Episode 390 - Delia Balmer: Surviving a Serial Killer

Summary

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RedHanded Episode 390 Summary: Delia Balmer – Surviving a Serial Killer

Hosted by: Hannah Maguire & Suruthi Bala
Release Date: March 13, 2025

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Main Theme

This episode tells the harrowing true story of Delia Balmer, a nurse and free spirit whose life becomes a nightmare when she becomes entangled with John Sweeney, a serial killer and abuser. The hosts, in their signature incisive and darkly humorous style, document Delia’s ordeal – from her hopeful beginning in London, through years of escalating psychological terror and violence, her near-fatal survival, and finally her enduring battle for justice and recognition. The episode also critiques the systemic failures by police and domestic violence services that allowed Sweeney to continue his violence unimpeded.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Background on Delia Balmer

• Born in Australia to Scottish parents, raised in Canada and the US.
• Rootless, adventurous “free spirit,” trained nurse, world traveler (07:25).
• By 41, living alone in London, isolated from family, seeking connection (08:15).
• Deliberately avoids settling down—her home sparse, filled with eclectic travel trinkets (09:00).
• Endures months of misery due to a troubled neighbor before finally feeling “free” again – but, as Hannah notes, “that feeling wouldn’t last long” (09:49).

2. Meeting John Sweeney: Attraction to Danger

• Meets Sweeney, an enigmatic, bohemian carpenter, at Camden’s Hawley Arms. Delia is drawn to his outsider energy and unconventional life (12:02).
• Sweeney builds furniture for her; paints and draws, mostly disturbing and fantastical art centered on mutilated women, yet Delia brushes it off as “weird” but tolerable (16:45–18:08).
• Delia finds comfort in Sweeney’s attention, despite being unsettled by his dark art. “Is it enough?” Suruthi asks, voicing the ambiguity (18:18).

3. Red Flags and Escalation

• Delia discovers Sweeney’s secret past: he’d been married, had children, carried a gun, and had a stash of pornography (19:29).
• His rebellious streak devolves into childish, alienating behavior—embarrassing Delia publicly, controlling her, reducing her social connections (20:16–23:18).
• “Can you just be cool for one evening, please?” Hannah bemoans (21:01).

4. Abuse and Coercive Control

• Sweeney’s abuse turns menacing: verbal threats, jealousy, strangulation at night—brushed off as “sleepwalking,” but the hosts don’t believe it (25:10–25:45).
• In Germany, Sweeney violently beats a man in public; Delia tries to kick him out, but he refuses to leave, draining her emotionally (26:18–28:00).
• “I’m in a padded cell with a completely dangerous and unstable person and there is no escape,” Delia later recalls (32:15).

5. First Major Assault: The Confession & Four-Day Captivity

[28:42–34:22]

• Sweeney ties Delia to bed for four days, threatens her with a gun and knife, confesses to murdering ex-girlfriend Melissa Halstead and dismembering her in Amsterdam (28:42).
• Dutch police had discovered Melissa’s body in 1990, but her identity was unknown at the time (29:50).
• Delia is able to escape only by appeasing Sweeney, who fluctuates between sobbing and violence (32:15).
• Friend Rosie’s proactive intervention is crucial (“I would have to be very, very concerned about my friend’s safety to say… I will call the police” – Hannah, 31:14).
• Police and support services fail Delia repeatedly, refusing to take her seriously despite her explicit fear for her life (36:09–37:30).

6. Police Failings and Institutional Betrayal

• Delia’s appeals met with indifference, incompetence, and outright laughter (“They just completely dismiss her” – Suruthi, 37:30).
• Even after Sweeney’s first arrest, he is released on bail for Christmas goodwill (41:08–41:57), prompting outrage:
  • “Why in the fucking hell is that happening? …Give him a fucking satsuma, a Terry’s Chocolate Orange at most. Why the fuck would you let a violent offender [out on bail]?” – Suruthi (41:57)
• Delia’s prophecy that Sweeney “would chop her up just like Melissa” nearly comes true (42:40).

7. Brutal Attack and Aftermath

[42:56–55:08]

• Sweeney, while on bail, hides outside Delia’s London flat, ambushes her with an axe and rusty knife. She is left bleeding, assuming she will die (42:56).
• Saved only by the heroic intervention of a neighbor.
• Sweeney flees, disappearing for six years; Delia is left forever changed: hospitalizations, permanent injuries, identity loss (49:54–55:08).
• Sweeney taunts police from abroad, sending postcards with the word “accident” — deliberately spelled “axe-ident” (53:03).

8. Long-Term Impact: Trauma and Rage

• Delia is left with PTSD, overwhelming anger, struggles with the justice system, and further loss—her partner Steve dies, and Delia describes herself as a “walking corpse” (56:27–66:06).
• “My purgatory has no end. I died on Thursday 22nd December 1994… and I remain in hell now, tormented by what has been done to me…” – Letter from Delia (65:03).

9. Final Justice and Serial Killer Reveal

[66:06–74:37]

• Melissa’s body is positively identified in 2008 leading to Sweeney’s eventual trial not just as Delia’s attacker, but as a serial killer.
• In 2011, Sweeney is found guilty, given whole-life sentences. Prosecutors argue his art and poetry—macabre confessions—were “lurid and demonic” (72:06).
• Sweeney is suspected in further unsolved murders; justice is incomplete, as he withholds information about additional victims.

10. Delia’s Legacy & Systemic Reflection

• ITV drama “Until I Kill You” (2024), based on Delia’s memoir, brings public attention—the script draws both praise and critique from Delia herself (74:37).
• The hosts note some reforms (e.g., the DASH risk assessment tool, 2009), yet convincing evidence shows systemic failures persist—citing Sara Everard, Nicole Smallman, and the Metropolitan Police’s repeated mishandling of gendered violence (79:55–78:20).
• Delia remains a controversial figure—angry, defiant, refusing the “easy victim” narrative.
  • “Delia isn’t interested in being virtuous or an inspirational survivor… She’s absolutely furious at the system…” (78:20–80:00)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On systemic failure and rage:

  "My purgatory has no end. I died on Thursday 22nd December 1994. My funeral was on the day I was forced to go to damming Court to be sent back to hell. And I remain in hell now, tormented by what has been done to me there. Since the law came to bother me, I have lost all control of my life."
  – Delia Balmer, letter read by Suruthi (65:03)

• On the importance of listening to victims:

  "Identifying the level of risk isn't really the hard bit. Delia was clearly high risk, but that didn't stop critical mistakes being made… Delia wasn’t listened to or supported as a victim at all."
  – Hannah (75:55)

• Regarding Sweeney’s disturbing art:

  "His collection of art was actually an autobiographical and confessional dossier of his crimes…"
  – Hannah (72:06)

• On police inaction:

  "They just completely dismiss her. It’s horrific… She absolutely decides authority, just like John Sweeney, not to be trusted."
  – Suruthi (37:30)

• On Delia’s enduring anger:

  "That anger, although entirely understandable, hasn’t done her many favours. It's actually served as a convenient way for the police to avoid accountability for all of the support they did not give her that she desperately needed."
  – Hannah (78:20)

• On serial killer criteria:

  "For a serial killer you need three."
  – Hannah (67:11)
  "They’ve changed it, have they? …Now for a serial killer you only need two."
  – Suruthi (67:16)

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Important Timestamps

• Delia’s background & Meeting Sweeney: 07:25–13:57
• Escalation of abuse & isolation: 19:29–27:03
• Captivity & Sweeney’s confession: 28:42–34:22
• Police failure & release on bail: 36:09–41:57
• Axe attack & Delia’s survival: 42:56–49:54
• Long-term trauma & PTSD: 56:27–66:06
• Sweeney’s conviction, serial killer status, and legacy: 66:06–80:00
• Systemic analysis & closing reflections: 74:37–80:00

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Tone and Style

The episode remains darkly witty and highly empathetic, balancing forensic detail with compassion and the hosts' well-known authenticity. They critique not only the criminal but also the entire justice system and cultural environment that failed Delia (“Is there a point when you’re just doing more damage to yourself [by raging]? … it’s an unanswerable question.” – Hannah, 80:00). The hosts highlight both Delia’s complexity and the system’s inadequacy, resisting easy “inspirational survivor” tropes.

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Conclusion

This powerful narrative is more than a “true crime” tale – it's a sobering indictment of social and institutional indifference, and a testament to Delia Balmer’s stubborn refusal to let her story be ignored or sanitized. The episode urges listeners to recognize the nuances of surviving trauma, and the pressing need for real systemic change.

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For further exploration:

• Read Delia Balmer’s memoir (inspiration for ITV's “Until I Kill You”).
• Investigate ongoing campaigns regarding domestic violence reforms and the DASH risk assessment tool.

