The Protagonists (1999) Movie Script
During the war between good and evil
the spectator is nearly always
drawn by the triumph of evil.
The most violent crime is that which
attracts the most morbid interest.
As a murderer is rare, a being apart,
it is natural that all interest is focused on him.
Anyone can in fact become a victim;
crime can fall ominously
both on the innocent and the guilty,
rich or poor,
with the impartiality of an air raid.
The murderer,
whilst committing an unpremeditated crime,
normally leaves behind some trace
in the excitement of the moment.
It is then always interesting
to follow up the leads
and consequently listen to all those cliches
about love, disloyalty,
jealously, children, broken dreams,
the hammer or the knife used...
Listen to all of this...
and to think that we could
also have been the victims.
Let alone the murderers.
You've got to feed your soul
Not your palate
You've got to free your soul
Not to have it
You've got to be yourself
You gotta be it
You've got to see yourself
You don't need it
THE PROTAGONISTS
I don't know why
You keep playing all those chain games
All those same games I know so well
Happiness it seems
Is talking up your dreams
Just to go and blow
Blow them all to hell
I see the sorrow
In the eyes of those who trusted
They're so disgusted
Can't you see?
One by one they fall
Too proud to watch you crawl
Till the only
The only sucker left is you
It takes you nowhere
And I can't go with you
And all that I give you is never enough
I see the strangers in your eyes
As you go flying
So death defying
And too blind to see
One by one you lose
All those selfish games you choose
Using everyone including me
On and on and on and on you go
Till in the dark, you call
Begging me
Begging me to tell you
Tell you what to do
Jhelisa.
Nothing is true.
Everything is permitted.
And so here we are.
Friends and lovers.
Beating hearts.
All of us caught in this joyful moment.
Because all the world loves lovers.
All the world loves people in love.
Isn't it true?
This is how everything began.
With a journey.
The journey of a film crew from Rome to London
on a warm summer day.
CREW HOUSE, HIGHGATE, LONDON
Hello.
Hello, Xavier.
How are you.
Would you like to come in?
New and old friends come together.
We went into the garden
where tea and a carpet were laid.
Look.
Oh. Look, who's that?
There's Toby.
And look, this is a teddy.
One evening in January 1994
which is today, four and a half years ago
two students from
financially privileged backgrounds
decided to commit the perfect crime.
To select a person unknown to them
and to kill them.
They travel into London by coach
and a few hours later
at a give way sign near
Bayswater Underground Station
they meet their victim.
They get into his car
force him to stop some way ahead
and they kill him.
After the crime they return
to their lives as students.
Some ten months later
they're convicted for life in prison.
We've come together
to make this film about
our curiosity about this case.
For legal reasons we are not allowed
to mention the names of the killers.
But we will be clear about
the name of the victim
Mohammed El-Sayed.
LONDON
THE PROTAGONISTS, TODAY
NPL - NEWSPAPER LIBRARY, COLINDALE, LONDON
So Luca and I, having had
endless conversations about murder
four years ago became independently
and in different countries,
fascinated by this case.
Something about the level of
coldness that the murderers aspired to
caught our imagination.
And now we are in
Colindale Newspaper Library
that is the place in London you can
find out everything you want about papers.
And Fabrizia is helping us to research.
So, I'll go and see how she's getting on.
- How we doing?
- Maybe something.
Here.
Under criminal sentences.
A man who raped and sexually abused
his thirteen month old daughter
for three hours while drunk.
Jailed for life.
Schizophrenic who attacked housewife in London
with a baseball bat.
Here we are, OK.
We have these two teenage students convicted
of murdering London chef, Mohammed El-Sayed.
Jailed for life on November the 8th
by London's Old Bailey court.
Yes. El-Sayed, Mohammed.
Two Oxford teenagers charged with murdering a man
stabbed to death in West London last month.
It was a fascinating trial.
It was probably the first big trial I did.
And when the prosecution opened
and they started explaining that
two boys who had everything going for them
went to good schools, had stable backgrounds
and ended up murdering someone
after they fantasized that they were in the SAS
well, you know,
for a newspaper that's just sensational.
Nothing really fitted
with the crime that they committed.
They were two very ordinary boys.
And yet, the crime, this murder,
was so horrific that it just didn't add up.
We weren't talking about someone
who was definitely going to kill someone.
I think it was more about
two people coming together.
Two chemicals,
which on their own are completely harmless
but when you mix them together,
they become something quite explosive.
And that's what happened here.
Sean, this was your first big assignment.
How did it affect you?
It was the sense of waste, with the whole story,
which had the biggest impact on me
because it needn't have happened.
And sadly, as a journalist sometimes
you're working on a terrible story
but it's exciting and it's fascinating
and it's the story of the moment
and you're at the center of it.
And so, you can forget sometimes
that there are other issues here.
And everyone gets very excited when
a tragic story or a great story happens
because you know it's going
to make great newspaper copy.
Right up until the moment that
he was taken down into the cells
one of the boys still believed he was in the SAS
or in the parachute regiment or whatever.
And he still believed that,
right up until that very moment,
before he got taken down into the cells
to start his life sentence,
was that the SAS were going to
come crashing in through the window
and they were going to rescue him.
And then you realized how deep into this fantasy
these two had actually become.
"A vicious way to come of age.
"Leaving aside his stabbing of a
complete stranger in a parked car last January
"for which he's just started a life sentence
"nameless murderer #1
was always a very polite young man.
"He liked to be liked.
"The other, the beloved friend
he made when retaking A-levels
"and who's now serving a similar
sentence was quite different.
"He would whistle loudly at the back of the bus
to irritate other passengers.
"He wore a Chicago White Sox baseball cap.
" 'Sox' that he had customized with a pen to read 'Sex'.
"He used to hide behind mirrored sunglasses.
"In shops he would lean over
and glare at assistants."
These details about these murderers,
we're so hungry for them.
Whether we're hungry for them
to make them feel more exotic
or whether we're hungry for them to
make them feel more banal, I don't know.
But it seems to me that
maybe we should be looking
not so much for details of what they were
but details of what they were not.
Because they lack something.
They lack the thing that stops most of us
from doing what they do.
Killing another person.
But all of us could do it at any minute of any day.
We're here talking with Jerry Alford
who was the investigative officer on this case
and Richard South,
who was part of the investigative team.
So Jerry, why are we here?
Where are we?
Well, we're in the middle of King's Cross
and we're here because
this is where the boys came
immediately before they committed the murder.
What, they came on the tube from...
I think they came by coach to Victoria.
- And then they came by underground here.
- That's right.
Coach to Victoria and then the underground here.
And what did they do while they were here?
Well, they walked around looking, they said,
for a pimp or a drug dealer to kill.
And they went into a pub, the Flying Scotsman.
And even asked a prostitute
whether she knew where they
could find a pimp, which was amazing.
Wasn't that quite a dangerous thing to do
- walk around King's Cross and...
- Certainly, if you don't know the area.
Highly dangerous really.
As I understand it.
When Mohammed El-Sayed was found murdered
you had nothing to go on.
That's right.
We literally had nothing to go on at all.
He was found in his car
and the only things that we found were missing
were his spectacles and his glasses...
and the car keys.
And we just had nothing to go on at all.
And how long was it before
unnamed murderer #1 confessed?
It was about a month.
It was almost exactly a month.
So, we had a whole month of
going down lots of different avenues.
Lots of different areas which obviously
eventually were completely the wrong ones.
And how did the confession work?
- Tell us about that interview.
- Shocking.
Yeah, it was an amazing experience.
I can honestly describe it as
a life changing experience really
because I literally asked him one question,
"Tell me what happened"
and we couldn't stop him.
I've never spoken to anybody
in all my years as a police officer
who has made such a lengthy admission
to such serious crimes, ever.
And what was his attitude when he was confessing?
Coldness.
Total coldness.
There was no emotion in his speech.
Very matter of fact.
It was as though he was he was just
reading off a script.
So Jerry, Richard. I want to ask you...
This case was four and a half years ago
what was it like to be approached
to take part in this film?
And why are you here talking to us?
I'm here because it really was, for me anyway,
a real watershed.
Something completely different.
And dealing with someone
so completely out of the ordinary.
I really think it's a story that has to be told.
So what's it like being filmed?
Um, different. Different.
I've been interviewed on the television
once or twice before, about this case, in fact.
