Murdered for what he knew: Bulic Forsythe

In this episode, recorded amid cat flap dramas, church hall trauma, and a frankly terrifying inflatable dinosaur, we dive into one of the most disturbing and under-reported cases in South London’s history: the murder of Bulic Forsythe.

In February 1993, Bulic a civil servant working in Lambeth Council’s social services department was found bludgeoned to death in his Brixton flat. The flat had been set on fire, the gas tampered with, and key documents were missing. Officially, the case remains unsolved. Unofficially, those who’ve followed it closely believe Bulic was murdered because of what he knew and what he was about to expose.

In this episode, we examine Bulic’s life, what he may have uncovered about abuse in Lambeth care homes, and why, more than 30 years later, no one has been held accountable. It’s a story of institutional failure, cover-ups, and the price some pay for trying to do the right thing.

⚠️ Warning: this episode contains discussion of child abuse, sexual violence, and arson. Please take care when listening.

Sources include: 

https://www.iicsa.org.uk/reports-recommendations/publications/investigation/lambeth-council/part-f-culture-lambeth-council/f4-bullying-intimidation-and-racism.html

https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/f703dce3-d959-43b7-a587-3d37d9fce13b/episodes/bfaa46b3-e752-4492-9c74-0eae46bd71c6/the-unseen-podcast-bulic-forsythe

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/616d627fd3bf7f5604d83c8c/Lambeth-care-IICSA-investigation.pdf

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/clough_report_harris_report_and

https://newsfromcrystalpalace.wordpress.com/2020/08/28/background-to-the-news-the-reports/

https://www.iicsa.org.uk/reports-recommendations/publications/investigation/lambeth-council/part-f-culture-lambeth-council/f2-corruption.html

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• 22:41 (Cont.) Murdered for what he knew: Bulic Forsythe

Transcript

Ep 24 - Bulic Forsythe

Hello, I'm Rachel and Hannah and this is the Sinister South podcast, a podcast all about the nefarious ongoings sare for the river. Indeed. Hello, how are you? Hello, I'm fine, thank you darling.

Good. Stressy, McStress face. Ah yes.

But, life. Life. I had cat injuries.

I know, I do feel like we should tell the Trevors because this is how dedicated to this podcast Hannah is. Is that she had major cat issues. Major cat issues.

And yet it's still in the tiny shed tonight recording. Always. Would never miss it.

Nearly missed it. But, no, we will do it. Do it.

Yes, poor Rupert, the, my oldest, my firstborn, has got himself into some kind of mischief either with a very large cat, because he's a very large cat, or potentially a fox or a dog or something bigger than him. So, yeah, it was limping and cones of shame and emergency vets and trying to get him to take a tablet and not letting him go outside and trying to convince him to have a wee in the litter tray, which he does not want to do. But his little brother is made up.

Just keeps weeing in there. I might say it's not for you, you little shit. Get out.

He's telling you secondborns are absolutely powerful. I don't even really have to walk very far. Get out.

You're allowed outside. And I had frustration where I've got one of those fancy pants, bloody cat flaps that's meant to go on there. You basically hold them in it for a while and it registers their chip.

And there is a way where you can make it like you can suspend egress or entry for one chip and not the other and stuff. So I was trying to do that so that Sid could get in and out and we couldn't but couldn't work that out. So I ended up just locking the cat flap that has honestly I've never seen two cats more upset about something.

Bear in mind they fucking hate using the cat flap and go out the kitchen window regardless. No, no, no. Now that they can't use the cat flap.

Oh, yeah. The distress. Again, they are just like kids.

The moment you tell them no, you can't have that thing. That's the moment that they're like, but I want it. That's my favorite thing.

I know as soon as I take that little tray out the bathroom, he's just gonna piss everywhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So yes, now I'm very panicky that I don't, you know, on top of a wound and antibiotics and all that shit.

I'm now gonna end up with him having a bladder infection or something. So we're playing it by ear. Well, bless you.

But it was like, I got distracted. I was like, yeah, I'll be over. I'll be over.

And I was like, I'll leave mine at seven or whatever. And I looked up from holding the cat on the litter tray trying to get him to go. I was like, well, it's 727.

So you're not gonna be there at half past I have. Oh, it was fine. It gave me time to spruce up the tiny shed.

Very, very clean in here. Did some spring cleaning to put the air con in lovely stuff. Because yeah, it's been hot.

It's been very hot. It's been hot. I had a child's birthday party on hottest day of the year.

Yeah. That was that was good. Well, if no one passed out from heat stroke, no one passed out.

No, exactly. We were all good. We did have a slightly angry man.

We hired an entertainer. And he was very good. And the kids had a whale of a time.

And the parents who came all said, Oh, he was really good. It was great. Like, you know, they all had a lovely time.

It was fun. But I just was like, does he? Does he know that this is a five year old's birthday party? And five year olds notoriously don't ever sit still. And he was just constantly being like, right, well, I'm gonna put your name on a list and you won't get a balloon animal.

I just don't. Yeah. What did he think was gonna happen? And does he usually do this entertainment for 25 year olds? Like, honestly, I don't know the man.

He had a previous party the same day like it. I had to change venues to be able to accommodate. Yeah, I remember now.

Like, yeah, so like, and he's got brilliant reviews, like, and he was really good. And as I say, like, my, my, he just had a crisis of confidence. I don't know if it was maybe the heat had gotten to him as well.

But yeah, and then I was just being a random little weirdo with a major social anxiety attack going on surrounded by all my five year olds, schoolmates and people you invited. It's not even strange. The people that I've invited and people that I've spoken to numerous times.

But I was just like, Oh, no, I can't speak to people today. Brains do what brains do. It's very true.

It's very true. But yeah, it was good. That's one one done.

