Ian Clenahan
Appearances
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E2: When Ron Met Ron | Sea of Lies
The aim was to get as much information as we can about David Davis from Elaine.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E2: When Ron Met Ron | Sea of Lies
Because, you know, we didn't know what the relationship really was between Elaine and David Davis. You don't know what you're walking into? Were they still in contact? Were they whatever? He was firmly under our suspicions, but we just wanted to see what Elaine would tell us.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E2: When Ron Met Ron | Sea of Lies
When people commit a crime, they will always make a mistake. Nobody commits the perfect crime. And I firmly believe that because everyone will make a mistake eventually.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E7: Plausible, Intelligent and Ruthless | Sea of Lies
Yes, because you're going to ask as a jury member, what is the relationship?
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E7: Plausible, Intelligent and Ruthless | Sea of Lies
He's on trial for murder, not for anything else.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E7: Plausible, Intelligent and Ruthless | Sea of Lies
I didn't go into court because they were worried that she might keep staring at me for reassurance and the defence might pick her up and think, well, who is this person? And try to get a little chink in the armour. Yeah, I was asked not to.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E1: Luck, Or Something Like It | Sea of Lies
Because obviously that would be a case as well if your husband or brother, son, whatever, never came home.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E1: Luck, Or Something Like It | Sea of Lies
Well, old-fashioned detective work. So you start by going through all the missing persons listed in the Devon and Cornwall police, and you try and rule those out, and then you go further afield, and you look at missing persons in the south-west, then you go further afield and look at missing persons in the south.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E1: Luck, Or Something Like It | Sea of Lies
This is the description of the guy, this is what he was wearing.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E1: Luck, Or Something Like It | Sea of Lies
Has anyone got any information that may help us identify the man?
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E1: Luck, Or Something Like It | Sea of Lies
But no, we didn't get anything, so it was never going to be easy. We contacted ferries.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E1: Luck, Or Something Like It | Sea of Lies
To see whether there's any reports of any fishermen being lost at sea.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E1: Luck, Or Something Like It | Sea of Lies
Everything was coming to a dead end, really.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E1: Luck, Or Something Like It | Sea of Lies
It's like looking for a needle in a haystack, isn't it? You're trying to find one name.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E1: Luck, Or Something Like It | Sea of Lies
It's unusual if we don't identify them. There's not many that go unidentified. We were fairly close to just saying, well, we can't. So let's just like make arrangements for the body to be cremated or buried or whatever they were going to do with it as an unknown person.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E1: Luck, Or Something Like It | Sea of Lies
I was making a cup of tea, and I can always remember it, and the kettle was there next to a desk. My phone rings, and you've got one of those phones where you can star-star-zero to pick up a phone that's ringing, and it was him. And he started to talk to me.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E1: Luck, Or Something Like It | Sea of Lies
I mean, you know, he was a mate. He was a really good friend of his.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E1: Luck, Or Something Like It | Sea of Lies
So I grabbed a piece of paper that was nearby and I couldn't even find a pen. So I grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil and I started writing what he told me.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E1: Luck, Or Something Like It | Sea of Lies
I can always remember Exhibit IDC7 was that piece of paper.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E1: Luck, Or Something Like It | Sea of Lies
He said to me that Ron had left England to travel to France to start up a TV repair business in France.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E1: Luck, Or Something Like It | Sea of Lies
He was a successful American businessman who had a lot of money and his mate Ron didn't have much at all. I mean, we weren't talking about a lot of money. I've got two and a half thousand pound in my head, which is a nice sum of money, I suppose. But it's not a world shattering, life changing sum of money.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E1: Luck, Or Something Like It | Sea of Lies
