Sinister South

Join Rachel and Hannah on the Sinister South Podcast as they explore the shadowy corners of South London. Each episode digs into the gritty true crime stories that have left their mark on the local streets of South London. They’ll introduce you to the victims and dissect the mysteries while giving you a taste of the places these dramas unfolded. It’s not all doom and gloom; Rach and Han also have plenty of nonsense to chat about! So whether you're a true crime buff or just curious about the darker tales from their neck of the woods, pull up a chair, tune in and join the mischief! Want to get in touch with us, or request an episode? You can email us here: sinistersouthpodcast@gmail.com

Sinister South is a history podcast hosted by Rachel & Hannah, with 107 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Rachel & Hannah hosts Sinister South, a history show with 107 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  Episode #15

  Damian Chlywka & The Well at Audley Drive

  Aug 19, 20261h 30mS4

  In November 2013, gardeners clearing a garden in Warlingham, Surrey, found a body at the bottom of an old well. It had been there for two and a half years. The man was Damian Chlywka, a Polish national who had come to the UK to work and had been reported missing from Thornton Heath in April 2011. Ten men were arrested over the course of the investigation. None were ever charged. In 2015, an inquest recorded a verdict of unlawful killing, without ever establishing how Damian died. This week, Rach tells the story of a man who built a quiet life across south London and Surrey, and of an investigation that ran into dead end after dead end, two suspects who died before they could be questioned, a third who was never reachable, and a case that remains unsolved to this day. Trigger warning: this episode discusses violent assault, human remains, and the exploitation risks faced by migrant workers. Sources include https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/local-news/detectives-renew-appeal-information-warlingham-6670839 https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/warlingham-well-murder-suspect-released-6997364 https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/cause-death-man-found-well-9309639 https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/damian-chlywka-surrey-warlingham-suspicion-murder-well-526385 https://www.heart.co.uk/sussex/news/local/warlingham-body-down-well/ https://www.eastlondonlines.co.uk/2013/12/body-found-in-well-identified-as-croydon-resident/ https://www.itv.com/news/london/update/2013-11-30/family-of-well-murder-victim-distraught/ https://tvn24.pl/swiat/makabryczne-odkrycie-pod-londynem-w-studni-znaleziono-cialo-winni-polacy-ra372367-3449891 https://www.murdermap.co.uk/unsolved-murders/unsolved-homicides-2013/ https://crimeimmemorial.com/2023/08/04/damian-chlywka/ https://thecrimetalk.com/uk-true-crime/damian-chlywka/ http://www.unsolved-murders.co.uk/murder-content.php?key=2406&termRef=Damian+Chlywka https://www.facebook.com/StreetCrimeUK1/posts/hidden-in-a-well-the-unlawful-killing-of-damian-chlywka-and-a-death-still-withou/1208111654793635/ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-24979959 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-24998049 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-24977887 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-24966496 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-24971242 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-25165251 https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/body-of-man-found-in-warlingham-well-had-been-there-for-two-years-8948414.html https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/19/body-found-well-warlingham-two-years-tied-up https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/warlingham-body-well-identified-damian-2867157 Support the show Thanks for tuning in! If you loved diving into the dark corners of South London with us, don't forget to hit that subscribe button to never miss an episode of "Sinister South." Also, follow us on Instagram @SinisterSouthPodcast for sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes content, and more cheeky banter, or www.sinistersouthpod.co.uk . Remember, every crime tells a story... and South is the best side of the river... Produced and hosted by Hannah Williams & Rachel Baines Mixed & edited by Purple Waves Sound (A.K.A Will)

  ListenShow Notes
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  Episode #14

  The Takeaway Rembrandt

  Aug 12, 20261h 2mS4

  Today #Trevors, we head to Dulwich, an affluent part of south London where the crime also tends to have a bit of a "posh" edge to it! Hannah walks us through the story of the takeaway Rembrandt, a small painting by an old master that has been stolen more times than any other! So today's episode is more Oceans Eleven, than Seven but no less interesting! Think heists, capers and a dodgy man in the backroom of a Barclays bank! Plus the usual nonsense including unidentified bangs in the night and the start of a war over "Aunty Hannah". Support the show Thanks for tuning in! If you loved diving into the dark corners of South London with us, don't forget to hit that subscribe button to never miss an episode of "Sinister South." Also, follow us on Instagram @SinisterSouthPodcast for sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes content, and more cheeky banter, or www.sinistersouthpod.co.uk . Remember, every crime tells a story... and South is the best side of the river... Produced and hosted by Hannah Williams & Rachel Baines Mixed & edited by Purple Waves Sound (A.K.A Will)

  ListenShow Notes
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  Episode #13