Only one more to go. Did we'll get to keep the inflatable dinosaur costume. He did not get to keep the inflatable dinosaur costume.

It belonged to the entertainer man. But apparently he goes through eight of them a year. Wow.

Because he gets all the dads to go in them. And it's usually trying it depending on how large daddies and things like that trying to trying to get this. So yeah, we're within an inflatable T-Rex costume in 40 degree heat, being chased around a hall by small children.

Well, yeah, yeah, it was quite amusing. It was funny when we walked up and and the church is the church that we had the whole hobby hired from is a Catholic church. And it's where my big one does beavers, right, like all that.

So we knew the whole it's all great. It's the first time I've ever met the priest. Okay.

And I didn't even meet him. We'll did we went to go and get the keys. And he was apparently very he had very exacting standards.

He had to tell you told will exactly how to put the chairs back. Well, I mean, having a dinosaur themed party in a Catholic church does feel very you. But this was the thing that we'll start putting on music while we were setting up.

And it's like, and I was going, Well, you've got to be so careful. Like, you were gonna go up in smoke, right? It's gonna happen. He was just like, I know it is.

But even for me, I'm feeling a little bit awkward. I don't my favorite, like, inappropriate song choice was someone I used to know, used to DJ. Yeah.

And got asked to DJ at. It was like a family function thing. Right.

But it was like the retirement of something I was trying to do with the church as well. Like it was old people. Yes.

Yeah. And he kind of took his eye off the ball and like, mix just mixed in the next song. Yeah, like it was one he knew whatever.

And it was Iggy Azalea's 212. And I don't know if a lot of the song. Very explicit.

Oh, I love it. Oh, I love it. I guess that's the UNTs getting eaten.

Yeah, it's the main line in the call. Oh, good. Oh, good.

So that was fun. Just sat there in the backlight. Oh, you did not mean to do the look of panic.

On his face. Because it makes it even more over if you change it. You can't just go home, but they haven't been listening to you.

Like, so you've just got to hope you've been doing such a shit job so far. They're not listening anyway, stuff anyway. Oh, goodness me.

That's the thing. Because like, in the area around here, there's only like one place that has that you can hire for parties that isn't connected in some way to a religious institution. And I always try and book that one because Will and I are the sort of people that will burst into flames if we walk into a church.

But they were just like, no, not in the summer. You can't have it. It's all booked up.

Everyone else in the community is using the community centre. Fuck's sake. Get out of the community.

Exactly. Stop it. So we had no choice but to go to a church.

We had one last year for my big one. No, year before last for my big one. And it was the same there where we sort of like turned up to meet the priest and get the keys and stuff.

And you're kind of suddenly very conscious of what you're wearing. And like, is it this? Well, you better not be wearing that fucking T-shirt with the nun masturbating on it. For God's sake.

Was it you that? Oh, no, I've just realised this might be sad. Wasn't it you? When someone wasn't very well? Yeah. Didn't you have to like you had to go and stay somewhere for a while? And you'd packed a load of stuff and didn't you have a T-shirt that was just like, death's near or something and you were visiting someone that was dying? I don't think that was me.

I'm sure it was you and Will and I well, you can cut this out if you want. I'm pretty sure it was when his dad was ill. And you went oh yeah, you have a T-shirt you'll die tomorrow.

Yeah, it wasn't me. That was Will again. It was Will's T-shirt.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just sort of like, oh, okay, this is fine. But I think there's a big picture.

Just like, I'm coming for you. Yeah. See you tomorrow.

Yeah, we do. Yeah, I do have to be very careful. It's the same as whenever I go to the school, I have to check what T-shirt I'm wearing.

What have I got on? It's like, am I wearing the one that says, I've got one from the pub, the Dev. And on the front, it's fine. It just says the Devinshire Arms.

It's great. On the back, it says loud and fucking proud. And so it's like, I went to one of my big ones concerts and I was wearing it.

Yeah, and so I was like, right, it's fine. I've got a cardigan on like it's cold outside. I'm not going to need to take it off.

It's fine. And then I got into the hall and obviously that one day was hotter than the sun and I was just sitting there going no, I'm fine. Thank you.

I don't need to take off my jumper. It's fine. Yeah, I do have to be careful with that.

Oh dear. Or when you accidentally wear your Lawn Ashore T-shirt that's got an inverted pentagram and a baphomet on it. What the fuck's a baphomet? The goat statue demon thing.

It's symbolic. You said it to me, oh yes, the goat, of course. But yeah, apparently he wore his Lawn Ashore T-shirt and his two very religious workmates said that they weren't pleased with it.

And his response was, well, don't look at it then. Oh dear. Gosh.

There we go. Anyway, anyway. Have you got a story for me? Yeah.

You're doing that face you do when you're like, I don't really want to do it, Rach. Oh, I love the podcast. I do.

But sometimes I stress myself out, don't I? You do a little bit. You do. I just, I seem to pick cases where it's like, why can't one person just murder one person, then everybody knows who murdered who and why.

And then I tell the story and everyone goes to bed. Why do I, my interest is only peaked if there's fucking thousands of pages of legal documents to try and read through and I'm in the National Archive being like, okay, and now this. And then, oh, and is that NHS? Or is that the council? And what's that been? Where's the misconduct? But, oh, did you get anywhere with the National Archives? Fadely, yeah.

Because I'm still fucking waiting for margins. I was lucky that you'll see some of the report was actually quite recent. So a lot of it was digitised.

Even though it was from 80s and 90s. It was all digitised fairly recently. Oh, nice.

Okay. There's 1012 sources for this that will be in the show notes that are scattered around the six different versions of this case that I've written. So that'd be a nice job for me to try and consolidate all of those for Rachel.

Um, I do always caveat it with sources include. Yeah, just find the ones that you can find and that'll be fine. But yes, bear with me.

I will always just be kind to me. I'm very stressed. Okay.

