Gavin Collins went on a 30-minute trail of havoc in stolen cars, smeared blood crucifixes on a mother and her children, then reversed at speed into Terry Radford, and shouted ‘I’ve killed the devil’
Dashcam footage shows killer on Nottinghamshire rampage
This is the chilling moment a wild-eyed car thief, released from prison barely 24 hours earlier, tore off his rear-view mirror, took his hands off the wheel and screamed that he was Jesus while careering through Nottinghamshire streets.
Dashcam footage shows Gavin Collins, then 38, eyes bulging, voice cracking with rage as he yelled: “Let’s go! Let’s go! I’m enraged. I’m Jesus. I’m the descendant of God… Watch me go! I’m getting stronger and stronger.”
It was Good Friday, April 19, 2019. Collins had walked free from HMP Ranby the previous morning on a Home Detention Curfew tag, despite having set fire to his cell twice, assaulted staff with a plastic knife, and been held in segregation because he was too dangerous for the general prison population.
Within hours, he was on a psychotic rampage.
He burst into a neighbour’s house in Tibshelf, Derbyshire, ranting about Jesus and snatching car keys. He crashed that vehicle at speed into a house. He then forced a woman who stopped to help him out of her car and drove off again. Later he smashed through the back door of a family home with a patio slab, used blood from his own injured hands to daub crucifixes on the faces of a mother and her children while threatening to kill them, and stole their car.
In that final stolen vehicle he reversed “quite deliberately and at speed” into 87-year-old Terry Radford, who was standing at a bus stop on Worcester Avenue in Mansfield Woodhouse near his home, out for his usual morning walk. Mr Radford, a retired teacher, former magistrate and local councillor, was crushed against the shelter and died at the scene.
Collins climbed out of the wrecked car and screamed: “I’ve killed him. I’ve killed the devil.”
Police eventually stopped him after he crashed into a tree; officers tasered him as he was dragged from the vehicle.
Terry Radford death: Coroner criticises prison for releasing killer
Mr Radford’s family described him as “the most wonderful dad and granddad who was loved and respected by everyone.” Judge Stuart Rafferty QC later called the sequence of events “a trail of havoc” carried out during a clear psychotic episode. Collins was later diagnosed with schizophrenia or a schizoaffective disorder. A jury found him not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. He was jailed for life with a minimum term of 14 years (some reports put the overall sentence at 21 years).
An inquest in 2022 heard that three governors at HMP Ranby had met and effectively downgraded an adjudication against Collins so that he could be released early rather than face further delay under prison rules. Assistant Coroner Laurinda Bower concluded that the release did not follow policy, that risks were not properly assessed, and that the death could have been avoided. She issued a Prevention of Future Deaths report criticising the national early-release framework that allowed a man held in segregation for posing an elevated risk to be sent straight into the community.
In 2024, MPs including Reform’s Lee Anderson raised the case in Parliament, demanding to know what action had been taken against the prison staff involved. The Ministry of Justice confirmed disciplinary proceedings had taken place but refused to disclose the outcomes.
The video that has now gone viral again shows the precise moment Collins was at his most unhinged – and the precise moment the system that released him one day earlier failed completely.
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