Netflix’s new miniseries The Witness revisits a harrowing true crime story in the UK from the ’90s.
On 15 July, 1992, Rachel Nickell was murdered by Robert Napper while out walking the family dog on Wimbledon Common with her two-year-old son Alex, who was the sole witness to the crime. The recently released three-part television drama, which has climbed to number one, is a dramatisation of the tragic real-life events and emotional aftermath that Rachel’s widower André Hanscombe and their son experienced.
After initially going cold, the case was reopened in 2002, and Robert, who has paranoid schizophrenia and Asperger syndrome, was charged with Rachel’s murder on 28 November 2007. Thirty-four years on, André and Alex, who is now an adult, have been interviewed alongside family members as part of a new documentary, The Murder of Rachel Nickell, which dropped on Netflix at the same time as the series.
Read on to see where André and Alex are now.
Where is André Hanscombe now?
In the aftermath of Rachel’s murder, André moved to France to protect his son. They later relocated again to the Spanish countryside where André, who was a semi-professional tennis player, worked as a tennis coach, according to The Guardian.
“All the time, you see the headlines, you hear the whispers, everyone’s watching Alex, saying he’ll never recover,” André told the publication. “I just felt it was impossible for a child to grow up like that. Rachel and I were always going to leave the country – again, it was being true to her values.”
André is interviewed in the new Netflix documentary where he admitted he struggled with a “huge sense of guilt that I hadn’t protected my family”.
As per the BBC, both Alex and André have since turned to Catholicism. “When I look at Alex, I see his mother. She was all heart, she had an incredible head and shoulders as well, and I see those qualities in him, so it’s an absolute blessing to have him,” André said.
What happened to Alex Hanscombe?
© Courtesy of NetflixThe Witness is also based on Alex’s 2017 memoir, Letting Go: A True Story of Murder, Loss and Survival by Rachel Nickell’s Son, which delves into how Alex, who is now 36 years old, grappled with his grief in the aftermath of his mother’s murder.
“Along with the hard times, there has been joy,” he told The Times in 2026. “We both, as my mother did, find the joy in small things, in sunsets and sunrises, in cooking together and food.”
Alex became a certified hypnotherapist and musician, studied yoga and graphology, and now lives in Barcelona.
“My parents believed in the infinity of the spirit, that my mother would be with me always, wherever I went,” he said in the documentary.
Who stars in The Witness?
© Courtesy of NetflixThe Witness stars Jordan Bolger, who is best known for Peaky Blinders, as André Hanscombe. Dark Money star Max Fincham portrays Alex Hanscombe in the series.
“Our life has been a battle. We can never express how indebted we are to everyone that’s been a part of this, for the kindness and generosity they’ve extended to us, for the chance they took with us in bringing our story to the screen, and for the care they have taken,” André and Alex said in a joint statement ahead of the show’s release.
They added: “Our journey has all been by the grace of God and a promise to go on together, and we feel incredibly blessed to be able to share our story in this way. We hope that audiences will be left with a testament to the tough battle of life we all face and to the power of faith, hope, love – and never giving up.”
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