Um, I've also written it slightly differently to how I normally do. Okay. Only in that I've given myself quite clear section headings because otherwise it was getting a bit confusing.

So some of the transitional paragraphs might not be as much. That's the end of that section. And now we're talking about this.

Fine, fine, fine, fine. Okay, we're happy with that. We're happy.

Number one, introduction. In the early 90s, Brixton was a place of contradictions, still bruised from the unrest of the 80s. It was, it was a community in flux, vibrant and resilient, but weighed down by austerity, institutional neglect, and deep distrust in authority.

Council Estates stood shoulder to shoulder with Victorian terraces, reggae and gospel poured out of community centres, even as social services crumbled under budget cuts and bureaucracy. It was a place where people looked out for each other, but also where people knew when to keep their heads down. In February of 1993, a man named Bulick Forsyth was found dead in his flat in Foster Court off of Shakespeare Road.

His skull had been shattered with a blunt object. His flat had been set on fire. The gas supply had been tampered with in an apparent attempt to cause a huge explosion that probably would have taken out the entire building.

Christ! It wasn't just a brutal killing. It was a message. But from whom and why? Intrigue.

More than 30 years on, the murder remains officially unsolved. Yet to many of those who knew him, or have examined the case, or even just read stuff online, it's never really been a mystery. Right.

Bulick Forsyth, a civil servant working in Lambeth Council's social services department, was a man who asked difficult questions about money, about safety, most troublingly about the abuse of vulnerable children and adults in the care of the local authority. This episode does not claim to solve the case. I do not claim to solve the case.

Instead, I have gathered what is known, and what has long been alleged, about the circumstances leading up to Bulick's death. It examines who he was, what he may have discovered, and why his name still matters in conversations about whistleblowing, child protection, and institutional accountability. And it begins not with conspiracy or corruption, but with the man himself.

So number two, who was Bulick Forsyth? Bulick was, by all accounts, a man with two lives. Not in the clandestine sense, but in the way that many of us are. There was the professional version, dedicated, principled and meticulous, or meticulous, depends on how you want to read.

And then there was the private man, warm, sociable and funny. Both versions mattered, and both would become significant in the aftermath of his murder. Bulick was born in Jamaica and moved to the UK in his youth.

I couldn't find the exact date. He eventually settled in South London and built a life that straddled responsibility and hope. By the early 90s, he was working as an officer within Lambeth Council.

Many said it was social services, some places said it was housing, some places said he'd actually quite recently changed departments, so that's why there's a bit of double reporting on where he was officially. And some people call him just a service manager, some say he was an office manager. So I've kind of gone with the most official source and then gone with that.

But either way, he worked as an officer within Lambeth Council. His duties were primarily overseeing premises management across 10 buildings. His job might have appeared logistical on paper, but colleagues quickly recognised his dedication went far beyond facilities.

He was trusted with internal policy documents, particularly those concerning health and safety, and he took the job very seriously, sometimes too seriously for the liking of others. He was described by some as overzealous, but also as someone whose bark was much worse than his bite. His criticisms of how things were run, from fire safety to office parking, were usually delivered sharply, but they were rooted in deep concern for others.

According to a former colleague featured on Crime Watch, Bulick had, quote, a very genuine concern for the welfare of staff and residents. He had a reputation for being efficient, conscientious, and absolutely unwilling to look the other way when systems failed. Good on him.

Despite this professional presence, many who worked with Bulick knew little about his personal life. He kept it mostly to himself, but there were a few who knew him beyond the office. Some friends from Clapham, reportedly some friends from the local gay scene around Clapham, and from his local community, some of whom had visited the flat.

One friend later recalled that while his outward personality was easygoing and upbeat, being fond of music, parties, and pool, he may also have been quite lonely in his private hours. It's hard. It basically just didn't seem to let a lot of people in.

Yeah, okay. But then he also didn't seem to be like, completely guarded and walls up all the time. Yeah, he's not reclusive.

No. So in 1990, he married an American woman, what a woman living in America, right called Dawn. Their relationship marked a shift in his life.

And in 1992, he found out he was going to become a father for the first time. He was 42 years old and elated. He is quoted as Dawn says that Bulick said, I can't believe this at my age, I'm going to be a father.

Somebody up there must really love me. Oh, bless him. Their daughter was due in May 1993.

Dawn had been planning to move to London permanently, but delays meant she was still in the US at the time of Bulick's death. In the weeks before he was killed, Bulick had been preparing for fatherhood, finishing work projects, planning his home, and proudly sharing the news with friends and family. Dawn later joked that he couldn't keep it to himself, quote, as soon as I hung up, he called everyone, the whole family, he called his friends, and I heard he went to the pub and told everybody there too.

His personal and professional worlds were about to change dramatically, however, and he wouldn't live to see his daughter be born. Oh, no. So now we're going to jump to section three, which is the timeline.

Okay. And again, stop, I can hear my mum stop caveating yourself all the time. There, I've gone with basically a version, the version of events that was on crime watch.

Fine. And you can watch it on YouTube. Okay.

So on Wednesday, the 24th of February 1993, Bulick Forsyth was last seen leaving Lambeth Council's headquarters around 5pm. It had been a normal working day. And according to a colleague, he had recently completed a major internal report, one he said he'd been working on for about six weeks.

It is reported that he said by the Lyfts, it's all done. I'm really pleased. So I'm going home to get an early night.

That night, neighbours recall seeing activity at Bulick's flat in Foster Court. One local resident remembered seeing three men leaving the building around dusk. They were carrying briefcases and folders and looked, in the residents words, official.

She didn't recognise them as local, she'd never seen them before. And their appearance struck her enough that she noted it down and mentioned it to the police later. Yeah.