But I don't think you ever get used to it.
So what's different this time?
Have you ever walked along the street
with somebody walking backwards...
- Absolutely not. No.
- picking up your every word.
It's always been stage managed before.
And what are the most annoying bits about filming
and what are the nicest bits?
The nicest bits, of course,
are meeting people like you.
Annoying bits are having makeup put on your face.
But you insisted on so much makeup, Richard!
You insisted on very long eyelashes
and quite a lot of pan stick.
- Fabrizia.
- Thank you.
Hi Andrew.
So you see where we are,
we're at Bayswater Station.
- This is Queensway, this whole road.
- Yes.
And this is where the boys came,
on the underground, from King's Cross.
And this is the Golden Horseshoe Casino.
Which is where Mohammed spent his last night.
The night of the murder.
So let's go.
Shall we go to Bishop's Bridge Road now?
OK, look right.
Look right. It's for the Italians.
You look right.
Tilda.
How was the meeting with Jerry Alford today?
It was wonderful.
And also we had Richard South
who was one of the investigative team.
They were so generous.
They were so interested still, in the case.
Yes and what about Jamie's confession?
Do you remember?
Yeah. That was the thing that really
impressed them about the whole case.
Jerry asked him one question,
"Where do you want to start?"
And he started to tell him the story of his life.
Starting with the sentence,
"Well, I spent most of my life in a boarding school."
And continued for...
for hours.
And these two police officers,
extremely experienced policemen
were really shocked by this.
Where we are?
We're coming to end of Queensway
and this is the corner with Bishop's Bridge Road.
This is the road on which
Mohammed's body was found in his car.
And uh...
this is the road they were taking,
where they were looking for somebody to murder.
I don't know how you feel about this,
but the more we go on this quest of ours
and the more details we seem to find,
the sadder I get.
It's as if none of these details are relevant,
as if nothing matters at all.
It doesn't matter where it was
that this murder was committed
it doesn't matter where
Mohammed was coming from...
I mean, here we are,
this is the corner of Porchester Terrace North
and this is the give way sign
where Mohammed's car stopped
and this is where murderer #1 got into his car.
And yet it's exactly like any other corner
on any other street in London.
And it just... I feel so defeated by it.
I dunno, do you feel the same?
- Yes.
- Yeah.
Love
Happiness
Passion
Loss
Regret
Sorrow
Pain
Pain
You know, they took Mohammed's glasses away.
- Don't move, stick up!
- Alright!
- What you doing, man?
- Come on.
I'll give you my money.
My wallet's down there, OK?
Careful of the knife.
Go round at the corner.
- OK, OK. OK!
- Come on!
Go!
I'm going.
Let me drive the car.
Come on.
OK.
- Stop round the corner.
- I'm driving the car.
Come on.
- Stop here.
- Don't talk.
- Alright.
- Here, here, here!
- I'm doing exactly what you're saying, OK?
- Billy, Billy, Billy!
I'm parking the car.
I'm turning the engine off.
You can have my wallet, it's in my pocket now.
Billy!
OK, so can you get in the car?
You get in the car first.
OK. I'm in.
Alright.
So you're in the car.
OK.
So your first stab is in the front.
You're grabbing my back?
See? And then...
Through with it.
There's chest... heart.
But it's the fascination of it
rather than the hatred.
You don't know this guy.
- Are you comfortable, Tilda?
- Mm, mm.
Sorry, sorry.
What about this?
This is our... can you help me please?
- Yes.
- You take that, you put it in the water
and you squeeze, and you press.
- Right.
- OK?
And you strangle my neck and...
I think it's ready. Be careful here.
OK.
Great. OK.
Thank you Tilda.
Thank you.
Thank you Fabrizia.
Thanks Fernanda.
It's a pleasure.
Do it! Do it now!
Dad...
I killed someone.
He went out here on the Friday night, seven o'clock.
Kissed the boys and me goodbye.
But he done a fish supper before he went out,
I'll never forget that.
And he said, "Bye, see you later."
Kissed the boys goodbye and then went.
I thought, "Oh I'll see him later on,"
but I never did.
That was the last time I saw them, on the Friday.
- I got the knock on the door...
- Yeah.
from the police and they said there's some
really tragic, bad news for me.
And I couldn't take it all in when they told me.
And they just said, "I'm afraid to tell you
that your husband's been stabbed or killed."
I don't know what they actually said,
those words, but they said he'd been killed.
- So the boys went upstairs?
- Yeah.
Then they fell asleep up there, so the next day...
the day after and that, I just gradually told them.
Can you remember how you
started to tell them a thing like that?
First of all I said,
"Daddy's gone to heaven."
Which every parent or mum
says when they've lost someone.
The easy way out is just say,
go to heaven, which I did.
But then, gradually I told them that
Daddy was in the car
and these two nasty boys came along,
one jumped in
told your daddy to drive around
and stabbed him to death.
And how old were the boys?
Six and a half, and two and a half.
And then, as I understand it,
the police came to you when you were in Egypt.
After the funeral,
they came when I was staying there, yeah.
They said that we've caught a boy.
I can't remember they said boys or boy
with connection with the murder of your husband.
And when they said that to me, I felt relieved.
And I... very relieved.
You don't go around killing someone
'cause you do it for kicks
that's what they did,
they just done it for kicks.
That makes me mad.
It was in the papers,
kicks, kicks, kicks, they did it for kicks.
Enjoyment to them.
And he went out and planned it, that's what...
"We're gonna kill a pimp."
They wanted a pimp first of all.
'Cause they couldn't find a pimp...
Why did they want a pimp?
And the day of the sentence,
well that was really...
That was relief and...
Not happy, but relieved at the same time
that it was all over,
they were gonna go to jail, and that's...
that's it.
The children kept me going, believe it or not,
they pulled me through.
The children were lifting me up all the time.
Saying things... to me, to help me.
- They helped me.
- Mm.
If I didn't have the children talking to me
and helping me through it and helping each other...
- I wouldn't be here now talking to you.
- Really.
That is true.
The boys are very good.
And also, he was a good father to the boys
a good husband to me and...
A good cook.
Yeah, a good cook.
He was very good.
What's it like not having to cook?
I miss that.
I do it myself, well, plain food now, anything...
Anything in a pan...
for the boys and me, but I miss all that.
What was Mohammed's best,
sort of pice de rsistance?
- Italian.
- Italian?
Italian. He worked in an Italian restaurant.
- Very good.
- Really?
- Yeah, I loved his food.
- Really?
What was his, sort of...
Pasta.
Pasta. Which sauce?
Oh god, you can't remind me of the sauces,
there were so many sauces.
He even made up his own sauces.
What was his best sauce?
He made a creamy mushroom one
with herbs and spices.
I can never remember what it was, it was lovely.
You just put it on the pasta.
It made the pasta, oh I don't know...
I feel better that I'm talking about it again,
it's like a counseling session
where people are helping me...
talking to me like you are.
'Cause bringing it up again...
It feels hurtful and sad and everything
but it feels better that I'm talking about it to you
and that it would go to Italy, another country...
to be recognized.
Because I think here,
they've forgotten about it, in England.
One more murder to them, go on, next one.
That's the feeling I get.
And what do you think about your life now?
It's uh... it's getting better.
I can't say it's not getting better,
'cause it is getting better.
But it's hard at times, you know
when I'm taking here and I'm taking them there.
Yeah.
I can't do any more.
- I can't do any more, Tilda.
- OK.
Thank you, Sue.
Thank you very much.
Should we make a cake now?
- And see the babies.
- Oh yeah.
So I said the next step is to get--
take a photo and take it to the police station.
Which is what they did and...
ahe events happened from there.
So when the police arrived,
can you remember what you were doing?
I was just sitting here
watching telly with the boys.
So the boys were in the room when the police came in?
- So the boys went upstairs?
- Yeah.
Did the boys wonder...
So after the police had gone...
you were on your own.
- No, I had my sister and my brother.
- Yes, right.
- So the boys had gone up to bed.
- Yeah.
Well, they hadn't gone up, just run upstairs
'cause they wondered what was going on
'cause they saw me crying and that, so...
Then they fell asleep up there,
so the next time
and the day after and that,
I just gradually told them.
Paulo.
Mariana wants to know if this colour
is right for the scene of tomorrow.
- What do you see?
