Ask me anything: Kerry Answers Your Questions

While the team spends August preparing fresh cases for the autumn run, hosts this special ‘Ask Me Anything’ episode of The Profiler. The questions, posed by producer Jeff Anderson, come from listeners who signed up to Kerry's weekly email, covering stories already featured on the podcast, live news events, and Kerry's own career and life.

Topics covered:

The UK government's plan to release thousands of prisoners early to ease overcrowding, and why Kerry believes it shouldn't go ahead in its current form — she makes the case for deporting foreign nationals eligible for removal and clearing the remand backlog instead of releasing unassessed offenders.

Whether Rachel McLean's killer, John Tanner, could ever be rehabilitated, given he committed a chillingly similar assault on a later partner almost three decades after murdering Rachel in 1991.

The extraordinary manipulation of bus driver and child killer Darren Vickers, who moved in with the family of his victim, ten-year-old Jamie Labes, posing as a concerned neighbour throughout the search for him.

The murder of fifteen-year-old Kayleigh Haywood, and whether the internet is driving a genuine rise in sexual offences — including Kerry's view on the proposed ban on under-16s using social media.

The transfer of Southport killer Axel Rudakubana to Broadmoor secure hospital, and whether he is "gaming the system" by appearing to have mental health problems.

The calculated cruelty of Luke D’Wit, who engineered events so his victims' daughter would discover their bodies — and why Kerry stops short of calling him a clinical psychopath, despite the callousness of what he did.

New developments in the forty-year-old Suzy Lamplugh case: Kerry reveals she has offered her services, and those of colleagues, to help review the CPS file on prime suspect John Cannan.

A run of personal questions: how Kerry got into forensic psychology and what the training involves, the case that has affected her more than any other — the 2013 murder of five-year-old April Jones — and living with profound deafness caused by Ménière's disease, including how she lip-reads and why context matters so much in conversation.

Plus, the story behind the show's closing music, courtesy of editor and composer Rob Warner.

Kerry and Jeff thank everyone who sent in questions, with apologies that not all could be answered on air.

Normal service resumes in September with new cases from Britain's most notorious crimes and criminals.

If you enjoyed this episode, please follow or subscribe to The Profiler wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a five-star rating or review. For regular updates, and to subscribe to Kerry’s weekly email go to www.theprofiler.co.uk

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