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Transcript

[Alina Urquhart]

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[Hannah]

I'm Hannah.

[Alina Urquhart]

And welcome to Red Handed, where it's gonna get dark and creepy and very cinematic.

[Hannah]

Oh, okay.

[Alina Urquhart]

In today's episode. Because if the name in the title is ringing alarm bells in people's heads, ears, eyes, wherever, it's because possibly they watched, like me, the ITV drama that came out based on this case at the end of last year, I want to say, or beginning of this year, what is Time? But it was called Until I Kill youl. And yeah, it was really good.

[Hannah]

Completely passed me by. But I do have to admit that when I hear the name John Sweeney, I do not think about that.

[Alina Urquhart]

Sweeney Todd.

[Hannah]

No, I think about veteran journalist John Sweeney.

[Alina Urquhart]

I see.

[Hannah]

Who made the dispatches on Scientology.

[Alina Urquhart]

Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure.

[Hannah]

Many moons ago.

[Alina Urquhart]

Quite very different man we're dealing with today.

[Hannah]

Yes, it is not the same John Sweeney, but I think it is one of my favorite TV moments of all time. When Scientology send this guy to follow him and wind him up.

[Alina Urquhart]

Right.

[Hannah]

And it works.

[Alina Urquhart]

Yes.

[Hannah]

And he just screams at you at.

[Alina Urquhart]

The beginning of that interview.

[Hannah]

Cause he's so softly spoken, so professional. But this guy just gets to him. And then he made another one years later, like a follow up. Because the guy who needled him is now out and they catch up with him and they make him rewatch the moment he lost his shit on national television. And he just sits there and he's like, I am so humiliated.

[Alina Urquhart]

But it's just goal. It's too good. It's only topped for me. Bye. What a sad life, Jane.

[Hannah]

Ugh. Yeah.

[Alina Urquhart]

And if you don't know what I'm talking about, it's because you're not 35 and you're not British. But no, Until I Kill youl is genuinely well worth your time. We're not sponsored by them. It's not an ad. We just watched it. And I was like, is this fucking real? And then I looked into it. It is real. And we're going to talk about it today. I also have to say huge, huge, huge, huge love for Anna Maxwell Martin, the actress who plays Delia in the ITV drama. I fucking love her as an actress. Do you know who I mean? Google her. She's in Motherland.

[Hannah]

What name?

[Alina Urquhart]

Anna Maxwell Martin. She's in Motherland, that comedy.

[Hannah]

I love her. Yeah. No, I love her. Yeah, yeah, she's great.

[Alina Urquhart]

And she's in line of duty as, like, Carmichael.

[Hannah]

Did her husband quite recently died.

[Alina Urquhart]

Oh, maybe.

[Hannah]

I think I saw an interview of her being like, yep, he dead and I've got kids. Oh, God.

[Alina Urquhart]

Well, that's miserable.

[Hannah]

Yes, yeah, yeah. Suddenly died, undisclosed cause.

[Alina Urquhart]

Oh, that's very sad. But yeah, she's absolutely fantastic in this. But enough of that TV show because we're not sponsored by them. Let's talk to you about John Sweeney and Delia Balmer. So, in December 1994, Delia Bama died. Or at least that's what she'll tell you. After years of bizarre, controlling and violent abuse, during which Delia's cries for help were repeatedly ignored by the police, her ex boyfriend, John Sweeney, ambushed her outside of her London flat and viciously attacked her with an axe and a rusty knife. But it never should have come to this. The risks that John Sweeney posed should have been apparent for a very long time. He was violent, unpredictable and had expressed his sick internal fantasies in page after page of explicit, violent drawings of women being savaged. It's like something out of like a Criminal Minds episode. What they find John Sweeney has been producing. And what's more, wasn't just the fantasies, it wasn't just the weird diaries and the paintings we're going to come on to talk about that will turn your stomach. But John Sweeney had also killed before. So after this attack, as Delia lay bleeding out on the street, she tried to think of her family thousands of miles away in Texas. Although she was in London, she wanted her final moments to be filled only with them. But Delia is not your average victim of a serial killer, because she survived and she wants everyone to know her story and we thought we should help.

[Hannah]

Delia isn't exactly your average sort of person either. She was born in Australia to Scottish parents, but was raised mostly in Canada and in the us. Although she describes her upbringing as being culturally quite British, she's always been a little rootless, which is evident in her hard to place, slightly odd accent. And that's exactly how Delia likes it. Travel is the enduring love of her life. She trained as a nurse, but prioritised her international adventures over everything else. She took temp agency jobs to fund trips to exotic places like Israel, Mexico, India and Central America. Throughout her nomadic young adult years, Delia was never really a 9 to 5 type of girl. She just wanted more.

[Alina Urquhart]

What that moor was, though, wasn't quite clear to Delia until early 1991. By then, she was 41 years old when she moved into a threadbare council flat in Kentish Town, North London, she was isolated from her family and also the scattered friends she'd made during her years of travelling. She found work again as an agency nurse at the Royal Free Hospital, but struggled to connect with her colleagues there. Despite her adventurous nature, Delia never had much confidence socially.

[Hannah]

Very haunted, the Royal Free, believe it.

[Alina Urquhart]

Nadalia deliberately chose not to furnish her ground floor flap and instead bedded down on a sleeping bag on the floor. She adorned her space with esoteric trinkets that she'd collected from around the world. Things like Hindu incense holders, Buddhist flags and shells collected from far flung beaches. I think although she's 41 and I don't mean this in a negative way, she has much more of like a I'm in my early 20s and I'm okay with things not being super comfortable and prioritising travel over everything else, and that's how she likes it. But still, despite her trying to create that kind of I'm not settling down, I promise vibe in this flat, she still wanted to feel at home. And she didn't. The situation wasn't helped either by the chaotic energy emanating from below her flat. Because the basement flat was technically occupied by a vulnerable schizophrenic man named Tyler, but was regularly overrun with local teenagers drinking, taking drugs and fighting. And even when the teens were gone, Tyler would often chant aggressive sexual remarks at Delia from downstairs that made it impossible for her to sleep. Delia says she felt like a prisoner in her own flat and it would be months before Tyler was finally removed by the council. But if Delia thought she was free, that feeling wouldn't last long.

[Hannah]

There's nothing worse than dreading going home. Yeah, truly, truly, really grinds you down.

[Alina Urquhart]

Uh huh.

[Hannah]

In London, Delia was lost. Just like how her dad used to call her Dizzy Delia when she was little. Now, at 41, she still felt off balance and it wasn't a good thing. She had a craving for connection and affection like we all do, but it was so strong that potentially it did make her quite vulnerable. And before Delia knew it, she was spinning into the arms of John Sweeney. Like many couples from the 90s, Delia and John first met in a pub, the Hawley Arms in Camden, which was whose local?

[Alina Urquhart]

Amy.

[Hannah]

Amy Winehouse. Anyway, the Hawley Arms, if you haven't been absolute cracking pub and had a jukebox back then, still does, I believe. And Delia loved to dance. Sweeney was quiet and in Delia's words, hippie looking. And if she says that someone is hippie, Looking, they must be extraordinarily in that direction.

[Alina Urquhart]

I think with Delia, she's a really complicated person of many contradictions because she wants to be free, she wants to not be tied down, but at the same time she wants that connection. She wants a place that feels like home. She is socially awkward and finds it hard to connect, but she's also this free spirit who loves dancing and talking to people. And yes, she is hippie, but she looks at John Sweeney and is like, he's a bit hippie looking like she is. A lot of things, like many of us, are a lot of contradictions rolled into one. Not that I'm saying that's a bad thing. I think it's just Adam Maxwell Martin plays her very, very well and that's the only person I can picture as we're doing this script.

[Hannah]

And Delia liked it. A lot of things she liked about John Sweeney. He had expressive eyebrows and eclectic clothing and a very distinctive Scouse accent. So they're in the pub? They're in the Hawley Arms. Delia was bored and looking for someone to talk to, so she let this eclectic looking eyebrow man buy her a pint and they got chatting and Sweeney revealed that he was a carpenter by trade and often travelled throughout mainland Europe for work. Delia thought she'd found a kindred spirit, a bohemian wanderer who didn't quite fit, just like her. She wasn't looking for a boyfriend. She loved her freedom, but she wanted someone to share her time with and it seemed like John Sweeney could give her that.

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[Alina Urquhart]

If Delia's home life was unconventional, John Sweeney took it to another level. He lived in a rundown squat with six other guys and a pet tarantula. He smoked weed all day, didn't follow any schedules and simply plied his trade around the world on his own terms. And at first that might sound like, you know, this rebel guy who's just doing what he wants and whatever, but it's also screams of huge levels of instability in John Sweeney's life.

[Hannah]

Yeah, I have lived in quite similar scenarios and obviously everyone's different, but my experience is that the shine of that rubs off real fucking quick.

