Clickbait, p.3
Clickbait, page 3
I know I’m making out like Bradley was this perfect person. And of course, we bickered sometimes. He got annoyed with how long I spent in the bath and I’d moan at him for never taking the bins out – literally never. He would do anything to avoid that job. But he really was the nicest guy. When he didn’t come home that night, it was like … I can’t even describe it. It was like the world around us just crumbled into dust.
One of the awful things about losing my parents is that they died without knowing the truth about what happened to Bradley. I feel a lot of guilt about that. Right from the start, they were out of their depth with everything that was going on. It was hard for them to get out of bed every morning, let alone keep hounding the police and the papers to carry on asking questions. I took that job on. But after a while, it was always the same responses and I … I …
Tom
You got on with your life.
Cassie
Yes. Which makes me feel really bad.
Tom
Oh Cassie, it’s completely understandable. I won’t pretend I knew Bradley well, but from what you’ve told me, I don’t think he’d have wanted you to give up your whole life for him.
Cassie
He’d have done it for me.
[Pause]
I moved away. That’s terrible, isn’t it? I just couldn’t stand the sadness any more. It was like this house had a dark cloud hanging over it. I took a PA job in Sheffield in my mid-twenties. It was only when Mum died that I moved back here to help Dad out.
I guess after he died too I could’ve sold this place and moved back to Sheffield. I had a nice life up there. I had friends and hobbies. I was captain of my local netball team. It’s nothing, is it? But I enjoyed it. When Dad died, it was like losing another connection to Bradley. It felt like I was the only person in the world who knew he’d ever existed. That was when I set up Never Give Up. I found strength in helping others, I guess.
And I know people will think it’s weird, me living here. A thirty-seven-year-old woman living in her parents’ house with no life, no friends, completely obsessed with my brother. It’s sad. Even I can see that, but … this is Bradley’s home too. I can’t move away or get on with my life. If he comes back and I’ve sold this house, he won’t know where to go, will he?
Tom
Do you think he will come back? Do you think he’s out there somewhere living a whole different life?
Cassie
Not really.
Tom
You don’t sound convinced.
Cassie
Everyone knows Bradley was a straight-A student. Our parents were so proud of him. But I look back now and wonder if that’s what he wanted. He’d argue with our parents sometimes. Stupid stuff about wanting to take a gap year and them saying they couldn’t afford it and he couldn’t throw his one chance at a career away. Our parents sacrificed a lot to send me and Bradley to St Dunstable’s. I have no idea how they paid the fees. Bradley got a big scholarship when he was twelve which helped, but I didn’t.
It must have been a lot of pressure for Bradley. They wanted so much for him. So sometimes in the middle of the night, I like to pretend to myself that he ran away. That he’s out there somewhere. That he’s happy. But in the morning, I remember that Bradley would never do that to my parents or to me. We’re a close family. We were a close family, I should say. I was the wild one who stayed out all night. Bradley was the sensible one. He wouldn’t have left without telling us. That whole running away story was created by the Lancasters when they spoke to the police. They didn’t have the first clue about Bradley. They were just protecting their own backs.
I’ve always believed that something bad happened to Bradley that night. But there was no evidence. Nobody wanted to listen to me. The papers thought I was a nutter. DS Zubira – the detective on Bradley’s case – was kind, but what could the police do? Everything pointed to Bradley leaving the party.
It was only in February this year when the old video of Ed Lancaster’s party emerged that we all found out the Lancasters had lied that night. To me. To the police. To everyone.
Tom
Tell me about Ed’s fortieth, Cassie. You were friends with the Lancasters too. I remember you and Taylor being close at school.
Cassie
I’m the reason Bradley knew them. Taylor and I were best friends. We were in the same class from when we were four years old. One day she forgot her bag and I lent her my favourite My Little Pony pencil and we were instant best friends.
We were always hanging out at Taylor’s house. Look around you – it’s not much contest, is it? They had a tennis court and a pool and a massive garden to play in, a ton of rooms to hang out in.
Every time I was at Taylor’s, there were always people there. Football types and business contacts of Ed’s, friends, people Lynn was trying to impress for one thing or another. Before the iPhone came along, Lynn would go everywhere with a hot pink Filofax in one hand and a BlackBerry in the other.
The Lancasters were always throwing parties. Drinks, dinners, barbecues. Christmas, Easter, Halloween, everyone’s birthdays. Lynn would use any excuse. Like, at the start of the summer they’d have a pool opening party, or there was a time when India lost her last baby tooth and Lynn threw a dinner party to celebrate.
Lynn was a total social butterfly. We all see that side of her on their show and it’s exactly how it was twenty years ago. They even threw me a birthday party every year and I wasn’t even family, although they always treated me like I was.
That’s one thing I’ll say about Taylor and all the Lancasters actually – they never made me feel poor. Never brought up how little I had or how crap my clothes were. Taylor shared everything with me.
