refuse with him

and dumps it just around the corner.

Instead of turning left towards the retail park,

he takes the right-hand turn, and goes, effectively,

down towards Birstall town centre.

There's significant CCTV in and around Market Square,

from both the local authority systems,

and also from private systems,

and we can effectively track his movements.

It was the day of the England match, it was England v Wales.

And I said to my mum that I was going to meet a few friends...

..in the pub.

I got off the bus,

I seen Tommy stood at the bus stop.

I said hello to him.

He didn't say hello back, and I did a double-take,

noticed he had a suit jacket on, which was...

I'd never seen him wearing a suit jacket.

He was fiddling about with t'lapels, trying to make himself look tidy,

and I thought he just mustn't have heard me.

I didn't think anything else of it.

I thought he was getting on the bus that I'd just got off.

And I went into the pub.

His movements from the CCTV would indicate that he'd done some form of

reconnaissance before the incident, and therefore

knew what vehicle to look out for.

He's milling about, he purchases a chocolate bar,

and we see him eat the chocolate bar,

and dispose of the wrapper

just opposite the shop called The Vape Lounge,

where he's got a perfect vantage point down towards the library.

She was supposed to head back into the office for 12 o'clock.

But I knew Jo would never come at that time.

She was always late. Obviously,

we had the surgery booked for one o'clock, so we ideally wanted

to get to Birstall for about quarter to, ten to.

She came into the office at 12...I think about 35.

Jo burst into the office, as usual, "Hiya!"

And I said, "You're late!"

And she said, "Yes, I know I'm late, but I've had a fabulous morning.

"Come here and give me a massive hug, cos I haven't seen you

"for two weeks. Did you have a nice holiday?"

And then we said, "Look, we're going to have to go very soon,

"or we're going to be late for the surgery."

And she said, "Yes, I know, but I'm bloody starving."

I said, "We don't have time for you to get a sandwich,

"but I've got a pasta bake for you in the fridge.

"Heat it up in the microwave, and you can have it on the way."

She literally, like,

wolfed a whole plate of pasta down from the top of the steps to the

bottom of the steps, and left the bowl at the bottom, and said,

"I'll leave it here, then we'll take it up later when we come."

I locked the door, Jo and Fazila were walking up the marketplace,

and I just watched them, and thought

how sweet they looked, chatting away,

and Jo tip-topping along in her high heels.

And then we just got in the car to go to the surgery.

He's constantly looking down towards the library, and certainly,

on one occasion, he makes his way across,

as if heading down towards the library.

My view there is, it's a potential false call, if you like.

That something's drawn his attention, potentially

a vehicle arriving that contained Jo Cox, and then, clearly,

he turns around and comes back to his vantage point

at the side of the bus stop.

Birstall is quite a small little village,

and it's got quite limited parking,

and very rarely do we find parking outside the library.

But it just so happened that day there were two parking spots, and I,

sort of, even commented and said,

"Oh, look, we've found a parking spot right where we want it!"

Jo jumped out, and Sandra got out,

and Jo sort of walked behind my car towards the pavement,

towards where Sandra was.

I saw a man coming towards us.

And he just, erm...

..shot Jo in the head.

Just like that.

He didn't speak a word, didn't say anything.

Just walked down the road and shot Jo.

I heard a loud bang,

"Oh, dear, what were that?"

So I stood up and went to the door.

I was a bit shocked.

At first, I had this irrational thought

that it was some sort of publicity stunt about Brexit.

Just for a moment, I thought it couldn't be real.

It was surreal.

The gun seemed like it wasn't a real gun.

It sounded like a starting pistol or something.

And then Jo fell back on the floor, and...

erm, and I saw that there was blood.

And then, while she was on the floor, he started stabbing her.

I saw this bloke with a knife,

stabbing someone, so I went back into the library

and I said to anybody who'd listen,

"Call the police, quick, call the police."

I was trying to swing at him with my handbag,

unfortunately, I didn't, sort of, catch him.

And at that point, he pulled the knife out again,

and sort of went towards me,

and I sort of moved back towards the car then.

We were just shouting at him, and screaming, and...

There wasn't really a right lot else we could do.

Bernard Kenny sees the commotion, and goes to the scene,

effectively to try and jump on Mair's back.

However, before he gets there, Mair turns to face him,

and without thought,

plunges a knife directly into his abdomen.

I could see, in the corner of my eye, that he was coming back.

I mean, all I could do was say, "Jo, please get up.

"Think of Lejla and Cuillin," you know, "Just think of the kids,

"and please get up, please move."

And she was saying, "Fazila, I can't move, I'm hurt."

She shouted out to me and Fazila, and she said,

"Get away, get away, you two.

"Don't let him hurt you, let him hurt me."

He came back, went to his bag, and got a gun out.