[Alina Urquhart]

Yes. And look, John Sweeney, he was a man who followed his own rules. When his clothes wore out, he'd simply sew them up. And for some women, that might put them off. But for Delia, no, it actually intrigued her even more because it was, after all, the early 90s when the pair met. And in rejection of the hyper capitalist yuppie culture of the 80s, Gordon Gekko and Greed Is Good and all that, John Sweeney seemed to present to Delia an exciting alternative lifestyle. She was intrigued by how her new beau seemed utterly untethered by the conventions of ordinary society that she herself had felt alienated from. According to Delia, the normal rules just didn't apply to John. He did whatever he liked. Which, again, sounds great at first, maybe not going to play out too well.

[Hannah]

No. One thing I have learned is that things are popular and mainstream for a reason.

[Alina Urquhart]

Yes, tell me you're in your mid-30s without telling me you're in your mid-30s. But despite his nonconformist attitude, Delia felt sure of one thing. She was sure that John Sweeney cared for her and wanted to look after her. And so, not long after they met, Delia asked Sweeney to move in with her. And he agreed. Once living together, Sweeney got to work building furniture for Delia. Shelves, small tables from scrap wood, and even a wooden futon bed, because, remember, she'd just been sleeping on a sleeping bag. Up until that point, they were an odd couple. But at least at first, they were Happy.

[Hannah]

Sweeney wasn't just good with his hands. He was also an avid amateur artist and carried around a large portfolio filled with his artwork and scrawled poetry. Quite often, several of his drawings appeared to feature the same attractive blonde woman, which, as it would piqued Delia's curiosity, Sweeney confided that the woman he kept drawing was actually his ex girlfriend, an American model named Melissa, who he'd split up with whilst living in Amsterdam just the year before. And sensing that John was still quite cut up about this ex, Delia didn't push it. Whilst Delia couldn't deny that Sweeney was talented, some of his creations did disturb her. One sketch showed a coffin with a woman's body inside next to a gravestone that read, rest in peace, Anne. There were also several surreal self portraits. Sweeney fishing in a goldfish bowl where a miniature nude woman swam. Devil horned. Sweeney in a bed looking at a naked girl. Sweeney eating spaghetti made from his own brain spilling from his sawn open head. Sweeney didn't try and hide any of this. He proudly displayed some of these pieces in the flat that the two of them shared. And while Delia was unsettled, she just tried to brush it off as part of his offbeat personality and fascination with the macabre. Which I get.

[Alina Urquhart]

Yes, like, okay, he's got some fucking weird paintings. But yeah, it's not like, oh, I love that, let's hang that over the bed.

[Hannah]

She loves weird. She's into weird.

[Alina Urquhart]

She's into weird, you're right. And also he is doing other things at this point that make her feel like he's a good man, he's building furniture, he's doing these kind of things, which is what she wanted, I think. She had been alone for so long and she's so far away from her family. There is some comfort in just feeling like there's this man who wants to take care of me. He comes to the house, sees I don't have a bed, and he builds me a bed. So what if he's got some fucking fucked up paintings? Yeah, I don't love it, but is it enough?

[Hannah]

And she's got naepals, she's got no one around her. And like as much, you can be a free spirit all you want. Humans are not built to be alone. So she sort of puts her concerns aside. But what Delia couldn't possibly have known is that these pieces that she wasn't quite sure about were more than just artistic expression for her new boyfriend, John Sweeney. They were a diary of his life.

[Alina Urquhart]

Delia was still in the dark about her boyfriend's true nature. But the lights were slowly starting to flicker on. In the spring of 1992, Sweeney took Delia to his hometown of Skelmersdale, near Liverpool, which he jokingly called Skelmer's Hell.

[Hannah]

He's not the only one here.

[Alina Urquhart]

Delia learned that Sweeney had in fact been married before to a woman named Anne in Liverpool. They even had two kids together that he'd never mentioned. This revelation was an insight into a whole secret past that Sweeney had kept hidden. And it made Delia wonder, what else could he be hiding from her? So, with paranoia gnawing away, one night, Delia peeked into the large green duffel bag that John Sweeney carried everywhere. Inside she found stacks of pornography, a copy of the Kama Sutra and a real loaded gun. And Delia started to see that the man she'd been living with perhaps wasn't quite who she thought he was.

[Hannah]

Over time, John Sweeney began to show his true, very scary colours in other ways. The things that Delia liked about him at first, like his bohemian nature and anti establishment attitude, were now starting to become a problem. Sweeney alienated Delia from her colleagues and the very few friends that she did have. At a house party hosted by someone Delia used to work with, John Sweeney urinated in a plant pot on the balcony, despite Delia begging him not to. I would be so humiliated.

[Alina Urquhart]

This is the thing, it's like all well and good, middle finger at the man, blah blah, blah, you know, not necessarily playing by the rules, but like when they start to spill into your day to day life. Yes, Maybe not that attractive anymore.

[Hannah]

No. Can you just be cool for one evening, please? In front of my former colleagues?

[Alina Urquhart]

Nah, I'm gonna get pissed. And then piss literally in her favourite plant pot.

[Hannah]

Speaking of piss, on Friday night or Saturday night, I was taking Mabel out quite late and I saw this girl turn the corner and I was like, she needs a wee. Like she's trying to find somewhere to do a secret street wee. Because I've done many, I can smell it on a person and I was like, shit, right? But it's late, it's cold, I'm not gonna go out of my way, right? So I just keep walking, she changes direction and then I turn the corner and she's just full, full weeing in the street. And I just felt so sorry for her because she tried to avoid me. I caught her in the act and I wanted to say, I've been there mate, don't worry about it. But you Cannot. Because she was wearing jeans. Right. So she's just like full bum out. Like, I was like, I can't talk to this woman who's clearly mortified. I'm just gonna keep walking.

[Alina Urquhart]

No, no, no. No words need to be uttered. I think just a discreet look away.

[Hannah]

Well, yes. And if you're out there, lady, I hope you got home okay.

[Alina Urquhart]

Yes. Don't worry, we've all been there.

[Hannah]

And you know, it's this classic thing, isn't it? Of like this defiant anti establishment thing actually gets quite annoying after a while.

[Alina Urquhart]

It's just so immature and it just is like that kind of kickback at society, at authority that's like you should really grow out of after your teenage years.

[Hannah]

Quite.

[Alina Urquhart]

It's like, yeah, you can hold anti establishment views. I mean, we all do. But to make that your entire defining personality, still at the age of your late 30s and 40s, no, thank you.

[Hannah]

And that's what he does. He takes pride in actively being childish. And Delia had once been attracted to this, but it was wearing quite thin by now. Their life as a couple was mostly spent sitting outside pubs come rain or shine with a cast of Sweeney's undesirable squatmates while he smoked endlessly joints. Delia wanted to go inside and dance. She's probably freezing. But Sweeney always insisted that they stay put outside smoking joints in the rain. And that was Delia's whole life now on the fringes of the world, watching the party from the outside.

[Alina Urquhart]

Yeah, because that like brooding outsider artist thing might feel cool, but he's an outsider for a reason. And it's not going to be totally conducive to you having like a pro social life, which is what she wanted. I know it's not what she ever explicitly says she wanted, but she wanted connection. And he actually just ends up disconnecting her further from everyone else that she knows. But they stayed together. And in December 1992, Delia took Sweeney to visit her family in Texas.

[Hannah]

Oh, no.

[Alina Urquhart]

Yeah. There her parents made no secret of their disapproval, believing their daughter had made a poor choice of boyfriend, something the rebel in Delia railed against. She desperately wanted Sweeney to show respect to her parents to prove them wrong. But that didn't happen. And again, you're talking about those contradictions. That is so human. I'm really not pinning this all on Delia, but it's like she's attracted to him because of these rebellious traits. She takes him to visit her family and again she rails against the fact that her parents don't approve of him, but then she also wants him to impress them. Yeah, it's very, very tricky. Delia's brother Stuart said that he got weird vibes from Sweeney the moment he met him. And he actually asked Sweeney the question, at fucking Christmas, have you ever killed someone before?

[Hannah]

Fuck me.

[Alina Urquhart]

Whilst avoiding answering the question directly, Sweeney went into a bizarre rant about how the white man taught the Indians how to scalp. Okay, probably not exactly the reassuring denial that brother Stewart was hoping for.

[Hannah]

Yeah, they're just around the Christmas dinner table being like, my God, can someone please bring up religion or politics so.

[Alina Urquhart]

We can talk about something else.

[Hannah]

All through their three year relationship, Sweeney showed textbook signs of domestic abuse and coercive control. Whilst he never hit Delia, he was often verbally abusive and controlling. He constantly accused her of flirting with other men and was jealous of the few friends that she made at work. And he regularly threatened, don't make me angry. One night in bed, the bed that he built, Delia woke up to Sweeney strangling her in his sleep.