I’m rambling. Sorry. Nobody’s ever wanted to know all this stuff before. It’s always been just the facts about the hour Bradley went missing and that bloody taxi journey.
Tom
Oh darling, it’s all so awful. Please believe me when I say, we want to know everything!
Cassie
OK. So the party in August 2003. Lynn had been planning it for months and was going all out. Catering staff dressed in togas, champagne fountains, the works. Nothing was too much.
Taylor and I were seventeen. Bradley was eighteen. He didn’t have much to do with the Lancasters. Sometimes in the summer holidays when we were younger, he’d bike over or get the bus and come collect me and stay for a swim in the pool. We didn’t pay him much attention. He was always just my dorky older brother. That’s how it was anyway, until earlier in that summer in 2003.
It’s hard to say how it happened. Looking back, it felt like it was this overnight thing. Bradley wasn’t a dork any more. He was suddenly this broad-shouldered hunk that all the girls fancied. It was like all that swimming suddenly paid off.
Taylor played it cool, but she started asking about him a bit. ‘What’s Bradley up to this weekend?’ ‘Does Bradley want to come to the cinema with us? Invite him if you want.’ Then a few weeks before Ed’s birthday party, she just said: ‘Hey, Bradley should come too.’
I got the impression she was hoping to make a move on him at the party, and maybe that’s one of the reasons I didn’t go.
And that’s the thing that always gets me – how close I came to going to the party. Even on the Saturday morning, I remember sending a text to Taylor and asking her if it was all right if I stayed over because I’d changed my mind and was going to come, then changed my mind again. All these years later I still feel this wrenching pull of indecision in the pit of my stomach.
Everything would’ve been different if I’d gone to the party that night.
Everything.
My parents.
Me.
Bradley. Especially Bradley.
LOCATION: KENSINGTON GARDENS
Tom
I’m just back from talking to Cassie and as you can see I’m out walking Snowy. She needed the exercise and I needed to clear my head, except I can’t. Today was incredibly intense. Being in her house, listening to her talk, you can see what Bradley’s disappearance has done to Cassie and to her parents before they died. Cassie talked about a dark cloud over the house and I really felt that.
People die, people go missing. We see it in the news every day, but talking to Cassie, learning about Bradley and the absolute devastation that has been left behind because of one night, one person, has really hit home. I’ll never scroll past a missing persons story again.
It’s strange because I do feel connected to this case more than any other investigation I’ve done. Seeing the photos of Bradley and remembering him was really hard, so I can’t imagine how Cassie must feel every day. You can see it’s taken its toll. Cassie is nothing like I expected. I remember her being really popular. If she and Taylor were walking down the corridor at school, you got out of their way. She really was one of the ‘it girls’, but it’s clear her brother’s disappearance totally changed her life too.
Bradley didn’t just have a bright future ahead of him. He had a family who loved him. He was the centre of their universe, their lynchpin. When he disappeared, they fell apart.
What do you think so far, TIs? Put everything in the comments. Together we can find the truth, and I really mean that. Remember it was a TI comment about a friend of a friend who was obsessed with fire that led to us finding the arsonist, Anthony Price. And another comment that led to the puppy farm in Wales and me adopting Snowy.
I said at the start of this episode that it was like Bradley disappeared into thin air on his walk home from that party. But people don’t just disappear. There were a hundred people at that party. Someone knows what happened to Bradley. Someone has been keeping quiet for twenty years and I’m going to find them.
Tom Isaac Investigates: What really happened to Bradley Wilcox?
Episode 2: The night of the party, part I
PUBLISHED ON YOUTUBE AND SPOTIFY: FRIDAY, 11 AUGUST 2023
658 COMMENTS
LWTL_No1Fan
I am dying! This is going to be your best investigation yet. CAN’T WAIT!! I’m desperate to know more about the Lancasters and what they knew.
Katy Shepard
My heart is breaking for Bradley’s family. I need to know what happened that night!! I already have so many theories!
SyfyGeek90
Tom, you have to speak to the Lancasters ASAP! Bet they know more than they’re letting on!
TrueCrime_Junkie1001
They’ve spent over a decade on a FAKE reality show! As if any of them are even capable of telling the truth now. We need to build up the evidence first before interviewing them, like Tom always does.
TI_BiggestFan
Poor Cassie. No one believed her all this time. I’d be so angry if I was her.
SyfyGeek90
Hardly surprising no one listened to her, is it? You can see from that house how poor they were. The Lancasters were rich and powerful even before the fame. The Wilcox family didn’t stand a chance.
Katy Shepard
The Wilcox kids went to private school with the Lancasters. Hardly poor!
SyfyGeek90
Compared to the Lancasters, they were poor. I’m not trying to be mean. Just saying it how it is.
JulieAlexander_1
I feel sorry for Cassie. Even before Bradley disappeared, it seemed like he was the golden boy and his parents only had eyes for him. Must have been tough.