He stood over Jo, just straddled her,

and aimed it straight to the head.

And shot her in the head.

Then he stepped back,

cocked his gun, and shot her in the midriff.

As he'd done that, he stood up and very calmly just said,

"That's for Britain first. Britain will always be first.

"Britain first!" And walked off.

He were just so calm, and...

Not even...

..concerned.

My whole focus was making sure that Jo wasn't on her own.

Obviously, she was in my arms, and, um...

Sorry.

Yeah, she just... I just had her in my arms, and

obviously, there was a lot, a lot of blood.

erm, and...

I just made sure that I stayed with her.

It did seem like a long time till the ambulance came.

It did seem like...a long time.

Like an eternity.

I got a call from somebody in Jo's team,

who told me that Jo had been attacked.

I sort of ran into the station, just thinking, you know, just...

"Just be OK."

And, you know,

"If you're hurt, you're injured, that's fine.

"We'll pull you back together, we'll look after you, it'll be fine.

"Just don't... Just don't die."

'Hello, yes, he's shooting everybody.'

-'Who's shooting everybody?

-The gunman.

'He's got a black bag in his hand.

'He's got a black bag in his hand?

'He's got a white cap on.

'He's walking now towards... If you get the helicopter,

'he's walking towards Huddersfield Road.

'He's walking towards Huddersfield Road?

'Near The Vaults pub.'

Thomas Mair turns onto John Nelson Close,

where he basically walks into the rear garden of a property

which was quite heavily overgrown,

where he makes efforts to change his appearance.

Basically, removed his outer clothing,

so he's now wearing a grey T-shirt,

and the black hat.

The overcoat was discarded, was forensically examined,

and contained blood of Jo Cox.

He discharges the spent cartridge in that garden,

and reloads the firearm,

placing that back in the bag, with the safety catch off,

effectively ready to fire again.

So having done that, he has then jumped back over the fence,

and comes, re-emerges out of the side of The Vaults pub.

-'I can see him again.

-You can see him again?

-'Looks like he's taken his hat off.

-Taken his cap off?

-Yes.

'He's got a black baseball cap, he's changed it from a white one

-'to a black one.

-And he's walking up where, love?

-Roundhill Road,

'which is up from Floyd Lane. If you get the police car to the top

'of there, when he gets to the bottom, you'll catch him.

I've got a marauding terrorist, at loose.

I didn't know if this individual was now shooting other people,

stabbing other people in the streets and the area.

We got told by the control room that

the suspect still had a gun, and to proceed with caution.

I see a gentleman, and he matched the description.

I just started running towards him.

He's put his hands towards his shirt.

I thought he was going for something in his waistband.

And, um....

I just rugby tackled him then to the floor.

Did he anticipate that the officers

who would engage with him would be firearms officers?

We see, particularly in the States,

we see this phenomena called suicide by cop.

Was that what he anticipated those two officers were going to do

to him? Was he intending to die in a blaze of glory, shot by the police?

If that was his intention, unluckily for him,

he was challenged by unarmed officers.

I started searching him.

I pulled out a bag of bullets.

I said, "Where's the gun?"

And he said, "It's in the bag."

I think Johnny had gone off to get a first-aid kit,

once we'd found that he had a bump on his head.

And he said to me, "I'm a political activist."

He wasn't the typical criminal I'd come across.

He was fairly quietly spoken, wasn't angry towards us.

He was fairly respectful to us.

He was just very calm, very placid, very peaceful, really, I guess.

I was one of the first senior police officers that arrived at the scene.

There was a real palpable sense

that something really horrific had occurred.

Jo had sustained three gunshot wounds about the head,

and 13 stab wounds.

Many of which punctured her heart, her lungs, and her liver.

And on her left hand, there was a through-and-through injury.

Which is consistent with, you know,

effectively holding her hand up to protect herself.

Basically, an injury through her hand into her head.

He is strong, he is savage, it's a brutal attack.

He is going to kill her.

There is nothing going to stop him from doing so.

There's rage. There's real rage.

She didn't stand a chance.

'Just before one o'clock today, Jo Cox,

'MP for Batley and Spen borough was attacked in Market Street, Birstall.

'I am now very sad to have to report

'that she has died as a result of her injuries.'

When I were at the police station,

I just said, "Have you heard anything?"

And he just said, "She didn't make it."

So then I knew she were dead.

You literally feel your heart breaking.

And it is, it's a physical manifestation of grief.

I've never known anything like it.

I thought I'd been upset before, I thought I'd been sad before,

there's absolutely no comparison to something like this.

It is utterly debilitating when it hits you.

The next step was all about, how do you tell your kids?

I mean, I was very much in shock.

But moved very quickly into the practicalities

of, how do I do Jo proud...

..in...

..in making sure that the kids are OK?

So, yeah.