But it's enough to get him over to France, maybe find some accommodation so that he can then find some work to support himself.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E1: Luck, Or Something Like It | Sea of Lies
And sure enough... He had an army record, and we were able to go to his army record and compare the dental charts.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E1: Luck, Or Something Like It | Sea of Lies
And Brian confirmed the tattoo. And it was actually because we all wondered what the tattoo was. It wasn't clear what it was.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E1: Luck, Or Something Like It | Sea of Lies
We'd done all we could have done. I don't think we thought we would ever find out what happened.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E1: Luck, Or Something Like It | Sea of Lies
to him unless we got more information to say well look you know I've heard that he was setting out on this boat on this day to travel to France then maybe we could have done some more digging but I think it was accepting that we were never going to find out the true circumstances of what had happened at that point okay he'd come off a boat that was obvious he drowned that was reality how are we ever going to find out what happened
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E1: Luck, Or Something Like It | Sea of Lies
So one late shift, I was sat in the office and thought, you know what, I'll give him a ring.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E1: Luck, Or Something Like It | Sea of Lies
I couldn't find the piece of paper with his phone number on anywhere in the office. So I thought, oh, right, okay. So I thought, right, I'm going to phone up an officer in Essex to see whether he will go round because I'd lost his phone number, basically.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E1: Luck, Or Something Like It | Sea of Lies
And I said, look, do us a favor. Would you pop round to this address, which I'd got from him in my previous conversation?
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E1: Luck, Or Something Like It | Sea of Lies
And that's where it all started to unravel.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E1: Luck, Or Something Like It | Sea of Lies
I was in the office and painting the police station and I got the call from Peter saying, oh, you're not going to believe this. And then he told me what he'd discovered.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E1: Luck, Or Something Like It | Sea of Lies
I do remember going into Phil Sincock, and he was in the middle of a meeting and told me to go away. And I was only young. He said, no, go away. Come back later. I'm busy. And I said, no, boss, I think. And then he got really angry with me and told me to do one. But no, I was insistent.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E1: Luck, Or Something Like It | Sea of Lies
And then that was it. Then that was like the jaw-dropping moment where it all changed then. And there will never be another job like this. Seriously, there will never be another job like this.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E1: Luck, Or Something Like It | Sea of Lies
My name's Ian Clenahan. I was the original officer who was allocated the investigation initially when the body was brought to shore.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E1: Luck, Or Something Like It | Sea of Lies
It was one of my first jobs that I picked up, yeah. It came through that a body had been trawled up and could I go down to commence investigations into trying to find out who he was and the circumstances behind it.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E1: Luck, Or Something Like It | Sea of Lies
There was nothing that kind of smacked me in the face as being, this is suspicious. He had the watch on, so that would kind of rule out a robbery. There was a cut on his head. But when you consider what he's just been through, he's been dragged along, you know, the bottom of a seabed. And he was fairly clean other than that. There was no signs of him being involved in an altercation.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E1: Luck, Or Something Like It | Sea of Lies
You know, his shirt was tucked into his trousers. It was all, he was all neat. So you think, OK, well, I don't know what the cause of death is, so that will be ascertained in due course.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E5: Life on The Lam | Sea of Lies
So we knew what he told me on the phone was lies.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E5: Life on The Lam | Sea of Lies
When you look back on it in hindsight, we hadn't even started on the evidence gathering at that point.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E5: Life on The Lam | Sea of Lies
They faxed us a poster of Interpol's top 20, and he was like fourth on the list.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E5: Life on The Lam | Sea of Lies
And we're like, oh my God, in sleepy Devon, there he is, surfaced, and we've got him.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E5: Life on The Lam | Sea of Lies