- A dark age.
- This looks like a little mouse.
- An Island.
A butterfly.
- Looks like lines of cocaine.
- Meta.
- The wind.
- Three aliens.
Wave.
Underground.
Space.
And what do you see, Tilda?
I see this.
Christmas, 1993.
Billy had told Happy
that he would be spending his holidays
in Iraq with the SAS.
The mission:
to destroy the evil empire of Saddam.
Happy gave him a commando knife
as a Christmas present.
But that Christmas, Billy wasn't in Iraq.
That Christmas, Billy was at home.
And that Christmas, Billy was drowning...
Goodnight, son.
Goodnight.
Goodnight, Mom.
Hold my hand.
Merry Christmas, Billy.
GUY'S AND ST. THOMAS HOSPITAL, LONDON
It's always very difficult to say what you feel
when you're in court, looking at the accused
because that's the first time you've ever seen them,
in most instances
and they often look very ordinary people.
And these guys just looked like two ordinary
6th former/young university people.
Perfectly normal.
Didn't look anything out of the ordinary at all.
But when you looked at them,
and you knew what they'd done
and why they'd done it,
why it was said they'd done it
then you look at them and you think
well, are these guys really evil?
Is there something inside their brain
which has gone berserk?
The murderer said, the first thing that he said
having stuck the knife in Mohammed's throat was,
"Jesus, there's so much blood."
As if he wasn't expecting there to be so much blood
or in fact, any blood at all.
As if somehow, he hadn't expected this
to be a living human being.
But he regarded this person, basically,
as an experimental model
and then when it reacted like a human being
then perhaps it does show
he's got some humanity after all.
It's absolutely impossible
to say how long he suffered
because he could have died very, very quickly
or he may have taken a little bit longer to die.
I would suspect that the neck injury
caused him an awful lot of pain and discomfort.
But once he'd felt--
started to bleed from his chest wounds
then I would suspect
that he would die fairly quickly.
We're in here.
OK. We're in here.
We're talking to Dr. Hill...
who was the pathologist who worked on
the case of Mohammed El-Sayed's death.
Did you remember this case when
you were asked to take part in this film?
Yes I did remember it,
largely because of the peculiar circumstances
of two school boys coming down
to select a man to kill.
I went to where the car was in the side street
and I looked at the body inside the motorcar
and I then had a careful look around the motorcar.
Then the body was taken to the mortuary.
You examine the body with the clothing on
and you take the clothing off,
looking at it carefully as you do so.
And then you do what we call a dissection
the internal examination
to find out where the wounds have gone to.
So you don't actually know what went
on in the car from the postmortem, no?
No. There are many ideas that you
can put forward as to what happened.
You have to remember that the stab wound can be
caused in any one of a number of different ways.
I could stab you by putting the knife in that way
putting my hand that way
or I could stab you holding it that way.
Could you tell if the victim was held by the head?
The appearances of the neck injury
would suggest that he must
have had his head pulled back
so that somebody could put the knife into the neck,
probably from behind.
Because in the confines of a motorcar
it would be very very difficult to
achieve that injury in any other way.
Not impossible, but difficult.
If you put a knife in somebody's throat
it depends exactly what you hit,
how they die.
And this victim, well all that
happened was he got a knife in his neck
which cut into his voice box and did some damage
and caused a little bit of bleeding.
But it didn't kill him.
Dr. Hill, this is Fernanda Perez,
she's our makeup artist
and a very important part of our film is a
reconstruction of the murder of Mohammed El-Sayed.
And we have some details over here
that she wanted to ask your advice about.
So this is Andrew's neck
and it's a cast neck.
Can you mark for us here
- where was the wound of mister...
- It was roughly there.
Across the front of the neck.
Yeah, it was quite a big wound actually,
it was about that length
and it was gaping a little bit.
The injury to the heart itself wasn't very big again
but then you had a couple of injuries to that
and again you don't need a very
big hole in the heart to cause bleeding
and for the person to bleed to death.
You can do it
just by pressing firmly on a sharp knife
and it will go through.
Just like a knife through butter.
And did he indeed hit
Mohammed El-Sayed's heart with one?
- Oh yes. Yes.
- Really?
And as a specialist
what annoys you most
in most filmed reconstructions of murders?
I think probably the thing that
gets us most cross, is the fact that...
drama always tries to make
the time of death very very finite.
And they say somebody died at
quarter past eight in the evening
when I know that there's no way
you can do it that accurately.
If I could,
it would make my life a lot easier than it is.
- The glasses, on or off?
- Off.
You know I'm blind.
Yes, but the shadows on your face are not very good.
So we're at our geography lesson now.
Unnamed murderer #1
and unnamed murderer #2
come to London by coach from Oxford
they get off at Victoria Coach Station
and they make their way to King's Cross.
King's Cross.
They were looking for their victim,
which would be a pimp or a drug dealer.
After walking around for a while,
they enter the pub here.
Which was a gay pub.
And then what happened was
they went on the Caledonian Road
which is this rather charming place,
The Flying Scotsman.
- Where you've been.
- I've been there, it's...
and I was there about six o'clock at night
and it was very rough then, very frightening so...
And they're there at about ten o'clock.
- And they talk to a stripper.
- Zoe.
And I think she persuaded them
not to look around King's Cross
because then what happened was
they got back on the tube.
Right. So, they're heading for where, do we think?
Maybe they were heading towards Victoria.
Back to the coach station, no murder.
- Yeah.
- Given up.
And somewhere around this point
#2 convinced #1 to get off at Bayswater.
- Which he knew. He knew the area.
- That's right.
And to continue with the murder plan.
OK. So they get off at Bayswater which is here.
Which you'll notice is very very near
to the Golden Horseshoe Casino
which interestingly enough,
they had visited about two months previously?
Posing as CID officers.
On some SAS inspired exercise to show initiative.
So, the boys have gone along here,
up Bishop's Bridge Road
and they're hanging around here waiting for a car.
On the corner of Porchester Terrace,
sitting on the wall.
Right, sitting on a wall here.
And they decide to stop
the first car that comes along.
Mohammed El-Sayed leaves
the Golden Horseshoe Casino
- with a friend.
- With a friend, yeah.
Takes a friend home who lives up here somewhere.
Friend invites him in for a cup of tea.
Incidentally, this cup of tea is yours.
- It has two sugars. I meant to say that earlier.
- Right, sorry.
Thank you. Mohammed declines this cup of tea.
Unfortunately, for him.
Gets back into his car, hence the unlocked doors.
Comes right, he's on his way home, comes along here
and stops at the give way sign.
Which is where unnamed murderer #1 finds him
jumps in the car,
asks him to turn left into Bishop's Bridge Road
- and um...
- That's where they do the deed.
That's where they do the deed.
- In front of the big white houses.
- Big white houses.
So having killed Mohammed El-Sayed,
they went home
via Bayswater station,
underground station to the bus.
- At Victoria.
- And where is the bus?
What do you mean?
Where's the bus?
Do you see it?
Where is the bus?
No but, Robertino said that
the bus was going to be here.
Robertino.
Where's the bus?
- It's here.
- Where?
Here.
Where?
And give me that, King's Cross.
There you go.
Hand me that one.
Thank you very much.
And on this bus they travel back to Oxford
and unnamed murderer #1
opens his birthday cards.
Because today's his birthday, of course.
How very nice for him.
It all slots together.
It's charming, isn't it?
How charming.
Stick up.
Stick up.
Don't move.
Just go around the corner.
That's right.
Come on!
Stop here.
Here.
Bill?
Bill.
Billy!
Let's go.
Cut.
Fabrizia.
Fabrizia.
Fabrizia, wake up.
Fabrizia.
- What's happening?
- Come on, it's the trial scene.
What are you doing now?
I'm looking for my pants.
Come on. Everybody's waiting for you.
Don't wear it.
Hurry up.
The judge doesn't like to wait.
Hurry up.
Is there something you
should tell me about Andrew?
No?
Let's go.
OK. Let's go.
She's so lovely.
Sorry Tilda.
Sorry everybody.
I'm late.
It's the trial scene, isn't it?
Mmhm.
You alright?
- You ready?
- Yeah.
The trial for the murder of
Mohammed El-Sayed, Egyptian citizen
born in Cairo,
44 years of age at his death
lasted 17 days in the autumn of 1994.