[Alina Urquhart]

It's said that he does it in his sleep, but like, I don't believe that.

[Hannah]

I don't think I buy that one.

[Alina Urquhart]

He pretends to be asleep, but you strangle someone in your sleep. Maybe, maybe.

[Hannah]

I watched a really interesting documentary about like mega sleepwalkers. People who'll just wake up in the middle of the night and make themselves a sandwich and they're completely asleep and they go to this sleep clinic to try and fix them. And this one guy was like, oh, I sleep eat, I sleep drink. I've also sleep loss five girlfriends.

[Alina Urquhart]

Oh God.

[Hannah]

Yeah. So I believe it's possible. I just don't believe him because I.

[Alina Urquhart]

Feel like that's also conducive to like a pattern of behavior, whereas it never really comes up again.

[Hannah]

Yeah, right. And this strangling incident would be an unsettling premonition of things to come. In late 1993, Delia and Sweeney went on a trip to Germany together. Delia hoped this might be a fresh start, but Sweeney's behaviour was worse than ever. What should have been an idyllic day at a snowy Christmas market turned sour as Sweeney got into a fight over drugs and savagely beat up a stranger that he thought had ripped him off. Delia was appalled. And while she knew about Sweeney's aggressive streak, she'd never seen him be violent before. She told him that it was over and when they got back to the uk, he needed to move out of her flat.

[Alina Urquhart]

But as you can probably guess, it was never going to be that easy for Delia to get rid of a man like John Sweeney because he can only be described as a total fucking leech. No matter how many times he agreed to leave, he would always return, swanning back in as if the place was his own. While Delia was serious about ending the relationship and kicking him out, Sweeney always treated it like a game. The game that Delia didn't want to play. She described feeling as though Sweeney was a vampire draining the life out of her. And while Delia confided in friends about this toxic dynamic, including a fellow nurse named Rosie, who she'd grown close to, Delia felt powerless to stop Sweeney from doing whatever he wanted. By 1994, John Sweeney had become a squatter in Delia's life.

[Hannah]

On May Day bank holiday in 1994, things came to a very dangerous head. Sick of fretting over the situation with Sweeney, Delia went out day drinking in Hackney with her old friend who's called Martine. And if you're not British, day drinking on May Day weekend bank holiday is compulsory. It was the first time in months that Delia had had some fun. But it was short lived. When Delia returned to her flat, Sweeney was already there waiting for her. He flew into a jealous rage about where she'd been. And that is when things escalated beyond Delia's worst nightmares.

[Alina Urquhart]

Sweeney physically overpowered Delia and tied her to the bed that he'd built for her. She lay naked and terrified in what she called a horizontal crucifix shaped, restrained by knots that only tightened if she struggled. And all the while, Sweeney brandished a huge kitchen knife and a gun over her. Ranting and raving, Sweeney threatened that if Delia screamed, he'd cut her tongue out. And then came a sickening revelation. Sweeney told Delia that he had murdered his ex girlfriend Melissa, the attractive blonde woman in many of his paintings. Delia, who was still remember tied to this bed, could only listen in horror as Sweeney explained, he said that he'd found Melissa in bed with two German men in their Amsterdam apartment. So he'd shot them all, chopped up their bodies and thrown them in the canal. Delia remembers how this confession poured forth like lava, hot and scarlet and destructive, flowing like blood from a fatal wound.

[Hannah]

Delia couldn't have known this, but in 1990, the year before she met him, Dutch police fished an unidentified woman's body from the West Essingle Canal in Rotterdam. A bag was found leaking blood. And in that bag was a torso that had been trussed up with rope, this woman's head, hands and feet had been removed with no distinguishing marks for identification. The body remained a Jane Doe and the case went cold. This was the body of Melissa Halstead.

[Alina Urquhart]

Tied to her own bed in London four years later. Delia didn't need this information to believe what John Sweeney was telling her. She was utterly terrified because she knew in her gut that he was telling her the truth and that he would do the same to her. That night, Delia remembers seeing a demonic side to Sweeney, where his face distorted into wickedness and his eyes were dark, black and empty. But the next day, Sweeney was calm, as if nothing had happened. He even tried to claim his confession about Melissa had all just been a joke. And the gun he'd threatened Delia with, well, that was just a toy. But Delia knew it was bullshit.

[Hannah]

Aware of Sweeney's abusive behaviour, obviously not all of it, but enough. Delia's friend Rosie was concerned when Delia didn't show up for her shift the next day. So Rosie, like a true friend, called the flat. Sweeney answered the phone and offered various excuses, but Rosie wasn't buying any of it. If Delia wasn't at work by noon, she said she was going to call the police. Backed into a corner, Sweeney forced Delia at gunpoint to speak to Rosie on the phone and claim that she was ill. Dismissing her only lifeline. I would have to be very, very concerned about my friend's safety to say to their partner on the phone, I will call the police.

[Alina Urquhart]

Rosie is one of Delia's only real friends and, yeah, she is the only person that she's been saying anything to about her concerns regarding John Sweeney's behav. So Rosie is just. She's fucking great to take it to that level and be like, nah, I don't believe you. Good for Rosie.

[Hannah]

John Sweeney kept Delia captive in her flat for the next four days, raping her repeatedly. During this time, he oscillated between menacing and fearful. One minute he was sobbing and begging Delia for help, the next he was snarling that he would kill her and her friends. Delia thought, I'm in a padded cell with a completely dangerous and unstable person and there is no escape.

[Alina Urquhart]

It is so terrifying.

[Hannah]

Oh, nightmare fuel.

[Alina Urquhart]

Just this, like, as if it wouldn't be bad enough if he was just constantly at one pitch, screaming, shouting, threatening her, all of that. It's that up and down between crying and sobbing and then ramping it up into the terror that is just so, so scary.

[Hannah]

I mean, he's very clearly demonstrating that he's mad.

[Alina Urquhart]

Yeah.

[Hannah]

And there's nothing I can see for Delia how she's like, oh, there really isn't anything he's not capable of.

[Alina Urquhart]

While she's being held hostage, Delia was forced to try and appease Sweeney, trying to lull him into a feeling that he could trust her not to raise the alarm if he let her go. One day they even went to a cafe together where Sweeney panicked about wanting to get rid of the gun that he had used to kill Melissa. So he asked Delia to go with him to Hampstead Heath at night to throw it in the lake, thinking, hell, fucking no. Am I going with this lunatic in the dark to fucking Hampstead Heath with a gun? Delia coaxed him into considering seeing a counsellor or even a priest to talk about what he'd done to Melissa. Sweeney was torn umming and ahhing about it, but ultimately they never went. But it seemed like Delia had managed to get through to him somehow, because suddenly, after four days, Sweeney finally released Delia from captivity and agreed to leave the flat, leaving his set of keys on the table. Sweeney promised this was the end. Delia's ordeal was over.

[Hannah]

For now. While we would love to say that this harrowing story ends here, you have probably guessed that that is not what happened. That is not the way this pans out. Despite his promise, Sweeney inevitably wormed his way back into Delia's life by repeatedly getting keys recut for the flat. And once again, Delia was a prisoner in her own home. But it was different this time. Now she had the terrifying knowledge of what Sweeney had done to his ex and it was at the forefront of her mind all the time. How could it not be? Delia was too afraid to go to the police. She knew that if Sweeney found out that she'd done that, he would kill her just like he'd killed Melissa.

[Alina Urquhart]

But that decision about whether to go to the police or not was ultimately taken out of Delia's hands. After suffering from crippling facial pain due to stress, Delia's dentist referred her to a psychologist, who then steered her to a domestic abuse service called First Step. The support worker at First Step was adamant that Delia needed to get out of that flat, offering her temporary B and B accommodation in King's Cross.

[Hannah]

Oh, Jesus God, no.

[Alina Urquhart]

Yeah, because let's just say that King's cross in the 90s was not the bougie international terminal that it is today.

[Hannah]

Absolutely not.

[Alina Urquhart]

No. It was horrific. And Delia, not seeing why she ought to be the one punished by having to stay in a dodgy hostel with the undesirable characters who hung around King's Cross Station at the time refused this B and B spot. But it turned out that this was really the only support offered by First Step. And after denying their offer, Delia was kind of not their problem anymore.

[Hannah]

But First Step did make a police report. And when the police turned up at Delia's flat, knowing that it might be her only chance, Delia told them everything, including Sweeney's confession about Melissa and the creepy drawings of her mutilated body. She tried to impress upon the police just how urgent her situation was and her genuine fears that Sweeney would murder her, just like he had Melissa. But the police did not take her seriously. They were actually quite dismissive, especially of the artwork. And they said that Sweeney was probably just trying to scare Delia with exaggerated claims about his past. And Delia remembers thinking, they're as crazy as he is.

