Meet, Marry, Murder - Season 1, Episode 48 - Goldsmith - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[phone rings] NARRATOR: Police first, ambulance second. The caller's wife apparently dead at the hands
of a policeman. Adrian Goldsmith is quite a strange character, and I think that he was and always had
been quite a dangerous person. The death of Jill Goldsmith has had a big impact in both the local community and within Northamptonshire Police,
as the accused has been a member of this organization for 27 years. NARRATOR: But the veteran police officer
has a defense, self-defense. Goldsmith told police that Jill was on drugs, that she was
having some sort of psychotic episode and had attacked him with a knife and a broken glass.
NARRATOR: What is the truth? Is PC Adrian Goldsmith the abused or the abuser? [music playing]
All over the world, women turn to police officers for help when facing danger. The forces of law and order are trusted in an emergency.
But there are occasions when it is the police themselves who partners need protection from.
In Houston, Texas, for example, when Susan White faced a man whose advances she'd already rejected,
she called the police for help. NARRATOR: It turned out the they she referred to was one man,
and he was the police himself, Officer Kent McGowan. If a guy like Kant McGowan wants to kill you,
he's going to kill you. He just managed to do it under the color of law. NARRATOR: Another example from Scotland,
Alex Farquharson always knew her husband was a womanizer. And the evidence had indicated that his wife had come
across on his own phone some contact between himself and someone with whom he'd started an affair, something
like 11 or 12 years earlier. NARRATOR: The couple argued about it, but when Keith Farquharson became
abusive towards his wife, who could she turn to? He had been a long serving police officer.
I know this from experience. Just imagine being a victim of police officers who are abusing you.
Do you ring 999, or 111, or whatever it is? If you ring them up, do you think that that person at the end of the phone
will keep this confidential? So she would have been really reluctant to report anything
that was happening to her because she couldn't trust the system. NARRATOR: The police are often in the front line
when it comes to tackling domestic abuse as it escalates, potentially towards murder.
They provide a vital lifeline to victims. But serving police officers throughout the world
can be the abusers themselves. Between 2015 and 2018, in one country, Britain, there were 700 cases of police officers reported
for domestic abuse, a fact which led lawyers at the Center for Women's Justice to take action.
Center for Women's Justice recently launched what's known as a super complaint around this very issue, police-perpetrated
domestic abuse. If they are not immediately held accountable for any abuse of that power, then
they can continue doing so. NARRATOR: It's an issue the world over, who polices the police when it is a police officer
suspected of domestic abuse? A question facing one force in 2016 when a wife was reported for attacking
her police officer husband, only for the woman herself to end up dead. Northamptonshire police couldn't investigate one of their own.
ANDY FROST: In order to ensure that a thorough transparent investigation took place, we've used officers from the East
Midlands Serious Crime Unit to conduct their independent investigation on our behalf.
NARRATOR: Adrian Goldsmith's long career in the police force had been largely unremarkable.
Former serving police officer, Jane Monckton Smith has been looking at the case.
Adrian Goldsmith had been a serving police officer for a very long time. It is really all he had ever done.
He had not risen to dizzy heights. He hadn't really had anything in his career that made
him stand out as an individual. I think the only thing he got really was a Long Service Medal.
He'd managed to stay in for a great number of years. In 2009 when Goldsmith was a detective constable,
he was awarded the Police Long Service and Good Conduct Medal. NARRATOR: Despite a lack of progress through the ranks,
being a police officer was a lifelong commitment. He stuck to his job no matter at times the risks
to Agent Goldsmith. Goldsmith joined the police back in 1986. 1986 was a time when policing was very male-dominated.
Women were not featured largely in the police service in those days. And we noticed that Goldsmith then went on to work
in the Dangerous Offender Unit. And units like that attract a certain kind of kudos.
There's no doubt that policing attracts some men who are attracted by having power and having the power
and also the status of a police officer. NARRATOR: Officer Goldsmith, known in the force as Otis,
met Jill Rowland in 2011. Jill was a domestic cleaner with a son from a previous relationship.