Mohammed's wife...
my wife...
only attended the first and last days of the trial.
I was holding a rosary in my hand,
looking up at the public gallery.
I was in my dark suit, with my usual elegance.
What's the hall like, Tilda?
The furniture in the trial hall
is certainly dark and massive.
It gives the impression of stability.
No glass, no windows.
There is a closed smell that
makes one think of a church.
The judge certainly commands respect
and a terrible deference
and I wouldn't be surprised if his eyes
were a terrible weight upon Happy and Billy.
And the eyes of the jury.
The public in the gallery,
the families of the defendants
their legal representatives, all there.
The defence of the two accused, was diminished
responsibility for unnamed murderer #1
and innocence for unnamed murderer #2.
In fact, I wasn't in the car.
I was outside it.
And I thought he was trying to rob Mohammed.
He was stabbing me here, here, here and here.
But I wasn't in the car.
I thought he had been punching him.
So why didn't you run and report him?
I was afraid of him.
The jury smiled at all this.
During the 17 days
witnesses were heard and
everything proceeded as is usual.
The experts gave their opinions
the pathologist's cruel photographs
were put on show, to the horror of those present
and at last, after a good part of the trial
the defendants were heard.
What happened on the
night of January 14th, 1994?
Billy and I had a signal.
If I called him and he did not reply
this meant that I could strike.
And so I said, "Bill."
And Billy didn't reply.
And I kept on calling him.
"Bill. Billy."
And he still did not reply.
And so I began.
And how?
Like this?
- And this, and this, and...
- That's enough.
Tilda, go on.
After the jury's debate
with the judge's notes of guidance,
they adjourned to decide.
It took 5 hours.
Found guilty with eight jury votes against two,
in favour of mental infirmity.
Found guilty unanimously.
You created a world in which you were both
playing out your fantasies
and it developed into an obsession
with killing and death.
And that obsession led to the brutal
and senseless slaughter
of a complete stranger
who just happened to be
in the wrong place at the wrong time.
We can be murdered,
we can be mutilated by vehicles
we can be drowned, disemboweled by a bull.
We can kill ourselves
because we're tired of living.
But not even in death will they leave us alone.
At 11 in the morning
of the 8th of November, 1994
Mohammed El-Sayed officially was murdered.
Is this how you imagined it?
It's not far off actually.
The position of my body is quite similar to the
position of Mohammed's body when it was found.
They didn't leave him his glasses.
And he had no voice box left.
A lot of people...
keep stopping and looking at us filming here.
A lot more people stop to watch us filming this
than noticed Mohammed in his car all that night.
Come round the tree.
Just follow me along here.
So we've got some details right.
We're in the same road as he was in
when he was found.
This is Bishop's Bridge Road in West London.
These are the flats, the big white houses
that unnamed murderer #1
referred to in his statement.
This is the exact spot, up here, where he was found.
We've got a similar car
to the car in which he was found.
But we've got way too much blood.
It's way too theatrical.
It's hard to imagine
quite how unspectacular this murder was.
I've seen the photographs
and it's nothing like this.
So easy to commit a murder like this.
I mean, I could jump into any of
these cars and do this very same thing.
So simple and so banal.
So this is the place.
This is the very spot.
You know. This is it.
Completely meaningless,
it doesn't mean anything.
A man was killed in the most horrible
and meaningless way.
Could be anywhere. It doesn't have to be here.
Welcome to the show.
Mohammed El-Sayed
was spending his night out
with a couple of friends in a ballroom.
He was a young man with a strange, volatile face.
Courage, shyness and modesty
were all that he possessed.
That special night, in that ballroom
he met the love of his life.
May I have the pleasure of this dance?
Sure.
Writing a poem.
Billy was a loner.
At the beginning of the nineties
he was deep in a world of fantasies
and poems he used to write.
Your father and I
have decided that you will
go to extra classes to catch up.
Don't worry about paying attention.
You never do.
Visions of bodies
at rest and in motion
car crashes
and dead sisters who never existed.
Billy was a tough guy.
Billy was a man of discipline and order.
Where was Billy?
In another place, at the same time
a movie struck Happy's imagination.
The Silence of the Lambs.
Happy, as Jame Gumb did
desiring the others
only desired himself.
Meeting Billy...
he met his real life Hannibal Lecter.
Was he a real life Clarice?
His thoughts were forbidden to everybody.
Particularly to himself.
Doctor Lecter.
Doctor Lecter.
Doctor Lecter.
Doctor Lecter.
Doctor Lecter.
Doctor Lecter.
And Mohammed and Sue were married.
With his faraway glance, lost in the horizon
Billy was waiting for his sweetheart.
You will remember this moment always.
He gave her one of his poems.
His soul is my offering to her.
Tell me about the way you want to fight.
It's you.
Where have you been all this time?
Your hair.
Do you like the colour?
It's beautiful.
Your eyes.
They're so sad.
That girl knew everything about him.
Eight, nine, ten,
11, 12, 13,
14, 15, 16,
Billy gives orders.
Happy obeys, longing for his appreciation.
Please listen to me, please, please listen to me.
TROUBLED SOUL
PIECE OF SHILooking for contact.
What's happening to Happy?
What did he see?
- These are for you.
- Thank you.
How did it go?
Very tiring.
It's a beautiful place.
I'll take you there one day.
Can't wait.
Why are you looking at me?
Because I don't want to lose you.
You won't.
Every day I wake up and I thank God, I found you.
You're the most beautiful thing
that's every happened to me.
Do you know that?
Do you know that?
I dreamt...
that I woke up
and something terrible had happened to you.
It was like somebody was waiting
to take you away from me.
There's nobody there.
Don't worry, baby.
Don't worry.
Welcome to the show.
How you come and go tonight.
Don't let the bedbugs bite.
Tonight...
nothing is true
everything is permitted.
Get ready for the show.
1... 2... 3...
Magic, crazy, here's Zoe.
Pardon my asking, are you ready for this?
Admission is not free.
A broken heart's the theme.
Everything is permitted.
Welcome to the show.
Welcome to the show.
Welcome to the show.
How are you doing boys?
Fine.
You were very good up there.
What did you like best?
Well, the way you move.
I like it when you took off your wig.
You realized that it wasn't my hair?
Actually, no.
You were red...
as a pint of beer.
Well, I'm a natural blonde, as I showed you.
You're not talking?
I like to listen.
That's good, I suppose.
Now, where are you going
to carry on this evening
with all this music in the air?
We have a plan.
Don't tell me.
I know it's got to stay secret.
Just one thing we can tell you though.
We're looking for a pimp or a drug dealer.
Do you know how we can recognize them?
How are they dressed?
What eyes you have.
What sad eyes.
That night, Happy and Billy, the two boys
walked around
crossed the city
travelled paths
and finally reached that corner.
Happy desperately looked for contact.
Billy later claimed never to
have been in that car that night.
Mohammed came home early that afternoon.
He ate with Susan and the children
he put on his raincoat, took his wallet
the house keys and the car keys.
He kissed his wife and his children.
He picked up a friend,
and they spent the night in a casino.
He drove his friend back home
refused a cup of tea...
Mrs. El-Sayed.
Yes?
We have some tragic news for you.
The body of your husband...
The light inside me is dying.
My soul is lying halfway to hell.
Nothing seems worth living for.
I am not a boy.
I am a machine that lives.
No feelings.
No feelings.
Take 32, 1, 3.
And action.
Let's go.
Come to me.
BELOVED
MOHAMMED EL-SAYED
BELOVED HUSBAND AND FATHER
THE PROTAGONISTS
Tilda.
He's Paolo. He's Andrea. Here's Paola.
- Nice to meet you.
- Hello, nice to meet you.
He's Walter.
- She's Emiliana.
- Hello Emiliana.
She's our make-up artist.
This is Xavier and this is Oliver.
He's Fabio, he's our photographer.
He's Massimo, he's our hair stylist.
He's Robertino, our production designer.
Hello guys.
She's Fabrizia.
Nice to meet you.
He's Claudio.
He's Paolo, better know as Paolino.
You know him.
I know him. Andrew.
...show to the horror of those present
and at last, after a good part of the trial,
the defendants were heard.
What happened on the night
of January 14th, 1994?
Cut.
During the 17 days...
