The Murder of Jamie Lavis (Part 2)

By the summer of 1997, eight-year-old Jamie Lavis had been missing for nearly a month — and the Manchester bus driver who killed him, Darren Vickers, had vanished too. Tracked down to a North Wales fairground, where he was strapping children in and out of rides, Vickers was arrested, then released for lack of evidence, and welcomed back to the Lavis family home with a celebration party. In Part 2, forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes follows the police hunt for Jamie’s body in Reddish Vale Park, the trial that exposed Vickers as a grooming predator and child sexual abuser, and the chilling jailhouse confession he made only after the verdict was in. This is the story of how detectives finally broke through one of Britain’s most brazen killers. Listen now to The Profiler, with Kerry Daynes.

Key psychological themes

This episode explores: brazen manipulation • performative empathy and staged grief • the predator who returns to the scene • grooming and child sexual abuse • blame-shifting and false allegations • the psychology of a post-conviction confession

Contributors featured in this episode

Kerry Daynes — Forensic psychologist, presenter, and author of Dark Side of the Mind and What Lies Buried.

Roy Rainford — Retired Senior Investigating Officer, Greater Manchester Police; led the Jamie Lavis murder investigation.

Asif Husein — Former Greater Manchester Police Family Liaison Officer to the Lavis family; arrested Vickers in North Wales.

David Ward — Former Northern Correspondent for The Guardian; covered the case and the trial.

Jeff Anderson — Former Head of News, ITV Granada, Manchester.

What you'll learn in this episode

How Darren Vickers tried to evade arrest by fleeing to a North Wales fairground job that put him in daily contact with children

Why Vickers kept returning to Reddish Vale Park — and what Kerry Daynes says that compulsion reveals about him

How a single jaw bone, identified through dental records, finally gave detectives enough to charge him

What QC Brian Leveson’s courtroom address exposed about the grooming and sexual abuse of Jamie Lavis

Why Vickers confessed to senior detective Roy Rainford only AFTER the jury’s guilty verdict

How Karen Lavis went from defending her son’s killer to telling the press, on the courthouse steps, that justice had been done

Relevant links and further reading

Kerry Daynes — Dark Side of the Mind (Endeavour, 2019)

Kerry Daynes — What Lies Buried (Endeavour, 2021)

Faking It: Tears of a Crime (Warner Bros. Discovery) — some interviews in this episode were originally featured in the series. Watch on https://www.discoveryplus.com

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/326657.stm — BBC News archive: contemporary coverage of the Jamie Lavis case

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/disturbing-picture-shows-how-evil-15392826 — Manchester Evening News: how an evil child killer wormed his way into his victim’s family

Support for families of missing or murdered children — Missing People (UK) • Victim Support • NSPCC

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Visit theprofiler.co.uk

For an exclusive filmed interview with Kerry Daynes on the cases behind the series — including untold detail on the Jamie Lavis investigation — visit theprofiler.co.uk. Subscribe to the newsletter for case updates, parole-hearing alerts, and early access to new episodes.

Credits

Presented by Kerry Daynes

Produced by Shearwater Media

Executive producers: Jeff Anderson and Steve Anderson

Editing & Music by Rob Warner

Content note

This episode contains descriptions of the abduction, sexual abuse and murder of a child, and references to the discovery of human remains. Listener discretion is strongly advised. If you have been affected by the issues raised, support is available from the NSPCC (0808 800 5000) and Victim Support (0808 168 9111)

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