Colin Stagg has spent ALL of the £750k payout he got for being wrongly accused of murdering Rachel Nickell – after blowing the cash on luxury cars and holidays
SKINT Colin Stagg has revealed he has blown every penny of the £750,000 he got for being wrongly accused of murdering Rachel Nickell.
Colin, 54, spent it on luxury cars, holidays, charity donations and flawed business investments.
He said: “I spent like there was no tomorrow. I bought vehicles for me and my girlfriend. I treated myself to clothes, jewellery and expensive guitars.
“After decades without a holiday we took three or four a year. I was making up for lost time doing the things I should’ve done in my youth if it hadn’t been blighted by Rachel’s murder.”
"I got a passport for the first time and fulfilled a lifelong ambition to visit the Pyramids. There were several more holidays in Egypt, Gran Canaria and Lanzarote.
Stagg became the most hated man in Britain after police made him the prime suspect over the horrific knife murder of 23-year-old mum Rachel on Wimbledon Common 25 years ago this week on July 15th, 1992.
A horrified passer-by later found two-year-old Alexander Louis clinging to his mum’s blood-soaked body repeatedly crying “wake up, mummy”.
Stagg spent more than a year in jail on remand until an Old Bailey murder case against him collapsed and DNA evidence proved another man’s guilt.
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Colin was awarded £706,000 compensation in 2008 over the bungled police investigation into the murder.
He got a further £45,000 from payouts and publishing deals. His fleet of cars included a Range Rover, a classic XJS Jaguar and his and hers Kias for himself and girlfriend Terri Marchant.
Colin also bought his girlfriend’s Star Wars-mad son Josh, then eight, a Jedi Knight costume complete with lightsaber for Christmas.
And he treated himself to an £850 Darth Vader outfit too.
He said: ‘’It had been a long since I felt like acting daft and it was real fun to have lightsaber fights and act the fool with a little lad.”
He also spent £80,000 on his council flat in Roehampton, South West London — even though he had been refused permission to buy it.
He was still widely vilified as Rachel’s killer for 15 years — until DNA evidence proved double murderer Robert Napper was responsible.
Napper was formally convicted in 2009 and is now confined to Broadmoor with the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe and Ian Huntley as fellow inmates.
Earlier this year the son of Rachel Nickell spoke to The Sun about his lifetime of trauma and flashbacks since witnessing his mum’s savage killing.