I think for me, the realization that
otherwise perfectly ordinary people
can commit really, really serious crimes.
the spectator is nearly always
drawn by the triumph of evil.
The most violent crime is that which
attracts the most morbid interest.
As a murderer is rare, a being apart,
it is natural that all interest is focused on him.
Anyone can in fact become a victim;
crime can fall ominously
both on the innocent and the guilty,
rich or poor,
with the impartiality of an air raid.
The murderer,
whilst committing an unpremeditated crime,
normally leaves behind some trace
in the excitement of the moment.
It is then always interesting
to follow up the leads
and consequently listen to all those cliches
about love, disloyalty,
jealously, children, broken dreams,
the hammer or the knife used...
Listen to all of this...
and to think that we could
also have been the victims.
Let alone the murderers.
You've got to feed your soul
Not your palate
You've got to free your soul
Not to have it
You've got to be yourself
You gotta be it
You've got to see yourself
You don't need it
THE PROTAGONISTS
I don't know why
You keep playing all those chain games
All those same games I know so well
Happiness it seems
Is talking up your dreams
Just to go and blow
Blow them all to hell
I see the sorrow
In the eyes of those who trusted
They're so disgusted
Can't you see?
One by one they fall
Too proud to watch you crawl
Till the only
The only sucker left is you
It takes you nowhere
And I can't go with you
And all that I give you is never enough
I see the strangers in your eyes
As you go flying
So death defying
And too blind to see
One by one you lose
All those selfish games you choose
Using everyone including me
On and on and on and on you go
Till in the dark, you call
Begging me
Begging me to tell you
Tell you what to do
Jhelisa.
Nothing is true.
Everything is permitted.
And so here we are.
Friends and lovers.
Beating hearts.
All of us caught in this joyful moment.
Because all the world loves lovers.
All the world loves people in love.
Isn't it true?
This is how everything began.
With a journey.
The journey of a film crew from Rome to London
on a warm summer day.
CREW HOUSE, HIGHGATE, LONDON
Hello.
Hello, Xavier.
How are you.
Would you like to come in?
New and old friends come together.
We went into the garden
where tea and a carpet were laid.
Look.
Oh. Look, who's that?
There's Toby.
And look, this is a teddy.
One evening in January 1994
which is today, four and a half years ago
two students from
financially privileged backgrounds
decided to commit the perfect crime.
To select a person unknown to them
and to kill them.
They travel into London by coach
and a few hours later
at a give way sign near
Bayswater Underground Station
they meet their victim.
They get into his car
force him to stop some way ahead
and they kill him.
After the crime they return
to their lives as students.
Some ten months later
they're convicted for life in prison.
We've come together
to make this film about
our curiosity about this case.
For legal reasons we are not allowed
to mention the names of the killers.
But we will be clear about
the name of the victim
Mohammed El-Sayed.
LONDON
THE PROTAGONISTS, TODAY
NPL - NEWSPAPER LIBRARY, COLINDALE, LONDON
So Luca and I, having had
endless conversations about murder
four years ago became independently
and in different countries,
fascinated by this case.
Something about the level of
coldness that the murderers aspired to
caught our imagination.
And now we are in
Colindale Newspaper Library
that is the place in London you can
find out everything you want about papers.
And Fabrizia is helping us to research.
So, I'll go and see how she's getting on.
- How we doing?
- Maybe something.
Here.
Under criminal sentences.
A man who raped and sexually abused
his thirteen month old daughter
for three hours while drunk.
Jailed for life.
Schizophrenic who attacked housewife in London
with a baseball bat.
Here we are, OK.
We have these two teenage students convicted
of murdering London chef, Mohammed El-Sayed.
Jailed for life on November the 8th
by London's Old Bailey court.
Yes. El-Sayed, Mohammed.
Two Oxford teenagers charged with murdering a man
stabbed to death in West London last month.
It was a fascinating trial.
It was probably the first big trial I did.
And when the prosecution opened
and they started explaining that
two boys who had everything going for them
went to good schools, had stable backgrounds
and ended up murdering someone
after they fantasized that they were in the SAS
well, you know,
for a newspaper that's just sensational.
Nothing really fitted
with the crime that they committed.
They were two very ordinary boys.
And yet, the crime, this murder,
was so horrific that it just didn't add up.
We weren't talking about someone
who was definitely going to kill someone.
I think it was more about
two people coming together.
Two chemicals,
which on their own are completely harmless
but when you mix them together,
they become something quite explosive.
And that's what happened here.
Sean, this was your first big assignment.
How did it affect you?
It was the sense of waste, with the whole story,
which had the biggest impact on me
because it needn't have happened.
And sadly, as a journalist sometimes
you're working on a terrible story
but it's exciting and it's fascinating
and it's the story of the moment
and you're at the center of it.
And so, you can forget sometimes
that there are other issues here.
And everyone gets very excited when
a tragic story or a great story happens
because you know it's going
to make great newspaper copy.
Right up until the moment that
he was taken down into the cells
one of the boys still believed he was in the SAS
or in the parachute regiment or whatever.
And he still believed that,
right up until that very moment,
before he got taken down into the cells
to start his life sentence,
was that the SAS were going to
come crashing in through the window
and they were going to rescue him.
And then you realized how deep into this fantasy
these two had actually become.
"A vicious way to come of age.
"Leaving aside his stabbing of a
complete stranger in a parked car last January
"for which he's just started a life sentence
"nameless murderer #1
was always a very polite young man.
"He liked to be liked.
"The other, the beloved friend
he made when retaking A-levels
"and who's now serving a similar
sentence was quite different.
"He would whistle loudly at the back of the bus
to irritate other passengers.
"He wore a Chicago White Sox baseball cap.
" 'Sox' that he had customized with a pen to read 'Sex'.
"He used to hide behind mirrored sunglasses.
"In shops he would lean over
and glare at assistants."
These details about these murderers,
we're so hungry for them.
Whether we're hungry for them
to make them feel more exotic
or whether we're hungry for them to
make them feel more banal, I don't know.
But it seems to me that
maybe we should be looking
not so much for details of what they were
but details of what they were not.
Because they lack something.
They lack the thing that stops most of us
from doing what they do.
Killing another person.
But all of us could do it at any minute of any day.
We're here talking with Jerry Alford
who was the investigative officer on this case
and Richard South,
who was part of the investigative team.
So Jerry, why are we here?
Where are we?
Well, we're in the middle of King's Cross
and we're here because
this is where the boys came
immediately before they committed the murder.
What, they came on the tube from...
I think they came by coach to Victoria.
- And then they came by underground here.
- That's right.
Coach to Victoria and then the underground here.
And what did they do while they were here?
Well, they walked around looking, they said,
for a pimp or a drug dealer to kill.
And they went into a pub, the Flying Scotsman.
And even asked a prostitute
whether she knew where they
could find a pimp, which was amazing.
Wasn't that quite a dangerous thing to do
- walk around King's Cross and...
- Certainly, if you don't know the area.
Highly dangerous really.
As I understand it.
When Mohammed El-Sayed was found murdered
you had nothing to go on.
That's right.
We literally had nothing to go on at all.
He was found in his car
and the only things that we found were missing
were his spectacles and his glasses...
and the car keys.
And we just had nothing to go on at all.
And how long was it before
unnamed murderer #1 confessed?
It was about a month.
It was almost exactly a month.
So, we had a whole month of
going down lots of different avenues.
Lots of different areas which obviously
eventually were completely the wrong ones.
And how did the confession work?
- Tell us about that interview.
- Shocking.
Yeah, it was an amazing experience.
I can honestly describe it as
a life changing experience really
because I literally asked him one question,
"Tell me what happened"
and we couldn't stop him.
I've never spoken to anybody
in all my years as a police officer
who has made such a lengthy admission
to such serious crimes, ever.
And what was his attitude when he was confessing?
Coldness.
Total coldness.
There was no emotion in his speech.
Very matter of fact.
It was as though he was he was just
reading off a script.
So Jerry, Richard. I want to ask you...
This case was four and a half years ago
what was it like to be approached
to take part in this film?
And why are you here talking to us?
I'm here because it really was, for me anyway,
a real watershed.
Something completely different.
And dealing with someone
so completely out of the ordinary.
I really think it's a story that has to be told.
So what's it like being filmed?
Um, different. Different.
I've been interviewed on the television
once or twice before, about this case, in fact.
