Rachel Nickell’s son was two-years-old when he saw her stabbed to death Rachel Nickell’s son will not receive any compensation from the police despite failings that could have prevented her murder, it has emerged.
Scotland Yard said after “careful and detailed consideration” it would not be making a payment to Alex Hanscombe, 21.
Mr Hanscombe was aged two when he saw Robert Napper stab his mother 49 times on Wimbledon Common, south-west London.
The Metropolitan Police has publicly acknowledged mistakes that left Napper free to murder Miss Nickell in 1992.
A report released by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) in June found the Met committed “bad errors” and “missed opportunities” to catch Miss Nickell’s killer before her death.
It revealed that Napper, 42, was identified as a threat to women in the mid-1980s.
In 1989 his mother contacted police to tell them her son had confessed to a sex attack.
The police could not trace the crime and did not interview him or collect any DNA.
Napper carried out at least four more rapes before killing Miss Nickell in a brutal sex attack in July 1992.
It was only after he killed and mutilated Samantha Bissett and her four-year-old daughter, Jasmine, in Plumstead, south London, a year later that he was arrested.
He was convicted of their murders and sent to Broadmoor in 1994.
Ten years later a DNA link between Napper and Rachel Nickel’s body was identified.
Robert Napper was detained at Broadmoor in 1994 In the meantime, Colin Stagg was arrested and later cleared of her murder in 1994, after spending 13 months on remand.
In 2008 he received £706,000 in compensation from the Home Office.
The policewoman who acted as the “honey trap” in the operation to snare Mr Stagg has also been compensated for stress.
In 2008 Napper admitted killing Miss Nickell, pleading guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
Following a review, Scotland Yard said: “After careful and detailed consideration, the decision has been made not to offer any compensation to Mr Hanscombe.”
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