Mark Williams-Thomas

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Mark Williams-Thomas
File:Mark Williams-Thomas.jpg
Williams-Thomas in November 2013
Born Mark Alan Williams-Thomas
(1970-01-09) 9 January 1970 (age 54)
Billericay, Essex, England
Education Birmingham City University
Occupation Investigative reporter
Awards <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>

Mark Alan Williams-Thomas (born 9 January 1970)[1][2] is an English investigative journalist and former police officer. He is best known for exposing Jimmy Savile as a paedophile in The Other Side of Jimmy Savile, a television documentary he presented.[3][4]

Career

Williams-Thomas served as a constable and family liaison officer with Surrey Police[5] from 1989 to 2000.[2] He was reportedly awarded several commendations.

In July 1997, Williams-Thomas led an investigation into public school teacher Adrian Stark, who was charged with possessing child pornography. Stark committed suicide at Beachy Head, East Sussex days after his arrest.[6] In 1999 Williams-Thomas was involved in the investigation of Anthony Bridger[7] who subsequently pleaded guilty to 32 serious sexual offences against boys[8] and was jailed at the Central Criminal Court on 8 January 1999 for a minimum of 15-years. In 2000, Williams-Thomas was involved in the investigation into Jonathan King, which was launched by Mervyn McFadden of the National Criminal Intelligence Service[9] and led by Detective Inspector Brian Marjoram.[10] The investigation resulted in King's conviction for the sexual abuse of under-age boys.[2]

Between 2001 and 2002, Williams-Thomas was the marketing manager and a director of GumFighters,[11] a "national chewing gum removal specialist". The company were hired by various councils to clean their streets.[12][13]

From 2003, due to his past in the police force, Williams-Thomas began script advising for various television crime dramas which included : BBC series Waking The Dead (2007-2011), BBC series Inspector Lynley Mysteries (2007), Ch5 series Murder Prevention (2004), ITV series Identity and BBC series The Silence.[14]

In 2003 Mark Williams-Thomas was charged with blackmailing a funeral home director, after alleging that there were multiple bodies buried in unmarked graves. An article ran in a national Sunday paper describing the mass burials. He was acquitted.[15]

In 2005, he set up WT Associates, an independent child protection consultancy firm.[2]

On 2 August 2010 ITV News broadcast an exclusive interview Williams-Thomas undertook with Stuart Hazell who was the last person to see missing 12-year-old schoolgirl Tia Sharp. Hazell went missing the day after this interview and was arrested later the same day on suspicion of Tia Sharps's murder. He was later charged and on 14 May 2013 was jailed after changing his plea. The judge ordered that he serve a minimum of 38 years.[16]

On 3 October 2012, Williams-Thomas presented documentary 'The Other Side of Jimmy Savile' on ITV. The expose of Jimmy Savile examined claims of child sexual abuse by Savile and led to extensive media coverage, including 41 days[citation needed] on the front pages and the Metropolitan Police launching a criminal investigation into allegations of child sex, Operation Yewtree.

The Other Side of Jimmy Savile and Exposure: Banaz: An Honour Killing won the 2012 Peabody Award[17] which was broadcast on 3 October 2012.[2]

In the Exposure documentary, several women claimed that they had been sexually abused by Savile as teenagers. In 2013, Williams-Thomas won two Royal Television Society awards and the London Press Awards Scoop of the Year for the film.[18][19][20] The episode and Exposure: Banaz: An Honour Killing won a 2012 George Foster Peabody Award.[21]

Williams-Thomas is a regular reporter on This Morning, Channel 4 News, as well as long form current affairs documentaries for Exposure.

His undercover work in Cambodia led to the arrest in 2013 of a person suspected of offering under-age girls for sex and the rescue of two girls, aged 13 and 14.[22]

In 2014 Williams-Thomas covered the verdict of Oscar Pistorius and was the only British journalist to meet with Pistorius during his trial - writing an exclusive report for UK national newspaper Daily Mirror.[23]

On 11 November 2014 ITV This Morning programme broadcast an exclusive interview with Jo Westwood,[24] the ex-wife of jailed sex offender Max Clifford.

In 2015 Williams-Thomas investigated the unsolved murder of BBC presenter Jill Dando. Writing in the Daily Mirror he theorized that she was murdered by the London underworld for her work on Crimewatch.[25]

He completed his MA in criminology from Birmingham City University in 2007.[26]

Programmes

  • Sept 2009 To Catch a Paedophile - (1) ITV
  • Sept 2009 To Catch a Paedophile - (2) ITV
  • Oct 2011. On The Run (1) ITV
  • Oct 2012 Exposure: The Other Side of Jimmy Savile ITV
  • Nov 2012 Exposure: The Jimmy Savile Investigation ITV
  • Nov 2012 Missing Without Trace ITV
  • Dec 2012 On the Run (2) ITV
  • May 2013 Living With a Killer ITV
  • Oct 2013 Exposure: Predators Abroad ITV
  • April 2014 Exposure: Inside the Diplomatic Bag ITV

References

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External links

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