But I don't think you ever get used to it.
So what's different this time?
Have you ever walked along the street
with somebody walking backwards...
- Absolutely not. No.
- picking up your every word.
It's always been stage managed before.
And what are the most annoying bits about filming
and what are the nicest bits?
The nicest bits, of course,
are meeting people like you.
Annoying bits are having makeup put on your face.
But you insisted on so much makeup, Richard!
You insisted on very long eyelashes
and quite a lot of pan stick.
- Fabrizia.
- Thank you.
Hi Andrew.
So you see where we are,
we're at Bayswater Station.
- This is Queensway, this whole road.
- Yes.
And this is where the boys came,
on the underground, from King's Cross.
And this is the Golden Horseshoe Casino.
Which is where Mohammed spent his last night.
The night of the murder.
So let's go.
Shall we go to Bishop's Bridge Road now?
OK, look right.
Look right. It's for the Italians.
You look right.
Tilda.
How was the meeting with Jerry Alford today?
It was wonderful.
And also we had Richard South
who was one of the investigative team.
They were so generous.
They were so interested still, in the case.
Yes and what about Jamie's confession?
Do you remember?
Yeah. That was the thing that really
impressed them about the whole case.
Jerry asked him one question,
"Where do you want to start?"
And he started to tell him the story of his life.
Starting with the sentence,
"Well, I spent most of my life in a boarding school."
And continued for...
for hours.
And these two police officers,
extremely experienced policemen
were really shocked by this.
Where we are?
We're coming to end of Queensway
and this is the corner with Bishop's Bridge Road.
This is the road on which
Mohammed's body was found in his car.
And uh...
this is the road they were taking,
where they were looking for somebody to murder.
I don't know how you feel about this,
but the more we go on this quest of ours
and the more details we seem to find,
the sadder I get.
It's as if none of these details are relevant,
as if nothing matters at all.
It doesn't matter where it was
that this murder was committed
it doesn't matter where
Mohammed was coming from...
I mean, here we are,
this is the corner of Porchester Terrace North
and this is the give way sign
where Mohammed's car stopped
and this is where murderer #1 got into his car.
And yet it's exactly like any other corner
on any other street in London.
And it just... I feel so defeated by it.
I dunno, do you feel the same?
- Yes.
- Yeah.
Love
Happiness
Passion
Loss
Regret
Sorrow
Pain
Pain
You know, they took Mohammed's glasses away.
- Don't move, stick up!
- Alright!
- What you doing, man?
- Come on.
I'll give you my money.
My wallet's down there, OK?
Careful of the knife.
Go round at the corner.
- OK, OK. OK!
- Come on!
Go!
I'm going.
Let me drive the car.
Come on.
OK.
- Stop round the corner.
- I'm driving the car.
Come on.
- Stop here.
- Don't talk.
- Alright.
- Here, here, here!
- I'm doing exactly what you're saying, OK?
- Billy, Billy, Billy!
I'm parking the car.
I'm turning the engine off.
You can have my wallet, it's in my pocket now.
Billy!
OK, so can you get in the car?
You get in the car first.
OK. I'm in.
Alright.
So you're in the car.
OK.
So your first stab is in the front.
You're grabbing my back?
See? And then...
Through with it.
There's chest... heart.
But it's the fascination of it
rather than the hatred.
You don't know this guy.
- Are you comfortable, Tilda?
- Mm, mm.
Sorry, sorry.
What about this?
This is our... can you help me please?
- Yes.
- You take that, you put it in the water
and you squeeze, and you press.
- Right.
- OK?
And you strangle my neck and...
I think it's ready. Be careful here.
OK.
Great. OK.
Thank you Tilda.
Thank you.
Thank you Fabrizia.
Thanks Fernanda.
It's a pleasure.
Do it! Do it now!
Dad...
I killed someone.
He went out here on the Friday night, seven o'clock.
Kissed the boys and me goodbye.
But he done a fish supper before he went out,
I'll never forget that.
And he said, "Bye, see you later."
Kissed the boys goodbye and then went.
I thought, "Oh I'll see him later on,"
but I never did.
That was the last time I saw them, on the Friday.
- I got the knock on the door...
- Yeah.
from the police and they said there's some
really tragic, bad news for me.
And I couldn't take it all in when they told me.
And they just said, "I'm afraid to tell you
that your husband's been stabbed or killed."
I don't know what they actually said,
those words, but they said he'd been killed.
- So the boys went upstairs?
- Yeah.
Then they fell asleep up there, so the next day...
the day after and that, I just gradually told them.
Can you remember how you
started to tell them a thing like that?
First of all I said,
"Daddy's gone to heaven."
Which every parent or mum
says when they've lost someone.
The easy way out is just say,
go to heaven, which I did.
But then, gradually I told them that
Daddy was in the car
and these two nasty boys came along,
one jumped in
told your daddy to drive around
and stabbed him to death.
And how old were the boys?
Six and a half, and two and a half.
And then, as I understand it,
the police came to you when you were in Egypt.
After the funeral,
they came when I was staying there, yeah.
They said that we've caught a boy.
I can't remember they said boys or boy
with connection with the murder of your husband.
And when they said that to me, I felt relieved.
And I... very relieved.
You don't go around killing someone
'cause you do it for kicks
that's what they did,
they just done it for kicks.
That makes me mad.
It was in the papers,
kicks, kicks, kicks, they did it for kicks.
Enjoyment to them.
And he went out and planned it, that's what...
"We're gonna kill a pimp."
They wanted a pimp first of all.
'Cause they couldn't find a pimp...
Why did they want a pimp?
And the day of the sentence,
well that was really...
That was relief and...
Not happy, but relieved at the same time
that it was all over,
they were gonna go to jail, and that's...
that's it.
The children kept me going, believe it or not,
they pulled me through.
The children were lifting me up all the time.
Saying things... to me, to help me.
- They helped me.
- Mm.
If I didn't have the children talking to me
and helping me through it and helping each other...
- I wouldn't be here now talking to you.
- Really.
That is true.
The boys are very good.
And also, he was a good father to the boys
a good husband to me and...
A good cook.
Yeah, a good cook.
He was very good.
What's it like not having to cook?
I miss that.
I do it myself, well, plain food now, anything...
Anything in a pan...
for the boys and me, but I miss all that.
What was Mohammed's best,
sort of pice de rsistance?
- Italian.
- Italian?
Italian. He worked in an Italian restaurant.
- Very good.
- Really?
- Yeah, I loved his food.
- Really?
What was his, sort of...
Pasta.
Pasta. Which sauce?
Oh god, you can't remind me of the sauces,
there were so many sauces.
He even made up his own sauces.
What was his best sauce?
He made a creamy mushroom one
with herbs and spices.
I can never remember what it was, it was lovely.
You just put it on the pasta.
It made the pasta, oh I don't know...
I feel better that I'm talking about it again,
it's like a counseling session
where people are helping me...
talking to me like you are.
'Cause bringing it up again...
It feels hurtful and sad and everything
but it feels better that I'm talking about it to you
and that it would go to Italy, another country...
to be recognized.
Because I think here,
they've forgotten about it, in England.
One more murder to them, go on, next one.
That's the feeling I get.
And what do you think about your life now?
It's uh... it's getting better.
I can't say it's not getting better,
'cause it is getting better.
But it's hard at times, you know
when I'm taking here and I'm taking them there.
Yeah.
I can't do any more.
- I can't do any more, Tilda.
- OK.
Thank you, Sue.
Thank you very much.
Should we make a cake now?
- And see the babies.
- Oh yeah.
So I said the next step is to get--
take a photo and take it to the police station.
Which is what they did and...
ahe events happened from there.
So when the police arrived,
can you remember what you were doing?
I was just sitting here
watching telly with the boys.
So the boys were in the room when the police came in?
- So the boys went upstairs?
- Yeah.
Did the boys wonder...
So after the police had gone...
you were on your own.
- No, I had my sister and my brother.
- Yes, right.
- So the boys had gone up to bed.
- Yeah.
Well, they hadn't gone up, just run upstairs
'cause they wondered what was going on
'cause they saw me crying and that, so...
Then they fell asleep up there,
so the next time
and the day after and that,
I just gradually told them.
Paulo.
Mariana wants to know if this colour
is right for the scene of tomorrow.
- What do you see?
- A dark age.