The body came ashore on the 28th of July, and then he was arrested on October 31st, Halloween, 1996, and it went to trial mid-98. We worked on it solidly to the trial date in 98, so just under two years solidly we worked on that inquiry for. That was our only job. We were on it full time.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E5: Life on The Lam | Sea of Lies
We had to find that boat because that is the mechanism about how the whole murder was committed, wasn't it? And without a boat, you know, he could say, well, OK, I haven't even got a boat. You know, where's my boat? It beggars belief how we came across the boat.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E5: Life on The Lam | Sea of Lies
And a lad was just walking past, a copper was just walking past the room and walked in, oh, what's this? And written on the board was the boat, the Lady Jane. We knew the boat's name, but we didn't have a clue where it was. And he'd been in some dry dock earlier on the week before and had just seen this boat and remembered the name. And he said, I know where that boat is.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E5: Life on The Lam | Sea of Lies
And everyone looks at him as if to say, what? And he says, yeah, I know where that boat is. I saw it in an Essex boat yard last week. So everyone packs up and runs down to this boatyard. And there it was, you know, it was, yeah, we found the boat. Incredible. We actually found the boat.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E5: Life on The Lam | Sea of Lies
And Coppock said, well, we gave it to so-and-so who gave it to his mother to sell in a car boot sale.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E5: Life on The Lam | Sea of Lies
So then you go and speak to mother and she says, oh, no, we didn't sell it. It never sold. So it's still in my garage, you know.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E5: Life on The Lam | Sea of Lies
So then if you put in the anchor like that, well, how did they secure the anchor? Well, they must have tucked it into his belt. So then we sent the belt off.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E5: Life on The Lam | Sea of Lies
We found the documentation in this house for a storage container.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E5: Life on The Lam | Sea of Lies
There wasn't one bit that was better or more damning than another. Everything just kind of fitted into place.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E5: Life on The Lam | Sea of Lies
He was dressed really smartly. He was like a businessman.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E5: Life on The Lam | Sea of Lies
We'd spoken on the phone a few times, and he was just really charming. Oh, Ian Clannan, how lovely to meet you.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E5: Life on The Lam | Sea of Lies
He just had this kind of aura, I suppose, at that stage. Came in and kind of ruled the roost. Can you get me this? Can you get me that? And it's never been done before. And I don't know why we entertained him that time, to be honest, but that wasn't my decision. Table, chairs, everything. Food was brought to them. Yeah, seriously.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E5: Life on The Lam | Sea of Lies
Explain why he was down in Devon at the time. Was he aware that Ron Platt was down there as well? Was he aware that Ron Platt was staying in a different accommodation?
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E5: Life on The Lam | Sea of Lies
She gives a story that they were both down in Devon and they've come down for a holiday. She's unaware that Ronald Platt is in the area. She hasn't got a clue about it. Don't know what you're on about. Yeah, we've got a boat. He's been out on his boat. But Ron Platt, I'm not clear what you're talking about. He's not down here. So that was her interview.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E5: Life on The Lam | Sea of Lies
Did he meet Ron Platt during his time down in Devon? Did he go on out on a boat with Ron Platt? Why has he got Ron Platt's identification in his pocket? Why is he living under the name of Ron Platt? Yeah, it was just no comment to everything.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E5: Life on The Lam | Sea of Lies
He would talk while the tapes were off. He would talk not about the job, but he would talk about everything. The weather, you know, whatever he wanted to talk about, he would talk.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E5: Life on The Lam | Sea of Lies
He was very, very confident that we had nothing to prove that he was involved.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E5: Life on The Lam | Sea of Lies
He was quiet when he was being fingerprinted. And I think he, because of course the game's nearly up then, isn't it? And his fingerprints are sent off.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E3: A Dream State | Sea of Lies
Okay, let's find out everything we can about the occupants of that house.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E3: A Dream State | Sea of Lies
We were there for probably an hour and a half.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E3: A Dream State | Sea of Lies
I've spoken to him after you've spoken to him and he hasn't told me that Ron's dead. Well, why would he not tell me Ron's dead?