She met Goldsmith in 2011. And the following year, they moved into a house together just next door to Northamptonshire Police
Headquarters. NARRATOR: Both in their mid 40s, Adrian came to the relationship after a couple of failed marriages.
Jill was a widow. Adrian told friends they were enjoying a fairy tale romance, that their courtship was
the happiest time of his life. Jill's story is so typical of women who has met this man, who believes him to be
a strong, good, safe person. Supportive of the fact, she moved in with him very quickly,
believing that he's the man she wants to settle down with and be with. They get married, her son moves in with them.
It sounds like a great, perfect type of relationship. NARRATOR: Jill Barr is a former police inspector and an expert
in domestic abuse. JILL BARR: Jill met Goldsmith and the relationship, she moved in with him very quickly.
And you could assume that Goldsmith could be a bit of a charmer initially, and she
moved into a house very close to the police headquarters. So again, that sense of trust, that sense of he's
a police officer and we're living very close to headquarters, all is well. Police officers often are seen as upstanding citizens.
They've served the country, they've done good deeds. [music playing] NARRATOR: Shortly after the couple had begun dating,
a professional setback for Adrian. Clare Mackintosh, also a former police officer.
In 2012, Goldsmith was placed under investigation by the force's professional standards unit.
He was accused of data mismanagement, and he was subject to an internal investigation
and placed on indefinite leave. Data mismanagement allegations sounds as if it's probably quite non-dangerous,
perhaps a bit trivial. But actually, data mismanagement could have very strong links to misuse of power
and misuse of information. So it could potentially be quite serious. As a result of the stress of that investigation,
he was on long-term sick leave NARRATOR: Adrian told a friend that the investigation
felt like being on death row. And it wasn't just his reputation at stake, it was his future financial security.
For Goldsmith, the police pension is a really big thing. He joined the service in 1986.
In those days, a final salary pension, it was a pot of gold and every police officer aim was to get to the 30
years and that pot of gold. They paid a lot into it, but it's still a large sum of money.
Disciplinary proceedings could potentially cause him to lose his pension. NARRATOR: Officers visited him during his period of sick leave
and noted another problem. Stress had led Goldsmith to habitually drinking excessively.
We have evidence of this from his colleagues that had concern about him drinking at work
and his performance at work. We've had his point of contact officer, there was concerns about alcohol.
He was using alcohol every day. NARRATOR: After an inquiry in September 2013, Otis Goldsmith was told he could keep his job,
but he received an official warning. Back at work, though, the drinking continued.
Goldsmith used alcohol, and Goldsmith was alcohol-dependent. His colleagues, when he was in the police force,
commented on this. In fact, there was suspicion of him being under the influence
of alcohol quite early on. The decision was made to watch and see, I think was the phrase that was used
just to see how it was going. NARRATOR: Jill stood by him throughout this traumatic period and to all appearances,
the relationship was solid. It was reported by friends that Jill was a lovely person,
very kind and thoughtful. The couple were initially very happy together. And in May 2014, they got married.
You're always invested in the second marriage in a way that's very distinct from the first.
You want the next one to last a lifetime. NARRATOR: But it would not be long before the marriage would
run into trouble with Officer Goldsmith writing bizarre and critical notes about his wife.
One of these notes have 23 pages. So this is kind of an obsessive-compulsive action
on his part. NARRATOR: The heavy drinking policeman and the devoted wife, what had happened to make this
a tale destined for tragedy? [music playing] Married in 2014, but according to Adrian "Otis" Goldsmith,
by 2015, the relationship between him and his wife, Jill, had turned sour. By the time they took their honeymoon
in the summer of that year, things had already started to deteriorate. He said he'd become a doormat and a punchbag.
NARRATOR: He would soon find fault with his new wife. Her age, he would claim, put her off sex.
So Jill is going along to speak to a GP because she's got a low libido and she was going to seek advice around the menopause hormone
replacement therapy. NARRATOR: Another issue Goldsmith would claim, Jill's use of drugs.
