John Cannan’s family begged him to admit to Suzy Lamplugh’s murder

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The brother of rapist and murderer John Cannan has blamed him for their father’s death and revealed how the family ‘begged’ him to admit to the murder of London estate agent Suzy Lamplugh.  

Cannan, 66, is serving a life sentence for the 1987 murder of Shirley Banks in Bristol and the attempted kidnapping of Julia Holman, as well as the rape of an unnamed woman in Reading in 1986. He could be released in 2022.

He is the only suspect in the disappearance of Lamplugh, who vanished in Fulham aged 25 in July 1986 and was declared dead, presumed murdered in 1994.  Police were never able to charge him of the crime.   

Now, his brother, who asked not to be named and was voiced by an actor, has broken three decades of silence to speak to a Channel 5 for a documentary on the disappearance of Lamplugh.

He revealed their sister had pleaded with Cannan to confess that he had killed Lamplugh, whose disappearance remains one of the most high profile unsolved cases in British history. 

 ‘I’m quite sure John killed our father indirectly. 

‘Dad never recovered from the shock of the case and went to live in America. He became ill there and returned to Sutton Coldfield where in died in 1985,’ he said. 

The convicted murderer denied everything, adding that his sibling had shown no sign of ‘regret or conscience.’ 

He also revealed that his and John’s sister had visited John in prison.

‘My sister appealed to him to admit that he killed Suzy Lamplugh and reveal where he had hidden her body. She was wasting her breath, John will take all his secrets to the grave. He’s a power freak,’ 

‘He doesn’t have a modicum of regret, conscience or compassion,’ he added. 

Lamplugh was an estate agent who worked in Fulham. She was 25 when she disappeared. 

On the day of her disappearance, July 28 1986, her diary showed she had an afternoon showing with one Mr Kipper, at 37 Shorrolds Road. 

The white Ford Fiesta she drove at the time was found on the night of her disappearance on Stevenage Road in Fulham, about a mile and a half away from the location of her appointment. 

As part of the investigation into her disappearance, police tested the remains of 800 corpses that matched her description for DNA samples but found no match. 

In 1986, Suzy’s parents Paul and Diana established the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, which aims to raise awareness of personal safety and training to help people avoiding being assaulted. 

The Trust also offered support and guidance for the loved ones of missing people.   

Diana died in August 2011, aged 75, and Paul died aged 87 in June 2018, both without answers regarding their daughter’s disappearance. 

Suzy was declared legally dead in 1994, eight years after her disappearance, and presumed murdered. 

In 2002, Scotland Yard declared that Cannan, who had been released from a prison hostel just days before Lamplugh went missing, was their prime suspect for her murder. 

In the summer of 1986, Cannan was released from prison after serving five out of an eight-year sentence for rape.

A video filmed for the Suitar Dating Agency in 1987, months before Shirley Bank’s abduction, saw Cannan smartly dress talked about the kind of women he liked to date.

In 1988, he was convicted for other charges, including the murder of Shirley Banks. 

The newly married 29-year-old textiles factory manager from Clifton went missing on 7th October 1987. 

When she did not show up for drinks with her husband, and he started to look for her.  

Cannan quickly became a suspect after he was arrested for the assault at knife point of a shop assistant in Leamington Spa. 

Police searched his car three weeks after Banks’ disappearance and found  a tax disc from her car in a briefcase in his glove compartment. 

They also found the mini clubman she was driving at the time in his garage, painted from orange to blue. Cannan claimed he had bought it at an auction. 

Police charged Cannan with Banks’s assault on November 2. The press quickly found similarities between Shirley’s disappearance and Suzy’s, which had taken place a year earlier. 

The authorities investigation found that Cannan held a cleaning ticket for a shop in his hometown of Sutton Coldfield, where he had dropped a rain coat with red marks on them, which were identified as blood stains that could have belonged to the same group as Banks.   

The police were led to believe Cannan held Banks hostage overnight and convinced her to phone her work under the false pretences he would release her.  This is because her husband was told she had called to say she would be coming in the morning after she vanished. 

Banks’s body was found six months after her disappearance on April 1988 in a stream in the Quantock hills. 

Cannan was also charged with the attempted kidnapping of Julia Holman at gunpoint, the night before he abducted Banks. Holman managed to fight him off and later identified him as her attacker.  

A year earlier, in Reading, he raped an unnamed shop assistant just weeks after being released for prison.

Cannan was arrested for the crime at the time but police did not find enough evidence to charge him, until forensic tests were ran again in 1988, this time finding a DNA match for Cannan. 

• The Vanishing of Suzy Lamplugh, airs tonight at 10pm on Channel 5