[Alina Urquhart]

Delia spent months trapped in fear as Sweeney forced his way back into her life, stuck in a cycle of abuse. He would rape her, then bring her flowers, as if that would make it better, repeatedly promising to leave her, but then always returning.

[Hannah]

And, yeah, the police, not great. I think it's important that we say again that this is the early 90s. There was basically no resource for domestic violence. It wasn't even illegal to rape your wife until 1990. Like, I am not surprised that the police are very dismissive because it was absolutely the age of just a domestic and there wasn't the information that there is now.

[Alina Urquhart]

And also, yes, the paintings are weird. She's saying all the stuff about a woman murdered in Amsterdam. I think they're just like, she's obviously got some problems. This guy's obviously not a great guy, but I think they just completely dismiss her. So, yeah, things just get worse and worse. One evening, when Sweeney had dragged Delia to the pub, she managed to escape his constant BDI and convinced the bartender to escort her to the local police station. But it was a busy Saturday night and the officers on duty treated Delia again like a nuisance and laughed that they had more important things to deal with. And this all made a deep impression on Delia. How could it not? And at this point, she decided that the police were her enemies too. And, yes, when you are going through this kind of trauma, this kind of abuse, and the only people you feel you have to turn to, because remember, she's got no family here, she's barely got any friends. And you think, if I go to the police, if I tell the police, everything is going to be fine, and they laugh at you. It's horrific. And, yes, she absolutely decides authority, just like John Sweeney, not to be trusted. Now, while cops eventually did take Delia home that night, and they did give her flat a cursory cheque for Sweeney, she was largely left to deal with things all on her own.

[Hannah]

That November, Sweeney broke into the flat through the bathroom window and ambushed Delia. He stuck his fingers in her mouth so hard that it cut her tongue and made her bleed. She described that as like having a horrific throat operation without anaesthetic. Sweeney snarled at the time that this was the whole point. He was trying to pull her tongue out like he had threatened so many times before.

[Alina Urquhart]

Ugh, it's so bad. And I also think, right, he doesn't stay in the flat, he keeps leaving and coming back. And that is absolutely, I think, fundamental to Sweeney's psychological torture of Delia. I think he knows if I'm here all the time, she's always on it, she's always scared. I don't think that gives him the thrill that he wants. It's this idea of he waits until she thinks she's safe and then breaks in. It's that you never know feeling.

[Hannah]

Later, Sweeney calmed down and acted like everything was normal, even as Delia could barely speak because of what he had done. Classic gaslighting, isn't it? And by this point, Delia really felt like she was just living in an alternate reality where everything was upside down.

[Alina Urquhart]

A few weeks later, Delia had arranged to go out and meet her friend Martine at the pub. But just as she was leaving the flat, Sweeney appeared and attacked her again. He jammed his fingers in her mouth once more, causing a pain even more agonising than the last time. When Delia didn't show up to the pub, Martine hurried over to the Kentish Town flat and called the police to check on her friend. Knowing that something was seriously wrong with the police banging on the door, a sweating Sweeney ordered Delia to get rid of them. But instead, she grabbed her chance and fled outside screaming, help me. As Sweeney was arrested at the scene, a policewoman remembers that Delia looked like she was running for her life. That be because she was?

[Hannah]

Yeah.

[Alina Urquhart]

Later, with Sweeney behind bars at Pentonville Prison, charged with actual bodily harm and false imprisonment, police searched a bag that he'd left at Delia's flat and discovered what can only be described as a sinister killer's kit bag. Because Inside was a hacksaw blade, rubber gloves, rope, tarpauling and duct tape. When Delia found out, her blood ran cold because she realised that she'd narrowly escaped death that night.

[Hannah]

Big up, Martine. Jesus. Sweeney was behind bars, but Delia felt far from safe. I should point out that Pentonville Prison is in the middle of London. Delia felt in her gut that if Sweeney was released, the first thing he would do would be to come for her and finish her off. Delia shared these fears with officers from the domestic violence team assigned to her case. And again, they just acted like she was being dramatic and assured her that an offender like Sweeney would never get bail. Which, as it turned out, was not true. In a very bizarre move intended to show Christmas goodwill to those in the prison system, John Sweeney was one of many offenders granted bail between December 1994 and January 1995.

[Alina Urquhart]

Why in the fucking hell is that happening? You want to show Christmas good? Give him a fucking satsuma, A Terry's Chocolate orange at most. Why the fuck would you let a violent offender.

[Hannah]

That's it. I can understand letting shoplifters out.

[Alina Urquhart]

A violent offender like John Sweeney, who already lives a very transient lifestyle. We know that he travels to mainland Europe for work. A man like that out on bail. I know it's the mid-90s, but come the fuck on.

[Hannah]

The conditions of this Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus. Release were strict. Sweeney was supposed to stay with his mum in Skelmersdale and follow a curfew.

[Alina Urquhart]

Oh, we know how much John Sweeney loves following the rules.

[Hannah]

Exactly. But Delia, she knew that that wouldn't stop Sweeney. Why would he start playing by the rules now? Delia darkly warned the police that Sweeney would chop her up just like Melissa.

[Alina Urquhart]

And less than a month later, Delia's chilling prophecy looked like it would come true. On Thursday 22nd December 1994, the darkest and shortest day of the year. Delia returned home from work on her bike at around 6.30pm in the shadows outside her flat, John Sweeney was laying in wait. He ambushed his ex girlfriend on the steps, attacking her with an axe and a rusty knife. He slashed through her breast and arms and Delia saw the tip of her little finger fly through the air. Sweeney continued his savage assault, even smashing Delia's bike in a frenzy. Blood matted her hair, soaked her clothes and pooled on the ground. Certain that these were her final moments, Delia curled up and waited to die. But fate had other plans for Delia. She was miraculously saved by a Neighbour who ran out of his house armed with a baseball bat, hitting Sweeney to interrupt his vicious attack. And again, I have to give full credit to this neighbour. In a place where people, you know, obviously think everyone just, like, minds her own business, whatever. This man is attacking her with an axe and her neighbor comes outside to help her. As the neighbour called an ambulance for Delia, John Sweeney limped away and fled into the night. He wouldn't be seen again for another six years. Speaking of, you know, will people in London help you if you're in trouble? That addition, I do have to tell you about something that happened to me the other day. So I'm at King's Cross, going up the escalator. I hate standing on escalators. I'm a walker. I'm walking, got coffee in one hand, walking in a rush to get the train home, and I'm suddenly caught on the escalator. But it keeps going. And I can't tell what's caught, but it's my foot. I cannot move my foot. I look down, my laces have been sucked into the escalator and it's tugging and pulling and pulling and pulling so that my shoe is getting tighter and tighter and tighter and crushing my foot. And I know I'm getting to the top and then it just jams and I cannot get off the escalator. And it is prime time rush hour, like 5:30 at King's Cross, one of the busiest stations in this country. And I am mortified. My coffee is, like, slipping out my hand going everywhere because I'm trying to pull my foot loose. I think if I just keep pulling it, it will come out. No, it's just jamming it into the escalator harder. I was mortified and also terrified because all I'm thinking is my foot is going to get stuck or something is going to happen. My skin's gonna get ripped off. And I have to just say full credit to the man who had his faculties about him. Hit the emergency stop so that the escalator stopped. But then I'm like, oh, my God. All of these millions of people on this escalator have just been like, oh, what stopped it? Everyone is looking at me. And then this lovely woman was. Because I couldn't bend down to get it. I think it's because I was shaking so much. This lovely woman bent down, pulled my laces out. And then obviously the people that work at TFL came over and I was just like, oh, my God, please. I'm fine, I'm fine. I'm fine, everybody, I'm fine. I was trying to like do my laces back up, totally torn to shreds. And then this lovely woman just stayed with me and she was like, are you okay? Are you okay? And I was like, honestly, I'm fine. I'm just a bit shaken, but I'm totally fine. And then the guy from TFL was basically trying to escort me to my train and I was like, please, please don't do that. I'm fine. Oh my God. And it only got worse that day. Might as well tell you while I've started telling you about this journey. Had a suitcase with me because I had been planning to stay in London for a couple of days. And I was done. I was going back to my parents house, got the suitcase with me, I got on the train, got off at Finsbury park to change, realized I've left my fucking suitcase on the train. And I'm like, no, this cannot be happening. And the train that I left it on was going back to King's Cross and I was like, fuck. So I run to the Finsbury park staff bit and I'm like, oh my God, I'm so sorry. I left my suitcase on that train, what should I do? And they were like, we'll call Kings Cross, get on that train that's also now going to Kings Cross and you know somebody will help you there. So I jump on the train, head back to King's Cross. They say they've called, but it was classic National Rail shenanigans. Loads and loads of delays, loads of disruption. So they were very much like, otherwise distracted. I went and spoke to the woman at King's Cross customer information, and she just looked at me like, you fucking idiot. And she was like, today is not the day for us to help you. And I was like, she say that? Well, she was basically like, we've got a lot of travel disruption and we can't be spending time helping somebody find their suitcase today. And I was like, fair enough. But I was also like, how the fuck am I ever gonna find my suitcase again? It didn't have an airtag in it.