He said that Jill started using cannabis. NARRATOR: Goldsmith began to make a record of how he saw things, going as
far as secretly recording Jill. Goldsmith is known to have recorded Jill in the bathroom
as he believed this would evidence her using cannabis. In a healthy relationship, why would somebody want to do that?
What is the gain from that? It's to use it against Jill. If she was using cannabis, why would you want to record it?
But actually saying that was the reason for doing it legitimizes it. I was worried about her.
She was using cannabis, so I've recorded her in order to show her the error of her ways.
There's nothing to suggest Jill was using cannabis, but it legitimizes his reason for surveillance.
Recording somebody in their own home, your wife, your partner, somebody you love
is an abusive behavior. It's an ultimate sign of control. NARRATOR: All this within a year of their marriage,
meticulously noted by Otis Goldsmith in writing. Adrian would keep forensic, detailed notes of his feelings.
Some of his long rambling missives that he would write would refer to the fact that they
were at each other's throats. NARRATOR: Goldsmith's notes also suggested that he had fears
for his own state of mind. This was far from a happy marriage. One of these notes amounting to 23 pages
detailed how Goldsmith was increasingly concerned about his own behavior. He worried about the venom that came out of his mouth
as though someone else is saying it. Maybe these letters took him into a world that he wasn't actually living in.
He could be somebody else. He could be somebody much cleverer. He could be somebody much more heroic maybe,
and he could maybe vent on what he saw as injustices and the stupidity of other people.
NARRATOR: Or maybe he was laying the groundwork for defense. There is a police officer who knows about the ways in which
crimes are investigated, and he's obviously laid a trail there to protect himself by creating
a diary of being a victim. NARRATOR: His notes revealed something else. Goldsmith felt that he himself was a danger to Jill.
He admitted to being scared of what he might do and didn't know how far this would go.
He felt he could explode. And says that he felt genuinely scared of what happened when the switch got flipped.
NEIL LANCASTER: He said when he would be out walking scanning like Terminator was the terminology he used,
scanning in on a stick and thinking he could use it as a weapon. Here was a man who was almost frightened of himself.
He knows that he's rageful. He knows he's paranoid and suspicious. He describes how Jill refers to him as Jekyll and Hyde.
Which would indicate there's two different sides to Goldsmith. All these fantasy characters, these frightening fantasy
characters kind of gives us an insight into the way that he sees himself as a lot less ordinary
than the evidence suggests. So this is kind of an obsessive-compulsive action on his part that's maybe feeding his view of himself.
This man was a police constable for 30 years. He didn't rise through the ranks. He didn't have any bravery medals.
He didn't shine in any way at all. He's not somebody who has achieved much in his life.
NARRATOR: Within months of their marriage, Mrs. Goldsmith would find out exactly how
dangerous the groom could be. His alcohol use appears to have got worse as he's been with Jill.
CLARE MACKINTOSH: Jill said that she felt afraid of her husband when he drank alcohol, and so he did make
an attempt to stop drinking. NARRATOR: But going booze-free seemed to make things worse.
He found this very difficult and it only added to his frustrations. Jill may have believed that Goldsmith's behaviors
were due to his use of alcohol. There's a belief sometimes that it's not him, it's the drink.
If only he stopped drinking, he wouldn't be the way he is. It's quite possible Jill believed
that the reason he behaved like that was because he was drinking too much. If only he didn't drink, things would get better.
NARRATOR: The first six months of the Goldsmith marriage were marred by blazing rounds.
In December 2014, the couple briefly separated. In the new year, they hoped a permanent change of scenery
might reset the struggling marriage. The couple decided to move to the countryside
to make a fresh start. There's obviously a recognition that something needs to change.
And one of the shifts that they think might improve their relationship is to go somewhere more rural.
So that they can potentially have a quieter life, a less stressful life. This is borne out by the fact that his wife was actually
doing a load of internet research, looking for new properties to buy. NARRATOR: Jill confided in friends.
