Events | 2010.02.18
Ray Gosling released on police bail in murder inquiry
Broadcaster Ray Gosling was questioned for a day and a half after confessing on TV to the mercy killing of a lover
The broadcaster Ray Gosling, who confessed in a television programme to the mercy killing of a lover, was released on police bail today after being questioned for a day and a half on suspicion of murder, his lawyer said.
The 70-year old TV presenter was released after being interviewed five times by detectives investigating the death of the unnamed young man, understood to have occurred about 20 years ago. Gosling has not been charged.
He was taken by police to a friend\'s house and was said by Digby Johnson, his solicitor, to be "cock-a-hoop" at being released and "delighted to get a break at this early stage [of the investigation]".
Johnson said detectives were continuing to investigate the case by searching properties, interviewing Gosling\'s friends and sifting through documentary evidence. He indicated Gosling gave the police substantial amounts of information that could lead to several months of further investigation.
The absence of a charge indicates he has stood firm by his resolution to withhold from the police the name of the victim, where he killed him and when.
Speaking outside Oxclose Lane police station in Nottingham, where Gosling was held overnight, Johnson said the police had been largely satisfied by his client\'s answers but he could not answer as to whether they were satisfied that the killing had happened.
"People do need to get some certainty on that," he said, adding that there was "no basis in fact" to rumours that Gosling was involved in the mercy killing not of the person he suggested but of someone closer to him.
Johnson said Gosling had been well-treated by police, but added that the 30-hour ordeal had taken its toll and that it had been "an awful experience".
"It will be some time until he can be sure whether this [televised confession] was a good idea or not," said Johnson. "He has been very surprised by the attention it has drawn. It is fair to say he thought this was a very short item on a regional TV programme and it wouldn\'t cause many ripples."
Police today interviewed at least one of Gosling\'s friends who knew him at the time of the killing. Yesterday it emerged that friends had known for more than a decade that he had killed his dying lover.
Gosling had claimed to have kept the killing secret, but close friends have revealed he confided in a small number of them. They did not tell police because they considered the actions he described to be assisted suicide.
They said he told them the killing took place about 20 years ago and that, although Gosling has so far described the unnamed victim as "a bit on the side", he had known him before he contracted Aids and during his illness. One friend also revealed that Gosling\'s pact with the man was two-way so that "if either of them were in a bad situation the other would do it".
Gosling was arrested at his home shortly after dawn yesterday after he admitted to the killing in a BBC programme broadcast on Monday night. Friends said Gosling had not expected to be arrested and had planned to travel to Barrow-in-Furness this week to make a Radio 4 documentary.
Detectives have examined the unedited footage of Gosling\'s feature for BBC East Midlands TV on Monday to establish whether there was any collusion with members of the crew who may have been told details of the crime. They are understood to be satisfied by Gosling\'s account that he decided to make the confession "there and then" when standing beside the grave of his long-term boyfriend, Bryn Allsop, for a piece to camera.
"He told me about it a long time ago," said Alan Horsfall, a fellow gay rights campaigner who has known Gosling for 40 years. "It came up in passing, he told me about it and that was that. He didn\'t make a big issue about it. It was some years after the event that he told me. I accepted it as assisted suicide.
"It was an act of great bravery, especially as he did it in a public place. I know the guy was in a bad state and Ray said they had a previous pact that if either of them was in a bad situation the other would do it."
Horsfall said it had not occurred to him to contact police and said he did not know the victim\'s name or where it happened. "He isn\'t a natural killer," he said. "It never occurred to me it was a crime."
"I was shocked but he described it in terms of an assisted suicide," said Bob Dickinson, a Radio 4 producer whom Gosling told about the killing last month. "I have known Ray for a long time, but he doesn\'t strike me as a murderer. He is a humane person. He is obsessed by the importance of ordinary people\'s lives. He knew he was going to use his own life as a story. He thought this could be another episode in his story."
The BBC defended its decision to broadcast the confession. "We believe we have handled the report sensitively and appropriately," a spokesman said yesterday. "We kept [Gosling] fully informed about our representation of his story in the report and he understood that a revelation of this nature could have a number of consequences.
"The BBC is under no legal obligation to refer the matter to the police in these circumstances, and since transmission we have been approached by the police and are co-operating fully."
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/feb/18/ray-gosling-police-bail