On the morning of Thursday, the 25th of February, one of Bulick's neighbours, whose bedroom sat directly above his, noted that they'd not heard Bulick's alarm clock, which usually went off well before 9am every morning. Yeah. And it's kind of how she knew to get up.

Right. Yeah. I don't need to set one because his will wake me up.

Yeah. But on that day, there was silence. At 9am, she stepped out and noticed something else strange.

Bulick's curtains were wide open and that was really unlike him. Right. Apparently.

Okay. A colleague from the council then tried to reach him when he didn't turn up for work. He wasn't answering his phone and it was wildly out of the ordinary for Bulick not to come into work or not to get in touch if he couldn't make it.

Yeah. Concerned, she went to Foster Court after work. That was at about 5pm.

She noticed that the curtains were shut tight. Oh, okay. She knocked, but there was no response.

Later that night, around 1am-ish, some of these times are a bit scatty. Yeah. Around 1am-ish, the same resident who had seen the three men with the briefcases the day before, noticed a white car parked behind the flats.

Two well-dressed men were inside. One had black hair, the other brown. They were staring at her as she passed by them.

Quote, they were gazing at me. I've lived here 18 years and I've never seen a car parked there before. So kind of around the same time, another resident was jolted awake by the sound of heavy footsteps racing down a set of stairs at the back of the building.

Unfortunately, by the time they kind of woke up enough and got to the window, they didn't see anyone. Right. But they did report to the police that it definitely sounded like people fleeing.

Okay. Then at some point in the early hours of Friday, the 26th of February, a neighbour was woken by the smell of smoke. They'd gone to, they went to Bulick's door, followed the smell and looked through the letterbox and could see flames.

So they obviously raised the alarm and the fire brigade responded really quickly. Inside the flat, firefighters found a grim scene. Bulick Forsyth's body lay in the back bedroom showing signs of repeated and brutal blows to the head.

He'd been murdered well before the fire began. Christ. Investigators quickly determined that the blaze had been started deliberately, that there was an overwhelming amount of accelerant used and even more chilling was the discovery that the gas supply had been tampered with.

As I said before, had the fire reached it, the resulting explosion could have obliterated the building and killed all the residents. That's horrible. Some of Bulick's personal items were missing from the scene, most notably a silver Rolex Oyster watch, which has never been recovered.

And in the early stages of the investigation, police treated the case as a murder with arson intended to destroy evidence and Bulick's body. There was no sign of forced entry suggesting that Bulick knew or wasn't scared of his killers. A murder inquiry was launched, but progress was slow and within days it was clear to everyone that the investigation would be complex and politically sensitive.

But one item was overtly missing, Bulick's report. Oh, okay. So section four, the initial investigation and the focus on Bulick's personal life.

From the moment Bulick's body was discovered, the police treated the case as a murder. The signs were unmistakable, a violent attack followed by the arson attempt and the tampering. Yet despite the brutality of the crime and the early presence of potential witnesses, the investigation struggled to gain any traction.

And crucially, it seemed to start by asking all the wrong questions. Rather than focusing or even kind of gazing at Bulick's professional life, including all the recent work he was very vocal about having completed, investigators initially honed in on his private world. His sexuality became a point of intense scrutiny, mainly because he had friends from Clapham.

And occasionally, now again, this is a bit of a bit more hearsay, but or I don't know. In some things you'll read, it was kind of a bit like, did he actually or did the police just say this? Right. Some people said no, he did frequent gay bars.

But that doesn't mean you can go to a gay bar without being gay. Like, and he had friends in the area. And he had gay friends.

Yeah. But yes, the police really focused in on that. And they were seemingly the only people, the friends from from that area were the only people that were really questioned in the beginning.

Oh, for God's sake. Police reportedly asked whether Bulick had been hosting lots of visitors in his in his flat, and whether jealousy, romantic entanglements or personal grievances could have played a role. So this line of inquiry was not completely unfounded.

Bulick had been seen with two unidentified men at a nearby off license a few times in the weeks leading up to his death. One of them was described as scruffy, wearing tight blue jeans and a casual jacket with blue eyes and unkempt fair hair. The other often lingered in the doorway.

Neither appeared on the shop security footage. And one the other, the one in the doorway in particular seemed to know where the camera was. Right, okay.

There was no evidence these men were linked to any kind of personal dispute. And even less to suggest that Bulick could have been in any kind of conflict with any of those in his social life. Like not even people didn't even report like, oh, we'd had a bit of a row with Tony or whatever, like nothing like that.

Okay. Meanwhile, other elements of the case seemed to receive less immediate attention. There were no signs of forced entry to the flat, a detail that suggested Bulick may have known and let in his killer.

Important documents were missing. But there was little public mention of what they might have contained. And most significantly, Bulick's role within Lambeth Council and his access to sensitive internal information went largely unexamined in the early weeks of the investigation.

The prevailing media coverage mirrored this focus. Much was made of his, quote, private nature, and of how little was known about his personal relationships. Less attention was paid to his reputation as a meticulous council officer.

One who took his responsibilities seriously was not afraid to ask quite uncomfortable questions. In hindsight, this narrow framing would come to look less like a valid line of inquiry, and more like a diversion, intentional or not, from the institutional forces that may have played a role in his death. It would be months before any meaningful investigation into Bulick's professional activities began, and years before any serious reckoning with what he might have uncovered.

So, section five is our first side quest. Oh, excellent. It is titled, Chaos at the Council.

I love it. So, to understand what Bulick Forsyth may have stumbled into, we first need to understand the state of Lambeth Council in the years leading up to his death. It was not by any standard a well-functioning institution.

The late 80s and early 90s were marked by financial collapse, staff instability, and chronic managerial dysfunction across Lambeth's departments, but nowhere more so than in social services. Following the disqualification of more of more than 30 councillors for failing to set a lawful budget, the council was left politically hollowed out, with new members taking over amid chaos. Staff recruitment freezes meant key roles went unfilled.