If the couple moved, if Otis stopped drinking, if he was removed from the stresses of his career, perhaps
then she'd get back the man that she'd fallen for. The Goldsmith she met at the beginning, the charming one
when she moved in really quickly, there's an assumption that was the real Goldsmith.
But we know that was the Goldsmith he showed to Jill in order to get her to enter into the relationship.
The real Goldsmith was the abusive, controlling, violent Goldsmith. And quite often, there's a real attempt
to try and win that person back that they first met, but he never existed. It was a complete myth that the nice Goldsmith ever existed.
NARRATOR: As Goldsmith's drinking increasingly affected his behavior, did Jill call the police?
Did she call his colleagues? No. To some women's campaigners, Jill may have felt unable to.
When women won't report because they don't believe that they're going to be believed.
And that's often because the police officer tells them that, that their partner says,
no one's going to believe you. I'm a police officer. So there is a lack of confidence in the system
generally from women. NARRATOR: There is no suggestion that Jill contacted Northamptonshire Police Force around the time
of Otis Goldsmith's heavy drinking and increasingly bizarre behavior. Campaigners believe, however, that wives
of serving police officers are reticent to ask for help. One-time leading prosecutor and campaigner
for more recognition of violence against women, Nazir Afzal. She would have been really reluctant to report anything
that was happening to her because she couldn't trust the system. And police have got some work to do about that.
When you have a community of 125,000 police officers, any community, you have abusers.
You have to find a system that's confidential, that's private, that's secret, that enables victims
to be able to seek help. And do so in confidence and be reassured that the perpetrator
will not hear about it. NARRATOR: The Goldsmiths lived on an estate adjacent to the Northamptonshire Police Headquarters.
Everywhere Jill looked, she would have seen there police officers. But throughout a period of 12 months,
she raised no alarm about a relationship that was falling apart, about a man she had
become increasingly fearful of. March 26, 2015, a fresh, drizzly spring afternoon in the English East Midlands,
the day had begun unremarkably. On the morning of March the 26th, Goldsmith had been doing some renovations
to the family home in preparation for putting it on the market. At lunchtime that day, he left Jill house-hunting online
while he drove to his eldest son's house to have lunch with him. NARRATOR: A little before 1 o'clock,
Adrian Otis Goldsmith returned home to Wootton Hall Park. At six minutes past 1:00, he dialed
999, the Emergency Services. Seven minutes later, the first patrol car reached the Goldsmith's home.
Former Police Sergeant, Clare Mackintosh, has experienced the feelings of an officer
approaching a crime scene when they have no idea of what has happened. From the police officer's point of view,
this is a horrific scene to arrive at. And you can only imagine what was going through their minds.
They've got a potentially dangerous armed man, a dead woman, and no way of establishing
exactly what happened until the forensics tell their tale. Upon arrival, they found Adrian.
He was injured. He had paint over him. He was sweating. He had a knife in one hand and a broken drinking glass
in the other. He was, himself, covered in blood and had facial injuries. He was crying.
NARRATOR: 49-year-old Jill Goldsmith, Adrian's wife of just 10 months, laying nearby.
They find her. She's in the fetal position lying on the porch. She has over 70 injuries.
Police found a mallet at the scene covered with Jill's blood. Adrian says to the police officers
that his wife had come at him like a whirling dervish and that he had initially tried to just stop her.
Goldsmith told police that Jill was on drugs, that she was having some sort of psychotic episode
and had attacked him with a knife and a broken glass. NARRATOR: Less than a year after they had married,
Jill Goldsmith was dead, her police officer husband telling those on the scene that he had been defending himself.
What was the truth? I'd like to start by passing my condolences to the family of Jill Goldsmith and her friends
following her tragic death. Any loss of life is very serious and we treat it very seriously.
The death of Jill Goldsmith has had a big impact in both the local community and within Northamptonshire Police
as the accused has been a member of this organization for 27 years. NARRATOR: An officer of the law was about to be investigated
by officers of the law. Which way would justice fall, Goldsmith's self-defense defense or in a judgment of murder?