[Hannah]

That's what I was just gonna say.

[Alina Urquhart]

And I was like, how am I ever gonna find this suitcase again? And I was just so upset. And I was just like, what the fuck am I gonna do? Then I pick up my phone, go on the train line app, and I knew that that train only could have come in about 15 minutes before. And I thought, maybe there is a chance that it is still here. And I look on my phone, I find the train that I had come in on and I see that that train terminated at Platform 8. And then there's an announcement over the Tanno saying the train at platform 8, the 1639, blah, blah, blah, to wherever is about to depart. It's 1636. And I'm like, I've got no other options.

[Hannah]

Oh my God.

[Alina Urquhart]

I run to platform 8 and I run the length of this train, looking in every single window to try because I don't remember which carriage I was sat in. Trying to see if I can see the luggage rack and it's also on the fucking bottom rack and also the train is going the other way, so it's now on the side. I can't fucking see. And I'm looking inside, everybody is looking at me because I'm just like aggressively looking in every single window as I frantically run down the train, knowing I've got two minutes before, maybe a minute, because it took me a second to run there, looking at everything, and I cannot believe it. I see my suitcase and I'm like, this cannot be happening. It's got to be my suitcase because I can see my luggage tag that's got my initials on the top of it. The doors were closing and I hit the open door. I get into the train, I grab my suitcase. Luckily there's nothing in front of it. People are looking at me like that girl's stealing luggage because I wasn't on the train. I grab my suitcase and I just run off and the doors close behind me and as like a final clothes and. I cannot fucking believe I got my suitcase back.

[Hannah]

Oh my God.

[Alina Urquhart]

I know all this after my laces got fucking stuck in that escalator as well and I was shaking to shit. Fck. So that was quite the day.

[Hannah]

Jesus, that's horrible. I'm so sorry.

[Alina Urquhart]

I actually feel quite sick retelling it, but there you go. I'd say if they say they're going to get your suitcase, just check where that train came in and go have a look yourself because, yeah, chances are they're not going to get it back for you.

[Hannah]

Oh my God.

[Alina Urquhart]

Yeah. Bad times though, of course. Nothing anywhere close to what Delia Bulmer is going through.

[Hannah]

Yes, Delia had gone through quite an unimaginable trauma, to be honest. She had survived the savage attack that night, but she was broken from it. Once in hospital, she faced a gruelling recovery. She'd got torn tendons, permanent nerve damage, and partially, an amputated little finger. Delia's body was littered with wounds. And she had another brush with death because she got MRSA when she was in hospital.

[Alina Urquhart]

This woman just cannot get a break.

[Hannah]

Her long blonde hair was shorn off all the way down to her scalp as she underwent multiple surgeries. And even as she turned a corner and began to physically recover, Delia felt as though she just wasn't whole anymore. She particularly despised the stump of a little finger on her delicate hands that she'd once thought were quite a nice feature of hers. And you do have to look at it every day, don't you? With her weakened limbs and damaged nerves, Delia couldn't ever imagine dancing again, or cycling or any of the things that she'd loved to do before she met John Sweeney. Delia became fragmented from her own physical self. Even today she refers to this body, not hers. She doesn't see it as her own.

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[Hannah]

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[Alina Urquhart]

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[Hannah]

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[Alina Urquhart]

It's all a lighthearted nightmare. On our podcast Morbid.

[Hannah]

We're your hosts.

[Alina Urquhart]

I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly.

[Hannah]

And our show is part true crime.

[Alina Urquhart]

Part spooky, and part comedy.

[Hannah]

The stories we cover are well researched.

[Alina Urquhart]

Of the 880 men who survived the.

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[Hannah]

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[Alina Urquhart]

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[Hannah]

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[Alina Urquhart]

You should tune in to our podcast Morbid.

[Hannah]

Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad free by joining Wondery plus and.

[Alina Urquhart]

The Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. The physical attack was one thing, but the mental torture Delia went through was even worse. And you have to understand it's because John Sweeney was still at large. He wouldn't be seen again. Like we said, for six years Delia's name was in the papers and he made it his entire game to sneak up on her when she least suspected it. How could she have any peace now? The police did give her the false name Elizabeth Drake while she was in hospital to try and protect her, but for Delia, this didn't make her feel safe and if anything, it was just another reminder of what had been taken from her. Remembering this time in her book, she not only have I been metamorphosed into a decrepit old wreck, but I'm losing my whole identity as well. Delia Balmer, RIP While Sweeney was on the loose, Delia felt as if she was the one who was trapped, saying, hospital is my prison, intensive care my torture chamber, and now I'm also in solitary confinement. Meanwhile, Sweeney goaded Delia whilst on the run, sending several postcards to the police where he joked that it was an accident, spelt a X E, and claimed that he'd been framed. And to add insult to injury, the police told Delia on Boxing Day that Sweeney had slipped out of their grasp entirely because he'd managed to cross the border into continental Europe. Bitterly angry, Delia repeatedly asked the hospital staff why they'd kept her alive to put her through this punishment, because Delia felt like she had died that night. Writing in her book, John Sweeney, like Dracula himself, had turned me into one of the undead, siring me into a strange new world. As far as she was concerned, she was a walking corpse trapped in a sort of undead limbo for eternity.

[Hannah]

On that note, would you like to listen to that time Loads of meat fell from the sky in Kentucky. Because if you do, you can bop on over to shorthand on Amazon Music or Wonder plus and you can find out how that happened, because it did.

[Alina Urquhart]

Absolutely. As one of our many shorthands this month, we also covered Joan of Arc, possibly Slash, probably crazy French teenage girl who led France to Victory that time.

[Hannah]

Princess Anne was kidnapped. Remember that? 1974. We cover that one as well.

[Alina Urquhart]

And of course we also talk about the VW exhaust scandal because, you know, we just pick and choose whatever the fuck we want to talk about.

[Hannah]

Over on Shorthand and illustrated further is Kony, the warlord from Uganda that went viral in 2012, but none of us were really sure what he did. But now you can find out.

[Alina Urquhart]

You can indeed. Because, yes, as Hannah said, we release a brand new episode of our other show, which you may or may not be aware of, called Shorthand over on Amazon Music and Wondery every single Tuesday, 50 weeks a year. So if you aren't listening, you are missing out on a shit ton of extra content from the two of us. So go check it out.

[Hannah]

And if you don't think you have Amazon Music, trust me, you probably do.

[Alina Urquhart]

Yes, we've looked at the stats. You most probably do. So go. Go listen now. Not now. Go listen after the end of this episode to, you know, take the edge.

[Hannah]

Off, because we simply have to get back to Delia, who was trying to heal mentally and physically from the December 1994 attack by her killer ex boyfriend, John Sweeney. Unsurprisingly, Delia was diagnosed with ptsd and that severely impacted her ability to form relationships. Because for Delia, her post traumatic stress manifested as uncontrollable anger. Delia was naturally quite prickly and eccentric anyway. So this new addition of rage only deepened Delia's isolation. Despite everyone around her urging her to just move on. Delia couldn't let go of the rage she felt at the injustice of it all, especially when she learned just how preventable her ordeal had been. Delia and I'm not just talking about the bail release. I'm not just talking about all the time. She told the police what was happening and they ignored her. I'm afraid there's even more. It turned out Sweeney's criminal record was darker than even she had ever imagined. His rap sheet dated back to the 80s, with a particularly alarming incident in Liverpool after his ex wife threw him out for beating her. Police found him hiding in her wardrobe with a hammer and an Axe. In 1987, Sweeney was convicted twice for domestic violence against Melissa when they lived in London in Austria. A year later, Sweeney broke into an apartment where Melissa was staying. He tied her friend Ingrid to the stove and later fractured Melissa's skull with a claw hammer, which meant she had to have emergency surgery. Sweeney did briefly serve time for that attack, but Melissa helped him escape. Delia's blood boiled when she realised that not only had the authorities dismissed her, they knew that John Sweeney was dangerous. They had the records to prove it. But repeatedly he was allowed to walk free and harm again. And Delia, quite rightly holds the police just as accountable as John Sweeney for the assault that changed her life, because they failed to protect her. And they did.

[Alina Urquhart]

Despite her ordeal with Sweeney, Delia met a new man, Steve, in 1997. In her usual no nonsense style, Delia says it wasn't that hard for her to trust a guy again. She said she didn't consider herself a hysterical female who put all men in the same category.

