A bestselling true crime author, and the crimes he’s accused of

一位畅销犯罪小说作家,以及他遭受指控的罪行

Today in Focus

2026-08-18

30 分钟
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Investigations correspondent Sirin Kale reports on the allegations of violence and sexual assault against author Christopher Berry-Dee. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/infocus
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  • This is The Guardian.

  • Today, the famous crime writer accused of rape and sexual assault.

  • Just before we start, a warning that today's episode does contain descriptions of sexual abuse and violence.

  • So this story starts in a family home in Southampton, and it's a very normal family home, red brick.

  • It's quite idyllic, actually, surrounded by fields, rolling countryside.

  • And in this house in the early 1990s lives a family.

  • So there's the father, who is a true crime writer called Christopher Berry Dee.

  • And he's living there with his second wife, Tracy, and their two young daughters, Zoe and Sasha.

  • This is Shirin Kale.

  • She is an investigative journalist at The Guardian.

  • Months ago, she and her reporting partner, Lucy Osborne,

  • started looking into Christopher Berry Dee and what was happening inside that house.

  • And what they discovered was almost as disturbing as one of his grisly true crime bestsellers.

  • Christopher Berry-D's profession, he's a true crime writer, his fascination particularly with serial killers,

  • his thing is that he gets inside these people's heads and the intention is for you,

  • the reader, to almost be there seeing the murder unfold in real time.

  • And how Berry-D's fascination with these killers seeped into the lives of his young family.

  • So you have in a wardrobe what's alleged to be the clothes that a nine-year-old girl was murdered in.

  • In a very famous murder case.

  • And later, when the family moves to another house nearby,