[music playing] Jill Goldsmith was found in a pool of blood, trauma to her head and face clearly visible.
Her husband offering a story. He initially claims that many of these injuries were
self-inflicted, that she was hitting herself with a mallet over the head, that she was banging
her head against the wall. And that he only put her in a headlock just to try and stop her from injuring herself.
But she'd broken free and began stabbing him. He said that the couple were struggling, that he was
hit over the head by a battery. And in turn, he then hit Jill with a paint can to try and stop her.
It had no effect, and so he picked up the battery and hit her. He hit her repeatedly over the head
and had made a conscious decision to do that until she stopped moving. He said he thought he was going to die.
NARRATOR: He showed them injuries that he claims his wife had inflicted. Cuts to his face, a stab wound in his side.
He told them this wasn't the first time his wife had gone berserk and held a knife to his throat.
That had happened before, he said. Strictly obeying protocol, Northants Police requested help
from another force. We've used officers from the East Midlands Serious Crime Unit to conduct their independent investigation
on our behalf. NARRATOR: Investigators would soon be told by Goldsmith that this was not the first time
he'd suffered at Jill's hands. He actually turned around and said he was a victim of domestic abuse.
He said it several times. NARRATOR: He had made a similar claim the previous October
to a colleague whose job it was to monitor his welfare during the earlier misconduct
proceedings against him. He said to his point of contact officer who was visiting him at home, one day, he's
a victim of domestic abuse. Two days later, he says, no, it's all right. It's sorted now.
NARRATOR: Later, Goldsmith would claim there were multiple occasions when Jill had lost her temper
and gone for him, punching him, kicking him. He's starting to say that she's the one that's behaving
poorly or badly in the family home, and he's worried, he's concerned she's the one using abuse.
It's very easy to say that with no evidence to back it up. NARRATOR: But on the contrary, evidence from PC Goldsmith's
secret recordings suggested that it was he, not his wife, who was abusive. In fact, it recorded her saying
she was frightened of him. NARRATOR: Indeed, Adrian admitted that he often recorded
their arguments and that he considered installing CCTV in the house so he could spy on his wife.
That fear that everything she does is being looked at, being monitored, being controlled.
If a man is controlling in a relationship, the control increases over time. And then the need to control becomes
overwhelming in a sense. The suggestion here is that he's far more dangerous than he first appears.
This man is obsessive, unstable, and paranoid. And he knew that his wife was terrified of him.
He was a ticking time bomb. NARRATOR: As investigators investigated the claims her husband had made against her,
a friend came forward with another example of his desire to control and possess her.
Jill mentioned that he used to record her mileage in her car. And the terms of the jealousy, the belief that
actually, where is she going? Who is she seeing? The belief that she is his property.
And if she has left the family home, if she has gone out, if I recall the mileage,
I'll know exactly where she's gone. If it's four miles to Asda and she's done six,
she'll need to account for those mileage. NARRATOR: It seemed to detectives that Goldsmith had become jealous and paranoid,
convinced too that Jill was seeing somebody else. In a healthy relationship, even if you're
taking the mileage of your partner's car, where they're going, this is another indication of his power
and control over her. The jealousy, where is Jill going when she's gone out? She would have been very upset about this growing discontent
and aggression towards her. It is scary to watch the person that you love unravel, particularly when the unraveling is
projected at you. NARRATOR: In the days after Jill's death, detectives would have seen a picture of another police
officer's marriage that did not fit with what Adrian had described in the moments
after his wife's death. And when the forensics evidence was analyzed, that picture did not support Goldsmith's claims.
The blood spatter analysis showed that she was beaten repeatedly even after death.
This murder was brutal. Jill suffered significant head trauma. There was use of a pot of paint.
There was use of a battery, square-type object. CLARE MACKINTOSH: It showed that he held her around the neck,
strangling her both before she died and also afterwards. He throttled her with such force that he fractured her larynx
and a bone in her neck. Their size disparity is enormous. He is a 12-stone fit martial artist.