Senior leaders were ousted or replaced, and those that remained were left managing with skeletal teams and unclear authority. Dr Josephine Kowali, Assistant Director for Children's Services between 87 and 89, later described the environment as, quote, extremely challenging. In evidence given to an independent inquiry, which we'll come on to later, she was quoted as saying, it was very difficult at that time to stay focused on service delivery.

There were recruitment freezes. There were gaps in senior and middle management. We were working excessively long hours against the backdrop of budgetary and strategic pressures.

There were significant management gaps in the services. Alongside colleague Robert Morton, Kowali co-authored a damning internal report in 1988 that highlighted dangerous failings in care, record keeping, and oversight. The report stated, quote, children had been admitted to our homes because of bad practice, lack of resources, and poor planning.

A number of homes are in a very poor state, with few resources and little to commend them. The report went on to state that field workers were placing children in residential care as a, quote, easy option, and that many homes lacked basic medical or legal documentation for children in their care. Kowali testified that some young people, including children under the age of five, were being referred to residential placements without due cause or long-term planning.

It was, she said, a culture of crisis management and institutional neglect. Behind the scenes, fraud and misconduct were widespread. In 1986, for example, a senior officer was quietly allowed to remain in post despite having a criminal conviction for an indecent assault on a minor, a conviction that had gone undisclosed for years.

When it finally surfaced, the internal disciplinary process was so disorganized that management failed to even request the man's personnel file. What? A year later, another children's home, a children's homes officer was dismissed following a scandal in which donated food intended for children's homes was being siphoned off for personal use. Oh, for God's sake.

The systematic problems weren't just about individual bad actors. They reflect, they reflected a culture that protected power and punished dissent. Whistleblowers marginalized, frontline staff were left unsupported, and a pattern of bullying, racism and intimidation permeated both the residential care system and the council leadership.

In one particularly disturbing passage of the report, witnesses described a culture where, quote, managers accused staff who raised concerns of being racist or disloyal. Reports were suppressed or rewritten completely. Those who asked questions were reassigned, sidelined or completely pushed out.

By the early 1990s, Lambeth's internal controls were so weak that many insiders believed the council was not just dysfunctional, but actively unsafe, particularly for the vulnerable children it was supposed to be protecting. It was in this environment that Bulick Forsyth found himself. By the time of his death, he had been asked to assist with internal policy documents, including, some believe, reviews connected to the safety and oversight of care facilities.

Right. If Bulick discovered anything incriminating, he would have found himself in a system designed to bury problems, not resolve them. And in a council where others had been ignored, silenced, or worse, for asking the wrong questions, it's not hard to see why his death still casts a long shadow.

Anecdotally, in this section as well, in a review, and it was on Channel 4, kind of true crime thing about the case. They actually found in a stack of documents that Bulick had resigned. He'd given his notice, basically saying, I'm not going to get the quote exactly right, because I, for some reason, have decided not to write it down.

But basically saying you're not, I'm being hamstringed here. Like, you're not, you know, I can't do my job properly. No one can.

Yeah. You know, I'm really unhappy. No one seems to be listening.

Like, we don't know why he then didn't resign. But it's even like, in the context of Dawn being in America, there had been conversations about him going over there to live with her. But he had said no, because he didn't want to leave his job.

So like, in all of this chaos, there's, you know, there's all these kind of strings that no one seems to have tied together. So financial misconduct, mismanagement and bullying had plagued Glamour Council for years. And that would have been bad enough.

But as grim as the culture of chaos and cover ups was, it may have only been the surface. There were growing signs that something even darker lay beneath the dysfunction, whispers of abuse, exploitation, and organised protection for those responsible had begun to circulate inside and outside of the council. If Bulek had started to ask questions about money, structure or power, there's a real possibility actually had uncovered something far more dangerous, a system that not only failed vulnerable children, but allowed them to be abused, protected and protected those who did it.

So what was Bulek investigating? So by 1993, Bulek had spent several years working at Lambeth Council in various different departments. And while he wasn't directly involved in children's residential care, he operated close enough to know when something didn't add up. Yeah.

In the weeks before his death, Bulek told colleagues and friends that he was working on something significant, a major piece of internal work that had taken him at least six weeks. He wouldn't say much about what that report involved. That in itself was quite unusual for him.

He was normally very open and quite straightforward. But this time he was really cautious. And if his silence wasn't enough to raise alarm, it was the fact that he told his sister he feared for his safety.

Certainly was. So while the full contents of Bulek's report can't be disclosed because no one can ever find it, multiple testimonies suggest it may have contained or led him to information far more dangerous than financial misconduct. Through the late 1980s and early 1990s, Lambeth Council's residential care homes were the setting for organised and sustained sexual abuse.

Children, many of them very vulnerable or with very complex needs, were exploited by those who were supposed to protect them. In some cases, the abuse was opportunistic. In others, it appeared heavily coordinated.

One survivor, a woman who gave evidence anonymously to an independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, described being trafficked from Lambeth's children's home to private parties attended by older men. She recalled being drugged and assaulted repeatedly. But one incident did stand out to her.

She was taken to a flat for what she thought was another arranged encounter. There were several men in suits and the mood felt a lot darker than usual, even more threatening than it had done. However, she seemed to notice that one man looked completely out of place.

He wasn't laughing with the others. He wasn't participating. He looked, in her words, quite concerned.

Years and years later, when she was shown a photograph of Bulic, she believed that that man was him. Oh. If true, that encounter places Bulic in the same orbit as the abuse that he may have been investigating.

Right. And what happened next to the woman strengthens that suspicion. Okay.

After being dropped back to the children's home where she lived, she entered her room and was immediately struck by a smell. Her bed had been completely soaked in petrol. It hadn't been lit, but it didn't need to be.

