Des

Nilsen preyed on young men in London until 9th February 1983, when Detective Chief Inspector Peter Jay was called to investigate. Daniel Mays plays Jay, with BAFTA Award winner Jason Watkins as writer Brian Masters, whose book ’Killing for Company’ was constructed around interviews with Nilsen after his arrest.

DES is a true-crime drama focusing on one of the most infamous criminal cases in UK history – DENNIS NILSEN. Known as the ‘kindly killer’, Nilsen was a local civil servant who spent five years murdering boys and young men he met on the streets of Soho from 1978 to 1983.

When he was finally caught on 9 February 1983, Nilsen had murdered a total of fifteen men over a period of five years, making him Britain’s most prolific serial killer of the time.

After his arrest, Nilsen was astonishing in his honesty: admitting outright to all fifteen murders in the police car outside his flat. But infuriatingly for the investigating detectives, he couldn’t remember any of his victims’ names. With no apparent motive, inconclusive forensic evidence and most of Nilsen’s victims living off-grid, the police started the biggest manhunt investigation in UK history. This time not for the murderer, but for the murdered.

The story is told through the prism of three isolated men - a detective, a biographer, and Nilsen himself.

Can we ever really understand the mind of a psychopathic killer? And, if we try, what price do we pay?