She was only 6-stone. She would have presented no physical challenge to him, somebody, remember, who is a police officer
and used to physical confrontations. To anybody seeing that crime scene, there is a word overkill.
And we called it overkill because it means that you didn't need to do anywhere near what you
did if you wanted to prevent that person from harming you further. This is about rage, and to any forensic pathologist,
it's evident. JANE MONCKTON SMITH: The violence was orgiastic. It was almost that every single violent thought he'd ever
had, all of those times where he'd stopped himself going this far. He just gave himself permission that day.
Let's just explore, let's just do this. No holds barred, I'm going for it. This is what it feels like.
And it just feels like he went for it and it was way beyond anything he needed to defend himself,
way beyond. It was way beyond anything he needed to kill her. NARRATOR: In the aftermath of the frenzied attack,
it appeared that Goldsmith felt he needed to take control of the narrative. He murdered Jill.
He then phoned the emergency services. Not just triple nine in the panic of somebody who's lost
control, but actually ringing triple nine and being very clear what services he wanted.
He didn't ask for the ambulance straight away. Why was that? Who did he ask for straight away?
The police. Why was that? Who do you think was going to come? Why the police? NARRATOR: His friends and colleagues,
for the best part of three decades, he would tell them a story that he wanted them to hear.
At what point did he think he was a victim of domestic violence when all he's done
is just batter his wife to death over the head with a pot of paint and a battery?
He exactly knew what he was doing. He knows his colleagues are turning up. He knows he's got to have an explanation.
So the best explanation, junkie came at me. But he knows that there's going to be
a complete forensic workup and he knows that the forensics are going to tell a different story.
He's been a police officer for 30 years. So he's thinking on his feet now, what are the most damning things that
are going to come out of the forensic evidence that I can think of? Probably it was the mallet in the back of the head,
but if you get somebody in the back, they're not attacking you. They're no worry for you.
That's probably why he said the most ridiculous thing he could think of, she hit herself
in the back of the head. NARRATOR: But what of Adrian's own injuries? During this ensuing and terribly violent
melee, obviously his wife, she fights back. There were some injuries on him. His face is visibly quite badly injured.
NARRATOR: Police officers who examines the wound in Goldsmith's side questioned his claim that it
had been inflicted by Jill. Under pressure, he admitted that she had not, in fact, stabbed him.
He bludgeons her terribly. He then takes a knife and stabs himself in the side in order to make it look like she came for him
and he was defending himself. The fact that he tries to make up that Jill attacked him.
He's a police officer. He knows the law. I mean, if you're going to do one thing when you have
a corpse in front of you, it's how do I make this look like I'm not the first-degree murder
individual that I actually am? So creating superficial wounds and wounding yourself
is a way of acting as if you had a reason to act accordingly. NARRATOR: On Monday, 30th of March, 2015,
Adrian Otis Goldsmith was charged with the murder of his wife. The following day, he appeared in court by video
and he denied the charge against him. Whose story would the jury believe? [music playing]
10 months after the death of Jill Goldsmith in January 2016, Adrian Otis Goldsmith stood in the dock at Stafford Crown
Court to protest his innocence. During the trial, Goldsmith told the courts that when he got home that day after seeing his son,
that his wife was ready for it. That she wanted an argument. NARRATOR: He made claims about the couple's
intimate relationship. He appeared to want sympathy from the jury. It's one of those kind of justifications for frustration,
if you like. That he would assume that men in the room would understand that kind of frustration.
So Jill is going along to speak to a GP because she's got a low libido. Is that what Jill is saying or is that what she's
been told to say by Goldsmith? Is the reason Jill maybe wasn't wanting an intimacy in the relationship, was that linked to her libido?
Or was that because he was an abusive, controlling man? It's more likely that Jill probably had
gone off having sex with him. She probably had withdrawn from him completely. But let's blame Jill.