  Bones, Blood and a Bishop: Alfege and the Vikings of Greenwich

  Aug 5, 20261h 19mS4

  "Today, we're going back to the year 1012." / "Oh, for f***'s sake. Here we go." In April 1012, the Archbishop of Canterbury was killed at a Viking camp in Greenwich, pelted with bones and finished off with the back of an axe. He had been held captive for seven months. He could have gone free at any point. He refused every time. This week we go back a thousand years to tell the story of Alfege, a man who spent his life trying to disappear and kept getting promoted instead, and who became the one person in two decades of national crisis to refuse to let his own people pay for his freedom. Content warning: this episode contains descriptions of violent death, captivity and mob violence. Support the show Thanks for tuning in! If you loved diving into the dark corners of South London with us, don't forget to hit that subscribe button to never miss an episode of "Sinister South." Also, follow us on Instagram @SinisterSouthPodcast for sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes content, and more cheeky banter, or www.sinistersouthpod.co.uk . Remember, every crime tells a story... and South is the best side of the river... Produced and hosted by Hannah Williams & Rachel Baines Mixed & edited by Purple Waves Sound (A.K.A Will)

  ListenShow Notes
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  Episode #12

  Solid Citizen: The Quiet Life and Brutal Death of Christopher Brown

  Jul 29, 20261h 18mS4

  In August 2024, 72-year-old solicitor Christopher Brown was killed in the Catford house he'd inherited from his parents and later put into joint names with Habiba Naveed, a younger woman he lived with. His cat, Snow, was killed too. The tabloids seized on Naveed's delusions — that she was Princess Diana's secret daughter, that she was Jesus sent to destroy evil — and Christopher nearly vanished from his own story. This episode puts him back at its centre: the quiet, patient family lawyer who spent his whole career at one Holloway Road firm and more than fifty years at Lewisham Chess Club, remembered as a genuinely kind and "too trusting" man. We trace the joint ownership of the house, Naveed's documented history of paranoid schizophrenia, repeated hospital admissions and relapse, and the final days when her family raised the alarm and the warning signs never quite connected. We work carefully through diminished responsibility, fitness to plead, and why the judge imposed an indefinite hospital order under Sections 37/41 rather than a prison sentence — and we're honest throughout about what the public record can and can't tell us. Content warning: serious mental illness, a fatal assault, and the killing of an animal. Sources include but are not limited to: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gdg4nlr91o https://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/24531951.woman-accused-murdering-catford-landlord-stabbing-cat/ https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/cat-stabbed-murder-catford-landlord-london-pensioner-old-bailey-b1177417.html https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy0nwzw1x3go https://uk.news.yahoo.com/woman-said-she-jesus-sent-160813917.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/20/woman-accused-of-murdering-landlord-and-stabbing-cat/ https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Naveed-sentence.pdf https://news.met.police.uk/news/woman-jailed-for-manslaughter-after-death-of-landlord-499579 https://www.legalfutures.co.uk/latest-news/solicitors-tenant-jailed-after-being-convicted-of-his-murder https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn02gyw7542o https://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/24888171.lewisham-woman-admits-killing-christopher-brown/ https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/who-habiba-naveed-woman-who-claims-princess-dianas-daughter-accused-attacking-landlord-1739412 https://uknip.co.uk/news/uk/uk-news/woman-detained-indefinitely-after-killing-landlord-and-pet-cat-in-south-london/ https://www.landlordzone.co.uk/news/tenant-remanded-in-custody-following-landlord-death Support the show Thanks for tuning in! If you loved diving into the dark corners of South London with us, don't forget to hit that subscribe button to never miss an episode of "Sinister South." Also, follow us on Instagram @SinisterSouthPodcast for sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes content, and more cheeky banter, or www.sinistersouthpod.co.uk . Remember, every crime tells a story... and South is the best side of the river... Produced and hosted by Hannah Williams & Rachel Baines Mixed & edited by Purple Waves Sound (A.K.A Will)

  ListenShow Notes
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  Episode #11

  A taste of Patreon - Sinister Stories

  Jul 22, 20261 hourS4

  Small change of plan this week. A technical issue took out the episode that was meant to be landing today, and rather than leave you with nothing, we're opening up one of our Patreon-only Sinister Stories instead. So this one is a deviation from the usual. No case file, no victim, no court reports. Sinister Stories is our bonus strand for £10 and up patrons, where the only rule is that the story is strange, sinister or otherwise just bloomin interesting. It doesn't have to be true crime and it doesn't have to be South London, though on this occasion Rach has managed to keep it the right side of the river. The subject is the Thames foot tunnels at Woolwich and Greenwich. How they were built, who fought for them and what they meant for workers south of the river, followed by the stranger stuff: the Woolwich time slip claims that surfaced during the 2010 refurbishment, the Victorian couple said to walk the Greenwich tunnel, and the infrasound and psychology that might explain a fair bit of it. Plus a detour through the Blackwall hitchhiker, Liverpool's Bold Street, the Edinburgh vaults and a lost street under Soho. Normal service resumes next week. Support the show Thanks for tuning in! If you loved diving into the dark corners of South London with us, don't forget to hit that subscribe button to never miss an episode of "Sinister South." Also, follow us on Instagram @SinisterSouthPodcast for sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes content, and more cheeky banter, or www.sinistersouthpod.co.uk . Remember, every crime tells a story... and South is the best side of the river... Produced and hosted by Hannah Williams & Rachel Baines Mixed & edited by Purple Waves Sound (A.K.A Will)

  ListenShow Notes

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