- This looks like a little mouse.
- An Island.
A butterfly.
- Looks like lines of cocaine.
- Meta.
- The wind.
- Three aliens.
Wave.
Underground.
Space.
And what do you see, Tilda?
I see this.
Christmas, 1993.
Billy had told Happy
that he would be spending his holidays
in Iraq with the SAS.
The mission:
to destroy the evil empire of Saddam.
Happy gave him a commando knife
as a Christmas present.
But that Christmas, Billy wasn't in Iraq.
That Christmas, Billy was at home.
And that Christmas, Billy was drowning...
Goodnight, son.
Goodnight.
Goodnight, Mom.
Hold my hand.
Merry Christmas, Billy.
GUY'S AND ST. THOMAS HOSPITAL, LONDON
It's always very difficult to say what you feel
when you're in court, looking at the accused
because that's the first time you've ever seen them,
in most instances
and they often look very ordinary people.
And these guys just looked like two ordinary
6th former/young university people.
Perfectly normal.
Didn't look anything out of the ordinary at all.
But when you looked at them,
and you knew what they'd done
and why they'd done it,
why it was said they'd done it
then you look at them and you think
well, are these guys really evil?
Is there something inside their brain
which has gone berserk?
The murderer said, the first thing that he said
having stuck the knife in Mohammed's throat was,
"Jesus, there's so much blood."
As if he wasn't expecting there to be so much blood
or in fact, any blood at all.
As if somehow, he hadn't expected this
to be a living human being.
But he regarded this person, basically,
as an experimental model
and then when it reacted like a human being
then perhaps it does show
he's got some humanity after all.
It's absolutely impossible
to say how long he suffered
because he could have died very, very quickly
or he may have taken a little bit longer to die.
I would suspect that the neck injury
caused him an awful lot of pain and discomfort.
But once he'd felt--
started to bleed from his chest wounds
then I would suspect
that he would die fairly quickly.
We're in here.
OK. We're in here.
We're talking to Dr. Hill...
who was the pathologist who worked on
the case of Mohammed El-Sayed's death.
Did you remember this case when
you were asked to take part in this film?
Yes I did remember it,
largely because of the peculiar circumstances
of two school boys coming down
to select a man to kill.
I went to where the car was in the side street
and I looked at the body inside the motorcar
and I then had a careful look around the motorcar.
Then the body was taken to the mortuary.
You examine the body with the clothing on
and you take the clothing off,
looking at it carefully as you do so.
And then you do what we call a dissection
the internal examination
to find out where the wounds have gone to.
So you don't actually know what went
on in the car from the postmortem, no?
No. There are many ideas that you
can put forward as to what happened.
You have to remember that the stab wound can be
caused in any one of a number of different ways.
I could stab you by putting the knife in that way
putting my hand that way
or I could stab you holding it that way.
Could you tell if the victim was held by the head?
The appearances of the neck injury
would suggest that he must
have had his head pulled back
so that somebody could put the knife into the neck,
probably from behind.
Because in the confines of a motorcar
it would be very very difficult to
achieve that injury in any other way.
Not impossible, but difficult.
If you put a knife in somebody's throat
it depends exactly what you hit,
how they die.
And this victim, well all that
happened was he got a knife in his neck
which cut into his voice box and did some damage
and caused a little bit of bleeding.
But it didn't kill him.
Dr. Hill, this is Fernanda Perez,
she's our makeup artist
and a very important part of our film is a
reconstruction of the murder of Mohammed El-Sayed.
And we have some details over here
that she wanted to ask your advice about.
So this is Andrew's neck
and it's a cast neck.
Can you mark for us here
- where was the wound of mister...
- It was roughly there.
Across the front of the neck.
Yeah, it was quite a big wound actually,
it was about that length
and it was gaping a little bit.
The injury to the heart itself wasn't very big again
but then you had a couple of injuries to that
and again you don't need a very
big hole in the heart to cause bleeding
and for the person to bleed to death.
You can do it
just by pressing firmly on a sharp knife
and it will go through.
Just like a knife through butter.
And did he indeed hit
Mohammed El-Sayed's heart with one?
- Oh yes. Yes.
- Really?
And as a specialist
what annoys you most
in most filmed reconstructions of murders?
I think probably the thing that
gets us most cross, is the fact that...
drama always tries to make
the time of death very very finite.
And they say somebody died at
quarter past eight in the evening
when I know that there's no way
you can do it that accurately.
If I could,
it would make my life a lot easier than it is.
- The glasses, on or off?
- Off.
You know I'm blind.
Yes, but the shadows on your face are not very good.
So we're at our geography lesson now.
Unnamed murderer #1
and unnamed murderer #2
come to London by coach from Oxford
they get off at Victoria Coach Station
and they make their way to King's Cross.
King's Cross.
They were looking for their victim,
which would be a pimp or a drug dealer.
After walking around for a while,
they enter the pub here.
Which was a gay pub.
And then what happened was
they went on the Caledonian Road
which is this rather charming place,
The Flying Scotsman.
- Where you've been.
- I've been there, it's...
and I was there about six o'clock at night
and it was very rough then, very frightening so...
And they're there at about ten o'clock.
- And they talk to a stripper.
- Zoe.
And I think she persuaded them
not to look around King's Cross
because then what happened was
they got back on the tube.
Right. So, they're heading for where, do we think?
Maybe they were heading towards Victoria.
Back to the coach station, no murder.
- Yeah.
- Given up.
And somewhere around this point
#2 convinced #1 to get off at Bayswater.
- Which he knew. He knew the area.
- That's right.
And to continue with the murder plan.
OK. So they get off at Bayswater which is here.
Which you'll notice is very very near
to the Golden Horseshoe Casino
which interestingly enough,
they had visited about two months previously?
Posing as CID officers.
On some SAS inspired exercise to show initiative.
So, the boys have gone along here,
up Bishop's Bridge Road
and they're hanging around here waiting for a car.
On the corner of Porchester Terrace,
sitting on the wall.
Right, sitting on a wall here.
And they decide to stop
the first car that comes along.
Mohammed El-Sayed leaves
the Golden Horseshoe Casino
- with a friend.
- With a friend, yeah.
Takes a friend home who lives up here somewhere.
Friend invites him in for a cup of tea.
Incidentally, this cup of tea is yours.
- It has two sugars. I meant to say that earlier.
- Right, sorry.
Thank you. Mohammed declines this cup of tea.
Unfortunately, for him.
Gets back into his car, hence the unlocked doors.
Comes right, he's on his way home, comes along here
and stops at the give way sign.
Which is where unnamed murderer #1 finds him
jumps in the car,
asks him to turn left into Bishop's Bridge Road
- and um...
- That's where they do the deed.
That's where they do the deed.
- In front of the big white houses.
- Big white houses.
So having killed Mohammed El-Sayed,
they went home
via Bayswater station,
underground station to the bus.
- At Victoria.
- And where is the bus?
What do you mean?
Where's the bus?
Do you see it?
Where is the bus?
No but, Robertino said that
the bus was going to be here.
Robertino.
Where's the bus?
- It's here.
- Where?
Here.
Where?
And give me that, King's Cross.
There you go.
Hand me that one.
Thank you very much.
And on this bus they travel back to Oxford
and unnamed murderer #1
opens his birthday cards.
Because today's his birthday, of course.
How very nice for him.
It all slots together.
It's charming, isn't it?
How charming.
Stick up.
Stick up.
Don't move.
Just go around the corner.
That's right.
Come on!
Stop here.
Here.
Bill?
Bill.
Billy!
Let's go.
Cut.
Fabrizia.
Fabrizia.
Fabrizia, wake up.
Fabrizia.
- What's happening?
- Come on, it's the trial scene.
What are you doing now?
I'm looking for my pants.
Come on. Everybody's waiting for you.
Don't wear it.
Hurry up.
The judge doesn't like to wait.
Hurry up.
Is there something you
should tell me about Andrew?
No?
Let's go.
OK. Let's go.
She's so lovely.
Sorry Tilda.
Sorry everybody.
I'm late.
It's the trial scene, isn't it?
Mmhm.
You alright?
- You ready?
- Yeah.
The trial for the murder of
Mohammed El-Sayed, Egyptian citizen
born in Cairo,
44 years of age at his death
lasted 17 days in the autumn of 1994.