Let's hold Jill accountable for that. Let's make Jill feel she's not a good enough wife
because her libido is low. Make Jill feel she's not meeting her husband's needs because she's not good enough, she's not well,
she needs help. Not about my husband should be patient with me, my husband takes care of me and wants to make sure that I'm OK.
Gaslighting is really common, and Goldsmith could be seen that his behaviors were gaslighting,
convincing her that the reason things were going on was because of her. Because she was smoking cannabis,
she was going through the menopause. Not about he's a controlling, jealous, angry man
who's alcohol-dependent, who's risking losing his career in the police service. NARRATOR: Dismissing Goldsmith's claims
that he was the victim of domestic abuse and a frustrated husband whose wife refused sex.
Instead, the prosecution painted a picture of a heavy drinker who was frequently
irrational and overbearing. One witness told the court that Goldsmith had seen Jill as a project, that he wanted to fix her.
So Goldsmith, by using the really strict power and control that he's exerting over Jill.
And telling people she's the abuser and he's the victim, he's actually manipulating all the people around
about him, colleagues, family, that he's the poor victim in all this. So he's then able to continue his power to control over Jill.
He was described as a Jekyll and Hyde type character, quite a common feature of many domestic abusers.
To the outside world, they can appear a wonderful, charming man, very popular. So everyone would have thought he's a great chap.
She would have known that all his colleagues would have thought that. NARRATOR: Prosecution barrister suggested a picture of Jill
as a wife who lived in fear but who had nowhere to turn. Many women who are married or in relationships
with police officers do not report abuse and do not have confidence in reporting abuse to the police.
Goldsmith is a serving police officer. So if you're feeling threatened or intimidated
in your own home, the advice to everybody is bring the police. If you're scared of your partner,
your partner's behaving in a way that you feel scared, ring triple nine and the police will come to your rescue.
For Jill, scared in her own home, ring triple nine, and your husband's mates are likely to turn up.
How reassuring is that? So we're a victim of police-perpetrated abuse. Reports said often, we see various things
happening that sometimes, it's a failure to properly investigate. Sometimes, there is a manipulation
of evidence by the police officer or his colleagues. NARRATOR: There is no suggestion that that
happened in the case of Jill Goldsmith and Northamptonshire Police. The suggestion from campaigners is
that there is a fear of what might happen if a spouse of a serving police officer reports him
or her. In court, prosecutors argued that there was enough evidence Goldsmith had fully intended
to end his wife's life. If you just take a step back from that scene and you imagine somebody snapping and using something
like a mallet. You would imagine that suddenly, they have that moment of reckoning, that realization
that they've done something profoundly dreadful. But to then let go of that and to find another instrument,
and then to let go of that and find another instrument to create that harm, it's sustained and aggressive.
And then to throttle her, that would have been-- firstly as the victim, utterly terrifying.
But secondly, how many times did he have the option to stop, and yet he absolutely went through with that murder?
He wanted her dead. JANE MONCKTON SMITH: He probably enjoyed the attack. A lot of the things in this man's life
suggest that he was or wanted to be dominant, a dominant character. He studied martial arts.
He was a police officer with a uniform. It's implied that in his past, he had been dominant in his relationships with people.
This was a man who wanted a lot more dominance than he actually had, perhaps a bit of a hero complex
going on in his head. Imagine the fall from grace, to go from a protector to a perpetrator.
NARRATOR: On Monday, the 1st of February 2016, the jury returned their unanimous verdict
against PC Adrian Goldsmith, accused of murdering his wife, Jill. A jury at Stafford Crown Court rejected
his claim of self-defense. He was convicted of murder. Following the guilty verdict this afternoon,
the force will now conduct an internal discipline process which will mean a fast-track special case hearing will be
heard for Otis Goldsmith that will be heard by the chief constable sometime in the next two or three weeks.
Goldsmith was sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment. He was consequently dismissed from the police
force for gross misconduct. NARRATOR: Not a sentence campaigners thought long enough.
Perhaps they accepted evidence that he may have been a victim of abuse himself, I don't know.