The message was very clear. Keep quiet. Oh, fucking hell.

It's like the stuff of a horrible TV show. A second account, separate but just as harrowing, came from a Lambeth council employee, an adult woman working within the same machinery Bulic was part of. She gave evidence to the independent inquiry detailing how she'd been targeted, drugged and sexually assaulted on multiple occasions by colleagues in the council.

According to her testimony, one of the men who abused her told her that she'd been selected because she was, quote, small and looked childlike. Oh, fuck off. And disturbingly, that she was a stand in for real children.

Oh, she believed she was used as a proxy, someone they could brutalise under the guise of consent or access, while still fulfilling the same violent impulses. So on one occasion, quite a few years later, I think, again, she was anonymous. So then it's hard to kind of piece together whether that anonymous person is the same as that anonymous person.

Yeah, I believe it's the same woman. So she she had seen a solicitor and had given a statement about the abuse because it was happened multiple times. It also happened on multiple properties.

Right. Okay. In multiple properties.

Sorry. Including like the headquarters and stuff. Right.

It's all fucking horrific. So she'd gone to a solicitor. She'd written a statement and given that statement to the police and it had literally nothing had happened.

And then quite soon after that, she was in bed in her home. And she woke up because she had a sudden like, there was really cold liquid around her neck. Oh, no, no.

They'd literally poured petrol on her and all over the bed. And the only reason she woke up was because it had pulled by her neck. And then in one account of this story, it had been lit.

And it started to smolder in the there was someone in the room standing there at the end of her bed. They had legged it and she had to wait until she knew that they definitely left before she could leave. So she kind of just froze in a burning bed.

No, until she could get out. Oh my god. And yeah, she took it as a warning that they could reach her even in her own home.

And she moved completely out of London. Basically, there's a lot of different accounts where people then just this anonymous person now lives in Manchester. This anonymous person now lives in Yorkshire.

This is completely uprooted their lives and left because they were so terrified. And that's even that's not just victims. That's also people that that were just kind of vaguely involved in the outskirts of a bit or like reporting it or talking like, even just talking about it.

Oh, God. So there's a woman called Anna Tapsell. And she's the she was the chair of Lambeth Social Services Committee.

And she tried really hard to expose the corruption that she'd seen and then later on the abuse that she saw unfolding. And she'd raised concerns about residential homes, patterns of allegations and the willful inaction of senior leaders. And after Bulick's death, she made her position very clear, quote, the only thing I can think of is that he came across something he really shouldn't have seen.

Tapsell submitted written evidence to the independent inquiry claiming that she had been told directly that Bulick's death was linked to material he had uncovered about abuse networks operating within the borough, including potential connections to political or judicial figures. Fucking hell, you have to be so brave to put that. She's insane.

She's so cool. But I mean, it's fucking horrific what happened to her like she was getting threatening phone calls and stuff like telling her to shut up and keep her mouth shut. To the point where she was so scared.

She split her two children up and made them go and live in completely separate places that they because she was like, they'll kill my children. Oh my god. Oh, no.

This is a movie. This is a movie. Madness.

One of the most infamous pieces of shit to emerge from Lambeth's catalogue of abusers was Les Paul, a senior member of staff at South Vale Children's Home. And reportedly, or allegedly, he was also a police special constable. Okay.

But he was also known to children as both someone to be incredibly scared of and absolutely untouchable. Les Paul was finally convicted in 2002 on multiple counts of rape, indecent assault and cruelty to children. His case exposed not only his own actions, but also the systematic negligence that had allowed him to flourish, despite him also having known convictions before he was hired.

I've been purposefully quite short about him because I think he could be a case on his own. Okay, fair. So it's obviously important for this story, because Paul wasn't an outlier.

He was actually emblematic of the whole system. And he was a predator that was sheltered by bureaucracy and silence, empowered by indifference or the complicity of those around him. So years later, in I think it was the late 1990s, I'm pretty sure it was 1998, Detective Chief Inspector Clive Driscoll began re-examining historical files related to abuse in Lambeth.

And he quickly realised that there was a complete pattern of non-investigation. Loads of files were missing. People have been left in post, even though they were being investigated.

And allegations, some allegations were just completely not pursued. And he went into kind of a cupboard in a police station. And that's where he found Bulick's lead file.

So, again, it's a bit, what's the word? Allegedly, whatever, like, but Driscoll was starting to build a case. But he was informed that his inquiry would not reach anywhere, completely removed from the investigation without explanation. What? He later told the Independent Inquiry that he believed Bulick Forsyth's death was linked to what he had discovered, and that those responsible had never been brought to justice.

This really does have it all. It's just mad, isn't it? They're so like, I want to go in depth enough because it's, you know, it's Bulick's case. But also, there's so much here that we could spend, legitimately spend an hour discussing each part.

So there are some of this that it might seem like I'm glossing over now. But I think it's because otherwise, this would be 26 hours long. I've got the opposite of the Patreon problem.

I've got too much information and I'm scared. Now we're on part 46. So by the time the Independent Inquiry's report into Lambeth was published in 2021.

What? The picture was unmistakable. This wasn't just mismanagement. It was active suppression.

Files were tampered with or disappeared completely. Whistleblowers were sidelined. Staff and survivors were silenced with fear or worse.

The abuse in Lambeth wasn't isolated to a few bad actors or even a handful of homes. It was widespread and it was repeated and it was known about. According to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, between the 1960s and 1990s, there were at least 705 allegations of sexual abuse involving 326 individuals connected to Lambeth run children's homes.

These numbers are stark, but they still could potentially underrepresent the truth. The Shirley Oaks Survivors Association estimates that the actual number of abused children may exceed 1800. Many victims never reported what happened, fearing disbelief, shame or retaliation.