Mohammed's wife...
my wife...
only attended the first and last days of the trial.
I was holding a rosary in my hand,
looking up at the public gallery.
I was in my dark suit, with my usual elegance.
What's the hall like, Tilda?
The furniture in the trial hall
is certainly dark and massive.
It gives the impression of stability.
No glass, no windows.
There is a closed smell that
makes one think of a church.
The judge certainly commands respect
and a terrible deference
and I wouldn't be surprised if his eyes
were a terrible weight upon Happy and Billy.
And the eyes of the jury.
The public in the gallery,
the families of the defendants
their legal representatives, all there.
The defence of the two accused, was diminished
responsibility for unnamed murderer #1
and innocence for unnamed murderer #2.
In fact, I wasn't in the car.
I was outside it.
And I thought he was trying to rob Mohammed.
He was stabbing me here, here, here and here.
But I wasn't in the car.
I thought he had been punching him.
So why didn't you run and report him?
I was afraid of him.
The jury smiled at all this.
During the 17 days
witnesses were heard and
everything proceeded as is usual.
The experts gave their opinions
the pathologist's cruel photographs
were put on show, to the horror of those present
and at last, after a good part of the trial
the defendants were heard.
What happened on the
night of January 14th, 1994?
Billy and I had a signal.
If I called him and he did not reply
this meant that I could strike.
And so I said, "Bill."
And Billy didn't reply.
And I kept on calling him.
"Bill. Billy."
And he still did not reply.
And so I began.
And how?
Like this?
- And this, and this, and...
- That's enough.
Tilda, go on.
After the jury's debate
with the judge's notes of guidance,
they adjourned to decide.
It took 5 hours.
Found guilty with eight jury votes against two,
in favour of mental infirmity.
Found guilty unanimously.
You created a world in which you were both
playing out your fantasies
and it developed into an obsession
with killing and death.
And that obsession led to the brutal
and senseless slaughter
of a complete stranger
who just happened to be
in the wrong place at the wrong time.
We can be murdered,
we can be mutilated by vehicles
we can be drowned, disemboweled by a bull.
We can kill ourselves
because we're tired of living.
But not even in death will they leave us alone.
At 11 in the morning
of the 8th of November, 1994
Mohammed El-Sayed officially was murdered.
Is this how you imagined it?
It's not far off actually.
The position of my body is quite similar to the
position of Mohammed's body when it was found.
They didn't leave him his glasses.
And he had no voice box left.
A lot of people...
keep stopping and looking at us filming here.
A lot more people stop to watch us filming this
than noticed Mohammed in his car all that night.
Come round the tree.
Just follow me along here.
So we've got some details right.
We're in the same road as he was in
when he was found.
This is Bishop's Bridge Road in West London.
These are the flats, the big white houses
that unnamed murderer #1
referred to in his statement.
This is the exact spot, up here, where he was found.
We've got a similar car
to the car in which he was found.
But we've got way too much blood.
It's way too theatrical.
It's hard to imagine
quite how unspectacular this murder was.
I've seen the photographs
and it's nothing like this.
So easy to commit a murder like this.
I mean, I could jump into any of
these cars and do this very same thing.
So simple and so banal.
So this is the place.
This is the very spot.
You know. This is it.
Completely meaningless,
it doesn't mean anything.
A man was killed in the most horrible
and meaningless way.
Could be anywhere. It doesn't have to be here.
Welcome to the show.
Mohammed El-Sayed
was spending his night out
with a couple of friends in a ballroom.
He was a young man with a strange, volatile face.
Courage, shyness and modesty
were all that he possessed.
That special night, in that ballroom
he met the love of his life.
May I have the pleasure of this dance?
Sure.
Writing a poem.
Billy was a loner.
At the beginning of the nineties
he was deep in a world of fantasies
and poems he used to write.
Your father and I
have decided that you will
go to extra classes to catch up.
Don't worry about paying attention.
You never do.
Visions of bodies
at rest and in motion
car crashes
and dead sisters who never existed.
Billy was a tough guy.
Billy was a man of discipline and order.
Where was Billy?
In another place, at the same time
a movie struck Happy's imagination.
The Silence of the Lambs.
Happy, as Jame Gumb did
desiring the others
only desired himself.
Meeting Billy...
he met his real life Hannibal Lecter.
Was he a real life Clarice?
His thoughts were forbidden to everybody.
Particularly to himself.
Doctor Lecter.
Doctor Lecter.
Doctor Lecter.
Doctor Lecter.
Doctor Lecter.
Doctor Lecter.
And Mohammed and Sue were married.
With his faraway glance, lost in the horizon
Billy was waiting for his sweetheart.
You will remember this moment always.
He gave her one of his poems.
His soul is my offering to her.
Tell me about the way you want to fight.
It's you.
Where have you been all this time?
Your hair.
Do you like the colour?
It's beautiful.
Your eyes.
They're so sad.
That girl knew everything about him.
Eight, nine, ten,
11, 12, 13,
14, 15, 16,
Billy gives orders.
Happy obeys, longing for his appreciation.
Please listen to me, please, please listen to me.
TROUBLED SOUL
PIECE OF SHILooking for contact.
What's happening to Happy?
What did he see?
- These are for you.
- Thank you.
How did it go?
Very tiring.
It's a beautiful place.
I'll take you there one day.
Can't wait.
Why are you looking at me?
Because I don't want to lose you.
You won't.
Every day I wake up and I thank God, I found you.
You're the most beautiful thing
that's every happened to me.
Do you know that?
Do you know that?
I dreamt...
that I woke up
and something terrible had happened to you.
It was like somebody was waiting
to take you away from me.
There's nobody there.
Don't worry, baby.
Don't worry.
Welcome to the show.
How you come and go tonight.
Don't let the bedbugs bite.
Tonight...
nothing is true
everything is permitted.
Get ready for the show.
1... 2... 3...
Magic, crazy, here's Zoe.
Pardon my asking, are you ready for this?
Admission is not free.
A broken heart's the theme.
Everything is permitted.
Welcome to the show.
Welcome to the show.
Welcome to the show.
How are you doing boys?
Fine.
You were very good up there.
What did you like best?
Well, the way you move.
I like it when you took off your wig.
You realized that it wasn't my hair?
Actually, no.
You were red...
as a pint of beer.
Well, I'm a natural blonde, as I showed you.
You're not talking?
I like to listen.
That's good, I suppose.
Now, where are you going
to carry on this evening
with all this music in the air?
We have a plan.
Don't tell me.
I know it's got to stay secret.
Just one thing we can tell you though.
We're looking for a pimp or a drug dealer.
Do you know how we can recognize them?
How are they dressed?
What eyes you have.
What sad eyes.
That night, Happy and Billy, the two boys
walked around
crossed the city
travelled paths
and finally reached that corner.
Happy desperately looked for contact.
Billy later claimed never to
have been in that car that night.
Mohammed came home early that afternoon.
He ate with Susan and the children
he put on his raincoat, took his wallet
the house keys and the car keys.
He kissed his wife and his children.
He picked up a friend,
and they spent the night in a casino.
He drove his friend back home
refused a cup of tea...
Mrs. El-Sayed.
Yes?
We have some tragic news for you.
The body of your husband...
The light inside me is dying.
My soul is lying halfway to hell.
Nothing seems worth living for.
I am not a boy.
I am a machine that lives.
No feelings.
No feelings.
Take 32, 1, 3.
And action.
Let's go.
Come to me.
BELOVED
MOHAMMED EL-SAYED
BELOVED HUSBAND AND FATHER
THE PROTAGONISTS
Tilda.
He's Paolo. He's Andrea. Here's Paola.
- Nice to meet you.
- Hello, nice to meet you.
He's Walter.
- She's Emiliana.
- Hello Emiliana.
She's our make-up artist.
This is Xavier and this is Oliver.
He's Fabio, he's our photographer.
He's Massimo, he's our hair stylist.
He's Robertino, our production designer.
Hello guys.
She's Fabrizia.
Nice to meet you.
He's Claudio.
He's Paolo, better know as Paolino.
You know him.
I know him. Andrew.
...show to the horror of those present
and at last, after a good part of the trial,
the defendants were heard.
What happened on the night
of January 14th, 1994?
Cut.
During the 17 days...
I think for me, the realization that
otherwise perfectly ordinary people
can commit really, really serious crimes.