[Hannah]

Hello.

[Alina Urquhart]

And Steve, who is so sweet in the drama series on this, offered Delia companionship, made her feel safe and it was something she desperately needed. Delia even returned to university with Steve's help, studied massage therapy and began rebuilding her life. For six years, she tried her hardest to leave Sweeney behind. But in 2001, Delia's past was dredged up in the most horrifying way. In February of that year, Delia, children fishing in Regent's Canal stumbled across a gruesome discovery. The dismembered remains of a woman were found in six holdalls that had been weighed down with ceramic tiles and bricks stuffed between Christmas wrapping paper. Luckily, the water levels had been lowered for maintenance work and that's basically how they'd managed to catch any of these bags. Now, while this woman's head, hands and feet were missing, DNA analysis revealed the body parts belonged to 31 year old Paula Fields, who had vanished just after Christmas the year before. A mum of three, originally from Liverpool, Paula struggled with drug abuse and was a sex worker. Police investigations revealed that Paula was last seen with a man known locally as Scouse Joe, who had also recently gone off the radar.

[Hannah]

I'm sure you've already figured out because you're very intelligent, Scouse Joe was John Sweeney. It emerged that in the years since he attempted to murder Delia, all six of them, he travelled around Europe with a fake passport under several aliases, constantly changing his appearance to avoid detection. In 2000, he returned to North London, right under the nose of the police who still wanted him for the 1994 attack on Delia. He went by various names, even in London Joe Carroll, Joe Johnson and Michael Fawcett. The net, though, was finally beginning to close in on Scouse Joe. An armed response unit ambushed Sweeney at a building site that he worked on and they arrested him quickly. It was obvious that John Sweeney didn't intend to go down without A fight. They found a knife in his waistband and a loaded 9mm pistol in his work locker. In his rented room near Finsbury Park, Sweeney had stashed two sawn off shotguns, two more guns, a huge cachet of bullets, a brown wig, a machete, an axe, a rounder's bat, bin liners, cable ties, a bamboo garrote and, bizarrely, a wooden bench with the shape of buttocks carved into it.

[Alina Urquhart]

All horrific. But I do have to say, at least he kept it British. With a rounder's bat.

[Hannah]

Yes.

[Alina Urquhart]

So, although Sweeney was the prime and only suspect for killing Paula Fields, there was absolutely no forensic evidence tying him to the body parts found in the canal. To put John Sweeney behind bars, Delia Bama would need to testify against him at the trial for her own attempted murder, for which John Sweeney was pleading not guilty. And as you can only imagine, the prospect of having to face him was utterly horrifying for Delia. While the police tried to persuade her that this was her chance to tell her side of the story, Delia felt sick with outrage. She'd already told them everything and they hadn't listened. So, in true Delia style, the night before going to court, she doused herself in essential oils linked to anger and resentment, saying she wanted them to smell the antipathy coming from her very pores.

[Hannah]

The trial began in October 2001. Delia was not a model witness. As we explained, her trauma manifested in anger and she was angry on the stand. She was so angry that it spilled out into the courtroom and shocked everyone there. Instead of taking the usual oath, Delia swore on each injured part of her body and pulled up her top to defiantly show the gallery her scars. She ranted and raved through her testimony, seething at the injustice of having to repeat her story again for the same justice system that had ignored her all of those times before. Her cross examination felt like another vicious assault. And in her book, she said that Sweeney's barrister hacked away at me too, chopping off my honour, my integrity, my dignity, until nothing was left but rage. During a recess, where Delia was ordered to calm down before resuming her testimony, police officer Sue Kendrick gave her some tough love. She warned Delia that she could jeopardize the whole case with her hysterical behavior. Once again, Delia felt like she was the one on trial and it made her sick.

[Alina Urquhart]

But thankfully, Delia's behaviour on the stand wasn't enough to dissuade the jury from convicting John Sweeney. He was sent down for Delia's attempted murder and forcibly dragged down into the cells while shouting abuse at the judge and the jury. Delia just wanted to forget. But the intense media coverage made that impossible. The tabloid papers had got their hands on Sweeney's art portfolio and it was here that Delia discovered he'd added some more disturbing pieces, inspired this time by her. One drawing, titled the Scalp Hunter, showed Delia's bloodied scalp and long blond hair clutched in Sweeney's hand. A bloodstained axe was tucked into his belt, upon which he'd scrawled his name, date of birth and the words Made in Liverpool. More Scribbled annotations said 1294. Came too late, stayed too long. May you die in pain. Inspired by and dedicated especially to Delia, he had made quite a poor job of trying to cover up the fact that these paintings were to do with Delia by tip xing her name out. But forensic analysis obviously quickly showed the truth underneath.

[Hannah]

He can't bring himself to burn them.

[Alina Urquhart]

No, it's just.

[Hannah]

Oh, just bit to make it sort out.

[Alina Urquhart]

They're too good. Yeah, I'm a genius. I'm an artistic genius.

[Hannah]

The trial opened up even more wounds for Delia as it went on. Her relationship with her partner Steve broke down due to the stress, which happens very often, and later. Steve died of esophageal cancer in 2004, just three years later. And Delia maintains that the police and the court were the ones who killed him. Police tried to reassure Delia that with Sweeney now behind bars, she could find closure. But she wasn't having it. She talked about her experiences with anyone who would listen politicians, police chiefs, public figures. The list goes on. In a powerful letter to one of the police officers from the domestic violence team who covered her case, Delia slammed them. Here's what she My purgatory has no end. I died on Thursday 22nd December 1994. My funeral was on the day I was forced to go to damming Court to be sent back to hell. And I remain in hell now, tormented by what has been done to me there. Since the law came to bother me, I have lost all control of my life.

[Alina Urquhart]

At the trial in 2001, Deley had been told not to mention Sweeney's ex girlfriend, Melissa, because it wasn't considered relevant. But that changed in 2008, when Dutch cold case investigators were finally able to confirm that the body pulled out of the Westersingel Canal back in 1990 did indeed belong to Melissa Halstead. And they were able to do this thanks to new DNA testing techniques with family blood samples. A joint investigation called Operation Schersten was launched between the UK and the Netherlands as part of the EU's Eurojust programme. It was the first of its kind and it utilised legislation allowing British citizens to be tried in the UK for murders committed anywhere else in the world. And remember Paula Fields? His remains were found in Regent's Canal. Well, the identification of Melissa's body was crucial for that investigation too. John Sweeney stood out as the common denominator between these two women's deaths, strengthening the case against him as not just an attempted murderer in the case of Delia, but a serial killer.

[Hannah]

But it's not quite, is it? Because for a serial killer you need three.

[Alina Urquhart]

They've changed it, have they? They have changed it. So now for a serial killer you only need two.

[Hannah]

I did not know that.

[Alina Urquhart]

So, yep, by current standards, serial killer.

[Hannah]

Okay, well then I eat my words.

[Alina Urquhart]

And at last the pieces of this decades long saga were finally falling into Place.

[Hannah]

In March 2011, John Sweeney was finally put on trial for the murders of Melissa Halstead and Paula Fields. The forensic evidence against him was scant in both murder cases, so once again, Delia was the missing link, imploring Delia to once again testify in court. Police tried to frame it as Delia finally getting the chance to tell her whole story. They've got to stop saying that to her man. My God. And Delia wasn't having it. She actually felt like they were asking her to play into John Sweeney's hands. Sweeney's defence argument was that Delia had invented the story about Melissa because she was jealous and therefore it would be unfair for his defence team not to cross examine Delia. But Delia knew what that really was. Sweeney just wanted an opportunity to goad her in court and she just wasn't going to give him that satisfaction. But you can't really just say no. The only way you can get out of testifying in a situation like this is if you can prove that you are medically or psychologically unfit. Because I suppose they can just subpoena you, can't they? After years of belittling, degrading and ignoring Delia, now the justice system was trying to force her to play their game. And it seemed like she was going to have to. But she didn't. In the end, a police psychologist expressed serious concerns that Delia might harm herself if she were forced to take the stand again. So she was exempted. And on her way home from that meeting with the police psychologist, Delia cried all the way. Saying that she didn't have to testify in court again was the first decent thing the police had ever done for her.