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E3: A Dream State | Sea of Lies
Well, hang on a minute. This is really strange. You know, David hadn't told us any of it.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E3: A Dream State | Sea of Lies
Luck. We were so lucky. And that's one of the main things that I will talk about about this job is the luck involved. And it is luck involved. When people commit a crime, they will always make a mistake. Nobody commits the perfect crime. Nobody. And I firmly believe that because everyone will make a mistake.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E3: A Dream State | Sea of Lies
So back then, same as now, you can go to a mobile company and they'll tell you where the phone, what part of Britain the phone was in at various times. And his phone showed that he was down in Devon at the relevant time of when Ron went missing.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E3: A Dream State | Sea of Lies
And it was then momentum was gathering. We were able to find out all the telephone numbers he'd found. We were able to find out that he'd stayed in bed and breakfast. So then you go and speak to the people there and see what they could tell us.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E3: A Dream State | Sea of Lies
I mean, it just went from A to Z very, very quickly. It was just everything was falling into our lap. It went from nothing to like, oh my God, this is a murder. You know, we are looking at a murder.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E3: A Dream State | Sea of Lies
We were all kind of sat at Painton Police Station, like, waiting for news. It was one of those, you know, everyone's just, you know, tapping tables and walking around and, you know, pacing up and down.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S32 E3: A Dream State | Sea of Lies
And we're just thinking, wow, David Davis, you're stuffed. We're going to prove that David Davis has killed Ronald Platt, you know?
Someone Knows Something
Someone Knows Something Introduces | Uncover: Sea of Lies
Because obviously that would be a case as well if your husband or brother, son, whatever, never came home.
Someone Knows Something
Someone Knows Something Introduces | Uncover: Sea of Lies
Well, old-fashioned detective work. So you start by going through all the missing persons listed in the Devon and Cornwall police, and you try and rule those out, and then you go further afield, and you look at missing persons in the south-west, then you go further afield and look at missing persons in the south.
Someone Knows Something
Someone Knows Something Introduces | Uncover: Sea of Lies
This is the description of the guy, this is what he was wearing.
Someone Knows Something
Someone Knows Something Introduces | Uncover: Sea of Lies
Has anyone got any information that may help us identify the man?
Someone Knows Something
Someone Knows Something Introduces | Uncover: Sea of Lies
But no, we didn't get anything, so it was never going to be easy. We contacted ferries.
Someone Knows Something
Someone Knows Something Introduces | Uncover: Sea of Lies
To see whether there's any reports of any fishermen being lost at sea.
Someone Knows Something
Someone Knows Something Introduces | Uncover: Sea of Lies
Everything was coming to a dead end, really.
Someone Knows Something
Someone Knows Something Introduces | Uncover: Sea of Lies
It's like looking for a needle in a haystack, isn't it? You're trying to find one name.
Someone Knows Something
Someone Knows Something Introduces | Uncover: Sea of Lies
It's unusual if we don't identify them. There's not many that go unidentified. We were fairly close to just saying, well, we can't. So let's just like make arrangements for the body to be cremated or buried or whatever they were going to do with it as an unknown person.
Someone Knows Something
Someone Knows Something Introduces | Uncover: Sea of Lies
I was making a cup of tea, and I can always remember it, and the kettle was there next to a desk. My phone rings, and you've got one of those phones where you can star-star-zero to pick up a phone that's ringing, and it was him. And he started to talk to me.
Someone Knows Something
Someone Knows Something Introduces | Uncover: Sea of Lies
I mean, you know, he was a mate. He was a really good friend of his.
Someone Knows Something
Someone Knows Something Introduces | Uncover: Sea of Lies
So I grabbed a piece of paper that was nearby and I couldn't even find a pen. So I grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil and I started writing what he told me.
Someone Knows Something
Someone Knows Something Introduces | Uncover: Sea of Lies
I can always remember Exhibit IDC7 was that piece of paper.
Someone Knows Something
Someone Knows Something Introduces | Uncover: Sea of Lies
He said to me that Ron had left England to travel to France to start up a TV repair business in France.