Ernie Martin
Seeing Tom without his beard is too weird!
Wendy Clarke
I like it. He looks like a young Robert Downey Jr. I really want to set Tom up with my brother.
TrueCrime_Junkie1001
That’s not what these comments are for.
Ernie Martin
God, you TIs take this stuff way too seriously.
TI_BiggestFan
Keep digging, Tom. Time to expose the lies.
LancasterFANMAN
Be careful, Tom! This family is powerful. They destroy anyone who tries to bring them down …
To: Tom@TomIsaacInvestigates.com
From: Lynn@LivingWithTheLancasters.com
Subject: RE: Interview request for Tom Isaac Investigates
Date: 12.08.23
Hi Tom,
Sorry, but I have no space in my schedule for an interview right now.
Good luck with the show. We have all been deeply affected by Bradley’s disappearance.
Regards,
Lynn
TRANSCRIPT FROM SKY NEWS LIVE WITH PATRICK MONAGHAN AND AMBER CARNEY, 14 AUGUST 2023
Patrick: It’s nine thirty-seven on Monday the fourteenth of August. You’re watching Sky News Breakfast. Up next, I’m joined on the sofa by our celebrity reporter, Amber Carney. Amber, what’s been happening this week?
Amber: Well, Patrick, I’m going to start by telling you what’s not been happening in the world of celebrities, and that’s the launch of la tierra Naked for Men – Taylor Lancaster’s latest underwear line. The launch was supposed to be taking place on Friday in Leicester Square. We saw press invites sent out months ago with the usual Lancaster flair, but just hours before the event was due to go ahead, it was cancelled.
Anyone watching Sunday night’s episode of Living with the Lancasters will have heard Taylor on the pink confessional sofa blaming the cancellation on manufacturing delays. However, I wouldn’t be surprised, Patrick, if the real reason was a lack of retailers willing to stock the new underwear line.
The Lancasters have been facing increasing backlash since the 2003 Bradley Wilcox video was released in February. They lost their show’s sponsor in March. In April, they saw their lowest viewing figures since series three. We then saw Locke Lancaster suspended from his co-hosting role on the Xtra Factor, while India was replaced at the last minute in a Calvin Klein perfume campaign.
I think it’s safe to say that the cracks in the Lancaster empire are starting to show. We have la tierra clothes pulled from high street stores and now the cancelled launch. And there’s also Lynn making headlines just yesterday after she was caught on camera screaming at shoppers in Waitrose who confronted her about Bradley’s case.
It’s hard to see how things could get any worse for the Lancaster family right now.
EXTRACTS FROM INTERVIEWS RECORDED BY THE METROPOLITAN POLICE BETWEEN 22–24 FEBRUARY 2023
Location: Twickenham Police Station
Taylor Lancaster: I get why you have to ask us this stuff but I really don’t know how I can help you. I’m completely gutted Bradley went missing after my dad’s party, but it was twenty years ago. It all feels like a blur now. Especially with my dad dying so suddenly the following year. I really don’t like to think about that part of my life.
Locke Lancaster: We were having a clear-out of the loft. It was for the show. A look back at our childhood kind of thing. I found all the old home movies Dad recorded. Dad was pretty obsessed with making home movies. It’s one of the things I remember most about my childhood. He used to do these New Year’s Eve interviews with all of us. Where do you see yourself this time next year? What do you want to be when you grow up? It was just a bit of fun.
Sorry, the DVDs, yes. Dad died in February 2004, and Mum sorted his stuff out that spring. I think the DVDs got put in the loft then and we all forgot about them. Up until I found the video of Dad dancing, I didn’t know there were any recordings from his birthday party, let alone that one would have Bradley Wilcox in the background.
India Lancaster: I was only ten in 2003. I wasn’t at the party. I was told to stay upstairs in my bed all night.
Lynn Lancaster: I’m more than happy to give a statement but I’d like some time to consult with my lawyer first.
2022 trending video: #LWTLFavMoments
@Vicki_LondonWeddingPhotography
Love love loved Living with the Lancasters when I was growing up. I used to have to watch it in secret under my duvet at night on my iPad because my mum caught one of the episodes and decided it wasn’t appropriate.
It was the one when India was at that modelling shoot for the lacy underwear. It was pretty early on. I think she’d only been modelling a few months. She didn’t want to wear the sets they were asking her to put on. I didn’t blame her. It was see-through and skin tones. She might as well have been naked. And then Lynn got, like, really nasty about it and basically made India do it. Telling her if she didn’t, then her career as a model was over and no one would take her seriously if she started out as a diva.
India was practically in tears by the time they did the photos. They came out beautiful. Really moody, but I couldn’t look at those images without remembering how much India hated doing it. It was pretty sad.
Yeah, so my mum decided that Living with the Lancasters was toxic and didn’t let me watch it after that, even though I still did.