In some cases, they tried only to be dismissed, transferred or punished. This wasn't just a culture of failure. It was a culture of deliberate inaction, one that enabled harm on a generational scale.

So in the wake of Bulick Forsyth's murder, grief gave way to a long and painful silence. His family, especially his widow Dawn, who gave birth to their daughter just months after his death, were left to mourn not just a life lost, but a justice denied. As the years passed and investigations stalled, it became increasingly clear that no one in authority was willing to say what many suspected, that Bulick Forsyth had died because of what he discovered.

For a long time, his name did fade from public view. The case remained technically open and is still technically open to this day. But no new significant leads seem to have emerged.

There are no new charges, no inquests with accountability. And despite numerous media stories, whistleblower accounts and public statements, no formal recognition of the possibility that Bulick had been murdered because of his professional role. In 2003, the case was featured on Crime Watch again, bringing renewed attention and a fresh appeal for information.

Dawn appeared in the segment calm but resolute, making it clear she believed his death was no random crime. She said then what she's continued to say since, quote, Bulick didn't just die. He was killed because of what he knew.

Over the years, Dawn has tried to keep her husband's name in the public eye, speaking to journalists, writing letters and working with organisations like the Shirley Oaks Survivors Association, who themselves have campaigned tirelessly for justice and recognition for survivors of abuse in Lambeth's care homes. Their daughter, now in her 30s, has also become a quiet yet powerful advocate. Though she was born after her father's death, she has embraced his legacy, participating in commemorative events, sharing his story with the next generation and joining in calls for renewed inquiries and transparency.

Alongside campaigners, she has read petitions, spoken at public meetings and pushed for a full inquest that would compel authorities to release hidden files and examine who might have benefited from Bulick's silence. Yeah. The Shirley Oaks Survivors Association has been unequivocal in its stance that Bulick was a whistleblower, and like many whistleblowers before and since, he was failed by the institutions he tried to hold accountable.

In public statements, the group has repeatedly called for the police to treat the case not as a standalone murder, but as part of a broad effect to silence those who threaten to expose the scale of abuse within the council. They have also criticised the Met for its slow progress and complete lack of transparency. In 2016, there was a brief glimmer of hope.

The Metropolitan Police announced that they would be re-examining the case in light of new evidence from the IICSA before they'd released their final report, and the growing body of survivor testimony pointing to cover-ups at the highest levels of Lambeth Council. But once again, no arrests were made, no suspects were named, no explanation was given as to why the case hadn't progressed any further. Dawn has said that the hardest part of this is not just the loss, but the silence, the unanswered questions, the refusal of the state to acknowledge what so many suspect to be true.

Campaigners continue to call for a full inquest into his death, one that would force the Met and Lambeth Council to release what they know and examine, under oath, the possibility that Bulick was killed in the line of duty. To date, this has not happened. Whether justice will ever come is uncertain.

What is clear, however, is that Bulick Forsyth has not been forgotten. His name continues to be invoked not just as a victim of murder, but as a symbol of integrity, of courage, and of the high price that sometimes comes with doing the right thing. Wow, mate.

That was insane. Fucking hell, well done. Thanks.

No, honestly, well done. No, no, that was brilliant. That was so well told.

And like, fuck me, it is, it's an action flick. It's some, like, it's espionage. It's like, it's all of that.

It's, and I could have, I mean, I chose, I kind of, Cherry picks the wrong word, because it seems like some are favourable. Like, every victim's testimony is worthy. Yeah.

I picked a couple kind of at, not at random, but like, there were so many I could have put in about, you know, people being threatened, about how the children were abused, but also how council workers were abused. And there's, yeah, there's just tons of it. It's just so, like, because I'm not being funny.

When I think of councils, I think of stuffy, grey buildings that no one ever really wants to go to, because the queues are far too long, and everything's got 18 levels of red tape associated with it. You don't think of this. Like, it just, it feels very, a council's boring.

It's a boring place. It's not someone- As someone that has worked in a joint NHSN local authority commissioning group. You've got a different view on it.

It's not boring at all. And there's some, you know, I can't, I didn't work at Lambeth then. I never worked at Lambeth.

Then I left when, for absolutely no political reason, but when the six boroughs came together, it was vaguely when I was on my way out anyway. But I can only tell you from experience that there are a lot of, there are a lot of bulocks in councils in South London that really want to fucking work hard and really want good outcomes for people against a backdrop of absolute hell in trying to get anything done. There's no money.

There's no time. There's no people to do any of it. You know, and you're right about the amount of red tape and bureaucracy.

And in some respects, that's the best thing because you need to be held accountable. There needs to be bureaucracy for, it's a government. Like, it's local government.

Like, it's a local authority. You know, it would be horrific if there wasn't scrutiny and barriers that needed to be passed in order to access funding and make sure it's being spent correctly. Bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody.

Yeah. But there is, yeah, like, I don't think it's as pencil pusher as people would make it out. Yeah.

And I think that's what it is. It's like the idea that, I mean, I know, obviously, wherever you go, there are bad apples everywhere, but the idea that there are so many people, this corrupt, this fucking awful, in a council, it just, it's almost like... They found each other. Yeah.

They radiated towards each other and they found each other. But it's just like, it's a bit like, and this is going to make it sound like I'm trying to undermine everything that you've just said. Oh, thank you.

I promise I'm not, but it's a bit like in bloody hot fuzz, right? Where you've got all the council people and they're just little, little, little old people living in their parish council, doing all of this stuff, but actually they're all serial killers and ritualistic murderers. Like, it's that sort of vibe. It's like, no, hang on.

This is, you just, you just get up and you go to work at the council. Like I had an ex-boyfriend whose father was a councillor over in East London and he was a lovely man, but dry as dishwater. Like, and... I didn't say these people were dry as dishwater.