But he clearly lied afterwards. It was a very brutal killing, that he used his power over her.
I mean, there seemed to be a whole series of potential aggravating features. So to me, that sentence seems surprising.
NARRATOR: In summing up, the judge said that it was a significant aggravating factor
that Goldsmith had lied about his injuries in order to establish a defense. Simply, he had nowhere else to go.
There was nothing else he could do. There was no doubt it was him that did it. He would have had enough knowledge of police
investigations to know that there was absolutely no chance of him taking a body away and hiding it.
The weight and the wealth of forensic evidence would have made that absurd. He simply had nothing else he could try and do.
It was his only option. NARRATOR: Prosecutors say that as a serving police officer,
the killer should have been able to exercise a greater degree of restraint. So why did Adrian Goldsmith attack and kill his wife
that spring day in 2015? What we do know is that whilst he was out of the house that morning, that she had been searching for properties
online. Now, what I don't know is what those properties were. It could have been that she was looking for properties
for herself to escape him. It could have been she was looking for what her future was
going to be like, and how remote these places were and could she actually face it.
If she starts to try and break away, that's often recognized as the most dangerous
moment in a relationship. Or if she starts to challenge his control and power, that's often the most dangerous point.
And that may lead to those types of controlling men ultimately committing the final acts of control,
which is taking a life. I think that is probably the trigger when he came home, because he was monitoring her.
He was monitoring everything she did. He may well have checked on her web history.
He may have seen her searching for properties, and that could have been the trigger that pushed him.
She was finally getting out of his control and he could see it. NARRATOR: Not only would Goldsmith lose his partner,
but there were also financial implications. He was two years away from his pension.
Every police officer worth their salt knows that pension. They hang onto it for grim day.
If he was to lose his job at 28 years, that financial chunk would have gone and he had a lot to lose.
So he was invested in keeping his job. He was invested in keeping Jill. Could she have got half his pension
if she'd gone to leave him? NARRATOR: Was this the reason that Adrian Goldsmith lost his temper and in a rage killed his wife?
Had she told him she wanted to ditch him? He says in his own letters that she had recognized
that he was frightening and that she was getting increasingly more frightened of him.
And I think that frustrated him in some ways, that she was pulling back. She was pulling away from him because she was frightened.
The notion that Goldsmith lost control the point he murdered Jill is incorrect. He didn't lose control when he murdered Jill.
He thought he was going to lose control if Jill was going to leave him, that's why he murdered her.
NARRATOR: In a statement read to court, Jill's adult son described her as a much loved person who was
always there for her family. Referring to Goldsmith's experience and training as an officer of the law,
the statement continued he should have known above anyone how to calm things down.
Those taking out a super complaint against the police in relation to incidents of officer domestic abuse
believes the case of Jill Goldsmith raises important questions. I think that every case of a police officer who kills
needs to be looked at very carefully to try and identify how this could have happened.
How a police officer could have got into the police if he had that potential, how he was allowed to continue abusing
and ultimately to kill. [music playing]

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Brief Summary

PC Adrian Goldsmith murdered his wife Jill, claiming self-defense, but evidence reveals a pattern of abuse and manipulation.

Key points

Police Abuse of Power. The narrative explores instances where police officers become abusers themselves, raising questions about trust.
Adrian Goldsmith's Struggles. Adrian Goldsmith faced a professional investigation that led to personal turmoil and alcohol dependency.
The Death of Jill Goldsmith. Jill Goldsmith was found dead after a violent altercation with her husband, Adrian Goldsmith.
The Control and Jealousy. Goldsmith's obsessive control over Jill escalated to violence, revealing his true nature.
Brutal Murder Unveiled. Jill suffered significant head trauma, indicating a brutal murder by her husband.
The Jury's Verdict. Goldsmith was convicted of murder, rejecting his claims of self-defense.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

If a guy like Kent McGowan wants to kill you, he's going to kill you.

NARRATOR discussing the dangers of police officers abusing their power.

2:12WatchJun 8, 2022

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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