KIDS: # You can hop, you can skip

# But don't stop, stop, stop

# Put your best foot forward... #

OFFICER: I was very interested in finding out all about Thomas Mair.

You know, immediately upon his arrest, the first question

I asked was, "Well, who is he? What do we know about him?"

Somebody does a check on the police national computer,

and we've never heard of Thomas Mair.

I mean, the question is, always, why?

Of course, his psychiatric history, for me, is very important.

The doctor who had seen him at the police station hadn't diagnosed him

with any significant mental illness

and said he is fit to be interviewed,

he understands what's going on.

-MALE OFFICER:

-You're here for two very serious offences -

murder...

..and attempted murder.

It's murder of an MP, going about her business, and attempted murder

of an elderly gentleman who comes to assist her.

The MP's been shot and stabbed.

A number of times.

And the elderly gentleman...

..has been stabbed.

That's why you've been arrested.

And that's why you're being interviewed.

And you're choosing to sit there, and say nothing at all.

Which is your right.

However...

..their families, they want to know what's gone on.

Are you prepared to give them anything as to why?

That's what we're thinking - why?

It's not uncommon for the police to sit in an interview room and listen

to somebody saying, "No comment."

But it is uncommon for us to sit and listen to somebody saying nothing,

and he just, simply, didn't react to anything.

-FEMALE OFFICER:

-Can you see that - that people want to know

why you've done it?

And this is your opportunity now, to tell us that.

So that we can make sense of it.

His interview, in total, possibly six hours, I think it was,

off the top of my head.

-What did he say in that time?

-Absolutely nothing.

The gun that was used is a .22 rim-fire rifle.

Generally used in the pest control world.

It was stolen in August 2015.

It has passed, I would presume, through a number of hands,

before it's got to Thomas Mair,

through the criminal fraternity.

I'd taken that firearm to bits, but we found no DNA, fingerprints,

or any traces of anybody else.

So, acquiring a firearm for a criminal purpose is not easy,

unless you are a criminal yourself, and you know how to get one.

As an adult male, in the 21st century, he is, like all of us,

an owner of a mobile telephone.

But in three years, has sent three texts.

And there is no call data.

So he's not somebody who is immersed in criminality, making calls,

wheeling and dealing, trying to get himself a firearm.

That begs the question, how on earth did you, Thomas Mair, get that gun?

It's an active line of inquiry, and

I will not rest until I find out how he got that gun.

The place he had been to immediately before killing Jo

was his home address.

We found lots of literature, books, magazines,

that all seemed to link back to the far right.

The Third Reich eagle...

..mail order-catalogues and brochures.

A lot of that material goes back as far as the early '90s.

Lever-arch folder, and within that

there were news clippings of Anders Breivik,

and other terrorist atrocities.

Also, Wikipedia pages of Jo Cox.

Thomas Mair's life meant that nobody else ever went to his home.

Nobody was able to say,

"Blimey, Thomas, this is a little bit unhealthy."

What are your political views?

You say you're a political activist.

There's chance for you now to tell me.

Tell me about your politics.

We know he stood above Jo as he was murdering her, and shouted,

"Britain first."

We asked him what he meant by it, and we didn't get an answer.

And so, an immediate line of inquiry was, right,

let's get into Britain First and find out, is he a member of yours?

-Britain First!

-Fighting back!

-Britain First!

-Fighting back!

But, no, he wasn't a member of Britain First.

It's simply the case that Thomas Mair just could not have coped

with a Britain First meeting.

He wouldn't have wanted to be in the company

of a large number of other people.

He just wouldn't have been able to function.

He's never been linked to any other far-right organisations

in this country. There is no evidence at all

to support the fact that he's been on any marches,

part of the EDL, part of the National Front,

part of Britain First.

So his own views and his own beliefs have been kept private.

"..110 years after the birth of the great one, Adolf Hitler,

"the dream of a white world finally became certainty,

"and it was the sacrifice of the lives of uncounted thousands

"of brave men and women

"of the organisation which had kept that dream alive

"until its realisation could no longer be denied..."

Well, this, weirdly enough,

is one of the books that Thomas Mair had on his own shelves.

Of course, I wrote it in order to

help academics understand fascism,

he obviously bought it because he was actually fascinated

by the texts that I'd put together in this volume,

all of which are written by fascists.

"As a cleansing hurricane of change swept over the continent,

"clearing away, in a few months,

"the refuse of a millennium or more of alien ideology,

"and a century or more of profound moral and material decadence.

"The blood flowed ankle-deep in the streets..."

This bookcase really has the function of a shrine.

We are looking here, not at academic books,

we are looking at sacred texts.

This is really high-grade literature,

some of which is archival stuff.

Stuff difficult to get hold of.

What fascism allowed Thomas Mair to feel,

when he was soaking himself in this literature,

was that his wormlike,

small, dysfunctional existence

was actually part of something much greater, which would outlive him.