Dry as dishwater. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lovely darling.

Lovely. But do you know what I mean? It just... I didn't say they were thrilling people. I just said they worked hard.

No, no, no. I understand that. But I just, I just can't get my... And the premise of what they were doing isn't dry.

Yeah. But I just can't get my head around the idea that there are such awful people in something that seems so innocuous. Yeah, I know what you mean.

That's what it is. It's like, you can kind of go like, oh yeah, well, there's going to be, there's bound to be some dodgy ones in the police because they've got all of this power and all of it. There's bound to be some dodgy ones in the medical profession.

Don't undermine the power that comes with controlling money. Well, true. And maybe this is what I've done.

Maybe that is 100% what I've done. But there are always... I don't think the juxtapositions are always really interesting. It's why the Harold Shipman case is so interesting, because someone that is meant to... Or like, let's look at Lucy Letby, whether you believe she's... Whatever you believe about her.

Just that sheer contrast between the people that are meant to help you, being the ones that cause you harm. Yeah, yeah. It is... It's always unfathomable.

It is. It's... Oh God. And poor Bulick.

I know. The fact that it's not been solved, the fact that there does seem to be this kind of culture of silence surrounding... I got really angry about how, especially the early, the first Crimewatch thing, about, I don't know, it was a different time and, you know, there was still loads of stuff going on with AIDS and with Section 28. But just how villainized the gay scene was.

Just like, oh, well, there you go. That's why. He had a gay friend.

That's why he was murdered. Why didn't you say that to start with? Yeah, it's fucking ridiculous. It's not the people that have a reputation for putting petrol on beds.

No, no, no, no, no. Fucking hell. It's the gays.

It's just, it is. It's just, how can we vilify a group of people that are already vilified to hide our own... Yeah, let's just hide our own bullshit behind some even bigger bullshit. But, like I said, it is fucking huge.

And I did try and narrow or niche the story down to be about Bulick because we do try and centre the victim of a crime. But there are potentially 1,800 plus victims of crime in this story. There's tendrils that will go out and we may be revisiting at some point.

I think that's fair. I would be really interested to know what Lambeth Council is like now. Like have they managed to get rid of that reputation? Would anyone go? I mean, as far as I, my experience goes, yeah, it was never, it was never like anecdotally discussed as terrible when I was in that world.

Or maybe not with me. Not to you. Funny that people weren't coming up to me and being like, listen, Han, you've got nothing to do with this.

Well. And in about five years time, when you've got that true crime podcast you've been talking about. But I am going to someone that I used to work with that is still floating in that world, retires this week.

Ah. And I'm going to his retirement drinks and I'm like, right, now you're off the payroll. You can finally tell me some fucking gossip.

Dish. Dish. And he probably would have been around South London.

Probably more in health care than council at that time. But potentially could know some stuff. Oh, God.

What if I find out he's a fucking perpetrator? He won't because he's lovely. Because he's lovely. He's a lovely person.

Jesus Christ, Hannah. Because not everyone is a monster. Okay.

Not everyone. There are some good ones out there. Listen, someone bit my cat and I'm not okay.

I know, babe. I know. Poor bro.

Oh, well, honestly, mate. Thank you so much. That was so well told.

And like, genuinely, I don't know if you could tell, but like, was on the edge of my seat the whole way through being like, what? It was either edge of the seat or you were going to fall asleep. I wasn't sure which one. No, definitely edge of seat.

Definitely edge of seat. So no, it was fascinating. But it will definitely be one that I will, we will come back to.

Revisit. Revisit. Revisit.

Yeah, for sure. Cool. We're talking of lovely people.

We've got some lovely people to say thank you to. We've got lots of places where you can come and talk to us and stuff. So the lovely Lou, who I saw the other day, posted that she's not always lovely.

I haven't seen that yet. So we're going to now start calling you the not so lovely Lou. No, lovely Lou has got a Facebook group where people chat about the show and other stuff.

So if you are that way inclined, head over and have a look for Trevor's Unite on Facebook. Indeed. We've got the Instagram, which is slowly getting to 200 followers.

200. I know. We're famous.

But the thing is, what if I'm mad? It's like when you look at our downloads, I'm like, where are all these people? They just don't give a shit about social media. Don't give a shit about social. It's fine.

But we are over there on Instagram. I didn't do a floating head on Friday because I just completely forgot. It was hot.

It was very hot. But I will make it up to you and do one very soon. We've got the website, which I am updating as we speak, mainly because I keep doing cases and not telling you who I'm doing until it's the day and then I look for photos and I don't like to ruin the surprise by doing it before.

But yes, so that is being updated that SinisterSouthPod.co.uk. We've got a TikTok, which is Sinister South Pod or the Instagram handle is Sinister South Pod too. Got an email address. We have got an email address.

It's SinisterSouthPodcast at gmail.com. And you can come and say hello to us and chat to us. And then we've got the Patreon, which we're still figuring out. And we will get around to sorting out at some point soon.

But there will be a new Patreon episode out this week for those of you who are on the I think it's five pounds and up tier. Yes, and Rachel will be doing it, so not everyone in the world will get everything all the time. It's fine.

It's fine. We are also planning on re-recording because we did try and do it once before and then the computer jumped the Q&A, which will be hosted by my husband. Yes.

In the inflatable dinosaur costume. In the inflatable dinosaur costume that's 40, 40, 40, 40, 40, 40, 40, 40, 40, 40, 40, dry as dishwater. Dry as dishwater.

Hint, hint, nudge, nudge. Oh, you're a beautiful idiot. I know.

I know. It's warm. I'm just going to blame that.

Right. I think that's it, innit? That's it. That's your lot.

Perfect. Well, Trevor, we love you as per usual. We do.

And we'll see you next week. See you next week. I love you.

Goodbye. Goodbye. Yup.