The Witness ending explained: What happened to André and Alex?

*Warning: This article contains references to murder and sexual assault that some readers may find distressing.*

Three-part factual drama The Witness is now streaming on Netflix, with the series mapping out the years after the tragic murder of Rachel Nickell and how it impacted her son Alex and partner André, as well as their ongoing fight for justice.

Utilising both real-life characters and ones created for the sake of the drama, we see how over the years, both André and Alex are left to cope with Rachel’s death in very different ways.

With the constant glare of the press, André makes the decision to move abroad with his son, with the killer remaining uncaught and an innocent man being caught up in the clumsy investigation, the sense of this unimaginable tragedy just gets more harrowing.

In the final episode, we see how Rachel’s killer is eventually caught but what exactly unfolds? Read on for a full breakdown of the ending of The Witness, which is based on the harrowing true story.

The Witness ending explained: What happened to André and Alex?

The final episode of The Witness opens in 2005 with André being informed that Robert Napper has been proven to be Rachel’s killer, but that he is currently being detained at Broadmoor Hospital (and has been since 1995) for double murder and several rapes.

André is hesitant to believe the police, especially after they initially thought Colin Stagg was the murderer. With the DNA sample not being up to an evidential standard, André underlines the fact that it may never be. Paired with the fact that this team hasn’t even yet interviewed Napper and André just doesn’t want to get his hopes up yet. He tells them that he wants certainty and will listen to them once they have it.

It’s clear that things remain strained between André and Alex, with Alex choosing to spend a lot of his free time and evenings with his girlfriend whilst André is left alone. When Alex does eventually come home, André knows his son doesn’t really want to hear much about the investigation and the new suspect but informs him anyway.

Back in the UK, DS Ivan Agnew (Mark Stanley) goes to interview Napper’s former foreman who kept year planners and would therefore have a record of whether Napper turned up to work that day. Eventually digging it out of his garage, Agnew finds that Napper was actually off all day on 15 July 1992.

Agnew goes to interview Napper at Broadmoor with DCI Tony Nash (James Bradshaw), with the pair intent on getting further details about Rachel’s murder from him. Telling them that they’ve found his DNA on Rachel’s body, Napper remains mute and then says that he didn’t do it.

After mentioning the fact that Napper’s own mother threw him out when he was 18, Napper starts mumbling to himself and his solicitor and the accompanying doctor halt the interview. But upon leaving the hospital, the detectives realise that unlike a prison, they can actually obtain a warrant here. When they do and are looking through the stores of the hospital and Napper’s belongings, they find boots that match the witness statements as well as a red tool box.

It turns out that on the day that Alex was examined, several shards of red metallic paint were found in his hair. But due to their fragility, the police are only able to test them once. They need a positive ID on both the shards and the boots in order to nab Napper – and it turns out that it does come back as such, with the police able to charge Napper for Rachel’s murder.

As for André and Alex, they have a frank heart-to-heart on Alex’s 18th birthday with André telling his son that he needs to stop distracting himself from the trauma he’s obviously experienced and the fact his mother’s killer remains uncaught.

Later, once the police have charged Napper, they call André to inform him and ask if he’s going to go to the trial. André is keen to go but Alex doesn’t want to and doesn’t understand why his father would either. Later remanded in custody and bailed until a later hearing, the press get wind of André and Alex’s whereabouts, banging down their front door. André urges Alex to not get angry and instead, tell his girlfriend before the news starts airing on Spanish TV.

Once André makes it over to New Scotland Yard, DCS Nicholas Campbell (Sean Gilder) tells André of the fact that Napper was known to police previously for “minor offences”. He says that the press are likely to inflate the truth but the fact remains that the police were aware of Napper before he killed Rachel.

At the trial, André comes face-to-face with Napper for the first time and he pleads guilty to manslaughter by diminished responsibility. We then hear a doctor on the stand who says that Napper has paranoid schizophrenia and Asperger’s, with his psychosis being evident from years prior. Another psychiatrist then states that Napper believes he has telepathic powers, thought he was kneecapped by the IRA and had magical abilities to grow back fingers blown off when he was detonating a bomb.

The judge concludes that Napper is a “very dangerous man” and he’s never to be released from Broadmoor unless he’s no longer a danger to the public, which is unlikely to happen. Being led down, Napper then says: “Will someone say sorry to the little boy?”

Almost immediately, Campbell pulls André into a room to go over their official statement but André questions why everything has taken so long and why Napper was left free to roam despite being known to the police. After the trial, formal apologies are made to Stagg and the media are quick to report on the incompetencies of the original investigation.

Why does Alex travel back to the UK?

Back in Spain, Alex is having a hard time reconciling with Napper’s apology and, after a conversation with his girlfriend, is left thinking about why Napper did what he did. Some time later, we then see the pair make the trip to London and Alex has gone to visit one of Napper’s doctors, Dr Monroe. They eventually sit down for a chat but Dr Monroe says that she can’t reveal anything that’s not in the public domain.

She explains more about Robert’s past, outlining an unhappy childhood with an alcoholic and abusive father, having his Asperger’s go undiagnosed for most of his childhood and leading to years of isolation. At the age of 12, Napper was raped in woodland by a family friend, with the man in question being charged. Dr Monroe doesn’t know why Napper went on to target mothers and their children but suggests that he may have been angry at his own mother for his father leaving.

“He was punishing her again and again in the shape of women who were being maternal in a way that he never really experienced,” she says.

Dr Monroe explains that although both Alex and Napper went through traumatic childhood experiences, Alex’s recollection of his past and Napper’s inability to recall more than a few memories of his childhood signals that Alex was “made to feel safe and loved”.

Returning back home to Spain, Alex sees his father reading multiple documents that have been sent anonymously to them both from the Crown Prosecution Service. It shows that they weren’t told everything by the police and also highlights all the missed opportunities of catching Napper, including his own mother phoning the police to tell them that Napper confessed to rape but it was never followed up.

Alex tells André that he met with Napper’s doctor and although André disagrees, Alex explains that it made it clear that he’s always had people around him that have truly cared for him, unlike Napper had. The pair admit that they both kept each other alive and Alex says that they now need to focus on what they’ve gained in order to move forward.

The series ends with real-life archive footage of Rachel, André and Alex, eventually ending with a title card confirming that André and Alex brought legal proceedings against the Metropolitan Police Service with the dossier that was leaked from the CPS.

For information and support, please visit The Survivors Trust or Rape Crisis.

The Witness is now available to stream on Netflix.

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