[Alina Urquhart]

The trial proceeded without Delia needing to take the stand, pleading not guilty again. John Sweeney attempted to shift the blame for Paula's murder onto the Camden Ripper, Anthony Hardy, who murdered three sex workers during his time. And for Melissa's murder, he tried to implicate a man named Frank Gustav, a German serial killer known as the Rhein Ruhr Ripper. But Gust wasn't even in the country at the time of Melissa's death, and these attempts at misdirection were pretty weak. A picture soon emerged during the trial of how Sweeney had terrorised Melissa for years before her death in 1990. Sweeney and Melissa met in London in 1986 and started a relationship that quickly turned abusive, with Sweeney refusing to let her leave him. Melissa overstayed her visa and fled to Italy. But Sweeney followed her across Europe, including to Vienna, where the Hammer attack took place and Melissa bailed him out. They then moved to Amsterdam together, where Melissa was last seen in spring 1990 in a photo with Sweeney before she vanished without a trace. Before her disappearance, Melissa had chillingly warned her sister, Chance o', Hara, that if anything ever happened to her, Sweeney would be to blame. Now, we may never know exactly how Melissa Halstead met her end, but it's clear Sweeney was responsible for her murder, dismemberment and the disposal of her remains in the west of Single Canal.

[Hannah]

Chance o' Hara is a cracking name.

[Alina Urquhart]

I was gonna say.

[Hannah]

I actually learned the other day that the reason there was a big trend in the 1700s of Quakers giving their children names of things that you should aspire to be. So the ones that we have now are like Felicity, Grace, Constance, Charity. Yes, Charity, Chastity, all of those things. But there are some very, very amusing ones as well, like Abundance Jones. There's also a comedian whose name is. Learn More.

[Alina Urquhart]

Oh, wow.

[Hannah]

Yeah, that's awesome, isn't it? Hi, I'm Learn More. Anyway, we can't just send you off thinking about Quaker names. We've got a bit more to get through. It turned out that Sweeney's artwork was this time a major talking point. At trial, Sweeney dismissed his portfolio as tosh caused by drink and drugs. Why didn't you throw it away, then, you prick? But the prosecution were on a mission to prove that his collection of drawings and paintings were far more than that. His collection of art was actually an autobiographical and confessional dossier of his crimes. Prosecutors argued that the grotesque Drawings clearly depicted violent acts with flippant jokes. Sweeney's poetry made it very clear that he was referencing what he'd actually done to his victims. And we've got examples. One verse read, poor old Melissa, chopped up in bits, food to feed the fish. Amsterdam was the pits.

[Alina Urquhart]

Great.

[Hannah]

Yep. Who's the poet laureate? Swap em out. Brian Altman QC claimed that the drawings and poems Sweeney had penned were lurid and demonic. And that's putting it quite lightly. But they actually revealed an obsessive and virulent hatred of women and a preoccupation with dismemberment, painting a picture of a hateful, controlling and possessive man prone to outbursts of rage and murderous feelings. And he also noted that Sweeney continued to create new pieces even whilst he was locked up in Belmarsh awaiting trial. So time had not dimmed his fascination and preoccupation with dismemberment.

[Alina Urquhart]

John Sweeney's obsession with documenting his sick acts came back to bite him firmly in the ass in the end. And when Delia's written evidence was allowed to be read in court, DI Steve Smith described it as the final nail in his coffin. Sweeney was found guilty and given four life sentences, with the judge commenting that I have no doubt that the seriousness of these offences is exceptionally high and a whole life order is the appropriate sentence. And so Sweeney remains in prison today, serving those multiple life sentences. He will die in prison, something that Delia Balmer says makes the two of them alike, since she is forced to live every day in the prison he made her life.

[Hannah]

That's still not quite the end. Many people believe that John Sweeney could be responsible for the murders of more women. The Met have indicated that Sweeney is considered a potential suspect for the disappearances of three women in and around London in the 80s. A Brazilian lady called Irani, who was in her mid-40s. A Colombian woman in her late 30s called Maria, and another woman who they think is from Derbyshire called Sue. And Sweeney's fingerprints could be on cold cases even further afield. Belgian journalist Kurt Werthlaez tracked Sweeney's movements all around Europe while he was working and has noted that his time there overlaps with various unsolved missing persons cases. But we will probably never know for certain. John Sweeney takes pleasure in withholding details like the location of heads and hands and feet of his two known victims. They've never been found. Delia has her own theory. John Sweeney once told her that he put his dead tarantula in the walls of a building site he was working on in Germany. So Delia thinks it's possible that Paula and Melissa's remains could be hiding somewhere in the bones of a building in Europe.

[Alina Urquhart]

Highly likely. And the legacy of this case endures today. Like we said last year, November 2024, ITV put out the drama Until I Kill youl. Definitely go check it out. It's actually now, I think, become one of the most streamed dramas, really, because it received over 10 million streams in its first week. So it's definitely one of ITV's most watched dramas ever. And if you're not in the uk, you can very easily access ITV to watch it with like a vpn. The entire drama is based on Delia's memoir and the show did finally get her story out there. Although Delia, being Delia, couldn't resist sending creator Nick Stevens a long email entitled My Critique with all the trivial details that the script apparently got wrong at the screenings. Stevens recalls how Delia talked throughout the whole thing at the top of her voice, saying that never happened, or she was laughing out loud. But the ITV drama did raise awareness, with audiences unable to believe how Delia's case was so badly handled by the London Metropolitan Police. So, of course it's left a lot of people questioning. Has anything really changed?

[Hannah]

Yes and no.

[Alina Urquhart]

Yeah. You know, we can't say it's the same as it was in the 90s, but are things perfect now? Definitely not.

[Hannah]

Something called the dash, which stands for Domestic Abuse, Stalking and Honour Based Abuse Risk Assessment was introduced in 2009 and it's basically a way to categorise high risk cases of domestic abuse, ensuring a consistent approach to risk management across the police and partner agencies. But you could say, and I think I would, that identifying the level of risk isn't really the hard bit. Delia was clearly high risk, but that didn't stop critical mistakes being made. The information about John Sweeney's dangerous history was available. He'd been convicted before, but Delia wasn't listened to or supported as a victim at all. And high profile incidents of violence against women and girls, which in my opinion should just be called men committing violence, but never mind, it has continued to plague the Met police. Obviously, Sarah Everard was in March 2021 by a police officer, no less. And then in 2020, the murders of Biba Henry and Nicole Smallman, which, if you don't remember that particular gem, was that time that Met officers shared inappropriate images of the crime scene and made offensive jokes about the two girls.

[Alina Urquhart]

In December 2023, amid mounting public pressure, the Metropolitan Police pledged to Improve its response to violence against women and girls with an action plan. This plan outlines 10 key commitments which are the Eliminate police perpetrated violence against women and girls to improve how they listen to victims. To prioritise violence against women and girls by investing resources to tackle sexism and misogyny within the force. To learn from external sources to improve violence against women and girls responses. To identify and target the most dangerous perpetrators. To utilise police powers like civil protection orders more effectively to enhance support and aftercare for victims. To identify higher risk locations and target resources there. And to focus on violence against women and girls prevention through neighborhood schemes. Now, those are very ambitious statements. It's good to be ambitious. But of course, critics argue that the plan is full of promises, but lacks any sort of concrete plan for real implementation. And it makes me sad that it does seem like that the charity End Violence Against Women had damning words for the plan, saying that despite it now being a strategic policing priority, the Met were, quote, still failing to adequately assess risk or do the very basics required to protect the public from known perpetrators.

[Hannah]

Absolutely none of that is of any surprise to me. And it wasn't to Delia either. She's still angry and she probably always will be. And that anger, although entirely understandable, hasn't done her many favours. It's actually served as a convenient way for the police to avoid accountability for all of the support they did not give her that she desperately needed. And Nick Stephens, the creator of Until I Kill youl, made a really good point. He described the series as what happens when someone who isn't an easy victim enters the system and how easily they can be let down as a consequence. And I think that's something we don't talk about enough. Police Constable Sue Kendrick, who worked on Delia's case and was the one to tell her to tone it down in the courtroom, called Delia one of the most anti victims of a crime she'd ever met. And there's just no denying that that played a role in how she was treated. Delia isn't interested in being virtuous or an inspirational survivor who spins her suffering into a silver lining. She's absolutely furious at the system, at Sweeney, at the injustice, losing her life. And she's not bothered about hiding how she feels like some sort of vengeful ghost. She's still raging against the broken machine that failed her so totally. And I can't say I blame her for it, but it doesn't seem to be helping her now. And that's such a tricky thing, isn't it, being stuck in that cycle of rage. But then it's also unjust that she should have to forgive and let go. But that's the only way you're going to move past it. It's an absolute minefield. But I can completely, completely understand why she is fucking raging. But it's that unanswerable question of like, is there a point where actually you're just doing more damage to yourself?

[Alina Urquhart]

So there you go guys. That is the real story behind Delia Bulmer and John Sweeney. If you're interested, go watch the series. Like I said, not an ad for that, but it was good, was worth my time and that's it. And if you don't want to watch that, then go fucking listen something cheerful like our shit shorthands on Joan of Arc and all of the others over on Amazon Music. Like I said, you can probably listen to it now. And we'll see you next week for another red handed goodbye. Bye.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

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