Someone Knows Something
Someone Knows Something Introduces | Uncover: Sea of Lies
He was a successful American businessman who had a lot of money and his mate Ron didn't have much at all. I mean, we weren't talking about a lot of money. I've got two and a half thousand pound in my head, which is a nice sum of money, I suppose. But it's not a world-shattering, life-changing sum of money.
Someone Knows Something
Someone Knows Something Introduces | Uncover: Sea of Lies
But it's enough to get him over to France, maybe find some accommodation so that he can then find some work to support himself.
Someone Knows Something
Someone Knows Something Introduces | Uncover: Sea of Lies
And sure enough... He had an army record, and we were able to go to his army record and compare the dental charts.
Someone Knows Something
Someone Knows Something Introduces | Uncover: Sea of Lies
And Brian confirmed the tattoo. And it was actually because we all wondered what the tattoo was. It wasn't clear what it was.
Someone Knows Something
Someone Knows Something Introduces | Uncover: Sea of Lies
We'd done all we could have done. I don't think we thought we would ever find out what happened.
Someone Knows Something
Someone Knows Something Introduces | Uncover: Sea of Lies
exactly to him unless we got more information to say well look you know I've heard that he was setting out on this boat on this day to travel to France then maybe we could have done some more digging but I think it was accepting that we were never going to find out the true circumstances of what had happened at that point okay he'd come off a boat that was obvious he drowned that was reality how are we ever going to find out what happened
Someone Knows Something
Someone Knows Something Introduces | Uncover: Sea of Lies
So one late shift, I was sat in the office and thought, you know what, I'll give him a ring.
Someone Knows Something
Someone Knows Something Introduces | Uncover: Sea of Lies
I couldn't find the piece of paper with his phone number on anywhere in the office. So I thought, oh, right, okay. So I thought, right, I'm going to phone up an officer in Essex to see whether he will go round because I'd lost his phone number, basically.
Someone Knows Something
Someone Knows Something Introduces | Uncover: Sea of Lies
And I said, look, do us a favor. Would you pop round to this address, which I'd got from him in my previous conversation? He said, would I mind getting hold of him?
Someone Knows Something
Someone Knows Something Introduces | Uncover: Sea of Lies
And that's where it all started to unravel.
Someone Knows Something
Someone Knows Something Introduces | Uncover: Sea of Lies
I was in the office in Paynton, the police station, and I got the call from Peter saying, oh, you're not going to believe this. And then he told me what he'd discovered.
Someone Knows Something
Someone Knows Something Introduces | Uncover: Sea of Lies
I do remember going into Phil Sincock and he was in the middle of a meeting and told me to go away. And I was only young. He said, no, go away. Come back later. I'm busy. And I said, no, boss, I think. And then he got really angry with me and told me to do one. But no, I was insistent.
Someone Knows Something
Someone Knows Something Introduces | Uncover: Sea of Lies
And then that was it. Then that was like the jaw-dropping moment where it all changed then. And there will never be another job like this. Seriously, there will never be another job like this.
Someone Knows Something
Someone Knows Something Introduces | Uncover: Sea of Lies
My name's Ian Clenahan. I was the original officer who was allocated the investigation initially when the body was brought to shore.
Someone Knows Something
Someone Knows Something Introduces | Uncover: Sea of Lies
It was one of my first jobs that I picked up, yeah. It came through that a body had been trawled up and could I go down to commence investigations into trying to find out who he was and the circumstances behind it.
Someone Knows Something
Someone Knows Something Introduces | Uncover: Sea of Lies
There was nothing that kind of smacked me in the face as being, this is suspicious. He had the watch on, so that would kind of rule out a robbery. There was a cut on his head. But when you consider what he's just been through, he's been dragged along, you know, the bottom of a seabed. And he was fairly clean other than that. There was no signs of him being involved in an altercation.
Someone Knows Something
Someone Knows Something Introduces | Uncover: Sea of Lies
You know, his shirt was tucked into his trousers. It was all, he was all neat. So you think, OK, well, I don't know what the cause of death is, so that will be ascertained in due course.