Thomas Mair could feel, that in that moment, when he killed Jo Cox,

he gained immortality for himself.

REPORTER: 'Thomas Mair was swept

'into the court building in a police van,

'part of a convoy that had brought him from Yorkshire to this,

'the most important Magistrates' Court in London.'

Looking at Thomas Mair from the minute he stepped into the box,

it was evident that he had something on his mind.

He was asked to give his name.

The magistrate was shocked by what she'd heard,

and couldn't understand exactly what he'd said.

So he repeated it.

REPORTER: ' "My name is Death To Traitors, Freedom For Britain." '

He's saying, "I am killing the race traitors.

"I am killing the soft, left-wing, liberal, cosmopolitan,

"foreigner-lovers, who have created this situation.

"It's not the fault of the Pakistanis or the Romanians

"that they are here, it's the fault of the liberal elite,

"that welcome the free movement of peoples,

"and the mixing up of cultures,

"which is destroying everything that is good about the human race,

"which is its whiteness."

Even now, I don't think I'll ever be able to reconcile it.

There was never any indication that he was racist in any way.

Because the Tom that I knew was so kind, considerate, caring.

I'm quite sad that Tom didn't feel as though he could trust me,

or come and talk to me about it.

And I wish he could, because I would have tried to help him,

in any way that I could have done.

I wish I'd spent more time talking to him on the Friday.

And I wish we'd talked about more personal stuff, but then again,

you can't give that attention to everybody.

-PROFESSOR GRIFFIN:

-What it demonstrates to me

is something that I found in all the other cases of terrorism

by lone wolves, so-called, that have been well documented,

is that nobody is ever completely a terrorist.

He seems to have developed a complex personality, made up of two

almost separate people.

Domestically, he remained a loner, a recluse,

he didn't have intimate relationships or friendships

with people. And that was his base personality.

But what he obviously did, as well,

and this is really quite extraordinary,

is that he created another personality,

who was a really complete fascist, Nazi racist.

At a certain crucial point, the fascist self took over,

then there was violence on the agenda.

'Repeatedly stabbed and shot three times,

'in a killing which led to the suspension of campaigning

'in the EU referendum.'

'Tributes keep coming, so too do the accusations.'

'The paper says its polling shows the tragic murder of the Labour MP

'Jo Cox shifted opinions against Brexit.'

The Remain camp are using these awful circumstances to try to say

that the motives of one deranged, dangerous individual,

were similar of half the country, perhaps more,

-who believe that we should leave the EU...

-Who's saying that?

She will live on through all the good people in the world.

Through Brendan, through us...

..and through her truly wonderful children, who will always know

what an utterly amazing woman their mother was.

She was a human being, and she was perfect.

-CHILD:

-Let's lift it up.

The devastation I feel for the children,

there's no words to describe how horrendous that is.

But actually, what makes me more sad than anything is what Jo will miss.

The first time they do this, or the first time they do that,

you know,

and that a mum should be a part of.

That's by far the worst, the worst part of everything that's happened.

Amazing and deeply touching as all of this is,

I wish I wasn't here today.

I'd rather be...

I'd rather be with Jo.

We try to remember not how cruelly she's been taken from us,

but how unbelievably lucky we were

to have her in our lives for so long.

'The tensions, and the rhetoric

'about the country being at breaking point

'probably contributed to an atmosphere in which extreme people

'are more likely to do extreme things.'

I think it's very sad

that he was so consumed with hatred that he's destroyed his own life as

well as Jo's...

That he, you know, tried to do something to silence Jo,

but has, instead,

given her a much bigger voice, a much louder platform.

Jo's killing was political.

It was an act of terror designed to advance

an agenda of hatred towards others.

-DAVID CAMERON:

-The British people have voted

to leave the European Union, and their will must be respected.

BORIS JOHNSON: They have decided

that it is time to vote to take back control.

-NIGEL FARAGE:

-Let June the 23rd

go down in our history as our Independence Day!

CHEERING

Brexit did play a part.

The country was divided,

so that played a part in tensions within the community.

But Thomas Mair's a terrorist, there's no doubt about it.

His target was a political figure.

But is he different to other terrorists,

from other organisations that we see?

Why do young Muslim men and women take themselves out of society,

travel via western countries to Syria, and join Isil?

Why do they do that? Because they feel disenfranchised, in many ways.

Because, in many ways, they are brainwashed.

But there are comparisons and similarities between what they do,

and what Thomas Mair ultimately did,

and how became associated with his cause, and what he was engaged with.

So, although they are poles apart,

actually, they are very similar in many, many ways.

What are we doing as a society to engage with people like that?

And I suppose it's sad that if you are not interested,

or you are not able to interact...

..that you can be left to your own devices, to such an extent.